Post Semester 2 Task

Dear All,

to complete this semester you need to be ready with the following tasks:

1. A summary of an article with an explanation of why you have chosen it and a set of 3 questions to go with it:
a) What would you like to learn from it?
b) What information from it you knew?
c) What information is /was not clear

Please, choose an article that discusses some urgent/vital/very important/urgent/up-to-date issue

Word limit: 250-270 words

2. An essay: 280-300 words
choose between the options below

a) A for-and-against essay

b) An opinion essay
c) A solution to problems essay

Choose different topics for tasks 1 & 2

3. A reflection note about the activities you have been offered this semester: 

you should comment on the activities you did this semester which should include the following details:
a) smth that you found useful
b) smth that was not that useful
c) smth that you would like to do the next semester
d) suggest a couple of topics for discussion

Word limit: 220-250 words

Don't forget to use the Citation Machine (http://thecitationmachine.net, the Plagiarism Checker (https://edubirdie.com/plagiarism-checker) and the URL shortener (bit.ly).

Don't forget to use the Citation Machine (http://thecitationmachine.net), the Plagiarism Checker (https://edubirdie.com/plagiarism-checker) and the URL shortener (bit.ly).

You need to publish your works in your blogs by May 25 for me to have some time to read and grade your works.

I'll let you know when you can receive your pass for the course a bit later.


Your essays will be graded using the following scale:

1. 10 points Essay content
   10 points Essay organization
   10 points Language
   10 points Mechanics: Grammar, spelling, punctuation, clarity of expression.
   10 points Bonus points for a particularly well-developed essay following all the requirements
    
2. Your summary will be graded according to the criteria you can access by following the link https://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?sp=true&code=H56W23
3. Reflective note:
4. Follow the link to the Reflective note evaluation criteria https://bit.ly/2GeCWMo
5. Reference List: Electronic Resources  
6. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html
7. Reflective note:
8. Follow the link to the Reflective note evaluation criteria https://bit.ly/2GeCWMo
9. Note 1: I'd like to share with you a resource that explains very well what a summary is and how to write it: https://owlcation.com/academia/How-to-Write-a-Summary 
10. Note 2  Here too is a very good resource which you can use to revise common essay structure
11. http://academicwriting.wikidot.com/

Post-14: Creative-story-writing

Dear All,

Are you fans of good stories? Can you remember one or two that were particularly memorable? First, I'll give you some time to discuss it and share what you'll have learned from each other in the blog.

After that you'll have a chance to create your own story by using a special tool that will help you to generate your story.

Here is the explanation of what you will have to do.

Follow the link below to access a form with the help of which you will be able to receive all the necessary elements for you to create a story:

http://writingexercises.co.uk/plotgenerator.php

You will get the following details:

The main character
Character 2
Setting
Situation
Theme
Character action

What you need to do is develop your own story using this information. You have 3 attempts at choosing the story elements if you do not like the first or the second one that is generated. Your story should be in the genre of your choice: for example, it could be a love story, an adventure story, a thriller or some other kind of story if you wish. You should be able to finish writing it during today's class and publish it in your blog.

Looking forward to reading your stories.

Dear All,

I'd like to ask you to read somebody else's story at home and comment on it by answering the following questions:

a) Is the story interesting?
b) What did you like about it?
c) Is it well-developed?
d) Is it convincing?
e) Anything else you have a comment about

Task 13: Thesis-Statement-practice-Peer-comment-IATEFL-Writing-conclusions

Dear All,

Today I'd like to discuss with you a number of problems that keep recurring in your writing:

a) Did you have a chance to read one of the posts by one of your peers they wrote about one of the sessions at the IATEFL Conference? Probably, not yet. So, your first task is to choose one, read about it and comment on it by asking a couple of questions.

b) How to formulate a thesis statement

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/thesisexerciseprint.html

c) What you need to remember about referencing the resources

for this task I'll analyse one of your works with you together and then let you add references correctly to one of the works you have recently written:

d) Techniques for writing conclusions: This is your home task for 24.03.19

--http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/thesisexerciseprint.html

--https://www.time4writing.com/writing-resources/writing-a-good-conclusion-paragraph/

Post-12: Writing a report

Dear All,

do you ever read any kind of reports in the news or in other resources? Discuss it with each other in small groups and share the summary of your discussion in the thread by providing the following information:

a) What type of reports do you read?
b) Are you satisfied with the quality of information you learn from such reports?
c) Do you check the information you learn from the report in some other resources? If yes, based on what criteria do you choose them? If no, why?

