MIDTESOL Matters
Fall 2004
Keith S. Folse, April Muchmore-Vokoun, and Elena Vestri-Solomon (2004). Great Essays, Second Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Reviewed by Sue Almen-Whittaker
This second edition of the Great Essays high-intermediate to advanced-level writing book has added some extra practice activities via the Houghton Mifflin website but otherwise closely resembles the first edition.
Great Essays contains five units and an extensive appendix. The first unit, “Exploring the Essay,” breaks down the parts of an essay, such as writing an outline, hook, thesis statement, topic sentences, supporting sentences, and conclusion. It also provides several example essays with follow up questions to help students distinguish the four types of essays that appear in the other units: narrative, comparison, cause-effect, and argumentative.
One feature that helps connect each unit to exercises in the appendix is “Building Better Sentences.” Its purpose is to help students write a more varied, concise, and complex sentence instead of several simple, choppy ones. Students are given eleven strategies for achieving this goal.
Two other features which appear in each unit are the “Writer’s Notes” and “Language Focus.” The former is a collection of helpful advice and focus building exercises concerning all parts of essay writing. The latter is related more to the grammatical use of words and phrases within writing, such as connecting words for different types of essays and modals to control tone.
In addition to the “Building Better Sentences” exercises, the appendix contains the following items: an explanation to the seven steps of the writing process, additional grammar practice, a list of connectors, and peer editing sheets for each essay assignment.
Having used the first edition extensively, I can say that there are many great features to this book. It is generally laid out clearly and concisely for the students and the illustrations keep it from being too dry. The peer review sheets are especially helpful in keeping the reviewers focused in on the big picture of organization and cohesiveness instead of being sidetracked by grammar errors.
The only weakness that I have really found is that, for university-bound, advanced-level students, there is no inclusion of outside sources in the example essays. Therefore, because there is no description of how and why to use outside sources or how to cite them, a teacher using Great Essays in a university or pre-university environment may need to supplement some of the chapters.
Sue Almén-Whittaker is an ESL Instructor at The University of Iowa in Iowa City. She can be reached at almenwhittaker@uiowa.edu.
|
K