A Discourse Approach in Reading Week 10

           Today we studied new lesson that was “Cause and Effect”. Teacher assigned us to write on the whiteboard about causes and effects of global warming.

          Next, teacher explained about causes and effects.

          Cause/Effect is used to show how the facts or concepts result due to other facts, events or concepts. Words that signal this type of text structure are...

           A graphic organizer may be used to represent the relationship between the causes and effects.

           Then, we read the text about students are not allowed to chew gum in class. We highlighted discourse markers , underlined the causes ,and did the diagram.

    Students are not allowed to chew gum in my class. While some students think that I am just being mean, there are many good reasons for this rule. First, some irresponsible students make messes with their gum. They may leave it on the bottoms of desks, drop it on the floor, or put it on other people's property. Another reason why I don't allow students to chew gum is because it is a distraction. When they are allowed to chew gum, students are more worried about having it, popping it, chewing it, and snapping it then they are in listening, writing, reading, and learning. This is why I do not allow students to chew gum in my class.

Source: http://www.ereadingworks heets.com/test-structure/patterns-of-organization/cause- and-effect/

           Then, we see and read a list of Cause and Effect markers in page 44 ,find the meaning and example about how to use them in the sentence.           After,we did Skill Practice 1.This is example for Skill Practice 1

             E                                       C 1. A great deal pollution is caused by power plants that produce electricity by burning coal.

                  C                               E
2.Because of a severe storm in the area, our plane was three hours late taking off.

               C                                E

3.The prices of new car are forcing many people to keep their old car longer than they used to.

          Next, we did Skill Practice 2 as we read the following texts, circle the Causes and Effects , Markers and look for the specific causes and effects. Then complete the cause and effect diagram.

          In text2 is about the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank.

Source:Pakenham,K.2005:18-21

    A. Because of the crew's lack of experience, many lifeboats were only half full when they left the Titanic.    B. The Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, with the loss of over 1,500 lives.    C. The ship's officers paid no attention to warnings about icebergs near the Titanic.    D. The ship's owners decided to save money by equipping the Titanic with sixteen lifeboats instead of forty-eight the designer had planed.    E. The crew had little time to get to know the ship and its emergency equipment.    F. As a result of this decision, the Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew.

What are your attitudes with this the lesson?         In my opinion, this lesson is important. Cause and Effect to show how the facts or concepts result due to other facts, events or concepts. I think causes and effects was hard because some discourse marker, I've never known, some the vocabularies in the text were hard, some the vocabularies were easy. Sometime I confused what is cause or effect. But I tried to translated it and guessed from meaning. When I find discourse marker, it make me understand clearly.

Phetcharat Boonmee 574102129 57/16