Can I just ask a stupidly obvious question, please?

[Sally, la reina]

Can you give me a nice, solid answer?



How do you define expository writing?


How about autobiography?



Can they ever be combined?

if so, could you write a paper following conventions of both about yourself?

if not, why not? What type of research or literary paper would you like to undertake?

[Félix]

Oh shit.

[Sally, la reina]

Is it okay to ask my kids to read the paper every day and to make them write a summary?

[Sally, la reina]

And to reward them with fake "bucks"?

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

What grade is this?

[Félix]

Yes! Excellent idea!

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Expository writing explains an idea or theme, using facts as examples. It's not analytical, or opinionated. Autobiography is writing about oneself. Yes, they can be combined. Yes, you could write an expository paper about yourself.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Write a summary of the entire paper? A newspaper? That seems like a lot of summarizing.

[Félix]

A summary of what they read.

[Tom]

Sally wrote: "Is it okay to ask my kids to read the paper every day and to make them write a summary?"

Newspaper, or BBC/Yahoo/Google News/CNN main page?



I take it this would be for middle or elementary school students? For some sort of English class? If you're asking for a couple of paragraphs each day from each student, i suspect you'll quickly find yourself overwhelmed with papers to read/grade, perhaps once or twice a week would be work better? Though if you can manage daily, more power to you. If you do this, it might also be interesting if you can find old newspaper articles from significant events in the past couple of hundred years, and look at similarities and differences in the way the stories were written compared to today.

[Sally, la reina]

And to buy weird clothes at garage sales for them to wear in spontaneous performances?

[Sally, la reina]

It has to be a newspaper, and it has to be one of the dinky local ones. SO they can write letters of response and they'll actually get published.

I did it in the town I taught in last. It worked and was fun enough.

[Sally, la reina]

I'm going to teach 7-12 grade English, one section of each grade, but junior/seniors combined and one grade of phonetics/morphology.

[Sally, la reina]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Write a summary of the entire paper? A newspaper? That seems like a lot of summarizing."

A summary of an article from the sports page or a summary/response to an editorial.

[Sally, la reina]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Expository writing explains an idea or theme, using facts as examples. It's not analytical, or opinionated. Autobiography is writing about oneself. Yes, they can be combined. Yes, you could wri..."

I'm going to do this. An autobiographical research paper.

[Michael]

Sally wrote: "Is it okay to ask my kids to read the paper every day and to make them write a summary?"

I think that's a good idea and it sounds like fun. But the entire paper seems like a lot, why not read the whole paper and write a summary on the section they like best?

[Jaimie]

Sally wrote: "And to buy weird clothes at garage sales for them to wear in spontaneous performances?"

I love that idea! It's fun and can spark their creativity.

[Jaimie]

Sally wrote: "And to reward them with fake "bucks"?"

I like that too. And maybe whoever has the most at the end of the year (or month or semester) gets a prize.