Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

In my new high school job I have been assigned a two-hour class once a week for writing a school/community newspaper. (Originally it was an hour a day, three days.) That is all the information I had before I got here. I sat down and thought up a lot of different types of stories they can write. It's a great opportunity for them to try out different kinds of writing.

I was told to expect 8-10 of the top students. It didn't turn out that way. There are 16. I met the seven Grade 1 and 2 high school boys but haven't met the nine Grade 3 boys yet. Judging by their first writing sample (introduce yourself to a pen pal), the Grade 3 boys won't be any better able to string a sentence together than the younger ones are.

I've checked around in my materials and found one writing book I inherited from a teacher leaving. It's for Intermediate students. I never used the book before so I'm not sure if it is what I want or not.

Do any of you have any suggestions for a basic introductory level writing text that I could order online and put some structure to what I'm going to be doing? If anyone has ever done this in an ESL situation before, I'd love to hear any advice. (Except cut and run. )

[PS: The school seems flexible. My original thought was a monthly paper. That is clearly out of our reach this term. I think I have to lower my goal to something more realistic and think about publishing far less often until maybe next term. I don't think that will be a problem with the school. Lectures on investigative journalism, freedom of the press and journalistic integrity will have to wait until the boys get past "Fine thank you, and you?"]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

If it's for a student paper I'd sugget just using lots of *short* assignments that they can work on and revise numerous times.

Sounds like fun, actually.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I agree. I think it could be a real kick. I have what I think are some great ideas. It would have been more workable under the 3 classes a week arrangement--lesson on Monday and hand out assignments, write on Wednesday, revise on Friday. I think I can work something out in a school this size--like drop off written work at my desk on Monday morning.

It's just the 'how to teach people who can't speak how to write' obstacle that is intimidating me right now. Really hoping for someone to point me toward a good basic book.

[the_beaver]

Back when I worked as SWU I had the students make a newsletter every week. With digital photography, an easy layout program like Publisher, and a budget for color ink, it's no problem.

I has 24 students (and a computer lab) so I divided the class into 6 teams and assigned each group a page. When I did it way back when I had a front page with the big stories of the week, teacher interview page, student interview page, rumor page and some other page (I forget what) -- that course is still being offered and the newsletter has evolved and substituted a few pages here and there, but it's still basically the same.

Give students their assignment at the end of every week and have students prepare (interview, chase down rumors, whatever) on their own time, and the class time is for fixing up writing and doing layout. Every week the groups change pages (ie, the page one group does page 2, page two group does page 3, and so on -- one rotation every week).

[peppermint]

Assuming they can manage a decent sentence, introduce them to the basic five paragraph essay.

I can't recommend a specific book, but this website was an absolute godsend

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/oldindex.html

It's the online writing lab for Purdue University, and they've got great info on writing in general, and also a ton of handouts and exercises for ESL students.

edit: that's what I said, isn't it?

[livinginkorea]

I think you mean this

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/oldindex.html

[waterbaby]

I bought a book a long time ago that I never had the opportunity to use... it's called "Road to Writing" and book 4 is all about creating a newspaper.

Some of the ideas include:

1. Coming up with a name
2. Design how it will look
3. Say what you will and won't include (ie set out your editorial guidelines)
4. Write a restaurant review (describe it, explain why it's good, what's your fave food)
5. Write some "Dear Abby" advice columns (write the questions & another group writes the responses)
6. create a comic strip (even give them a popular Korean comic, blank out the text and ask them to create an English one)
7. Write some classified ads
8. Write a book review, describing fave book, fave characters, fave part etc.
9. Write an article about a new store (something that the kids would be into)
10. Write a weather forecast

Its's a really cute little book. I think I bought it at Bandi Lunis at COEX.

Edit: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0307454525/qid=1126525243/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-7304777-0822347?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
(it's target age group is quite younger than your crowd, but it may even be a little bit difficult for them?)

[denverdeath]

If they are as bad as I think they are, you may want to try "Composition Practice." It's a four-book series, published by Thomson-Heinle. The author's name is Linda London Blanton. You'd probably want to start with book one. It's kind of theme-based and fairly well-structured for short compositions and will definitely help them on the descriptive side of things and will also help you teach them the basics of sentence and paragraph structure while using various verb tenses. There are lots of picture description activities as well as opportunities for in-class writing. It's a bit cheesy at times, but has never failed me in low-level classes. I guess "Great Sentences for Great Paragraphs"(Houghton-Mifflin) might be okay, although your students might find it to be a little too structured. It would be better if you could take a look at them in a bookstore before purchasing, but I think that you can't go wrong with "Composition Practice" to get them a little closer to the goal of publishing a school paper.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0838419933/qid=1126527097/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-6335954-3097526?v=glance&s=books

(Definitely don't buy new from that web-site. You can purchase it at Kyobo or some place similar for 12 or 14,000won.)

[Ya-ta Boy]

Thanks to all and sundry. The books/links were the kind of info I was looking for. Thanks and I owe you one, peppermint and denverdeath. Thanks too to waterbaby and the_beaver: we've had the same ideas about what to put in the paper.

If I can just get the little buggers to put something interesting in a sentence!

[Rteacher]

I've noticed that there's a "Time Magazine for Kids" carried by Kyobo and Youngpoon book stores. I haven't used it myself, but I think it can be useful for generating ideas relating to current topics, and conveying some sense of journalistic style. Possibly, just getting them to copy a couple key sentences under each heading would be a decent start. With the level of students at my (technical) high school I would probably just have them mostly fill in the blanks. The website for Time Magazine for Kids (also on-line version) is www.timeforkids.com/TFK/

[peppermint]

Oh, and this site: http://www.teentimes.org/ ( absolutely doesn't work in firefox) should give them a ton of ideas.

[HapKi]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Good work so far, folks. Keep those ideas flowin'!

It looks like Blanton is the leader at the moment.

[Mr. Pink]

Great Sentences for Great Paragraphs is a very decent book for teaching basic concepts of writing.

As for things you can read, the EDU times is also another thing you might want to try. It has pretty bad writing, but the topics are really easy:

www.theedutimes.com

I concur that the teen times is a very good thing for getting discussions going, or using to show basic writing.