Reading & Writing: Third Quarter (Text as Connected Discourse, Techniques in Selecting & Organizing Information)

Exposition

a type of discourse that makes the audience aware about the topic of discussion

Example:
Definition and Comparative Analysis of different ideas and beliefs

Narration

a type of discourse that relies on stories, folklore, or a drama as a medium of communication

Example:
Stage play and Folklore

Descriptive

a type of discourse that describes something in relation to the senses; enables the audience a mental picture of what is being discussed

Example:
Novels and Essays

Argument

a type of discourse that is based on logic and tries to motivate the audience

Example:
Lecture, Essays, and Prose

Poetic Discourse

a type of literary discourse which focuses on the expression of feelings, ideas, imaginations, events, and places through specific rhymes and rhythms; make use of common words in appealing ways to present feelings and emotions

Expressive Discourse

does not involve the presentation of facts or the motivation of others but is rather a reflection of emotions which form the foundation of our expressions; form of basic or entry level discourse and is beneficial for beginners in the field of literature or other fields; primarily deals with generating ideas with no concrete source

Narrative Writing

focuses on telling a fictional or non-fictional story where the author follows a plot structure; can also take the form of an essay where the author uses a personal story to explain an issue or state an argument; presentations vary because they depend largely on the creativity of the writer, even when the writing changes, the function of telling the story remains

Narrative Essay

always tells a story; has an equivalent basic format to other academic text, narrative is often anecdotal, experiential, and personal, allowing students to express themselves in creative and moving ways; most movies and YouTube videos are also samples of a narrative essay

Thesis

Good quality of Narrative Essay that sets up the action in the introduction

Transition

Good quality of Narrative Essay that sentences that connect events and guide the reader to follow the story

Conclusion

Good quality of Narrative Essay that ends the story action, provides moral, prediction, or revelation

Setting

Elements of a Story that is when and where the story happens

Theme

Elements of a Story that is the subject talk or the basic idea of the story

Mood

Elements of a Story that is the tone of the piece of literature it signifies the emotions/feelings of the narrator or speaker

Characters

Elements of a Story that is the people involved in the story, can be classified as the Protagonist or Antagonist

Plot

Elements of a Story that is the most important element of a story, sequence of events, includes a climax or turning point

Introduction

Part of Narrative writing that is the paragraph that will start your story, establishes the narrator’s tone, mood, voice, and point of view; introduces or alludes the conflict you plan on addressing

Hook

Part of Narrative writing that is the opening of the essay, usually grabs the attention and helps to set a mood for a reader — creates enough interest that the reader will want to continue; essential in narrative essays as they set the stage for the story

Thesis

Part of Narrative writing that express the main idea of the essay and states the structure of the information; However, in a narrative essay, this introduces the action that begins within the first paragraph of the essay; will not give the action to the reader on what will happen, only drop hints

Body

Part of Narrative writing that contains most of the supporting information, which is the plot; the sequence of plot can be arranged in numerous ways: one is chronological order

Chronological Order

Arrangement that begins with the first scenario, then the second paragraph will elaborate on the second scenario and so on; the last part of each paragraph will be a transitional sentence, which serves two purposes:
(1) to signal the end of the action in one paragraph, and
(2) to provide link to the action of the next paragraph

Conclusion

Part of Narrative writing that is a brief statement of the main point; does not mean rewrite everything; last sentence can have two functions:
(1) deliver the moral of the story
(2) make prediction or revelation

Location

A way of Organizing Information that shows perspective of a physical or geographical space

Example:
Maps, College campus maps, or Diagram of the human brain

Alphabet

A way of Organizing Information that works well when the information is referential, when it requires nonlinear access, and when the reader knows specific terms and topics they are looking for

Time

shows how things happen or compare events over a significant duration of time

Example:
history of man’s most useful inventions, or by the months or years in which events happen

Category

uses the easiest ways to organize information

Example:
giving similarity, likeness, and relatedness using color, shape, gender, etc.

Hierarchy

shows how information is connected to another according to importance or rank

Example:
organizational charts to show a common measure or difference: biggest to smallest, heaviest to lightest, best to worst, or first to last

Brainstorming

Act of storming or searching your brain for ideas; way of expressing ideas in a group, in which allows the group to come up with the best ideas which are worth writing about; initial purpose is to come up with as many ideas as possible, not to judge them as serious or trivial; the effectiveness of this is that one idea can trigger another idea in an unrestrained manner, thinkers must allow themselves to think the trivial and impossible — brainstorming is to bring about this kind of freethinking

Pre-Writing

Basic Stages involved in Writing that essential part where you brainstorm, cite your purpose, interest on topics, where you can discuss freely and solidify your ideas, gathering of data and preliminary outline before the draft

Drafting

Basic Stages involved in Writing that enables one to discover what they want to say

Revising and Proofreading

Basic Stages involved in Writing that allows the writer to get feedback from various readers between revisions and writing again

Publishing and Presenting

Basic Stages involved in Writing that sending the output

Cubing

An example of Brainstorming an activity which enables students to generate ideas individually based on a given set of guidelines

Mapping

An example of Brainstorming an activity which is similar to Cubing, however without the limitations of guidelines

Looping

An example of Brainstorming that the the Most Complex Approach to free writing. Involves writing to find out what one wants to say on a certain topic. Semi-structures individual activity which requires writing for a certain period of time without stopping

Clustering

An example of Brainstorming that generates a great number of ideas, enabling students to be more than prepared for writing.
Example, the stimulus word is “Food”. Students are asked to think of words associated with food. Then, they are asked to write a short paragraph using their clusters.