Exploratory task 1.9

Consider the review of the story, which is an excerpt from a literary critique. Re-write the review and follow the directions: announce the topic of the story, state what makes the story special for the readers, give a non-judgmental account of the events in the story, give evaluative analysis of the strong point in the story, use arguments to prove your evaluations, in conclusion infer from what you have written.

This story is set in Denmark many years ago. Hugo is a passionate young man, who is fascinated by science. When he is old enough he becomes a student and goes to University. He soon gets obsessed by a mysterious and forbidden type of investigation of how to create life. In his home he has lots of jars with human limbs in them, which he created. This makes his house a very gruesome place. Hugo brings limbs to life and produce monsters. They escape and this is where horror begins.

A frequent format of teaching to write is an essay. There are the following types of essays for teaching: description of an object, a process or an event, comparison of views, processes or events for similarities, contrast of views, processes or events for differences, discussion of a problem, evaluation of circumstances, propositions or consequences, commenting on a concept, proposition or event, interpreting a concept, proposition, image or event. Among others the students can use the following format of writing an essay:

Topic introduction

Topic development

Topic restatement

Exploratory task 1.10

Write a short essay “Brevity is the mother of talent”. Use the suggested format and reflect on the problems that you have experienced while writing

Topic introduction	Topic development	Topic restatement
Comments on the problems while writing

One of the tasks in teaching to write is a balanced essay. In doing the task the students are to summarize and classify the views into the two opposing groups and to strike a balance between them. These can be "pros-and-cons", "advantages-and-disadvantages", "rights-and-wrongs". This writing activity teaches the students to approach the topics in a carefully "weighted" way and to avoid jumping into hasty and biased conclusions (Hedge, T. 1997. P.32).

Exploratory task 1.11

Write a balanced argument on the topic “Better late than never”

Arguments "for"	Arguments "against"

The major writing skill causing problems with the students is that of reasoning or writing an argument (Andrews, B. 1995. P. 3) Reasoning is a chain of logical operations that result in a conclusive proposition and can take the form of a result thesis (Johnson-Laird, P.N. 1983). The process of reasoning is shown by the graph:

Premises

Propositions

Argumentation

Inference

Conclusion

Reasoning can be of the following types: categorical , based on indisputable solid facts, alternative, based on controversial knowledge, subjective, based on individual understanding of the situation. Students' reasoning, as it comes from experience, tends to make the following reasoning errors. These errors can include sliding from one idea to the other with ambiguous plan in mind, failing to distinguish between facts and opinions, using emotional language instead of arguments (only a fool can …), giving false arguments not true to fact and ignoring knowledge (begging the question and pretending there is no problem), rashly generalizing in their conclusions and simplifying assumptions, asserting instead of proving by proceeding from a single case, self-humiliation (Of course, I am no authority for you …), challenging (I know that you will reject it …), chasing several unconnected propositions instead of one and deviating in logic, begging the question (pretending there is no problem) (After Fairbairn, G. and Ch. Winch. Reading, Writing and Reasoning. 1990)