Page 320 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

306 CHAPTER 11
and education [political and educational] change [no main verb] not due tothe problems [the first mention of the problems—to what noun phrase(s)/text do the problems tie?] in education itself, but due to the political and economy situa- tions and religion [politics, economy, and religion] at that time [the first men- tion of that time—to what noun/noun phrase does the pronoun that point?]. They [non-referential pronoun: it is too far from some scholars in the first line] stated that the reasonfor the change [no specific change has been mentioned, but only change in general—to what noun or noun phrase does
the change tie?] are outside of [delete of] education.
The texts and the essays q/Ton/for?] education, which were written at that time [to
what specific time does the pronoun that point?], supported this interpretation [to what interpretation does the phrase this interpretation point?]. Noah Webster was a writer of texts,for example, Webster's spelling book [Noah Webster is mentioned for the first time—who was he, when, what was his profession? Noah Webster may be a good topic for the paper, but his historical role needs to be the focus]. Webster's Federal Catechism [Webster's work is men- tioned for the first time—what was it? what was it about? what was it for?], whichwere[howmanyCatechisms?]themostpopular textbooks [howmanytext- books? why were they popular?] at that time [at what time?] in thelate 18th and early 19th centuries. Webster believed that his texts would make good and patriotic Americans, develop American language, and unified nation spirit [and build/cre- ate a unified national spirit; faulty parallelism: the third verb is missing in make—develop—??] [Why did Webster believe so strongly in his textbook? What did the textbook do, what did it include, and what was it for?].
(3) Lexical Substitutions: Odd Man Out
Students are provided sentences withwords and a number of their near syn- onyms. Each set of near synonyms includes one word that has a different meaning and does not belong in the set. The task is to write another sen- tence or two to follow the first and make it cohesive with the first sentence. Possible idea continuations are provided in [square brackets].
(a) The exact causes of various natural disasters, such as torrential rains and hurricanes, cannot always be (established/determined/sepa- rated/identified) because a number of natural phenomena can combine to bring about a particular weather event. [A sentence or two about the work of scientists who work to predict/anticipate/foresee natural disasters or weather events.]
(b) In the past several decades, it has become clear that individual physical (features/characteristics/positions) are hereditary and transferable from one
generation to the another. [A sentence about/a short discussion of the in- fluence of heredity on physical appearance; e.g. height or the color of hair/eyes.]
TLFeBOOK