top of page

UNIT 2: SUMMARIES AND CRITIQUES

Since this unit has substantially more material than the previous one, you can use the PowerPoint "Bottom-up writing and reading-writing connections" as the main structuring lesson, even though it will span multiple classes (use your judgment in advance as to how much you can get done in class). When you get to certain parts of the PowerPoint, it will ask you to refer to the other resources that are downloadable on this page. Sometimes it is necessary to download, print, and make photocopies of handouts prior to class.

​

The structure of the PowerPoint ("Bottom-up writing and reading-writing connections"):

Part One: Understanding what bottom-up writing is and practice searching for reliable sources on Google and Google scholar. Note that when students previously worked with Google and Google scholar, they looked for specific bits and pieces of information rather than sources in general.

Part Two: How to write a bilingual summary of a reading. This lesson is specific to international students who are probably best helped by translating into their native language. Generation 1.5 or basic writers may not be helped this way because they may not know academic terminology in either their native language or English. In that case, to summarize academic articles, they will need to discuss/interpret each academic-sounding paragraph, translating it into everyday English, by working in small groups.

Part Three: How to evaluate a reading. In this stage, students get a model for Paper 2 ("Critique of an Article"). First, they read the article to be critiqued, which is a pretty poorly reasoned advertisement for the TOEFL specifying five reasons to choose it over the IELTS or TOEIC. Next, they read the student writer's critique of the article, point by point. (Before reading the student's essay, they will have had the opportunity to discuss in small groups what the student might have critiqued about each point.)

Part Four: How to write a bibliographic entry. Students will visit the Purdue OWL website: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ and write a bibliographic entry for the article about the TOEFL. They will be given the web address of the article and have to figure out from the Purdue OWL website how to cite this particular source by looking under "Electronic Sources." The PowerPoint will give them hints of things to look for, as well as the answer, but they should try writing the bibliographic entry themselves first using MLA style.

​

For homework, students will need to find their own article to critique and write Paper 2 based on this article. At the end of their paper, they will need a bibliography with at least one reference (the article they critiqued) using MLA style. This is a way to ease students into the writing of bibliographic entries by showing them how Purdue OWL works before they need to deal with many bibliographic entries for the same essay.

bottom of page