Five Elements of Good Writing: A Teaching Unit of Five Lesson Plans Closely Following Unit 2 of
Five Elements of Good Writing: A Teaching Unit of Five Lesson Plans Closely Following Unit 2 of
Five Elements of Good Writing: A Teaching Unit of Five Lesson Plans Closely Following Unit 2 of
Purpose
Audience
Clarity
Unity
Coherence
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Folse, Solomon, Clabeaux. Heinle, 2010
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Class Description
• Class: College of Marin, Low-advanced ESL Writing and Grammar. This is the class I was
involved with for my TESL mentorship.
• Class length: 1 hour and 40 minutes
• Students' needs / purpose in learning English: These are students who have likely worked
their way up the non-credit ESL class ladder to the low-advanced level. They all appear to
have achieved secondary education and many have had post secondary or college education
in their country. There may be a number of working professionals in the group. I can assume
that all are primarily interested in improving their English to advance in their work and to
have greater comfort and success in communicating with other English speakers.
Goal
To help the students develop an understanding of the importance of purpose, audience,
clarity, unity, and coherence in their academic writing.
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Goal:
Students will comprehend the importance of purpose to good writing.
Objectives:
• Introduce the theme of this 5-lesson unit:
What makes a good paragraph? Five Elements of Good Writing.
• Purpose
• Audience
• Clarity
• Unity
• Coherence
• Students will gain facility with the first element and be able to write purpose statements.
Goal:
Students will comprehend the importance of writing to a specific audience.
Objectives:
• Ss will become familiar with the three persons: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
• Ss will begin to recognize and be conscious of the difference between informal and
formal language.
When the students are finished writing, ask them to share their paragraph with a partner. Partners
can help each other by checking to make sure that all verbs are conjugated correctly, especially that
third person singular verbs end in “s.”
Ask for volunteers to share aloud their paragraphs and purpose statements.
Rationale: By modeling their topic on the playhouse paragraph they have read, writing about
someone they know, having practiced conjugating third-person singular verbs, and starting by
writing a purpose statement, Ss should be adequately prepared to experiment with writing a third
person paragraph of their own.
Wrap up
Ask students to bring dictionaries or a Thesaurus, if they have one, to the next class.
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Goal:
Students will better understand the importance of writing for clarity.
Objectives:
• Ss will gain facility using descriptive words to create specific detail.
• Ss will develop awareness of the importance of clear pronoun references.
Goal:
Students will gain further understanding of the importance of paragraph unity and how to create it.
Objectives:
• Students gain greater ability to recognize when sentences in a paragraph do not relate to
the topic sentence.
• Students gain further implicit understanding of the importance of a paragraph's purpose
and of it having a topic sentence with a controlling idea.
Homework Review
(15 min.)
Collect Homework Assignment 1: Activity 8 – Analyzing a Paragraph. (Review and assess
understanding outside of class)
Ask Ss six successive volunteers for their answers for Activity 11 on page 44 of FGStoGE. Check
for agreement, alternative answers, check for understanding, and answer any questions about editing
vague pronouns to provide better clarity.
Go around the room and check with students as they work on the exercise.
When most students have finished writing their sentences, ask for volunteers to come to the board
and write theirs. Compare versions and briefly discuss.
Rationale: Problems of paragraph unity are common with Ss at this stage. After having directed Ss
awareness to the importance of a paragraph having a specific purpose, maintaining focus of each
supporting sentence upon the topic sentence and controlling idea becomes an important issue.
Goal:
Ss will gain an understanding of the importance of coherence in their writing, and how to create it.
Objectives:
• Ss will understand the concept of logical order and how to enhance the reader's
perception of it.
• Ss will develop and awareness of the importance of the repetition of key words.
• Students will gain practice and familiarity with transitional words and phrases.
Worksheet: Transitions
(15 min.)
Have the students work in pairs to decide upon the best transition for each of the example questions.
Rationale: Practice with using transitions can be achieved economically with a series of fill-in-the-
blanks with multiple choice.
Excerpts from
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Worksheet
Simple Present Tense - Third Person Singular
Simple Present Tense is used generally for habitual or permanent situations.
TEST YOURSELF:
Select the correct form of the verb in parentheses for the following:
TEST YOURSELF:
Select the correct spelling of the simple present verb for the following:
TEST YOURSELF:
1. (miss) he ____________
2. (miss) I ____________
3. (do) I ____________
4. (do) she ____________
5. (sit) it ____________
6. (agree) I ____________
7. (meet) you ____________
8. (play) John ____________
9. (boil) they ____________
10. (stay) my best friends ____________
NOTES:
Infinitive: a verb form (to work) that does not show the times of actions or events
Copyright © 2006 Centre for Education and Training (CET). All Rights Reserved
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Worksheet
1. 8. 15.
a. complex a. break a. ugly
b. hard b. shatter b. hideous
c. intricate c. destroy c. homely
2. 9. 16.
a. large a. mad
a. gorgeous
b. tremendous b. furious
b. pretty
c. gigantic c. irate
c. stunning
3. 10. 17.
a. evil a. exhausted a. loud
b. mean b. tired b. deafening
c. malicious c. drowsy c. thunderous
4. 11. 18.
a. filthy a. obese a. stroll
b. dirty b. plump b. amble
c. dusty c. fat c. walk
5. 12. 19.
a. immaculate a. thin a. sprint
b. spotless b. lean b. run
c. clean c. slender c. dash
6. 13. 20.
a. look a. clever a. frigid
b. stare b. smart b. chilly
c. glare c. wise c. cold
7. 14.
a. ecstatic a. scour
b. cheerful b. disinfect
c. happy c. clean
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Worksheet
Transitions
Directions: Choose the transition that best completes the sentence.
1. 5.
Open up the word processing program. Pour the foamy coffee into the cup. ________,
________, using the menu bar, create a new tap the side of the cup with a spoon to break up
document. the bubbles.
a. Consequently a. Namely
c. In addition c. And
2. 6.
Making a delicious chicken salad sandwich is The Speedster 2000 has an eight-cylinder
not as difficult as you might think. ________, engine. ________, it is the most powerful car on
you should boil some chicken in water that has the market today.
onions and salt.
a. At the same time
a. First
b. In contrast
b. Therefore
c. Without a doubt
c. For instance
7.
3. It is really difficult to get in touch with Michael,
Robert is very outgoing and loves to meet new so I sent him two e-mails, four voice-mails, and
people. ________, Eric is very introverted, and two text messages. ________, he answered me
he truly dislikes meeting strangers. back!
4. 8.
In regeneration, an animal can recreate a lost or The experimental mouse, which was fed the
damaged body part. The starfish, ________, is growth hormone, grew enormously in a short
able to grow a completely new limb if it loses amount of time. ________, the control mouse,
one. which received a placebo, did not grow at all.
9. 10.
Jared has gotten seven parking tickets and three The gymnasium received a large amount of
speeding tickets. ________, his parents will no damage when students met in it unsupervised.
longer allow him to use the family car. ________, students will no longer be able to use
the gym without a teacher being present.
a. In contrast
c. Therefore