Holiday Assignment

3 annotated articles.

• Articles should be an opinion piece. Eg. Articles from Insight, Review, etc
• No particular topic. You can refer to the 'Expectations of MI GP students' for the list of topics to be covered this year.

How to annotate?
Please refer to the Beauty compre pasage or the RJC sample essay.

The following is taken from your notes:

A good way to read actively is to annotate each paragraph of the passage so that you can outline the structure of the argument. Write your annotations along the sides of the paragraphs.

What exactly are you supposed to annotate?

Anything! But the following list might help you out a bit:

· The thesis statement

· The general structure of the paragraph

- Topic Sentence

- Supporting Details

- Relationship between points, etc.

· The author’s stand

· The use of evidence - facts, examples that the author uses; reasons that the author gives to support his points. You can number these within the passage to make it easier for you to refer to them later on.

· The use of fallacies, unconvincing arguments – points that may discredit the author’s argument.

· Whether the author brings up any points that oppose his viewpoint, whether he acknowledges them or tries to refute them by giving counter examples, etc. (You can number these too.)

· Other observations about the paragraph – style, tone (sarcastic, etc), attitude, assumptions, values, beliefs, etc.

You should also annotate:

· The strength of the arguments

· Your responses toward the arguments

· Any alternative interpretations

· Any unwarranted assumptions

Read, Reach & Reap Project

The Library Club is organizing a project called Read, Reach & Reap, May – Sept 2007.

• Read a book, fiction or non-fiction, or even an article from a periodical
• Reach out to others through recommending what you have read
• And together we Reap a habit of reading & sharing

• The library will be tracking both the loan and recommendation rates of all classes, monthly. Prizes will be given to the class with the highest loan and recommendation rates, for each level.

• Students can obtain the recommendation slips from the library or their respective class representatives and slips are to be posted in the library.
• You are strongly encouraged to read at least one article per week, other than the IRP article.
  

Steps to do the article review

How to go about doing the article review

1. Creating A Mind Map

§ In order to convince the reader, the writer presents a number of arguments in the article.

§ Create a mind map of the claims / arguments / ideas presented in the article.

2. Vocabulary

§ After you have completed Activity 1, write down at least 5 new words in your word bank book.

§ Using the dictionary, you should also write down the meaning of the words and an example sentence.

3. Worksheet (Template)

§ Using the template, write a list of claims / arguments / ideas made by the author (as compiled in your mindmap) in the left hand column.

§ In the middle column, write down the evidence the author presents in support of each argument.

§ In the right column, provide your own examples to support or refute the writer’s and evaluate them (i.e. Do you think they are valid? Why? Why not?) Please research. Other than Google, you can try other search engines like Answers , Wikipedia and Clusty

4. Application

§ Now based on the information gathered above, see how you can use these ideas and examples in answering (a) the Application question (b) the Essay question

Just come up with 2 questions each that involve the ideas/ examples discussed in the article.

Sample questions can be found at

• http://www.vjc.moe.edu.sg/campus_life/cca/gpsoc/k_index.htm
• http://schools.moe.edu.sg/rjc/subjects/english/gp/downloads/index.htm

The full instructional documents and template will be send to your email box.
Please check your emails and clear your mailbox regularly.

Article Review - Weekly Assignment

Article Review – Weekly Assignment

To build your knowledge about world and local issues as well as your language and style of writing, you MUST read the newspaper (The Straits Times) as well as other news resources at home or outside curriculum time. Use the class time to discuss issues and to analyse the articles. You need content before you can discuss. Besides reading articles on issues in the world, prime news and home news, you must also read:

a) the Review page

b) the ‘Special Report’ page (Saturday)

c) the ‘Think’ page (Sunday)

d) the Forum page

These are particularly the type of language, information and style required for GP by the Cambridge examiners.

Your choice of article reviews should come from either (a), (b) or (c). The categories are unlimited - ranging from biotechnology to philosophy. Well, it is GENERAL paper so any topic under the sun, as long as it is an issue would be of interest. The more controversial the topic, the more arguments can be found. You can also select opinion pieces from online newspapers. The links can be found in various GP blogs.

Resources needed for article review

For this assignment, you will need an article, a good dictionary (Collins/ Oxford/ Webster), a worksheet and your word bank book. Online dictionary (www.m-w.com)

Please make copies of the worksheet template so that you can complete the article review.

Format for article review

1. State the Topic, Source, Date, Title, Author

Example

Topic: Corporate Social Responsibility

Source: The Straits Times/ Review

Date: 21 March 2007

Title: Not a black-and-white issue

Author: David Vogel

2. Paste the article on a blank white A4 or A3 size paper. OR Print the article out.
   

3. Use the article review template (worksheet) to review the article.
   

4. Submit the worksheet, mindmap, article (in that order) to your GP rep by Monday 2 pm.
   

GP Rep is to put the collected article reviews and class list (indicating those who did not hand in) in my pigeon hole.

5. If you are unable to submit on time, please stay back at the library to complete.