Essay Writing

Dear 9.04 & 9.09,

We are well into the last learning cycle and looking back, I am so excited to see how much we have accomplished together! You have made such great progress in English so far and your work, both written and oral, has been remarkable. Keep up the good work and strive for the best. You have the potential to achieve excellent results and I know that you CAN do it!

This week, our focus areas as you know are debate and writing persuasive essays. We have brainstormed ideas on living in the city versus living in the country. We have discussed the pros and cons of both and made different conclusions, created mind maps, took notes, went through images, and prepared speeches to support your view and convince/persuade others after taking the poll on Edmodo. In both sections, we were surprised to see that there was a tie each time groups voted for living in the city or country. The debates were amazing! Every time I listened to one of you supporting your opinion and trying to convince me, I felt excited and proud. Your arguments were strong and backed up by examples and valid reasons. It was fun watching you getting excited and making an effort to speak English to offer your perspective to convince me to move to the country or stay in the city. I think this was a great learning experience for all of you since you now can effectively use your powers of persuasion in writing and speaking.



In the remainder of the week we will continue to focus on the same ideas and concepts, but use the skills learned to write a five-paragraph essay. The assignment is posted on the blog and we have discussed what should go into each paragraph to make it a well-organized and well-developed essay. I expect you to transfer the ideas we generated along with your personal opinion to your essay. The ball is in your court now. I will make my final decision on staying in the city or moving to the country based on how convincing your essays will be! Do not be afraid of expressing yourself and making mistakes. Writing is a process and we will produce several drafts until we have great persuasive essays, revising and editing as we go...

Keep up the good work.

Ms. Neriman