Post-11: IATEFL Conference (Liverpool)

Dear All,

Have you ever taken part in a conference? I am sure some of you have. Have you attended a language conference? Was it a F2F or also an online conference? Today you will have a chance to get acquainted with some materials of the IATEFL conference in that is taking place in Liverpool this week. IATEFL is a large international organisation for teachers of English as a foreign language (IATEFL)? Each year it holds a conference devoted to the discussion of a huge variety of questions associated with language learning and teaching. I have been its member since 2008 and taken part in several conferences throughout these years. Also I was the editor of the newsletter published by the LT SIG. It stands for Learning Technologies Special Interest Group, and this is a way in which IATEFL members are grouped. You can learn more about it at https://www.iatefl.org/special-interest-groups/sig-list 

First, I'm inviting you to watch the clip made yesterday, which can help you feel the atmosphere and the mood of it: https://conference.iatefl.org/conference.html.

Next, I'm inviting you to do is browse through the sessions of the conference that took place yesterday to get an idea about what teachers around the world are doing to make their teaching more engaging and effective. Your task is to read the materials of the chosen session, watch some of the session recording and share the information you will have learned with your peers.

Here is a link to the conference sessions that were presented yesterday:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/events/IATEFL-Online/2019

Choose one of them and do the following: 

Watch the session you have chosen and watch several excerpts from it to get an idea about its content. The sessions are from 30 min to an hour, so I do not expect you to watch the whole session unless you really feel like doing it. 

Please, include the following information in your post:

1. Name of the presenter

2. Session title (with a link to it)

3. Something interesting you have learned from the session with a brief explanation of why you have chosen a particular session

4. Having read about/watched the session, what else would you like to learn about its topic?

5. Your general impression of your experience.

Also, have a look through the activities of one of the SIGs to get more information about their activities.

Here is a link to the LT SIG activities: https://ltsig.iatefl.org/

Here is too to the activities of Global Issues SIG: http://gisig.iatefl.org/

Here is a Collection of Conference Materials prepared by the BESIG (Business English SIG) https://besig.iatefl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/IATEFL-BESIG-Conference-Collection-2012-2017.pdf

I've selected these 3 because they are of personal interest to me. You can look through one of them or look through the materials available from some other SIG. One restriction though is that some of the materials are in the Membership Only Zone, which means you can only access this content if you are a member.

Your task is similar: get acquainted with one of the materials available and prepare its summary (300 words long). Share it with us and also answer the question what else would you like to learn about the topic you read about or watched.

Post-10: Review-of-Resources-to-Help-you-To-Improve-your-Writing

Dear All,

one of the important aspects of learning for you to keep learning and be able to do is to gain new knowledge and skills and be able to do it independently. One of the paths to reach this goal is to have a good idea about the tools and resources that are available and be able to use them when necessary. This course will finish in May, but you should continue improving your writing skills to reach the level of mastery. So with the view of this in mind, here is the task for you to do today.

You need to find a website which is devoted to some aspect of Writing in English. It could be a website that contains information about one of the following things

1. The process of writing

2. Some tasks to help you improve your writing

3. A website that discusses the elements of style

4. Some fun stuff that will help you to get motivated to write

5. Some resource about advanced vocabulary for writing

6. Some resource about the Mechanics of writing

7. Some resource about the element of writing of your choice

Once you have chosen it, explain why you found it useful and interesting, give us some details about the website for us to have a clear idea about its content and provide some examples of it.

Add how your peers can benefit from using it.

Post 9: Film review

Dear All,

we've agreed with you in class that for the next time you are going to write a film review for the film of your choice.

Here is what you should do for the next time:

1. Choose a trailer of a film you will be reviewing: https://m.imdb.com/trailers/ alternatively find a trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmsActuTrailers/videos?app=desktop
2. Watch it
3, Prepare your review: the length of your review should be about 250-300 words
4. Publish it in your blog and share the link in the thread below

I'm sharing with you a template you should use to write your review

Post-8: A new Task: to be added (27.03.2019)

Dear All,

For the next week you should do the following:

1. I'll read and comment on your works in the next day or 2, then you should look through my comments and revise your draft.

2. Read a draft prepared by one of your peers and share your comment about it with her/him. In your comment try to answer the following questions:

-Is it interesting?
-Is it logical?
-Are the arguments well developed?
-Are external resources used for support? And if yes, are they formatted correctly? You can check this by using the information about reference formatting I've shared with you https://acwr17827.blogspot.com/
-Any problems with vocabulary or grammar use?

