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Topic: Information structuring

This topic looks at how we can present the same information in different ways, by using different word orders and grammatical patterns. For instance, instead of I can understand that bit, we might change the order and say That bit I can understand to give a different emphasis. Learning about these different patterns helps in understanding the choices made by writers and speakers, and in varying the patterns used in our own writing for effect.

Relative clauses in composition: Activity

  • This is a dance group. This dance group does not exclude people.
  • This is a dance group which does not exclude people. 

  • The same status was granted to Montenegro. Montenegro’s inhabitants were encouraged to identify with the territory’s historic identity.
  • The same status was granted to Montenegro, whose inhabitants were encouraged to identify with the territory’s historic identity.

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Changing voice

Goals

  • Practise changing voice: from active sentences to passive, and passive sentences to active.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that today, we will practise turning actives into passives, and passives into actives.

Activity 1 in the right hand menu presents students with active sentences. Ask students to work individually, in pairs, or in groups and to write down a passive version of the sentence.

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Changing voice: Activity 1

Two guards examined the BMW. → The BMW was examined by two guards.

Renoir painted the same road a few months later. → The same road was painted by Renoir a few months later.

His critics were attacking him on all sides. → He was being attacked by his critics on all sides.

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Changing voice: Activity 2

The leader of the party is elected by the political party. → The political party elects the leader of the party.

The full costs of their care are met by the NHS. → The NHS meets the full costs of their care.

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Foregrounding - activity

In pairs or small groups, explore instances of grammatical foregrounding in Funeral Blues. This could be done by producing an analysis grid, where students examine how a grammatical feature of the text is foregrounded, and most importantly, discuss the potential meaning of the foregrounded feature. How do the instances of foregrounding add to our understanding and enjoyment of the poem?

To get you started, here are a couple of ideas:

Grammatical feature

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Genre of Argument and Discussion

Lesson Plan

Goals:

  • Discuss the tone and purpose of argument and disucssion in essays.
  • Identify the discouse structures and organisation features.
  • Analyse how grammar contributes to the organisation of the essay.

Lesson Plan

Before this lesson, you should complete the lesson An Introduction to Genre, so that learners are familiar with the key terms discourse structure and register.

NB: This lesson and lesson plan are divided into two parts!

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Genre of Argument and Discussion

Activities: Part 1

Warm-up

What kind of text is an argument or discussion?

What is its purpose?

What makes it different from other texts?

Activity 1

Read the essay on the hand out.

1. What is the topic of the essay? What facts do you learn?

2. What is the author's perspective? How can you tell?

3. How is this text written? What is the tone? Why is it written in this way?

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Genre of Encyclopaedia Entries

Lesson Plan

Goals:

  • Identify the purpose and tone of encyclopaedia entries
  • Analyse the discourse structure and register features
  • Produce an encyclopaedia entry using the same techniques

Lesson Plan

Before this lesson, you should complete the An Introduction to Genrelesson, so that learners are familiar with key terms discourse structure and register.

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Genre of Encyclopaedia Entries

Activities

Warm up

What kind of text is an encyclopaedia?

What is its purpose?

What makes it different from other texts?

Activity 1

Read the Tiger encyclopaedia entry.

  1. What are three facts you learn about tigers?
  2. How is this text written? What is the tone? Why is it written in this way?

What three words best describe the tone and style of this text?

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Information structuring

In this activity, students will be asked to find different ways to express a similar meaning. You may be surprised at just how many different ways you can find! The activity is based on an idea from Max Morenberg’s book Doing Grammar (3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 2002).

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Information structuring: Activity

  • Sally was late. It annoyed the boss.

  • Sally was late and it annoyed the boss.
  • It annoyed the boss that Sally was late.
  • Sally’s lateness annoyed the boss.

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Preposing

In this exercise you can see what happens when you move elements, particularly Direct Objects, earlier in the clause.

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Preposing: Activity

Some things I can remember without writing them down. → I can remember some things without writing them down.

Hardbacks I wouldn’t lend to anyone. → I wouldn't lend hardbacks to anyone.

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Sentence generator

What did you and your family do on the holidays? In this activity you will experiment with our fun sentence generator which reports on some unusual holiday happenings!

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Sentence generator: Activity

Click on each column to scroll up and down, and make different combinations.

Click on the dice at the top of the columns to get a new random ordering of elements.

In slide 2, re-order elements by clicking within a column and dragging to left or right (or by clicking on the arrows at the tops of the columns).

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Writing with tense and aspect

This lesson asks students to apply their understanding of tense, aspect, and time to structure passages of writing.

Goals

  • Arrange sentences in order based on tense and aspect in the sentences.
  • Practise ordering and re-ordering sentences in various ways using tense and aspect to convey the appropriate order of events.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that today, we will arrange a passage of writing and explore expressions of time in English.

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Active or passive voice?

Are the following constructions active or passive?

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Y6 GPaS Test: Active or passive?

Indicate whether each example is active or passive:

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Active and passive

Consider the two sentences below. What is the difference between them?

  1. The council workers cleared the path.
  2. The path was cleared by the council workers.

The same event is taking place in both sentences, but the sentences have been expressed in different ways.

In the first example the focus is on what the council workers did (they cleared the path), whereas in the second example, the focus is on what happened to the path (it was cleared by the council workers).

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Active and passive: Creating cohesion

When does a writer or speaker choose to use a passive rather than an active? There can be various reasons. We’ll look here at the effects of using passives in different contexts.

Consider sentence (1). Would it be more natural to follow it with (2) or (3)? Why?

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Preposing and postposing

As writers and speakers there are many ways in which we can present information to readers or hearers by using different word orders and sentence patterns to highlight different aspects of meaning. This is often referred to as information structuring.

There are many ways we can highlight information. Here we will look at two important ones:

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