Analyzing a Student Text: How to Be Fit and Healthy Written by Roland - Case Study Example

ANALYZING A STUDENT TEXT Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: (12 November 2010) Table of Contents An Explanation Text 4 How to Be Fit and Healthy Written by Roland (Year 9) 4 Linguistic analysis 5 Text level 5 Sentence level 8 Word level 11 Spelling and punctuation 12 Reflection and critique 12 ANALAYZING A STUDENT TEXT An Explanation Text How to Be Fit and Healthy Written by Roland (Year 9) Being fit and healthy is something everyone hopes and wishes for. However it is not that easy with all the everyday fatty foods and soft drinks. Lack of exercises would also result to being unfit. In the following, I will explain the best ways to look after yourselves and be fit and healthy. Firstly, the most important thing in being fit and healthy is to eat the right amount of food serves across 6 different groups. An average adult’s daily food serving should have 10-12 serves of cereal, 1-2 serves of meat and fish products, 2-3 serves of dairy, 3-4 serves of vegetables, 1-2 fruit and 1-2 extras. If you remind yourselves of what to eat everyday, you will have a fit and healthy body without doubt. Secondly, exercising is what helps you get fit. Eating the right amount of food serves but without the exercise would be unbalancing for your body. Exercising burns away the calories so you do not get fat. The best time for exercising is before or after meals so it helps you digest. Last but not least, having a good night’s sleep helps to get through your next day. A bad night’s sleep gives you no habitate and tiredness which refrains you from working out or participating in sports. So you can say that sleeping is as important as previous points. If you achieve the above points, you will easily be fit and healthy. It is OK to give yourself a treat of chocolate or McDonald’s once in a while. But in all, you have to remember to eat the right food serves, exercise on a daily basis and have a good night’s sleep. These three things are what help you be fit and healthy. Linguistic analysis Learning English as a second language (ESL) can take several methods of assessment in the classroom (Rotter, & Bendl, 1978). The student must be assessed on whether they understand the concepts taught in class. The assessment may be in form of dictation, cloze tests, multiple choice tests, role plays, strip stories, portfolios, and writing samples. In writing samples such as “How to Be Fit and Healthy” Written by Roland are easy tasks where the students comprehension skills and grammatical skills are tested. Text level The student of the explanation text “How to Be Fit and Healthy” can be said to be significantly catching up with learning ESL. The content in the text is flowing and has a meaning and relation to the title. He has discussed how everyone hopes to be healthy but it must come at a cost of avoiding junk foods. The student has continued to give three ways of staying healthy as in line with the topic and this makes the whole text have a purposeful meaning (Kawakami, et al. 1991). This is an argumentative type of text and the student has presented ideas to that argue and support the topic. He clearly gives three ways to remain fit and healthy i.e. eating the right amount of food serves, exercising, and good night sleep. This text serves the purpose to educate the readers on the means to stay healthy and given the student writing the reader can clearly understand the three outlined ways and practice them easily. The student has oriented, engaged and persuaded the reader on how to be fit and healthy. This type of writing requires presentation of facts and explaining them to the reader in a simple and understandable language (Asher, 1994). The student can be said to have achieved this. Giving the three major reasons why persons remain unhealthy and discussing them into details means the student understood the topic and consequently transmitted the knowledge to the reader in detail. For example, the first reason is eating the right amount of food serves across 6 different groups; these are broken down as “An average adult’s daily food serving should have 10-12 serves of cereal, 1-2 serves of meat and fish products, 2-3 serves of dairy, 3-4 serves of vegetables, 1-2 fruit and 1-2 extras”; this demonstrates a clear argument on the issues. He also starts with the most important which means the crucial bits must be met first before advancing to the rest. The student has also organized the essay successfully into paragraphs; the five paragraphs for the student means that each idea is developed on one paragraph while the introduction and conclusion takes the remaining two. The student has also presented a catching introductory statement that propels the reader to read more and a purposeful concluding statement that sums up the topic effectively (Asher, 1994). Cohesion has been partially achieved in the write up; the student has explained the topic tracking the participants. He uses the first and third person participle to initiate and explain ideas in the essay. e.g. "I will explain.” “If you remind yourselves of what to eat everyday, you will have a fit and healthy body without doubt.” I and You have been used to refer to persons in the essay. However pronouns have not featured much, also there are no many words that replace verb phrases or whole clauses (English, & Sarah, 1996). The student has also not put in to use any phrases that connote cohesion it is just plain sentences that stand on their own without connections and appropriate cohesion. There is also limited use of pointing words in the essay and are only used in the fifth paragraph where the student refers to the points above. The word the in the statement ‘but without the exercise would be unbalancing for your body’ is misplaced and would be better omitted since it points to nothing. It is better written ‘but without exercises it would be unbalancing for your body.’ The word association is also poor in the there is no use of synonyms and autonyms. He has repeatedly used the words fit and healthy in all the five paragraphs rather than finding synonyms that would replace either or both words (English, & Sarah, 1996). Synonyms that would be used instead of fit would be able bodied or well. The student has also repeated so many words in the essay which are unnecessary. Words such as exercising can be read more than six times in the five paragraphs this is not effective and would rather be replaced by a synonym or use of pointing words and phrases. Text is well connected in that the ideas are well sequenced where the student has used words such as firstly, secondly and last thus giving ideas a clear series. Connecting ideas is a major problem since connectors such as in addition, furthermore, what’s more, similarly, equally, moreover, above all, on top of that, indeed, and also have been minimally used. The sentences are short and stand out alone while they could be added together to form better complex sentences. In the first paragraph the first two sentences would be connected with the word ‘however’ rather than writing them as two. Commas and semi colons in the connection would be necessary to show breaks in the sentence and make it flow with the ideas (English, & Sarah, 1996). Conditional clauses such as in that case, however, otherwise, nevertheless, despite this, on the other hand, still, even so, though, in any case, and yet have not been utilized fully in the essay. Though ‘however and so’ has been applied it does not bring the effectiveness of the sentences as use of other clauses. The major problem was on the choice of conditional clauses and the much repetition of the clause ‘so’. Sentence level The sentences mainly focus on cause – effect. The student has given short simple sentences that give one idea at a time (Bybee, et al., 1994). The ideas are based on the steps on how to be fit and healthy giving the methods and effects of each method. The student uses these sentences to give the three methods on how to be healthy and at the same time gives some consequences that arise is one does not follow them. The sentence level of the student can be said to be improved and is at medium level. The student is able to construct short constructive sentences that have been joined to express the ideas. The sentences however lack continuity where many of the sentences are statements on their own giving different ideas on the subject (Bybee, et al., 1994). The first paragraph for example has three lines and four sentences where the first is an introductory statement on the wishes of people, the second sentences is a negative statement on why good health is not easy to achieve. The third sentence is a continuation of the second sentence on reasons why health is not achieved, while the forth is a thesis statement on what the student plans to discuss in the paper. The second and third may be joined since they give the same meaning and become sentence which could read “However it is not that easy with all the everyday fatty foods, soft drinks and lack of exercises that result to being unfit”. Paragraph two has longer constructed sentences where all give meaning to the topic discussed and the continuity is good. Third paragraph has short constructive sentences and has not applied any connector of sentences. The sentences stand alone with each having a different meaning thus they lack continuity. The fourth paragraph with three short sentences can also be joined to form more complex and compound ones. The conditional clause ‘so’ can also be replaced to avoid the repetition of the previous sentences. The sentences however remain purposeful in delivering the message of the title. The fifth paragraph has a problem of word set in the last sentence which states “These three things are what help you be fit and healthy.” Instead of stating “These three things are what help you be fit and healthy” The ‘is’ will be replaced by are and ‘helps’ replaced by help. The last paragraph also acts as a summary of the whole essay and gives choices to the reader which means that the student has achieved sequence in the essay and has not mixed up ideas. The student has mixed up past and present tense, and has also applied a future tense. The present tense can be seen in statements like; “hopes and wishes for, is to eat, you do not get, it helps you digest, you have to remember”. Future tenses can be identified in sentences like; “I will explain the best ways, you will have a fit and healthy body, you will easily be fit and healthy.” In the thesis statement the student could have used a past tense since the action of writing the essay is already done i.e. this paper explains the best ways to look after oneself and be fit and healthy