Lesson Plan

Tools used: newspaper (those columns that have argumentative texts in them), Times, KS Bull, Padlet
90 minutes (two-part lesson)
Subject:

English Language Academic Writing

Topic:

Academic Vocabulary for Argumentative Essays

Level/Stream/
Class size:

Secondary 3 Express Students

Class of 40 students

Venue:

Computer laboratory
One computer for each student

Students
Characteristics

Mixed ability learners

Mostly visual learners

Pre-requisite
Knowledge:

1. Students should have prior knowledge on basic writing structure of argumentative essays.
2. Students should have grasped basic academic vocabulary used in argumentative essays.

Learning
Objectives:

By the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

1. Craft the macro rhetorical goal when writing an argumentative essay by keeping in mind the purpose, the audience and context.
2. Use appropriate academic vocabulary to answer/address the macro rhetorical goal.
3. Apply what they have learnt (Points 1 and 2) in an argumentative essay given to them in the form of an assignment

Duration (min)

Description of activities

Rationale

Resources

Pre-Writing Activity (Identify macro rhetorical goals)

Audience and context awareness activity

Firstly, students pair up and label themselves 'A' or 'B' between the two
of them.

Students will be presented a topic of discussion posed by the teacher.

o Example: There has been a series of theft cases in school. What
are the precautions and measures that can be undertaken to reduce
the theft cases.

Individually, students will be given some time to think about the

precautions and measures which students, parents and school staff can
take to reduce the theft count. Following which, student A will share and
present their ideas to student B.

Thereafter, the teacher will change the audience and context by getting
students to imagine that they are teachers addressing this issue to a group
of concerned parents who have come to know about this issue.
o Student B will imagine himself/herself as a teacher and Student A
will be the concerned parent. Student B will then proceed to share
with Student A the measures the school will be implementing to
tackle the theft problem.

The teacher will then ask the students to list down the differences
between the ways they had presented their points to a friend and to a
parent. Each pair is to write their points on Padlet 1.

Here, the teacher brings to the students attention the concept of

audience awareness and introduces this as a macro rhetorical goal
which they need to take into consideration when writing an essay.

PowerPoint
slides

Padlet
- sample Padlet
site
(http://padlet.
com/wall/bab
cqo73mqei )

Writing Activity
A.

Addressing Macro Rhetorical Goals

The teacher will first explain the meaning of macro rhetorical goals and
the factors which could be included in students essays to achieve the
macro rhetorical goal i.e. audience, purpose and context.

Thereafter, the teacher will show the class a sample essay in which the
writer does not keep in mind the macro rhetorical goals when writing.
Teacher will guide students to identify the macro rhetorical goal in that
essay.
o Teacher can provoke students' thinking by asking questions such
as "What do you think the writer is trying to achieve?" or "What
do you think the question is actually asking?"

Teacher will then guide the students to modify the essay in a way that
keeps in mind the audience, purpose and context.
o Teacher will walk students through the entire essay and check for
its organisation. "Does the organisation of the essay answer
the macro rhetorical goal?"
o Then teacher will show students how to change the organisation
and use words that suit the macro goals for that essay. Teacher
will explain how choice of words may also influence whether the
students achieve the macro rhetorical goals in their essay; which
will be explored in the next section of the lesson.

B. Academic vocabulary
They are tasked to highlight words in the authentic texts. They are to
highlight words that they think are general academic words commonly
found in argumentative texts.
The teacher will highlight salient words and also point out errors (i.e.
words that may not be academic). Students will then research the
synonyms of these words.

Sample essay
(refer to
'References'
page)

Use Padlet to create an academic word list for argumentative texts:

students are to put their findings on Padlet so that the entire class can
refer to the collated word list.
Students are to select sentences from the authentic texts and task students
to use the correct synonym to learn the nuances in meaning.
o e.g. This highlights the issue of
Synonyms: underscores, brings up, stresses, emphasises,
introduces

Deliverables

Students will be given an argumentative essay question as homework.

Give students 1 week to write their essay.

Once the essay has been collected, teacher will give feedback. It is not
necessary to show the students their grades for the essay.

Padlet