Tuesday 24 November 2015

December 1st lesson

Dear students,
Today, in your groups, you will read your part of your composite academic paper to each other. You should have written about three hundred words each and included at least one APA formatted citation, which is referenced in your APA formatted "Works Cited".
Please hand this in after you have finished reading, and preferably stapled together in correct order.
After that you should begin to start developing your own academic paper.  Remember, an academic paper is writing which analyses knowledge and produces new knowledge. You should have a position in relation to your thesis and you should argue rationally, not emotionally. You should be objective, not subjective. To make your argument strong, cite experts or reliable sources.
Before you start writing your essay, write a clear thesis statement and draw a mind map that you are satisfied can not be improved. If possible, please show me your thesis statement and map or outline today.
Good luck!
Chris Elvin

Tuesday 17 November 2015

November 24th lesson

Dear students,
Today you will write a 1500-word academic paper in groups of five. You should think of a topic, write a thesis statement, draw a mind map or write an outline, and then write your part of the essay (a few paragraphs of about 300 words). You will also need to write in-text citations and a "Works Cited" in APA format (at least one per person).
Kind regards,
Chris Elvin

Tuesday 10 November 2015

November 17th lesson

Dear students,
Today you will have an IELTS task 2 writing assignment as your mid-term test, which is worth 10 points. If you didn`t hand in your practice test last week for checking, you may access the link below to read the public version of the IELTS task 2 writing bandscales.

IELTS task 2 writing bandscale descriptors

You should do your best to address all parts of the task and write at least 250 words. If your essay is short, you will perhaps only get a maximum of four for the task. In addition, you will automatically incur a 1 or 2 point penalty depending on the length of your essay.

After the test you will review APA style and look at some examples of APA formatted in-text citation markers and APA formatted references taken from an academic paper. Please download the files and bring them to class.

APA review
Academic paper example

There are also automatic reference generators on the web that can assist you. One such example is below:

http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-book

Good luck in the test!
Chris Elvin

Saturday 7 November 2015

November 10th lesson

Dear students,
Today you will read homework C within your group and check each others intext citation markers and references. After that you will do a short exercise on cohesion. Then you will begin to think about your final paper. Do you have an idea yet? Is it original? Do you have a title, thesis statement, or map? Finally, you will practice writing for the mid-term test which will take place in the following week (a 40-minute, 250 word task 2 IELTS test question).
Kind regards,
Chris Elvin

Week 15 lesson

Dear students, Today your portfolios will be returned to you. Then you will hand in your final paper. You must include the receipt of posti...