=====================================================
JacksonFive's
Free Weekly "Learning English" Newsletter
Issue: 28   "What's in a Paper"   Sep 17, 2000
=====================================================

Dear Readers,

    Happy Moon Festival! Wow, what perfect weather it was that night!
    Perfect weather for a barbecue, don't you think? Not too hot and
    not too cold.

    We had many parents and students celebrating with us at the school.
    We had four barbecue grills assembled and cooking. I felt really
    honored that our parents would rather spend this special evening
    barbecuing with us rather than with anyone else. Then again, many
    of them brought their friends and family as well. There was no
    shortage of happy people in our big backyard.

    They each brought their special ingredients for our barbecue.
    There were tasty pork balls, tender meat from "Ruth Chris", crunchy
    Nacho chips, squid on a stick, fresh mushroom, and many many more.
    Many parents helped to assemble the new grills. We even had to
    crush our own charcoal, but it was a lot of fun! By the time the
    charcoal was hot enough to cook, it was already dark. We saw the
    beautiful full moon rising slowly over the treetops. What a
    spectacular view! I'm so happy to share it with our new friends.
      (771K MP3 recording,
          http://www.path2english.com/Reference/MP3-028-01.mp3)

    Though very much an unplanned event, I know everyone had a great
    time. Everyone felt like they were among friends, which they
    were. People would move from grill to grill sharing food and
    jokes. Many new friendships were made that day.

    I think the credit for such a great moon festival barbecue should
    go to the great parents at our school. Their enthusiastic
    participation and support made this event a great success.
    Seeing that everyone had a great time, there will be many more
    events like this to come.
      (332K MP3 recording,
          http://www.path2english.com/Reference/MP3-028-02.mp3)

                                                              Cheers!
                                                              JacksonFive

THIS WEEK's FEATURED TOPIC:

    "What's in a Paper"

ANSWER:

  Firstly, I have to define "paper". A paper is an essay or report
  that you write for school. I noticed that many Taiwanese students
  don't know how to write a good "paper" according to Western
  standards. I guess they never had the opportunity of learning this
  important school skill.

  Steps to writing a good essay:
  1. Review the essay question and make sure you understand it
      completely. For example, "Was the 921 earthquake good or bad for
      Taiwan?"
  2. Take a stance or "position" on the issue. You can only take one
      position. You can't support both sides of the issue. For
      example, "921 created good changes in Taiwan."
  3. Brainstorm for concepts to support your "position" (very
      important). Write down these ideas in no particular order. Don't
      write anything extensive at this point. Just write short notes.
  4. Once you have all the "proof and concepts" you need, organized it
      into an "outline". Put similar ideas together into clusters.
      Delete anything that seems too similar or isn't as important. The
      remaining "clusters" will be the "body" of your essay and your
      arguments. As well, create an "opening" and "conclusion" for your
      essay.
  5. This is the actual writing stage. If you've done your homework
      well above, this should be a "piece of cake". Add additional
      materials to the clusters to make each a full paragraph. Make the
      "opening" one paragraph and the "conclusion" one paragraph.
  6. Review your writing to make your points stronger. Also make sure
      there aren't any simple spelling errors.

  What I found with my Taiwanese students was that they haven't been
  taught steps 2 to 4. These are very important steps to creating a
  good school paper and shouldn't be overlooked (def: skipped). Next
  week, I'll post some good examples of "outlines" and "essays" for
  your reference. Stay tuned!

NEXT WEEK's FEATURED TOPIC:

    "What's in a Paper (part 2)"

(If you benefited from this newsletter, please share it with a friend.)
=====================================================
Please contact me at mailto:jacksonfive@path2english.com
if you have comments/questions or would like to change your address.
- - - - - - - - -
I own the copyright to this newsletter.
If you find it useful, you are welcomed to reprint or
forward my newsletter to a friend as long as
it is not used for a commercial purpose.
- - - - - - - - -
Please visit http://www.path2english.com/
if you would like to ADD ANOTHER email address to my
mailing list for this Free newsletter.
- - - - - - - - -
mailto:unsubscribe@path2english.com
to STOP RECEIVING this Free newsletter.
=====================================================