READING AND WRITING SKILLS

Lesson 1: Text as Connected Discourse

DISCOURSE - an extended expression of thoughts or ideas - utterance, talk, speech, discussion, and conversation

`* The ideas in discourse are not connected or do not have a particular structure.

TEXT - a large unit of written language - a group of ideas put together to make a point or one central idea - has a structure
which requires the ideas in the discourse to be relevant to each other - an actually connected discourse. It is generally
considered as written material, especially longer pieces of writing as in a book, a letter or a newspaper.

Properties of a Well-written Text

1. Organization - refers to the arrangement of ideas in a text.

* Creating an outline of ideas before you start writing can help your work become organized.

Outline - provides a format in which ideas can be arranged in a hierarchy- that is, it distinguishes the general
ideas from the specific or subordinating ideas.

2. Coherence and Cohesion - refer to the connection of ideas and connection between sentences and between
paragraphs

* In order for you to assure coherence and cohesion, you need to use transitional or cohesive devices.

3. Appropriate Language Use - refers to the acceptable style of language for a particular form of text

4. Proper Mechanics - refers to the conventions of writing which includes capitalization, punctuation, spelling,
numerals, abbreviations, acronyms and contractions.

MORPHOLOGY - the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same
language. Analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as root words, prefixes, and suffixes.

MORPHEME – the smallest grammatical unit in a language.

Two Types of Morpheme:

1. Free Morpheme - can function independently as a word. Examples: house, cat, blood
2. Bound Morpheme - a word element attached to a root word (the main part of a word) to give it another
meaning - cannot function independently as a word. Examples: affixes (prefixes and suffixes)

Affix - a morpheme that is attached to a root word to form a new word.

1. Prefix - a morpheme that comes before a root word. Examples: auto- (automobile), in- (incorrect),
over- (overcharge)

2. Suffix - a morpheme that comes after a root word. Examples: -ful (forgetful). -ish (childish), -ive
(active)

Context Clues - are words, phrases, and sentences that surround an unfamiliar word and help you recognize
the meaning of an unknown word.
 Most Common Types of Context Clues

1. Synonyms – words/phrases that has the same meaning.

2. Antonyms – words which has a different/opposite meaning.
3. Examples – are specific details in a text that are used to clarify the meaning of a word.
4. Definition – is usually signaled by a form of the verb to be (am, is, are, was, were) or by commas or dashes.

Simile - is identified by the use of “like,” “as,” “similar to,” and the like. They compare dissimilar objects that share certain
characteristics.

Examples:
1. When he walked into the room, the entire audience looked up, like flowers turning towards the sun.
2. His headache was as painful as a root canal without the benefit of laughing gas.

Metaphor - directly refers to the object being described as being or previously being the object it is compared or connected
to.

Examples: 1. The boom of his voice, all thunder and lightning, echoed through the entire hall. 2. The dog was
a jack-in-the-box, trying to jump up on the visitors.

Essential Learning: A text is a connected discourse, which means that all ideas in the text must be related in the sense that
they would express only one main idea, or that the text must have unity by combining all ideas to emphasize central idea.

Lesson 2: Techniques in Selecting and Organizing Information

Brainstorming – it is a combination of a relaxed, informal approach to problem-solving and lateral thinking. Brainstorming
is a pre-reading technique that can be used in large or small groups to help encourage students to begin focusing on a topic.

Why brainstorming is important?

Through brainstorming, students will have the opportunity to develop ideas through a free-flowing mentality, since student
responses are not criticized or judged by the teacher or other students. In taking part in expressing ideas and listening to the
ideas of others, students able to better adjust their previous knowledge or understanding, increase awareness about a given
topic, and process new information.

Why brainstorming?

Brainstorming contributes to the generation of creative solutions to a problem. It teaches students to breaks away from old
patterns of reasoning to new unexplored paths of thinking.

 Problem solving has become part and parcel of teaching and learning process. Brainstorming can make group
problem-solving a less sterile and a more satisfactory process.

 It can be used with your class to bring the various students experiences into play. This increases the richness of
ideas explored, particularly before reading, listening and writing activities.

 Brainstorming is fun. That’s why it helps student-student and students-teacher relationships to get stronger as they
solve problems in a positive, stress-free environment.
Brainstorming technique was first designed to be used with groups, but it can also be used by a single person privately to
generate ideas.

