From Will's blog, Slade's Language Teaching Blog, I found two precious sites for writing reference resources which are greatly helpful for both teachers and students.
Undergraduate Writing Center of the University of Texas at Austin developed an online version of the consulting services of the center for those students who have to work on writing on their own without visiting the UWC. The online writing center is called Virgil, and unlike many other writing help sites which sometimes add more confusion to visitors, Virgil is very neatly organized according to writing stages and easy to find a resource one is looking for. Anyone who needs tips for writing can refer to this site for English grammar, writing format, citation, punctuation, and many more. The site provides "Writing Handouts" both in the HTML and PDF versions, which teachers can print out for their students. Looking around this site, I felt like I've got a private writing tutor.
Guide to Grammar and Writing provided by the Capital Community College Foundation is also another useful site. It might take a while to get familiar with this site at first, but once done, it provides an enormous amount of references for English grammar and composition. Principles of Composition, as a part of the site, is specifically focused on composition. One of the strengths of this site is that they provide ample explanations and examples for each grammatical point or writing principle. I believe this site would be a great reference site especially for teachers.
I took a look at the Guide to Grammar and Writing website. At first I didn't know how beneficial it would be because there was a lot of text on the pages. If I was an ELL, I might feel overwhelmed. However, as you mentioned, once you become familiar with it, it provides many practical tips and references.
ReplyDeleteIn the Principles of Composition section of the site, I noticed a fairly concise and helpful Editing Checklist under "Editing Process." On the "A Sense of Purpose" page, a comparison of 2 analyses of the same painting seemed like a great way to teach the point.
Just make sure your volume is down when you start the PowerPoint presentations. If your volume is up and you're not ready, the typing sound effect, amongst others, will surely make you jump! The PowerPoints seem to cover the main points of various grammar topics, but the abundance of sound effects is not necessary!
Thank you, Regina, for looking around the website and leaving a comment with a useful tip. At the beginning, I thought the same thing, like, "wow, there is too much text, the layouts are not reader-friendly, and if I were a novice ESL writer, then, this might have increased my anxiety for English writing!" As I looked at the websites closely, however, I got impressed more and more, saying to myself "wow,this is incredible."
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned the "Editing Process" section, I went over it again, and this time again, I thought this site would be really helpful for ESL learners, as far as they are strongly motivated to use this site, and for ESL teachers. I believe, this is a great starting point or a supplementary resource for ESL writing teachers.