3. I'll share a new task with you later today (27.03.19) so that you can get ready with it by the next time

Post-7: Formatting your Reference Lists

Dear All,

This post explains to you how to make references to the resources, such as journal articles, books, websites and more in your writing. As you probably know and as we are going to discuss today during the class, there are 2 kinds of references you should provide in your writing. 

The first kind of references is made in the text you are composing, and thus they are called in-text. They include the following information:

The author's or authors' last name(s) followed by the page number(s):

e.g., In his book "Crafting critical writing", the author Troy Hicks discusses different features of writing across media and genres (Troy, 4)

In the end of your work, you should have a full list of references that has information about all the resources you have used in your work. It is alphabetical and must contain the following  details: 

The author's name or authors' last name(s), year of publication, NAME of the journal/book/website, more specific details

There are several common referencing styles, which include the following:
-MLA designed by the Modern Language Association
-APA designed by the American Psychological Association 
-Turabian https://www.thoughtco.com/turabian-style-guide-with-examples-1857607
- and many more

And here is a short reference list I've prepared for you as an example. It contains a list of books on different aspects of Academic Writing:

1.  Baron, N. Alphabet to Email. Routledge, 2001.

    2. Godfrey, J. How to Use your reading in your Essays. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

    3. King, S. On Writing. A Memoir of the Craft. Scribner, 2001.

    4. OWL at Purdue (https://owl.purdue.edu/). Accessed: 26.03.2019.
    5. Research and Citation (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html). Accessed: 25.03.2019.

    Here is another example of a Complete Reference List that you can access at https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-works-cited-pages.html

The differences between them are in the kind of details provided and how they are formatted. For the purposes of this class, we are going to use the MLA referencing style. You can access the manual detailing different features  of this style by following the link below:

https://www.library.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/mla_style_revised.pdf

In the beginning, it could be difficult for you to remember how to format your references correctly, so I think it is a good idea for you to have some practice making references correctly in your course papers and essays. Here is an exercise for you to complete: 

Go to Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/ and complete the following tasks:

I am interested in researching writing, so this is the query I formulated on Google scholar:

Task 1: Choose 1 work in Russian (and 1 in English if you have it) from your reference list for your course paper and prepare one in-text and one complete reference

Task 2: Prepare a full reference list for your course paper. As far as I know, it should contain 5 works, so your task is to prepare it, publish it in your own blog and share the link to it in the thread below.

Task 3: Look through one of the Reference Lists prepared by your peers and check whether it is formatted correctly. Let your peer know if there is some problem with the prepared list. It could be that some information is missing, the order of details is not quite correct or there is some other problem.

I'm sure that completing this task will help you remember better how to format your references correctly.                

Good luck! 

Post-6: A new essay draft

Do you remember that a lesson 2 weeks ago if I am not mistaken during which I asked you to choose a number of topics for your future essays: here is the link to it for your convenience:

https://acwr17827.blogspot.com/2019/03/post-4-topics-for-your-future-works.html

So, for the next time, you should prepare a draft of your essay on one of the topics from your list.

Here are the steps you should follow:

1. Decide what arguments you will discuss
2. Decide what supporting evidence you need to make your essay persuasive:
- statistics
- opinions taken from the discussion of this topic with your peers and/or family members
3. Decide what type of essay you are going to write:

For-and-Against
Opinion
Solutions to problems

4. Draft your essay and publish your draft in your blog a day before the next class (26.03.2019)

Post-5: A jig-saw Task

Dear All,

I hope you are doing fine and will enjoy doing these tasks tomorrow in class.

Here is what I'm asking you to do:

1. Go to the website of the newspaper The Guardian and find a short news story in the section Culture at https://www.theguardian.com/uk/culture. It should be devoted to the discussion of some topic of interest to you.

2. Prepare the article summary 150-70 words long and explain in 1 sentence what got you interested in it.

3. Divide into pairs and work together with your peer. You should do the following:

- group A: Choose 5-6 words from the articles you have worked which you think are important to the text and useful for you to remember. For each word find a definition and make your own examples with these words. Publish them in the thread.

- group B: Find 3 connected stories to the news story you have chosen at step 1. For each connected story, post the web address and one-sentence description of the story.

