Reduce an article

Prereading Activities

The importance of engaging students in prereading activities cannot be overemphasized. It is through activities conducted prior to reading a selection that the teacher can build and activate students' background knowledge on topics or concepts contained in the book. Activation of relevant knowledge is fundamental to comprehension. Because children may not spontaneously integrate what they read with what they know, special attention should be paid to preparation for reading. If appropriate background knowledge cannot be assumed, knowledge-building activities should be provided.

In addition to building or activating background knowledge, prereading activities can provide a forum to elicit from students their feelings and reactions to ideas and issues contained in a reading selection before confronting those issues in the text. Such activities allow students to examine their own beliefs, enhance understanding and appreciation of events in the book or decisions made by characters and encourage aesthetic responses to literature. Further, because they have thought about issues with which characters are confronted, students will identify more intensely with characters during reading. Prereading activities serve to set purposes for reading, arouse students' curiosity, and motivate them to read (Literature-Based Reading Activities, 2nd Ed., Yopp & Yopp Ch.2). 

Anticipation Guides
This reading comprehension activity will take a little while to prepare, but is a good tool for helping your students with prereading activities and comprehension.

Opinionnaires/Questionnaires
Opinionnaires/Questionnaires (Reasoner, 1976) are useful tools for helping readers examine their own values, attitudes, opinions or related experiences before they interact wit book characters. -- Taken from Literature-Based Reading Activities, 2nd Ed., Yopp & Yopp.

Memory
This game takes several hours to prepare, but it's well worth the effort. Children will commit hard words and their definitions to their long term memory, and it's fun! (287 words)

Source:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~amreads/teaching_resources/prereading/index.html

Summary

Prereading Activities

Teachers cannot overemphasize the prereading activities in the engaging students’ importance. They can activate students' background knowledge on topics inside the book through activities conducted prior to reading a selection. Knowledge’s activation is fundamental to comprehension. Preparation for reading needs attention since children do not integrate their own information with the reading. Teachers have to provide knowledge-building activities if students cannot understand background knowledge.

To building background knowledge, prereading activities such as anticipation which will takes to prepare, but is a tool for comprehension students, questionnaires which are useful for readers examine their related experiences before they interact with book character and game memory which takes hours to prepare, but it's worth the effort since children will their definitions to their long term memory can provide a forum to elicit from students reactions to ideas within a reading selection before confronting the issues in the text. They allow students to examine their beliefs, enhance understanding, appreciation of events in the book and encourage aesthetic responses to literature. Students will identify with characters during reading because of their thoughts about issues characters. Prereading activities establish purposes for reading, arouse students' curiosity, and motivate them to read. (195 words)

Wordy sentences

1.  Edit the following paragraph to make any wordy sentences as short as possible without changing their meaning.

Adam Smith, founder of modern economics, proposed a theory that made him controversial. This economist, born in Scotland and educated in England wrote the first study of political economic. The Wealth of nations published in the same year Americans declared their independency from england- that was in 1776 Smith’s book pointed out and directed attention to the interdependence of freedom, order, economic processes and free trade laws. Althoug his thinking did not affect economic policies during his lifetime, it’s influence in the next century was considerable. “the invisible hand” and “laissezfaire” are synonymous with Smith’s name. History has made Smith’s ideas more controversial businesspeople will smile and make a response with words like “he was a good man- really understood how business works”. To liberal reforiners and they will matter somethin along the lines of “he was an evil man- really sold average citizen down the river. Reacctions are extreme but such responses indicate that controversy aroused by Smith’s ideas is still alive.

Sentences reducing strategies

First article

Schenker, in her article “Smart House”, Speak up 169, declare that in the future, thanks to technology, houses will be networked making people life’s easier and comfortable. Internet will connect electronic devices and they will have chips to control activities like housework, communications, shopping, bills or people’s social life. The disadvantages of having a networked home are not significant. People will have to pay some extra dollars for the chips, the internet’s connection and the security measures to protect the system against cyber pirating. People won’t have to afford the mainteinace since the services will repair themselves. The money people can spend will not mean much considering all the benefits of having a smart house.

Second article

This study went over 1,600 marginal and end comments written on 110 first drafts of eassys by 47 university  ESL advanced students, considering both the pragmatic goals for and the linguistic features of each comment. The eassys improved because of an examination of the drafts of each individual eassy which showed the influence of the first draft commentary on the students’s revision and asses the changes made to the teacher’s feedback. A proportion of the comments led to substantive student’s revisions and there were particular kind and forms of commentary that were helpful than others. The results suggest implications for L2 writing instruction and for future studies on a vital but surprisingly neglacted topic.

