Discursive Essay

You are going to write a discursive essay that will be due on Monday Feb. 20th.

Here are some links that will explain what a discursive essay is:

http://custom-writing.org/blog/writing-tips/free-essay-writing-tips/228.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_5107873_write-discursive-essay.html

http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/exams/discursiveessays.pdf

Carbon Footprint for that cheeseburger you just ate.

http://www.openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html

Quick Participle Grammar Notes

Participles - Present and Past – Verbs Ending in “ing” and “ed”

• Present participles end in “ING” (interesting)
• Past participles end in “ED” (interested)


Uses:

1. When present participles (ing) are used like adjectives or adverbs, they are ACTIVE in meaning:
 Modern art is interesting.
 Pour boiling water onto the pasta.
 She sat in the corner crying.

2. When past participles (ed) are usled like adjectives or adverbs, they are passive in meaning.
 I am interested in modern art.
 Look at that broken doll.
 He sat in his chair, filled with sadness at his mother’s funeral.

3. Participles used after a noun act like a relative clause.
I met a woman riding a donkey. (=who was riding …)
The car stolen in the night was later found. (=that was stolen…)

4. Participles used as adverbs can also describe:

• Two actions happening at the same time -- She sat by the fire reading a book.

• Two actions that happen one after another – Opening his case, he took out a gun.

Note: If it is important to show that the first action is completed before the second action begins, we use the perfect participle – (having had, having finished)
Having finished lunch, we set off on our journey.
Having had a shower, she got dressed.

• Two actions that happen BECAUSE of another.—Being tired, he went to bed early last night.

5. Many verbs are followed by “ing” forms:
I spent the holiday reading.
Don’t waste time thinking about the past.
Let’s go swimming.
He keeps asking me to go out on a date.

Relative Clause exercise

Here is a practice exercise for relative clauses.

Vancouver Island

https://docs.google.com/a/canada-english.com/document/d/19ithS7k46MoVb1DGCvvbohuSzFlw9qM0abzlGDyiP-k/edit?hl=en_US

Online Vocabulary Game with a bonus

Here is a site where you can practice vocabulary words AND also donate free rice to people in need.

http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1376

News Articles for Reading Practice

Here are two websites for reading the news. Try to read a small article every night. For more practice, write a short summary of the article or how you feel about it. This is a good practice for Journal writing.

Simple English News:

http://esl.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=esl&cdn=education&tm=6&f=11&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&st=11&zu=http%3A//www.simpleenglishnews.com/

Easy English Times:

http://esl.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=esl&cdn=education&tm=7&f=11&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&st=11&zu=http%3A//www.easyenglishtimes.com/

Five Easy Apps for Learning English

Check out the website below for Apps for learning English.

http://esl.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=esl&cdn=education&tm=6&f=11&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&st=11&zu=http%3A//www.simpleenglishnews.com/