Writing about Global Issues for English Language Learners

Throughout the process of preparing for a range of college assignments, students will receive instruction in skills and strategies in the following areas:

Writing Skills

A. Prewriting    

• Understand assignment instructions, including audience, purpose, format, focus of the essay question, and the required rhetorical pattern.
• Generate ideas from written and spoken texts on a topic related to relevant and current global issues, such as environmental issues, economic disparity, food production and distribution, or issues in health care.
• Select and narrow a topic.
• Create an outline.

B. Writing

• Demonstrate mastery of writing skills and forms covered in the previous levels.
• Develop and support one idea in a multi-paragraph composition.
• Write well-structured introductory and concluding paragraphs.
• Write a focused thesis statement.
• Develop unified, specific support in body paragraphs by analyzing an issue, presenting different perspectives on it, discussing its aspects, elements, features, characteristics, qualities, stages, or periods, and by providing relevant examples.
• Write well-structured conclusions.
• Handwrite in-class essays under time constraints.
• Write the required length in the time given.
• Use appropriate text organization and discourse markers to signal narration, description, extended definition, logical division of ideas, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, or problem/solution.
• Create coherence within and between paragraphs using appropriate transition signals, pronoun references, conjunctions, and linking words and sentences.
• Incorporate source material, showing understanding of how to avoid plagiarism by paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, and citing appropriately.
• Demonstrate an emerging level of critical thinking and analysis of information by relating own ideas to written texts.
• Use an expanded range of vocabulary, idiomatic language, and cultural references appropriate to the context.

C. Revising

• Re-draft and revise with peer and instructor feedback.
• Proofread, edit and re-draft on own.

Accuracy

• Use the conventions of standard written English grammar for intra- and inter-clause accuracy.
• Follow academic writing conventions for organization and form.
• Increase level of formality and text cohesion by using passive voice.
• Improve phrasal structures by extending noun phrases with adjective and noun clauses.
• Support opinions with research findings using reporting verbs, phrases, and clauses.

Study Skills

Take responsibility for:

• Attendance and punctuality
• Class work and assignments
• Participation and teamwork

Use common software to communicate and to complete information management tasks such as word processing assignments, sending emails, or signing in to an online learning management system.