Individual Brainstorming

When individuals brainstorm on their own, they come up with more ideas, and often better quality ideas, than groups of
people who brainstorm together. Perhaps this occurs because of many reasons

 In groups, learners aren’t always strict in following the rules of brainstorming, and the risk of unfavorable group
behaviors may arise.

 Instead of generating their own new ideas, students may pay more attention to other people’s ideas.

 Sometimes learners forget their ideas while they are waiting for their turn to speak.

 Sometimes people are blocked because of shyness.

 Some students tend to do well when they work alone.

 individual brainstorming may be less engaging and less stressful. Students are free and do not worry about other
people’s opinions and judgements and can therefore be more freely creative.

For instance, a student who hesitates to bring up an idea in a group brainstorming because he thinks its unworthy,
might be free to explore it in an individual brainstorming and find that it develops into something quite interesting.

 Students don’t have to wait for others to stop speaking before they contribute their own ideas.

Group Brainstorming

Group brainstorming may work in so many effective ways:

 Brainstorming brings the full experience and creativity of all members of the group to solve a problem. When
individual group members get stuck with an idea, another member’s creativity and experience can take the idea to
the next stage. Group brainstorming can therefore develop ideas in more depth than individual brainstorming.

 Another advantage of group brainstorming is that it helps everyone involved to feel that they have contributed to
the end solution.

 It reminds one that other people have creative ideas to offer.

 Brainstorming can be great for team-building and creating harmony within a team!

How to Use Brainstorming?

John R. Hayes recommends following these steps in his book “The Complete Problem Solver.”

“Separate idea generation from evaluation. Start with the idea generation phase, writing down ideas as they occur,
without criticism. You should welcome wild or silly ideas, and you should try to combine or improve ideas that were
generated earlier. The hard part in this phase is to control your internal editor– the internal voice of criticism which may
lead you to ignore an idea that seems too dumb or trivial. Just as with group brainstorming, when you begin to run out of
ideas, you can review the list as a source to stimulate further production. When the ideas really have stopped coming, it is
time to move on to the evaluation phase. Here you review each idea to select those that seem best for solving the problem.”

Methods in Brainstorming

1. Idea List - simply involves listing ideas about a particular topic. It also helps you find the main idea and supporting
details.
- is appropriate to textual people, or those who are more comfortable in processing words than visuals.
-simply requires you to write the main topic and then write down all related concepts below it.

Example: Unemployment (Topic)

 Jobs
 Poverty
 Salary
 Lack of education
 Lack of jobs
 Lack of salary
 Lack of money
 Fresh graduates

2. Idea Map - also called webbing or clustering.

- is a visual representation of ideas and their connections with one another.
- more structured and is able to show how one idea subordinates another idea.

Example:

3. Cubing - an idea is examined from six distinct viewpoints.

You describe the topic (what is it?)

Compare and contrast it (what is it like or unlike?)
What do you associate it with (what does it remind you of?)
Analyze it (what are its parts?)
Apply it (in what ways can it be utilized)
Argue for or against it (in what ways can you support or oppose it)?
 4. Free writing - set a time limit and number of words or pages. Just write. Do not edit yourself.
- it allows someone to work without inhibitions.
- you turn off the editor in you and allow the writer in you free rein.

5. Researching - you go to the library or check out websites on the internet. Make a list or map of the new ideas.
- is appropriate to textual people, or those who are more comfortable in processing words than visuals.
-simply requires you to write the main topic and then write down all related concepts below it.

https://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/brainstorming-in-efl-and-esl-classes/

Graphic Organizer - are visual representations of concepts that help us structure information into organizational patterns
- present essential information and connect these pieces of information into a coherent framework
Types of Graphic Organizers

1. Venn Diagram – used to compare and contrast ideas and events.

- uses two or more overlapping circles to show similar and different attributes.

2. Network Tree - used to represent hierarchy, classification, and branching.

- useful in showing relationships of scientific categories, family trees, and even lineages.

3. Spider Map - also known as semantic map, used to investigate and enumerate various aspects of a central idea,
which could be a concept, topic, or theme.
4. Problem-solution map - displays the nature of the problem and how it can be solved
- usually contains the problem's description, its causes and effects, and logical solutions.

