Expository essays include: • Essays that describe how to do something. • Essays that analyze events, ideas, objects, or written works. • Essays that describe a process. • Essays that explain/describe an historical event. • Essays that convey information and explain the topic. • Essays that report about an event/situation.
II. Guidance for Expository Writing
1. Definition of Expository Writing
• Expository essays require that the writer give information, explain the topic or define something. They are best developed by the use of facts and statistical information, cause and effect relationships or examples. • Since they are factual, they are written without emotion and usually in the third person. The use of the pronoun “I” is not usually found in this form of essay.
1. What kind of extra-curricular activities are held on campus? Choose one of your favorite activities and write about why you like it. 2. What kind of voluntary jobs or social activities have you experienced? Tell your classmates about one of these jobs/activities and explain why you found it to be enjoyable. 3. What kinds of natural disasters have you experienced or witnessed? • A disastrous snow storm; • A devastating hurricane or typhoon; • A severe drought; • A rampant flood. Discuss with your partner the cause and effect of one such experience.
2. Main Patterns of an Expoription
Classification
Emphasis on the similarities shared by all the members of a class; for example, cats, dogs, and birds can be classified as animals.
Unit 3 Expository Writing
Learning Aims and Objectives
• Students who have engaged successfully with the learning activities proposed in this unit should be able to: • Have an overall understanding of expository organizational patterns; • To identify main ideas and support for main ideas in expository essays; • To organize and write an expository essay; • To explain or support a generalization by illustration, definition, classification and division; • To expound by description of process or by comparison and contrast; • To use transitions to increase coherence.
I. Lead-in Activities II. Guidance for Expository Writing III. Practice IV. Assignments
I. Lead-in Activities
Activity 1: Choose one of the following two questions and talk about it with your partners.
Activity 2:
Listen to the following passage “Stroke Prevention Tips” by Carol Pearson adapted from VOA news.
Unit 3 expository.mp3 • What are the problems mentioned in this passage? • How do the pollution particles in the air enter the body? • What is the next step for scientists in their work?