Information collection & exchange

 More advanced writing tasks 
Many of the techniques and exercises which we have already examined may also be used in connection 
with the types of writing tasks carried out by college and university students and professional people. In each 
of the following types of written text, students will need help with prewriting and revising activities and 
techniques. The study of model texts will give them patterns for the overall organization of the discourse. 
Attention to logical relationships (description of processes, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, 
classification, and so on) will help them focus their thoughts and match them to patterns for expressing the 
relationships in writing. The following are some of the types of advanced writing tasks for which you may 
need to prepare your students. 
• Objective reports: e.g., a report on a field trip, or a description of a laboratory experiment. (See Peace 
Corps Manual No. M-31 ESP: Teaching English for Specific Purposes.) 
• Summaries: e.g., summarizing (with or without critical commentary) a short story or an article done as a 
reading assignment. 
• Research papers: using appropriate reference material to support a chosen thesis through 
argumentation. 
 Summary 
Writing activities serve two purposes in the English language classroom: 
Learning the types of personal, academic, and professional writing which students need in their daily 
lives. 
Reinforcing the learning which goes on through the medium of the other language skills. 
In planning and conducting writing activities with your students: 
Be sure to include activities that allow your students to communicate ideas that are meaningful to them. 

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Include exercises which help your students understand and master the features of written discourse: 
overall patterns of organization, ways of expressing logical relationships, and so on. 
Use pre-writing activities to generate ideas and provide the language resources needed for the writing 
Respond in the first instance to the message of the piece of writing, rather than going immediately for all 
the mechanical errors you can find.