1. Reading & Writing
Chinese writing places a huge emphasis on reading first, and reading a lot. To me, reading definitely serves as a valuable input for all writing projects. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I am capable of writing without rich reading experiences. I think this works the same way in English writing. It is unfortunate to see that many L2 writing classes do not have enough emphases on reading exposure. Students need to read different types of texts, which serve as models for their own writing. For multilingual writers especially, these model texts provide useful social and cultural concepts as well as new linguistic information for them to learn and apply in their own writing projects.
2. Learning from Genres
I encounter a variety of written genres on a daily basis, and the most common ones include the following: news articles, emails, journal articles, academic papers, recipes, and online posts (e.g., BBS, facebook, etc.) The following table summarizes the features of the above genres.
3. Selecting Instructional Materials
Good instructional materials should well-reflect the goals and content of instruction. While selecting materials, I pay attention to the structure and key concepts mentioned in them and their readability to the proficiency level of my students, as well as the publication date and venue. It is important to select the newest publications when it comes to instructional content that’s time-sensitive, e.g., using CALL applications in teaching compositions. A good composition textbook should follow a process-oriented approach and provide models for each step of writing. It does not necessarily need to be comprehensive, however. Since no textbook is perfect, it is expected that teachers find their own supplementary materials to accompany the textbook.
4. The Uniqueness of L2 Literacy/Composition Textbooks
L2 composition textbooks need to fulfill at least three functions: 1) provide writing instruction in steps; 2) present model texts for reading; and 3) highlight targeted grammar and lexical features of specific genres. In a sense, these textbooks are combinations of rhetorics, readers, and grammar guides. We rarely see any other textbooks like them in other disciplines.
5. When to Use Supplementary Materials
I think a teacher should always use supplementary materials under any conditions, no matter how wonderful a textbook may be perceived. Supplementary materials can be used in a variety of ways, including adding important concepts to textbook discussion, introducing a relevant task/assignment, providing more background knowledge in an area briefly mentioned in the textbook, etc. Supplementary materials do not always need to be provided as required reading materials, however. They could be offered as a list of optional reading materials for class discussions and research projects.
6. Activities for Inexperienced and Experienced Writers
For inexperience writers who just enter a writing class, class activities need to focus on scaffolding; teachers need to model a lot after introducing a new concept and check for understanding before asking the writers to start writing on their own. Depending on the particular step of the writing process writers are in, teachers may lead the class to analyze a model essay using graphic organizers, discuss key vocabulary items and sentence structures, or write a reflection based on reading discussions. Outside-class activities need to be tightly structured and written in simple steps for students to complete. Reading logs are good outside-class activities, and inexperienced writers can benefit more from explicit prompts and demonstrations.
Experienced writers have already had some extensive instruction on writing and thus can be led to explore more things on their own. Teachers who favor the expressivist approach may start the class with freewriting. I’ve used one-day-a-photo in my advanced writers’ workshop before and students love it. At the beginning of each class, I project a photo (related to the theme of the class) on the screen and ask students to write about it. Then, this freewriting naturally becomes the transition to the main class discussion and can also serve as a starting point for students’ major writing assignments. For grammatical instruction, instead of following a deductive approach, I adopt an inductive approach by compiling students’ erroneous sentences from their drafts into one word document and ask students to figure out solutions to their own errors. Similarly, instead of presenting the grammar rules to experienced writers, I use concordance lines from online corpora to show them multiple examples and ask them to discover the grammar rules based on these examples. Outside-class activities for experience writers can be a field research project, which requires the students to go outside to conduct interviews on a topic of their interest, gather their own data, look for library research support, write up a report, and share the results with the class community.
Chinese writing places a huge emphasis on reading first, and reading a lot. To me, reading definitely serves as a valuable input for all writing projects. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I am capable of writing without rich reading experiences. I think this works the same way in English writing. It is unfortunate to see that many L2 writing classes do not have enough emphases on reading exposure. Students need to read different types of texts, which serve as models for their own writing. For multilingual writers especially, these model texts provide useful social and cultural concepts as well as new linguistic information for them to learn and apply in their own writing projects.
