Sindbad, like Ulysses, is one of the most famous antique marine however his crew disappointed him. Indeed, in spite of travelling a lot; they never learnt new language, so in order to be proud of his crew Sindbad decided to head for to an island chain. These islands are famous for their education; in fact each island has got a specialty: Writing, Reading, and Vocabulary.

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Dico’s

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First of all, Sinbad selected the island of Vocabulary, where a great teacher lived: Dico. During their leg, the crew had to learn new words, expression and Dico was enjoy to teach, but Sinbad and his crew had not a lot of time so the lesson was very short and concise. Of course, Dico introduce his course by explaining what they had to do and understand during this few hours: “we will look at strategies for dealing with unknown words and for building your vocabulary”. Like every class, there is a part of students who are no nervous about this lesson, and of course a part that are very anxious. Dico gave them some advices like:

Using context to guess the meaning of words

Choosing a dictionary and deciding when to use it

Ignoring unknown words

Looking at the different ways a dictionary can help you

The use of synonyms and near synonyms in academic texts

Learning words in families

Despite advices, it is easier to tell that instead use it and work it. All beginners use context to understand unknown words, cause the most important it’s not to understand all words, while you find your answers and understand the sense of word, why do you spend time in some research in dictionary? Using synonyms can clarify some expressions, but sometimes we can replace words by more general words or by pronouns (it, them), so be careful when you read a text!!

At least, Dico gave a little summary (Dico’laws) of what they did during the lesson and advised Sinbad to go to the island to Reading in order to continue logically lessons of the crew, so they could apply what they had learned.

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Encyclo’s

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Taking Dico’s advice, Sinbad decided heading for the island for Reading, where lived Encyclo, who could find information in texts by scanning. Like Dico, Encyclo introduce purposes of his course: “we will look at:

Making your reading more efficient by defining your purpose to reading

Finding information quickly by scanning

Topic sentences and how they can help you understand a text

Identifying the main arguments in a text

Summarising the information you find”

First of all, when you read a text, you have to differentiate specific information, background. If you need specific information (what information do you need to answer the question?), you should read in detail. The purpose of background reading is to gather general information about the assignment topic. During reading the text, you check that is relevant, read carefully and choose only the information that is useful to you.

Encyclo’s speciality is scanning, that is to say running your eye very quickly over a page looking for the key words and ignoring all the others. You can exercise this capacity every day, when you buy a book, a magazine.

Encyclo could start the next lesson by a lesson on How to write a good paragraph? Of course, he defined a paragraph: a section of writing consistency of one or more sentences giving information about the same topic. In order to present what each paragraph discusses, we use topic sentences; often they are beginning paragraphs because they give both introduce and give an overview of a paragraph.

To finish, Encyclo gave the most important advice: “You should always read your essay to find grammar and spelling mistakes and to check that your argument is logical and that the information you have included is relevant”.

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Stylo’s

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The last destination was obviously: the island of Writing, where lived Stylo, the great novelist. Upon arrival, they discovered an island separated into two opinions: For or Against to conduct medical experiments on animals like vivisection? It was in this political climate that they were received by Stylo, he explained the situation and decided to use this context to illustrate his lesson. So, at least, the crew could be able to write an essay which exposed their point of view about vivisection (or another subject of the arguing). First of all, Stylo gave them the skills required to write an essay:

analysing the title;

deciding on a structure;

planning the essay;

separating main points and supporting points;

linking ideas.

Moreover, in order to help them, Stylo explained his owner method to apprehend an essay, his method was entitled PQRS analysis. One of students asked the mean of letters, so Stylo answered:

P: helps you to make sure you write a complete answer

Q: tells you how to answer the question. Whats’ the question word? Discuss. This mean that you show you understand arguments for and against the statement, and should come to a conclusion.

R: keeps you relevant. What are the other relevant words? Identifying these words (all of them!) helps you to focus on the question and keep your essay relevant. It also provides key index words.

S: helps you organise your essay, and your research. What is the structure of the essay? The question word will help you to decide this. An essay in which you discuss a statement requires an introduction, a body including points for and against the statement and a conclusion.

In front of this stupid class, Stylo began to be disappointed when one oh them said an explication of what he had understood and remembered his school, what a surprise for Sinbad and Stylo! So Gyro said:

” An introduction is where you define terms and state how you are going to approach the question, the body is the main part of the essay where you lay out the facts for and against, an finally the conclusion is where you summarise the mains ideas and give your final opinion.”

At least, the class was divided into two groups, and each group wrote an essay: Against and For. Stylo was surprised by this essays, and offered something special for the major prom, I say: Gyro (Gyro’s price).

 

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The end?

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Sinbad and his crew returned to the sea, and their next destination will be the Atlantide, the education trip was not finished for this team. So, what do you think to append our heroes?