Day 23: Cohesive Devices

Short List

1. Attendance Check and Warm-up
2. Review from Friday
3. Introduction to Thesis Statements
4. Testing Out What You Think Know About Thesis Statements
5. Review of the "Rules" of Thesis Statements
6. Returning Paragraph Portfolios and Midterm Grade Reports

Homework:

By TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, write a 300-word self-reflective paragraph/essay responding to one of these prompts. Please do not rush through it, but take your time to write something thoughtful to help yourself grow in your writing and learning:

• How you have seen areas needing improvement that you did not previously know you had. 
• How you have seen specifically seen yourself grow as a writer in ESL 111. 
• The most useful assignment/project/lesson/activity to you personally and why it was so useful. 
• A review of the goals you set at the beginning of the semester and your progress on meeting them--both your successes and failures. 
• The most important thing to know about ESL 111 and academic writing and why it is the most important. 
• Advice you would give a new student about to come to the U.S. for the first time from your country who is going to take my section of ESL 111. 

Please leave these in your Google Drive folder and name them anything you like so long as the word "Reflection" is somewhere in the title.

Looking ahead: Your essay is due, next Friday, 24 October. I would start thinking ahead on this so that your weekend and next week won't be as full. Here's a guide (the required dates are in red):

Today, 17 October -- Rough draft of introduction and conclusion, outline of body paragraphs
Monday, 20 October -- Rough draft of the entire essay
Monday, 20 October -- Rough draft of introduction and conclusion, outline of body paragraphs

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The Details
Schedule of events:

1. Attendance Check 

2. [5 minutes] 3 Puzzles
Let's look at these three pictures together.

What are we looking at here?

And how about this one? 

Sometimes, you have really great ideas, but your ideas are like the first picture--we can't tell what your ideas are because they aren't in the right places and aren't cohesive.

3. [15 minutes] Identifying Cohesive Devices
What cohesive devices do you already know? (I won't give you any hints if you are right or wrong--I can't give away the answers yet!)

In this class, we are going to learn just six cohesive devices.  Be careful not to overuse any nor to neglect any.  They will dramatically improve your writing if they are used tastefully.

Look at this document and try to figure out what the six are.
*Lately, we've been finishing things at different times, and that is completely fine.  Different people work at different speeds.  But we are also a team of learners in here.  When you are done, please get up and help another person who has not yet finished, but help them--don't do it for them!

When everyone's done, we'll briefly review what we've learned.  :)

4. [15 minutes] Applying these Cohesive Devices
None of this matters if you cannot apply these cohesive devices to your writing.  Again, either independently or with classmates, try working on this sample paragraph.

First, you will need to identify 4 different cohesive devices, and then you will need to revise and add cohesive devices to this paragraph or your own.

5. [10 minutes] Review
What about Conclusions?  How do we write a successful conclusion?  What goes into a good conclusion paragraph.

Jot down your answers here.  The more you can say and the more detailed, the better.

Homework:

By TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, write a 300-word self-reflective paragraph/essay responding to one of these prompts. Please do not rush through it, but take your time to write something thoughtful to help yourself grow in your writing and learning:

• How you have seen areas needing improvement that you did not previously know you had. 
• How you have seen specifically seen yourself grow as a writer in ESL 111. 
• The most useful assignment/project/lesson/activity to you personally and why it was so useful. 
• A review of the goals you set at the beginning of the semester and your progress on meeting them--both your successes and failures. 
• The most important thing to know about ESL 111 and academic writing and why it is the most important. 
• Advice you would give a new student about to come to the U.S. for the first time from your country who is going to take my section of ESL 111. 

Please leave these in your Google Drive folder and name them anything you like so long as the word "Reflection" is somewhere in the title.

Looking ahead: Your essay is due, next Friday, 24 October. I would start thinking ahead on this so that your weekend and next week won't be as full. Here's a guide (the required dates are in red): 

Today, 17 October -- Rough draft of introduction and conclusion, outline of body paragraphs
Monday, 20 October -- Rough draft of the entire essay 
Monday, 20 October -- Rough draft of introduction and conclusion, outline of body paragraphs