2002 - Wagner, E.N. - Express Yourself, Writing Skills for High School - LearningExpress.pdf - ANG - marcin_513

Yourself

WRITING SKILLS

FOR HIGH SCHOOL

Edith N. Wagner

NEW YORK

Express

Published in the United States by LearningExpress, LLC, New York.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Wagner, Edith N.

Express yourself : writing skills for high school / by Edith Wagner.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-57685-403-5 (alk. paper)

1. Language arts (Secondary) 2. English language—Composition and exercises.

I. Title.

LB1631 .W23 2002

808'.042'0712—dc21

2001050445

Printed in the United States of America

987654321

First Edition

ISBN 1-57685-403-5

For more information or to place an order, contact LearningExpress at:

900 Broadway

Suite 604

New York, NY 10003

Or visit us at:

www.learnatest.com

Contents

Introduction

How to Use this Book

Section 1: Writing for Information and Understanding

Chapter One: The Test Question

Chapter Two: The Term Paper Assignment

Chapter Three: Everyday Writing

Section 2: Writing to Persuade

Chapter Four: Thesis Statements and Effective Research

Chapter Five: Writing for Persuasive Speaking

Chapter Six: Persuasion in Everyday Writing

Section 3: Writing to Narrate

Chapter Seven: Narratives for Personal Experience

Chapter Eight: Narratives for Academic Purposes

Chapter Nine: Narratives in Everyday Life

Section 4: Writing in Response to Literature

Chapter Ten: Writing About Poetry

Chapter Eleven: Writing About Prose (Fiction)

113

Chapter Twelve: Writing About Drama

127

Appendix A: Tips for Peer Review

135

Appendix B: Answers and Explanations

141

Introduction

Human beings communicate in four ways. We listen, speak, read, and write. When you were a baby the ﬁrst

thing you did was listen to the world around you. You recognized voices; you were startled by noises; you

were soothed by music. Then you began to imitate the sounds you heard and you experimented by creating

your own sounds. You learned that crying brought attention, words identiﬁed things, and that linking words

together made meaning. Then you learned that symbols on a page held unique meaning, and you learned to

read. The last of the four ways you learned to communicate was through writing, and the very formal trans-

ference of words to paper was probably initiated in school, as early as kindergarten.

Now, as adults, even though you can say with conﬁdence that you know “how” to listen, speak, read,

and write, you also know that simply knowing how doesn’t mean you always do any one of the four com-

munication strands well. Have you ever “listened” to a lecture and not been able to remember one thing you

heard? Have you ever “read” a page or two and had to read it all over again because you didn’t concentrate?

Have you ever “spoken” and then had to explain something twice because you weren’t clear the ﬁrst time?

Have you ever “written” an exam or a paper or even a note, to ﬁnd you needed some serious help making

yourself understood? If you were ever in any of these situations, you were not alone.

Effective communication requires skill—just like mastering a sport, playing an instrument, dancing,

cooking, or woodcarving. Communicating well demands that you learn the rules and practice a lot. Now there

are many folks out there who get along just ﬁne with basic communication skills, and this book is not for

them. This book is for those who want to become more effective at communicating their thoughts and ideas,

speciﬁcally as writers.

Unlike listening, speaking, and reading, writing is the way we make our thinking visible to the world.

Without committing our ideas to paper, our thinking remains invisible, locked in our heads. This is proba-

bly a good thing if we are confused or without information. Who would want to put a foolish, illogical, mis-

informed mind on display for the public? But in today’s world of high stakes testing, writing has become the

one tried and true measure of your thinking, and everyone wants to see it. So, if you try to avoid writing, this

book is dedicated to you.

EXPRESS YOURSELF I NTRODUCTION

How to Use This Book

“High stakes testing” is a phrase that has been captured in the newspapers and has students, parents, and

teachers very concerned. Simply deﬁned, high stakes tests are those that have very serious consequences. For

example, you are likely to discover that you cannot earn a high school diploma in your state unless you pass

certain exit exams. Without that high school diploma, the doors to higher education are locked; entry to cer-

tain employment is closed; a career in the military might be impossible. What ties high stakes testing to this

book is that all of the tests require you to demonstrate your learning by writing what you know in complete

sentences. In doing so, you provide a logical pattern of organization that follows the conventions of standard

written English. The days of the multiple-choice tests are gone. Testing now wants you to show not just what

you may know but how you know it and how you can apply your knowledge and information. In short, today’s

tests demand that you write.

This book is organized around the four major purposes for writing which drive most of the instruc-

tion and all of the testing that you experience in high school and college. The four purposes are:

W RITING TO DEMONSTRATE INFORMATION

AND UNDERSTANDING

This type of writing is also called expository writing and it takes the form of your content area term papers

and essays. It’s where you select information and organize it to show that you understand it. An example would

be the social studies essay that asks you to explain the economic, social, and political causes of the Civil War.

W RITING TO PERSUADE

This type of writing requires that you use information to argue a point and prove it. This kind of writing is

often called writing for critical analysis because you are asked not only to select appropriate information but

also to use that information to prove a point of view. For example, instead of just explaining the causes of

the Civil War, you might be asked to persuade your reader that the Civil War was more about the econom-

ics of the southern plantation system than it was about the social issue of slavery.

W RITING TO NARRATE A STORY

OR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

This type of writing requires that you tell a story in order to demonstrate information, knowledge, or per-

sonal experience. The same social studies essay would require that you create a series of journal entries writ-

ten as a plantation owner in 1859 Georgia to demonstrate the social and economic realities of the plantation

system, or to construct a chronological narrative of a day in the life of a Confederate soldier.

H OW TO U SE T HIS B OOK EXPRESS YOURSELF

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