Information collection & exchange

Directions: The following paragraphs are written in short, ch
rewrite s
 
1. It's snowing outside. I feel a kind of loneliness. Everything looks lonely outside. No one is on 
the streets. All I see are empty cars and snow. The trees are bare. They look cold. They look 
lonely, too. 
 
2. This is not my first time away from home. It is the longest. Maybe it is the most helpful. I have to 
learn to be independent. I have to solve my own problems. That will make me more responsible. I 
have to keep tr

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wrong, it's my own fault. It's no one else's fault. Being alone is the best way to learn 
otice that combining sentences within the context of a paragraph is much more like an authentic revision 
2. Issue a muddied sentence sequence to Group B. Tell them to put the sentences in the correct order, 
independent of Group A. 
re sequence matches the order of their sentences. Encourage class 
discussion as to the correct order of events in the story. 
4. When an order is agreed, tell members of Group B to stand with their "partner" in Group A. Ask 
individual students to read sentences from the story. 
5. Tell the groups to return to their seats, and then display the picture sequence at the front of the room, 
together with verb cues in the simple past tense. Tell the class to write the story. 
[Ronald V. White. Teaching Written English. George Allen & Unwin, 1980.] 
The next exercise also makes students more conscious of patterns for organizing discourse. It uses the 
technique of guided analysis of a model essay. After the students have been led to understand the 
organization of the model essay, they write an essay of their own guided by the model and by a new set of 
data provided by the teacher or the textbook writer. 
This technique has wide applicability, but would probably not be usable with very young learners, since 
some degree of abstraction is needed for discovering the author's organization and then applying it in one's 
own writing. On the other hand, analysis of a model works well for logical relationships such as comparison 
and contrast or cause and effect. Relationships such as these do not lend themselves as readily to the type 
of "physical" representation which was used for chronological order in the previous exercise. 
The following example shows how to use analysis of a model in an essay organized to present a comparison 
and contrast. 
1. The students read an essay describing two brothers. (It could be two towns or cities, two books, two 
holidays-any two things which may be compared and contrasted.) 
2. The students analyze the essay with the help of a table such as the following, a list of the 
characteristics on which the two brothers are compared. Extracting details from the essay, the students 
become aware of how the author presented the similarities and differences between the two brothers.