2. Learning from Genres
I encounter a variety of written genres on a daily basis, and the most common ones include the following: news articles, emails, journal articles, academic papers, recipes, and online posts (e.g., BBS, facebook, etc.) The following table summarizes the features of the above genres.
|
Genre |
News articles |
Emails |
Journal Articles |
Academic Papers |
Recipes |
Online Posts |
|
Location |
website like NPR |
email system like gmail/hotmail |
library database |
student assignments |
website |
websites |
|
Topical focus |
current news/events |
school-related business |
academic/applied linguistics & TESOL |
ESL/applied linguistics |
recipes |
various topics |
|
Layout |
headlines first & click to see full articles |
subject & click to see the content |
title, abstract & click/download to see the full article |
Print-out & stapled or presented online |
ingredients; procedure; picture(s) |
headlines first & click to see full posts |
|
Length |
less than 1 page per article |
1-2 paragraphs |
10-30 pages |
1-60 pages |
less than 1 page |
less than 1 page |
|
Rhetorical arrangement |
Short/no introduction; no conclusion |
greetings-main message-salutations-signature |
Introduction-literature review-research questions-methods-results-discussion-conclusion |
Introduction-body-conclusion |
ingredient list followed by procedure |
organization varies; may lack introduction and/or conclusion |
|
Participants |
news writer & readers |
email writer & receiver(s) |
researcher/author & readers |
student writer & teacher/classmates/tutor |
recipe writer & readers |
post writer & readers/responders |
|
Functions |
to inform current/local events |
to request/inform/apologize/discuss/invite/congratulate |
to report/inform/explore/present |
to complete class assignments |
to instruct how to cook |
to discuss/inform/entertain/share |
|
Style & Register |
Formal & concise |
Mostly informal & concise |
Formal |
Formal |
technical |
informal |
|
Grammatical features |
third person; past tense; short sentences; appositives |
first person; present tense; short sentences |
third person; long sentences; noun phrases; abstract nouns/jargons |
third person; long sentences; noun phrases; abstract nouns/jargons |
imperative sentences |
first person; past tense; short sentences; |
|
Lexical features |
proper nouns |
mostly basic words; may contain acronyms in a shared context (e.g., TAMUC, TESOL, etc.) |
nouns more than other parts of speech |
nouns more than other parts of speech |
numerical numbers; no-tense verbs |
mostly basic words;may include common online acronyms (e.g., LOL) |
3. Selecting Instructional Materials
Good instructional materials should well-reflect the goals and content of instruction. While selecting materials, I pay attention to the structure and key concepts mentioned in them and their readability to the proficiency level of my students, as well as the publication date and venue. It is important to select the newest publications when it comes to instructional content that’s time-sensitive, e.g., using CALL applications in teaching compositions. A good composition textbook should follow a process-oriented approach and provide models for each step of writing. It does not necessarily need to be comprehensive, however. Since no textbook is perfect, it is expected that teachers find their own supplementary materials to accompany the textbook.
4. The Uniqueness of L2 Literacy/Composition Textbooks
L2 composition textbooks need to fulfill at least three functions: 1) provide writing instruction in steps; 2) present model texts for reading; and 3) highlight targeted grammar and lexical features of specific genres. In a sense, these textbooks are combinations of rhetorics, readers, and grammar guides. We rarely see any other textbooks like them in other disciplines.
5. When to Use Supplementary Materials
I think a teacher should always use supplementary materials under any conditions, no matter how wonderful a textbook may be perceived. Supplementary materials can be used in a variety of ways, including adding important concepts to textbook discussion, introducing a relevant task/assignment, providing more background knowledge in an area briefly mentioned in the textbook, etc. Supplementary materials do not always need to be provided as required reading materials, however. They could be offered as a list of optional reading materials for class discussions and research projects.
6. Activities for Inexperienced and Experienced Writers
For inexperience writers who just enter a writing class, class activities need to focus on scaffolding; teachers need to model a lot after introducing a new concept and check for understanding before asking the writers to start writing on their own. Depending on the particular step of the writing process writers are in, teachers may lead the class to analyze a model essay using graphic organizers, discuss key vocabulary items and sentence structures, or write a reflection based on reading discussions. Outside-class activities need to be tightly structured and written in simple steps for students to complete. Reading logs are good outside-class activities, and inexperienced writers can benefit more from explicit prompts and demonstrations.
Experienced writers have already had some extensive instruction on writing and thus can be led to explore more things on their own. Teachers who favor the expressivist approach may start the class with freewriting. I’ve used one-day-a-photo in my advanced writers’ workshop before and students love it. At the beginning of each class, I project a photo (related to the theme of the class) on the screen and ask students to write about it. Then, this freewriting naturally becomes the transition to the main class discussion and can also serve as a starting point for students’ major writing assignments. For grammatical instruction, instead of following a deductive approach, I adopt an inductive approach by compiling students’ erroneous sentences from their drafts into one word document and ask students to figure out solutions to their own errors. Similarly, instead of presenting the grammar rules to experienced writers, I use concordance lines from online corpora to show them multiple examples and ask them to discover the grammar rules based on these examples. Outside-class activities for experience writers can be a field research project, which requires the students to go outside to conduct interviews on a topic of their interest, gather their own data, look for library research support, write up a report, and share the results with the class community.
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