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[Isidnar]

Hello everyone,

I have two Chinese high-level managers from an international corporation who need to improve their writing skills, particularly for writing articles for the company website. I have 100 hours over six months to do this, so I will also be teaching them general writing skills. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good writing textbook that's available in China?

[ericthered]

It all depends on their level of English. I recommend you go to a large bookstore and browse around in the Written English section, there are a million different books, some will suck and some won't.

[mlaeux]

I'm a big fan of using graphic organizers. Here's a nice article on the subject. [url]http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/strats/graphicorganizers/index.htm/url]

and...

I've gotten a lot of milage from this hamburger graphic organizer using CRISS strategies.
[url]http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/hamburger-paragraph-writing-form//url]

If it were me, and these men had a decent command of English,
I would combine Project CRISS strategies and 6 + 1 Writing Traits.

CRISS
[url]http://www.projectcriss.com/pdf_files/31_S04_6PLUS1TRAIT.PDF/url]
[url]http://www.projectcriss.com/pdf_files/16_S99_FOREIGNLANGUAGE.PDF/url]

6 + ! Writing Traits
[url]http://educationnorthwest.org/traits//url]


Hmmm...the link button doesn't seem to be working for me, sorry 'bout that.

[Fozzwaldus]

nice links!

not so useful to me in an academic writing setting - but very good for general purposes I'd imagine!

Isnidar - sounds like you need a business English/business emails book - pleny online get googling

[mlaeux]

Fozz - Right. I'm a upper primary classroom teacher. Some of the graphic organizers and in general, the Project CRISS/6 + 1 Writing Traits stuff may be useful, but you're probably right about the business English thing...

[The Local Dialect]

Isnidar, I would recommend you look at the sites of major universities. Google keywords like "university writing center" and you will get a ton of resources, in many cases downloadable for free. Here's an example: http://uwc.ucf.edu/handouts.php

I teach a course that is very writing intensive (AP Language and Composition) and for the writing portion I basically created my own curriculum using these sorts of handouts and presentations. If you search around you can find handouts that include exercizes, or easily create your own.

I honestly haven't found a textbook available for purchase in China that suits my needs for advanced writing students, but there are plenty of free resources online.

[Isidnar]

Thanks for the advice, everyone.