First, we have always looked at writing as a chore being taught in school. This class has helped us look at it as an art. In most english classes you read very monotonous short stories, as you can imagine this material is kind of dry. In this english class you read articles and stop every paragraph to analyze the literature and talk about the tactics the author uses to make his writing "art."
Another thing we have learned about is paragraph structure and word selection. We have learned the importance of the topic sentence in a paragraph. The topic sentence is the first impression the reader gets of your work. If you have a weak topic sentence you are bound to have a weak essay. Word selection is also a very important characteristic of writing. We learned to cut out unnecessary words. The analogy used to help me grasp this idea was to you use your words like you do your money.
The final concept we've learned is this english class is the importance of details. Details create images in a readers mind. Good details help make the reader feel more connected to the story. Things like personal stories are also a great way to keep a reader interested in your writing.
Expository Reading and Writing class has taught us many things this year. In the one month of school we feel like we have become better writers, and there is still much more to learn.
We learned about coherence. Paragraphs are usually connected in someway, that makes coherence.
10/22/'09
We learned about the techniques fast food industries use to advertise their products. They tend to use young children as their target audience. They target children by putting their products in toy stores and making themselves omnipresent. We also learned about appropriate fragments and sentences of fragments. Fast food is the largest market there is.
11/17/'09
Sentence structure is a very important aspect of writing. Without good sentence structure your paragraph will not flow smoothly. The words then and than can be tricky when writing a paragraph. Then is used for time and than is used to compare to things.
12/1/'09
When we did our persuasive assignments, most of us used ethos to create a good image for our character that is trying to persuade a higher power. The main point is how "images" can be really important in a persuasive argument.