The subject verb agreement has been expressed properly in the essay it has been used to avoid grammatical errors. E.g. average adult’s daily food serving, Exercising burns away, A bad night’s sleep gives, a good night’s sleep, serving should have, exercise would be. The only where it does not agree is the last sentence stating ‘three things is what helps’ as a replacement for ‘three things are what helps’. The student has applied several persuasive devices like the mention of fatty foods and soft drinks which are common and most loved by people instead of using junk foods he appeals the name to appease the readers and give a clearer meaning. He has also stated the different serves of foods that persons need to take such as; cereals, meat and fish products, dairy, vegetables, and fruits. The student also persuades the reader to keep fit and healthy though he/she also states about an occasional treat of chocolate or McDonald. The student also tactfully advices the reader on the importance of a good night sleep, a healthy diet and exercises in living healthy and strong. The student can be described as a good reader in that he has optimized the topic to be something one can understand easily, he/she understood words quickly, has a large capacity of working memory, expresses the arguments in details and connects the ideas effective even as an ESL (Kawakami, et al. 1991). The essay is written in a declaration mode though it also has an imperative mode (Bybee, et al., 1994). It declares the steps required to achieve a healthy and fit body and strictly outlines specific details of each step. Statements showing declaration and imperativeness include; it is not that easy with all the everyday fatty foods and soft drinks, the most important thing in being fit and healthy is to eat the right amount of food serves across 6 different groups, exercising is what helps you get fit, having a good night’s sleep helps to get through your next day, and you have to remember to eat the right food serves. The student has incorporated a bit of polarity to attract the reader; in the first sentence he/she drafts positive polarity by depicting how all individuals wish for good health. It states ‘Being fit and healthy is something everyone hopes and wishes for’ this attracts the reader to read on and find out what is discussed on health. He continues that it is not that easy giving a negative polarity to show the reader that there must be sacrifices for it. The statement ‘Eating the right amount of food serves but without the exercise would be unbalancing for your body’ also makes the reader to go on to identify more in the essay. Word level The student has used simple words and very little of vocabularies; this does not means that he/she should apply numerous jargons in the essay and make it difficult to understand. But better use of the dictionary would help the student in finding out better vocabulary that can replace the plain English he/she has written. The one vocabulary used habituate is already miss pelt in the essay thus cannot apply (Asher, 1994). The use of plain English has however helped the student choose the words accurately, precisely and appropriately to good extent and this has augured well in helping the reader understand the topic. The abstract noun tiredness has been used effectively to represent a feeling that one gets when he/she does not exercise. Spelling and punctuation Spelling and punctuation in this essay has been tackled effectively and only the word ‘habitate’ has been spelt wrongly and should be ‘habituate’. Punctuation can only be established through reading loud and mainly depends on the accent and attentiveness of the student in class. Reflection and critique The student has demonstrated good understanding of English and though he/she has studied English as a second language (ESL) it can be seen as a passion (Asher, 1994). However, the student needs to address issues like vocabularies, compounding of sentences, word associations, text consecutiveness, conditional clauses and sentence processes in order to produce a finer essay the next time he/she writes. There is always room for improvement and through addressing the mistakes in this essay the student can learn to be better. ESL learners have challenges in writing since they are not used to it but with increased practice and dedication they are able to perform well. It also requires a passion for language so that the student aspirations to learn the language can propel him/her to continuous exercises which ensure the student understands and comprehends the language (Asher, 1994). Talking more in English and exercising the little one knows also helps to learn faster and comprehensively since a person build on the little one knows to comprehensive language use. References Asher, R.E. (1994). The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press Bybee, J. et al., (1994). The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press English, L. & Sarah, L. (1996). Business across Cultures: Effective Communication Strategies. Longman: Addison-Wesley Kawakami, A., et al. (1991). Reading processes of English sentences in Japanese and Canadian students. Reading and Writing. Vol.3, No.1, 31-42 Rotter, W. & Bendl, H. (1978). Your Companion to English Texts: Comprehension - Analysis - Appreciation – Production. Kollegstufe/Abitur/Universität München: Manz Read More