EAP-Supporting Opinions

Goals of the Activity

This is a consciousness raising activity to raise students awareness of how to support paragraphs. It has four parts.
Part one, Reading- here students read examples from authentic texts of the four common ways to support opinions in paragraphs; 1) an example 2) an explanation 3) an expert opinion 4) a statistic.
Part Two Reading and Labeling – here students read four more examples from authentic texts and try to label them under the four supports 1) an example 2) an explanation 3) an expert opinion 4) a statistic.
Part Three Reading and Analyzing- here students read an example paragraph and discourse analyze it for the four supports 1) an example 2) an explanation 3) an expert opinion 4) a statistic.
Part Four Read and Compare – here students compare the paragraphs they have written, based around the same topic, with the example paragraph in three. How can they improve their paragraphs based around the four supports and the patterns offered in the example paragraphs?

Potential Problems with the Activity

It is important to point out to students that the distinction between the different types of supports can be blurred, (e.g. statistic can easily be used to give an example). The activity is just designed to raise awareness of the need to support opinions and offer some tools for doing so.

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