Paragraph Writing: From Sentence to Paragraph Student’s Book

Macmillan Writing

by Dorothy Zemach, Carlos Islam

Paragraph Writing takes students from sentence formation to paragraph writing through a process approach. This not only develops students’ paragraph writing skills but also encourages them to become independent and creative writers.

The back of the Student’s Book contains peer review forms and a grammar reference section.

This book provides students with:
* Focus on particular aspects of paragraph writing, such as topics, style and development
* Writing support to help them with brainstorming, organizing ideas, writing topic sentences and supporting their ideas
* Language support to help them with vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
* Guidance on reviewing their own and their classmates’ writing in order to make revisions
* Structured, graded writing assignments at the end of each unit.


Paragraph Writing includes 12 units and additional materials.

Genres: Writing

108 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2004

About the author

Dorothy Zemach is an author, editor, teacher, and teacher trainer in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). She taught English, French, and Japanese for over 18 years in Asia, Africa, and the US and holds an MA in TESL from the School for International Training in Vermont.

Now she concentrates on writing and editing English language teaching materials and textbooks and conducting teacher training workshops. Her areas of specialty and interest include teaching writing, teaching reading, business English, academic English, testing, and humor. She is a frequent plenary speaker at international conferences, and a regular blogger for Teacher Talk at Azar Grammar.

Reviews

[Mardin Uzeri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oversimplified.
It is a decent guide, but not what I was looking for.

[Jesse Field · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to see an example of instruction on the paragraph specifically. Beyond the bland announcement of topic sentences and supporting sentences, what more can we do to design the topic sentence and put the supporting sentences in order? To its credit, this book answers the question: there need to be enough sentences about the same topic, but not saying the same thing. The topic sentence is stronger when it expresses an opinion, which is something we can train students to see and do. Compare, for example, "I have been studying karate" with "Studying karate has given me strength and confidence."

There are some ideas for training the students how to do write. Having them brainstorm by creating lists, word maps, or free writing are all important. There is some effort to get students to put the supporting sentences into logical relation. Facts are distinguished from opinions. Often effect must be explained from cause. There is some connection between the order and the similarity or contrast of fact -- just think of how many times we use "but" or "however," as in, "Many teenage boys would like to talk to their fathers, but they don't know how." Narrative paragraphs can be ordered according to time. Some paragraphs are organized by comparison and contrast -- just look for the use of words like "however" and "whereas"? Writing about our hopes can force us to call on many transitional expressions, from "but" to "so" to "when."

But there is little real advice or analysis of the logical relation of supporting sentences. One lesson's distinction between facts and opinions seems confused at best. (The topic of the lesson was lies -- interesting to reflect that both fact and opinion can equally be lies. This is not mentioned, though.) The use of fact and opinion as examples or evidence is alluded to, but somehow there is no reference to the idea that supporting sentences are steps in reasoning. Narrative paragraphs can be ordered in other ways than according to time, and they don't always need a topic sentence summarizing things, as in "The strangest experience in my life happened a year before I graduated form high school." (What is the relation between narrative and exposition? The second term is not even used, much less used to explain any such question.) Comparison and contrast are organizing tools for the paragraph, but isn't it more common to stage the contrasting ideas across two paragraphs, as I'm doing now? (There is no example of multiple paragraphs here.) How and why are contrasts deployed at the sentence level? It strikes the reader of an older generation of "rhetoric" experts, like Francis Christensen, that no single full paragraph ever receives full analysis here.

There is more that is wrong here. Some advice seems questionable, at best. "A concluding sentence does not state a completely new idea," reads a line in lesson 4. Except when it does!

But I think the worst failing of modular instructional guides like "Paragraph Writing" is their utter lack of any project -- there is no real-life writing task that elevates the voice of the student in a serious way, much less any walk-through to such a task. Quite the opposite, the formula of lesson 1, lesson 2, lesson 3, and so on, each lesson with most elements the same, gives the stultifying impression that all the learning elements share equal claim on the attention. Even worse, the attempt to have the topics connect to teenage life only makes it seem that life itself is a mere set of fragmented lessons, with no drama or unity, no argument or reason. In the end, despite squeezing a little content, this is mainly remarkable as a grotesque example of curriculum instruction projects on the market today. Deadly dull. I pity any student who has actually had to complete them. (And of course, I'm working on something of my own.)

[Morya Simarmata · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Sehun B · Rating 1 out of 5]

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[Meeruu Syed · Rating 1 out of 5]

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[Arif Ullah]

I want this book because it is very useful for me.

[Sebah Al-Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and useful. Questions are varied. Information is summarized in a neat and nice way.