Paragraph Writing Week 8 Giving Explanations Revising Proofreading

Paragraph Writing, Week 8 Giving Explanations: Revising, Proofreading, and Copy Editing

Overview In this week’s lesson, students will finish their revisions, proofread/copy edit, and prepare to publish their essays giving explanations for a video presenting a slice of Moroccan culture. The activities follow the same procedures used in Weeks 3 and 4.

First Hour • Students should sit in the same groups as last week. • Distribute drafts of explanatory essays to the students. Read a few of the best aloud; discuss why these are good. • Review the challenges for a foreign audience to understand this slice of Moroccan culture. What do you need to explain? How can you best do this? • Have students continue their revisions. • As the students revise, the instructor should circulate and make note of any particular problems with spelling, grammar, etc. , that he or she sees.

Second Hour • Review the basic conventions of formal writing in English. Point out some well-written sentences that the instructor has seen in student papers. • List on the board specific problems that the instructor sees, giving a minilesson on each of these (there should be no more than 4 -5). • Have the students exchange papers and look for problems, making notes and corrections. • Students will rewrite their essays as their final versions. Make sure to collect all papers at the end of the hour, with all students’ names on them.

Follow Up • On the class blog, the instructor will post the essays written by the class along with a link to the videos that were written about.