Entry #12 Three Sample Paragraphs

 Entry #12: Three Sample Paragraphs

Un corazón simple, Gustave Flaubert	The Tiger, William Blake
Finnegan's Wake, by James Joyce.	1984, George Orwell.
@alejmordu     https://twitter.com/alejmordu/status/1285554121966264321

 Picture credits: Alejandro Morduchowicz     @alejmordu

 DECONSTRUCTION PROCESS:

"I've spent the whole morning correcting a text, and actually I removed only one comma. In the afternoon, I added it." Oscar Wilde.

"Publico, para dejar de corregir." Jorge Luis Borges.

"Writing is very easy. You simply have to remove the incorrect words." Mark Twain.

To write good texts, we have to be able to understand the way they are written. And, of course, to be ready to edit our own written pieces.

 

PARAGRAPH 1: 

In SAMPLE 1 the TOPIC SENTENCE is a  falacy. (There are NO CLASSES in Argentina and we haven't noticed it???). The rest of the paragraph is COHESIVE and COHERENT. Language and vocabulary are appropriate. However, because of this topic sentence, the WHOLE paragraph lacks meaning. Pay attention to THEME and RHEME>> where can you find the "incorrect information" (falacy)?? Why is the reader INDUCED to understand something that is NOT real (i.e."no classes")?, Where is this information placed in the sentence? 

"Ante la suspensión de las clases en todo el país, Infobae asumió el rol de difundir contenidos educativos para los chicos que permanecen en cuarentena. Se utilizarán videos de la plataforma educativa Ticmas que acompaña a estudiantes, docentes e instituciones con contenidos y herramientas de aprendizaje, accesible para todos los colegios y de rápida implementación. Las publicaciones serán en torno a tres grandes áreas de conocimientos: humanidades, ciencias y matemática. [...]"

Fuente: INFOBAE. "Día del Profesor. Quién fue José Manuel Estrada."  Disponible en:  https://www.infobae.com/educacion/2020/09/18/dia-del-profesor-quien-fue-jose-manuelestrada/#:~:text=D%C3%ADa%20del%20Profesor%3A%20%C2%BFqui%C3%A9n%20fue,chicos%20que%20permanecen%20en%20cuarentena. Última visita: 18 septiembre 2020.

 

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SAMPLE 2:

Pay attention to the Topic Sentence. The RHEME refers to "PROGRESS and COMPLACENCY". Actually these appear in the rest of the paragraph as: restoration of academic freedom and removal of restrictions in former Soviet Union, and less strict restrictions in China. Pay attention of the EXAMPLES found in the supporting material that reflect the information in the rheme of the TS.

"[...] In the aftermath of the Cold War, considerable progress was made and complacency set in. As mentioned earlier, academic freedom was restored in the former Soviet bloc and a half-century of restriction was largely removed. While the universities in Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union have faced many problems, academic freedom was to a considerable degree observed. The situation in Central and Eastern Europe was, and remains, even more favorable. Even China, where restrictions remained and were tightened after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, loosened up by the end of the century.[...]"

Source: Altbach, P. (2015). "Academic Freedom: International Warning Signs." in International Higher Education, (24). https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2001.24.6938.

 

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SAMPLE 3:

 

The first sentence of this paragraph acts as a TOPIC INTRODUCER. Actually the second sentence is the TOPIC SENTENCE. HOW can we check whether the 2nd sentence is the TS?? Simply by reading and analysing the rest of the paragraph!

[...] The epistemological tenets of a sociocultural perspective are drawn largely from the seminal work of Lev Vygotsky (1978,1986), the Russian psychologist and educator, and his followers Leont’ev (1981) and Luria (1982), and more recently those who have extended his theories, including Cole (1996), John-Steiner 1997), Kozulin (1998), Lantolf (2000, 2006a), Wells(1999), and Wertsch (1991). A sociocultural perspective assumes that human cognition is formed through engagement in social activities, and that it is the social relationships and the culturally constructed materials, signs, and symbols, referred to as semiotic artifacts, that mediate those relationships that create uniquely human forms of higher-level thinking. Consequently, cognitive development is an interactive process, mediated by culture, context, language, and social interaction. Knowledge of the world is mediated by virtue of being situated in a cultural environment and it is from this cultural environment that humans acquire the representational systems that ultimately become the medium, mediator, This suggests that meaning does not reside in language itself, but instead in the social group’s use of language, and therefore cognitive development is characterized as the acquisition and manipulation of cultural tools and knowledge, the most powerful of which is language. According to Wertsch (1995), “individuals have access to psychological tools and practices by virtue of being part of a socio cultural milieu in which those tools and practices have been and continue to be culturally transmitted” (p.141).[...]"

 

Source: Johnson, K. (2009). Defining a Sociocultural Perspective - In Second Language Teacher Education – A Sociocultural Perspective – ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series. New York: Routledge. pp 1-6

 

These texts correspond to two different text types (informative, descriptive text types) and three genres. They are written genres, formal; the first one is a piece of news, the second one is an academic paper and the third one is a chapter from a book. Needless to say, these are all excerpts.

The information included in this entry has been entirely taken from the original post "Lesson 12" by Stella Maris Saubidet Oyhamburu, and will remain here only for my own study purposes.