English Assignment 2006-2007
Raising Self-Awareness of Contemporary Social Issues, Expanding Lexical Resources and Developing Further Comprehension and Writing Skills By Using Working English to Analyze and Report on Self-Selected International Online English Newspaper Articles - Recurring Assignment
THE TASK:
1. Take note of the particular topic assigned for each due date, and the geographic zone (city, region, country or continent) designated, from which an appropriate online newspaper and newspaper article is to be selected.
2. Select appropriate newspapers in the zone from the Yahoo list of thousands of English language online newspapers at this link:
3. Scan for articles that are suitable to your own highest and best reading comprehension level, and that contain some A-level academic vocabulary as found in your Academic Vocabulary List handout.
4. For each particular assignment select one of those articles, of 500 to 1,000+ words in length, and print it. The article should have a title, be printed on A4 paper with pages numbered, and include (i) the date the article was posted; (ii) clear and traceable identification of its Internet source; and (iii) the name of the author, if disclosed. The article should not be abridged nor amended in any way.
5. Closely study the article and then select four (4) to eight (8) (or even more), "Academic" words new to your vocabulary, words that are also present in the above-mentioned Academic Vocabulary List. On the printed copy of the article clearly underline each of the chosen words.
6. Now, perform a "work-up", which in this case involves (a) presenting a proper definition of each chosen word consistent with the sense used in the article, (b) indicating its part of speech, (c) writing three (3) original sentences using that word as defined. (The definitions are to be taken from a unilingual English dictionary, and must include two complete contextual excerpts taken from the Concordancer tool of the Wordnet site, excerpts in which the word is used in at least a similar, if not identical, sense); and (d) stating a synonym and an antonym (if one exists) for each defined word.
7. Finally, the "Work-up" shall include (e) three (3) questions posed by you, that elicit information particularly relevant to the article topic but not answered in the article, and (f) an original commentary, composed by you, on subtopics in the article that are of particular interest to you. The commentary must not summarize the article, but rather, should contain some of your views, opinions and critical comments that arise from your comprehension of, and reaction to, the author's message. The commentary needs to be 250 to 450+ words in length.
8. Each assignment should be presented by attaching to the printed article the work-up, including your commentary, both of which should be digitally printed or neatly hand-written on A4 paper, stapled together, dated, with your Chinese and English name, class, and class number written on the first page. All pages should be numbered. No use of correcting fluid (white-out) is permitted on any part of the assignment submitted to the teacher. Assignments submitted with correcting fluid will be returned, ungraded, to be re-done and submitted sans correcting fluid.
9. Four (4) articles are to be submitted each month, without exception, commencing with the month of October, 2006, continuing to and including the month of June, 2007. The articles shall be submitted in batches of two (2), on the 15th day and the 28th day of each month, and if any of those days do not fall on a school day, then on the next school day thereafter.
10. The assignments will be collected by the Homework monitor of each class on the respective due dates and placed on my homework shelf, together with a student list showing the number of articles being submitted by each student, with a specific reference to the names of students who did not submit articles or who submitted articles deficient in number.
11. When the assignments are returned to you, they should be filed in a special section of your two-ring English binder, and indexed in a timely way, and in an appropriate form, at the front of the binder.
12. A list of geographic zones and subject content targets for each month will be posted on this site before September 30th, 2006.
13. These instructions may be amended or upgraded from time to time as the need arises.
Remember that in written communications, form, content, grammatical range and accuracy, style, graphic presentation and neatness all count.
Good Hunting...Have Fun... !
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