English 1

Ms. Thivilojana has introduced to us five pre-writing techniques in week 2 which includes free writing, questioning, make a list, diagramming/clustering and a scratch outline. As i recalled, my preferable pre-writing technique would be diagramming. It is also called mapping and clustering where i would use lines, boxes, arrows and circles to divide and organize my ideas better. It's basically a visual way of thinking and it comes in handy when i am brainstorming for ideas. She had also gave us a topic where we would start writing our first draft as a group of 3 or 4 with the techniques given.

We began our writing practice in the following lesson. In this lesson, we were taught about common methods of organization, transitions and other connecting words. Before the lesson is ended, we've formed a group of 4 on a short essay topic which is "Should you add your parents as friends on your Facebook account. Discuss.". I personally think that this topic is very interesting.

Furthermore, Ms. Thivilojana has also taught us the steps involved in writing practices. I find this lesson very appealing where i have learned tips on writing a good thesis and also how to support the thesis with specific evidence. She had also gave us a brief on the common errors in writing a thesis so that we could learn from the mistakes and not to repeat it.

We're given a sheet of exercises where we have learned how to evaluate an essay and an introduction to essay development. We're also introduced to process , compare and contrast, as well as cause and effect essay. After having an understanding on these three essays, we're given our first assignment of 3 writing topics to choose.

ASSIGNMENT 1

1.Some people think that friends can never be as important as family. Think about the causes and effects of this statement very carefully and use that as a basis for a cause and effect essay.

2. Write a compare or contrast essay about any two cities in your country that you think tourists should visit.

3. Describe the steps involved in breaking a bad habit? Then, write a process essay to describe this process.

I've chose the third essay topic as i find it very relevant to my daily life. Its an individual task where it contains 30% of mark so i've put more effort into writing this essay.

The most interesting part of this essay process is the reference section. I mean, this is new to me as i have never been introduced to this during high school. We've attended a workshop on how to improve our referencing skills and i must say, it really does help a lot.

After a week of short break, we're required to do an oral presentation in front of the class with a huge variety of topics provided. I've chose to talk about Tumblr. I wasn't really good in terms of oral presenting skills so i wanted to talk about something that i'm comfortable with or something that i love. I got really nervous but she had encourage me to go on even if there's a few errors and repeating words.

ASSIGNMENT 2

Topic: Ancient or Modern Wonders of the World.

Choose any ONE of the ancient or modern wonders of the world and describe the following:

1. Historical background of the country.
2. Structure and layout.
3. Types of ornamentation used
4. Type of materials used.

In order to proceed to this second assignment, I've formed a group of 4 which includes Cecilia Tie, Nicole Hooi and Pua Zhi Qin. We have chose Forbidden City as our topic to describe the four different aspects above. It's quite challenging where we're required to record the whole oral presentation.