- group C: Read one of the articles your peers have chosen at step 1 and ask them 3 questions about it:
a) to clarify smth in it for yourself: smth that you did not understand or would like to learn more about
b) to find out why your peer got interested in the article and what s/he learned from it s/he did not know
c) a "Wild Card" question: ask a question of your choice about the article

Post -4: Topics for your future works

Dear All,

I'd like to share with you two resources, which both list a variety of engaging (I hope) topics for discussion and expressing your opinions about them in your works. What I am inviting you to do is look through them and choose 4-5 you personally will be interested in discussing. 

Here you are:25 Creative Prompts: https://patch.com/pennsylvania/peters/25-creative-college-essay-prompts100 Inspirational Essay Topics: https://myassignmenthelp.com/blog/response-essay-topics/

in the thread below let us know what you have chosen and possibly explain what made you interested in these topics.

Post 3: Plastic surgery popularity

Dear All.


I was not quite sure the topic for today's discussion will fascinate everybody but still decided to discuss your attitudes to plastic surgery
In the thread below publish the information about the attitude to it among one of the following groups listed below using the information you'll have researched. You need to choose which Statistics Agencies from those listed in the Wikipedia article at  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_and_international_statistical_services
to study. You need to research one of the following groups of people: 
a) people from Russia
Decide among yourselves who is going to research the information on the attitudes to plastic surgery given by which agency and for what group of people from the list above, study it and then publish a summary with the results of your small investigation which has to cover the following questions:
A. Decide information from which agencies you'd like to investigate
And here is a task for you for our lesson on March 13

Choose one of the following:
a) breast enlargement
b) hair implant
c) rhinoplasty: it's about the nose
d) varicose vein removal
e) facelift
f) tummy tuck


Run a search on the internet to find out which of these are the most popular among young people of your age and the generation of your parents? Do you know what resources to use to find this information?


Next, respond to the following question: if you had the problems like those mentioned above, would you have surgery?


a) young people
b) people from one of the European countries
c) people from the USA
d) men
e) women

Check what kind of information is available
How much you can trust this information? Why? How do you know?

Post 2: Students' Guidebook

Dear All,

we started discussing last time what kinds of experiences the students around the world have while studying. You had a chance to get acquainted with one of the Students' Guidebooks.

Now, I'm inviting you to work on the section of a similar guidebook but written by the students for the students.

You have made some suggestions about the content of your section, so let's spend some time drafting it and then I'll introduce you to a piece of software using which we can create an electronic version of your guidebook

Task 2 (13.02.2019): The global student

Dear All,

I'm sorry for not sharing the task I created for you on time. Hope you haven't lost interest in this task and are ready to proceed with it.

Here is the explanation of what you should do to create your Guidebook for the students who are planning to study at or have already enrolled in one of the programs at the university.

<<Today we're going to discuss what students' life around the world is like and then create a guide for the students from other parts of the world coming to study at our university.

It'd be great if as part of this task you could interview a student from another department about what his/her life at the university is like and what kind of experiences s/he has had, both good and not quite.

In the end I'm hoping that we'll be able to create this guide that your peers will be able to use to make their life easier.

In the thread below please share a summary of your discussion of the qus in Ex 1>>: this is what we did in class last week (February 13)

And here is a Task for today:
Go to the University of East Anglia Students' Guidebook:

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/east-anglia/

Look through the list of sections (if you haven't done so already) to get some idea about its contents so that you could use some of them when creating your own guidebook. Also, pay attention to how the sections are structured and use this structure in your guidebook.

After you have chosen a section of the guidebook, read it and share the following information with us in the thread:

1. What did you know about the topic the section of the guidebook you have chosen is devoted to?
2. What would you like to learn about from it?
3. What else would you like to learn about the topic the section you have read is devoted to?

To prepare your guidebook you should decide on the order of the sections and coordinate publishing your sections so that they would be organised in a logical order. You can use the order of the Guidebook we had a look at or arrange it in a different order that would match the logic of your guidebook

PS: This is the first task we did in class last week: Look at the pictures and share your ideas about the questions in Task 1 about different styles of learning and teaching. I've decided to keep it here because you have published your answers in the thread.

Semester 2: Task 1 (13.02.2018)

Dear All.

welcome back to the course of Academic Writing! I hope you had a good holiday and are ready to get back to work.

First, discuss with each other what things you wrote in English during the semester break and for what purpose. Did you communicate with your peers on social media? Did you write smth else? Talk with one of your peers and share what you will have learned with us in the thread