Writing of the photo

In this photo there are some clouds that show a beautiful sky. Although it is the same sky for everyone, it is something different for me and each one of us. Sometimes there are days that I feel sad and the thing that I like to do is to see the sky since it makes me feel something that I do not know how to explain. There are some people who say that some day they will be there with God and with many beloved relatives that has passed away. But, what this picture really means? In my opinion, it represents peace and quietness because of the water that we can see there.

Moreover, the form of the clouds expresses softness and kindness and those are things that nowadays only  few people know what actually are. This should not be like that due to, if we as human beings do not help each others, where are we going then? and what we really want for our future and the next generations? Any person who thinks like me could say that this photograph could makes some people to consider that at the present time we do need peace, because it is through it we can obtain  and do everything. Besides, we can achieve the unity between many countries and we can stop the violence and the evil that are governing our world.

Exercises of paraphrasing

Excercise 1

Paraphase each sentence. There may be more than one way to rewrite each one. Remenber to change vocabulary, phrases and sentence structure wherever you can.

1. Despite their massive size, elephants are known for being agile.

Although big mamals like elephants have a huge size they are very smart.

2. Because elephants consume up to 500 pounds of food a day, they are able to strip a forest bare in no time.

Elephants can destroy plants very fast due to they eat a lot.

3. Over the centuries, lions have been used in art to represent power and magnificence.

In art, lions are being used for many years in order to mean force and purity.

4. Lions are social animals with one dominant male in each pride.

Lions are known as communicative animals that are organized into groups with a male boss in each one of them.

5. George Washington Carver was a dedicated teacher, in addition, he was known as a talented artist, musician, and researcher who made valuable contributions to his people and his country.

George Washington Carver was a poliphacetic teacher who helped his nation and persons from there through important actions and decisions.

6. Archibald McLeish, known for his poetry, was appointed head of the library of congress by President Roosevelt in 1939.

In 1939, president Roosevelt decided to chose an excellent poet whose name is Archibald McLeish for being in charge of the library of congress.

Excesice 2

Read each paragraph and state the main idea in your own words. If you find the main idea stated directly in the paragraph, be sure to use the paraphrasing techniches that you practice in exersice one.

1. There is plenty of water on the earth. In fact, ther is enouhg water in this planet for everyone to have a huge lake. The troubleis that the water is not always found in the place where is needed. In addition much of the water is polluted or salty. Because of these problems, there are many people without sufficient water.

Main idea: The water’s problem because it is never found in the place where is needed.

2. New oil supplies need to be found to replace those that have been used up. There is a constant search for new oil fields. Oil hunters sink their wells wherever there are signs of oil. Each of these drillings costs thousands and thousands of dollars, and often there is not enough oil to make it profitable. Nevertheless, the search for new oil never ends.

Main idea: Old oil supplies have to be replace because of many reasons, that is why we need to look for them frequently.

3. Quakers, a religious group known as the Society of Friends, have always worke for human causes. Before the Civil War in the United States, they werw against slavery and led the movement to help salve escape from the southern part of the United States and seek freedom in the northern part, today, they fight hunger and disease around the globe and still aid people fleeing tyranny and war. Their beliefs are based on the principles of pacifism and simple living.

Main idea: Quakers who is a religous group of friends is always working for problems of the humanity.

Exercise 3

Summary of 100 words of the text Student Rights.

Students should have rights in any university due to nowadays they never have a say in issues such as faculty selection, curriculum planning and sheduling. The major issue is that never in this university have students been permitted to interview to examine the credential of, or even meet prospective professors. Besides, we attend classes from Monday to Friday and even on Saturdays and we know what we have to learn to be successfull people. For these reasons, Students have to deal with scheduling and curriculum planning process since it is something that affect directly our lives.

Finding the main idea

The answer to this question is the main idea. The Main idea refers to what a paragraph or an article is about. "Main" means what is important, or key, the heart of the matter. "Idea" means the thought, the thesis or the topic.

 If you want to read more see (Finding the main idea)

A Definition of Topic

A topic is the main organizing principle of a discussion, either verbal or written. Topics offer us an occasion for speaking or writing and a focus which governs what we say. They are the subject matter of our conversations, and the avenues by which we arrive at other subjects of conversations. Consider, for instance, a recent class discussion. Although your instructor determined what topic you discussed initially, some students probably asked questions that led to other topics. As the subjects of our discussions lead to related subjects, so do the topics we write about lead to related topics in our academic studies. However, unlike the verbal conversations we have, each individual piece of writing we produce usually focuses on a single topic. Most effective writers learn that when they present a well-defined, focused, and developed topic, they do a better job of holding their readers' attention and presenting appropriate information than if they had not attempted to place boundaries on the subject of their writing.

References:

- Writing@CSU (A Definition of Topic)

- Wikipedia (Topic Article) 

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