5. Timeline - used to show how events occurred chronologically through a long bar labeled with dates and specific
events. It can be linear or comparative.

a. Linear Timeline - shows how events happened within one period.

b. Comparative Timeline - shows two sets of events that happened within the same period.
 Example of Linear Timeline

Example of Comparative Timeline

6. Plot Diagram - used to map events in the story - used to analyze the major parts of a plot.
7. Series of Events Chain - used to show the logical sequence of events.

8. Fishbone Map - used to better understand the causal relationship of a complex phenomenon.
- shows the factors that cause a specific event or problem, as well as details of each cause.

9. Cycle - describes how a series of events interact to produce a set of results repeatedly.
* Some examples of events that require a cycle are water cycle, metamorphosis, and poverty cycle.
10. Persuasion Map - used to map out arguments and evidence that prove a viewpoint.
- is especially useful when processing persuasive or argumentative texts.
 11. Thesis Statement - the central idea of a multiple-paragraph composition.
- one-sentence summary that guides, controls, and unifies ideas when writing.
*In simple terms, all the other ideas present in an essay revolve around the thesis statement.

12. Outline - considered as a plan for writing; a summary that gives the essential features of a text.
- shows how the parts of a text are related to one another as parts that are of equal importance, or sections that
are subordinate to a main idea.

Two Outline Formats

a. Alphanumeric Outline – used both letters and numbers as labels.

 b. Decimal Outline – uses only numbers as labels.

Principles of Outlining

1. Coordination - requires ideas of the same relevance to be labeled in the same way.

I. Positive effects of uniform policy

A. Promotes school identity
B. Improves school security
II. Negative effects of uniform policy
A. Inhibits learning
B. Curtails individuality
2. Subordination - shows that minor details have to be placed under their respective major details.

I. Positive effects of uniform policy

A. Promotes school identity
B. Improves school security
II. Negative effects of uniform policy
A. Inhibits learning
B. Curtails individuality
3. Division – requires that no cluster should contain only one cluster.

I. Positive effects of uniform policy

A. Promotes school identity
B. Improves school security
II. Negative effects of uniform policy
A. Inhibits learning
B. Curtails individuality
4. Parallel Construction – requires all entries in each cluster to use the same structure and format.

I. Positive effects of uniform policy

A. Promotes school identity
B. Improves school security
II. Negative effects of uniform policy
A. Inhibits learning
B. Curtails individuality

Kinds of Outline according to Structure

1. Topic Outline - a systematic arrangement of ideas using broad topics in the form of words or simple phrases as
headers.

2. Sentence Outline - also known as expanded outline, uses complete sentences as its entries.

https://www.slideshare.net/tinelachica04/readinglesson-3-selecting-and-organizing-information
Lesson 3: Patterns of Development

a. Narration – means the art of storytelling, it is the most basic pattern of development.
- describes how, when, and where an event or occurrence actually happened.
- used to tell a story or focus on a set of related events.

Components of Narrative Text

1. Logical Actions - are considered the very movements within the plot or the narrative that drive the characters
forward, be it during the dialogue, or within a scene.

Example:

It was late spring the last time we saw Ross. He was standing at the edge of the hill, and he never so much as
looked up even though we were sure he knew we were there. There was a bunch of flowers clutched to his fist,
but there really was no reason for him to be standing there. We knew that Carrie wasn't coming to see him. But
he stood there anyway, waiting, even as the afternoon sunlight deepened towards the evening. He must have
been standing there for hours.

2. Way of Narration - refers to how the writer presents the story

- includes the pace by which scenes are given out
* Having natural progression of time to the events of the story makes a good writing.

Clipped Narration

“He came and talked to us. Then he left the house and then he drove the car back home.”

Paced Narration

“He came and talked to us for a few moments. He seemed upset, but he managed to get through all the bad
news. Shaking our hands before he left the house come twilight, he seemed to feel better now that he had delivered
the news. He waved from the car as he pulled out of the driveway, narrowly missing the mailbox again, and drove
off to return home.”

3. Terminology - places emphasis on the fact that concepts are critical to the narration.

* Writers must choose how to address terms and which ones they want to use in order to create an
appropriate setting.

Concrete Terms - words that identify things, places, and events that can be measured and observed.
- terms that have physical manifestation in our world.
Examples: spoon, dog, house
“He was shivering violently from the cold.”
Abstract Terms - refer to ideas or concepts that are intangible.
Examples: love, freedom, feminism
“The joy in the air was palpable.”
General Terms - commonly used to denote groups. Example: furniture
“He gave her a piece of jewelry.”
Specific Terms - refer to an individual component of the group Examples: cabinets, desks, chairs
“Each green stone had fire in its facets.”
II. Description - the pattern of development which goes into details about a specific object, person, or location, in order to
firmly set its appearance.
What does it look like?
What are its characteristics?
Characteristics of Description
● has a clear focus and sense of purpose
● uses sensory details and precise words
● presents details in a logical order

Varieties of Description

1. Objective Description - looks into factual and scientific characteristics of what is being described as
objectively as possible

* The writer stays away from emotional impressions or responses and instead, describes the scene as it is.

Example: The Acer barbatum is a small to medium-sized, deciduous tree usually ranging from 15 to 25 m.
(50 to 80 ft.) tall when mature. Its bark is light gray and smooth on younger trees, and it becomes ridged
and furrowed with age. Leaves are opposite and shallowly to deeply palmately lobed, with a few blunt teeth
but no serrations. The leaf sinuses are rounded, unlike those of red maple (Acer rubrum) which are sharply
V-shaped. Also, the sides of terminal leaf lobes are more or less parallel, while those of red maple are
widest at the base, tapering to the tip.

2. Subjective Description - a sort of description that the author would normally use to “paint a picture” of
how he sees a character, or how he wants the reader to see a character.
- also used in a literary discourse when there is stereotyped image that can be attributed to a person, place,
or an event.

Example: My mother had hair so dark that it looked like a waterfall of ink. She always kept it in a braid
that fell to her slim waist, and always tied with a plain black band. The braid of black slung over her
shoulder, the plaits shining like scales.

III. Definition - explains not just what something means or is, but also what something does, what something is used for,
what something looks like, etc.

Varieties of Definition
1. Scientific Definition - defines concepts in the most factual way, which is often used in scientific, proper,
or real-world facts.
2. Subjective Definition - defines the objects in a more personal way.
- usually derived from the author's own experiences and opinion
- often used by a writer to state something from the point of view of the characters or in relation to the
setting.
The term could be emphasized by the following:
1. Characteristics or features
2. Function
3. Effect
4. Origin
IV. Classification and Exemplification

Classification - divides things into groups, classes, or categories.

- organizes ideas into divisions based on criteria or standards.

Exemplification - provides examples and illustrations in order to further clarify or explain the concept or subject
matter. It presents the general statement and then provides specific and concrete examples to expound on the main
idea.

Example: Dogs are domesticated animals that have been living with humans for generations. Dogs can be classified
in a number of different ways. For example, they can be classified by breed. Examples of different breeds include
beagles, basset hounds, poodles and countless others as defined by the American Kennel Club (AKC). They can
also be classified by their role in the lives of their masters and the work they do. For example, a dog might be a
family pet, a working dog, a show dog, or a hunting dog. In many cases, dogs are defined both by their breed and
their role. For example, a dog could be a beagle that is a family pet.

V. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST

Comparison and Contrast - organizes ideas based on how events, places, people, things, and concepts are similar
to or different from one another.
a. separately -involves describing one item first followed by the second item
b. side-by-side -involves discussing both items based on each point of comparison.

Example: Although I raised Marcee and Obbie from puppies, they have completely diverse personalities. Obbie is
a six year old, male, toy Pomeranian whereas Marcee is a one year old, female, Boston terrier. Obbie is small and
soft, unlike Marcee who has bristly hair and is much bigger. Marcee insists on sleeping on the bed, under the covers
every night. On the other hand, Obbie will only sleep on the floor, under the bed. Obbie is tremendously loyal and
uptight; however, Marcee is hyper and friendly to anyone she meets or sees. Around other dogs, Marcee cowers to
 the larger dog, yet Obbie will always stand his ground, never giving up until he is scolded. Given that they were
both treated the same way all their life, it is hard to believe that they are so different in everything they do.

V. CAUSE AND EFFECTS

Cause and Effect - explains why something happens or what results a particular event produces.
a. Paragraph emphasizing cause
b. Paragraph emphasizing effect

VII. PROBLEM-SOLUTION
Problem-Solution - focuses on either a problem or solution in a particular area or situation.

VIII. Persuasion - convinces readers to agree to an argument or claim about a particular topic.