Paragraphs: Corrections and Metacognitive Analysis

• Original Paragraphs:

Causes of Students’ Failure

Children’s failing in schools is a very serious matter, and of course, there are some possible reasons for this to be happening which can be considered the most important ones. First of all, despite the fact of that a student’s success or failure through the different subjects has been for many years appreciated by the experts from a perspective that focuses on the individual features of a person, the characteristics of the context in which an infant or teenager is immersed in, such as his or her family and social and economical background, just to name a few examples, are a significant factor to take into account when looking for major causes that produce unsuccessful students. Secondly, as mentioned by Gardner, motivation, which can be instrumental or integrative, and the absence of it, play an important role which can also be crucial for the kind of performance a primary or secondary school learner may have through the course of a year. In the third place, it is also important to pay attention to the atmosphere that is generated by the teacher, because in many cases, a student’s level of anxiety can be too high and counter-productive, ending up as another reason for failure. Lastly, It is worth mentioning that according to the Vygotskian socio-historical theory, we humans learn collaboratively through a process later known by the name of scaffolding, in which expert and novice interact in order to solve a particular task; of course, if the task happens to be too demanding, the learner will end up failing in the enterprise of internalizing the tools that will allow him or her to perform the given task without the help of the teacher or a more advanced peer, and this of course can be what determines if the student will achieve the necessary level in order to be promoted or not. Evidently, the reasons for school failure in children can be varied, but the experts are beginning to realize that they should start looking for other possible triggers that, although it may sound rather strange for some, might be found outside the institutions and located especially in the rest of the community.

Working Women

In United States, a slow but significant improvement can be appreciated in the allowance of women to perform many types of jobs traditionally reserved for men. In the medicine area, for instance, in 1890, women constituted only 5 per cent of the doctors, whereas nowadays the percentage arises almost to 20 per cent. Similarly, legal jobs have shown an increasing acknowledgment in feminine rights: in 1930, from each 100 lawyers and judges, only 2 were women; that number reached to 22 in 1989. However, the most remarkable advance can be perceived in the political field-mainly due to its influence in the course of the Nation-in which women have been able to occupy sites of great influence as senators, majors, governors, Supreme Court judges, etc, in a relatively short period from the law that gave them the chance to vote in 1920. All these achievements leave open the hope of finding women, not only covering a larger number of employments, especially in new areas, but also contributing with their skills and capabilities in the most important making-decision jobs.

Cited Works

Shrum, J. & Glisan E. (2005) Understanding the Role of Contextualized Input, Output, and

Interaction in Language Learning. Teacher´s Handbook. Contextualized Language

Instruction. Boston.

Women's International Center (1995), Women's History in America

Presented by Women's International Center, Compton’s Newsmedia, inc., Retrieved

from http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm

• Rewritten Paragraphs:

Causes of Students’ Failure

There are external and internal reasons for children’s failure in schools. First of all, it is worth considering the social and economic background in which a student is immersed in. Secondly, concerning the internal aspect of the causes, instrumental or integrative motivation is critical to the attainment of success. In the third place, it is also important to pay attention to the atmosphere that is generated by the teacher, because in many cases, a student’s level of anxiety can be too high and counter-productive, ending up as another reason for failure. In addition, according to Vygotsky, we humans learn collaboratively through a process later known by the name of scaffolding; the teacher has to know how to provide this help to the student or things will not go well. Lastly, physical health almost always has consequences in cognitive development, so a previous medical history of several diseases is also a determining factor for underachievement. When we talk about children's failure in schools, we are talking about a social problem, not just an individual problem within the learner, so both internal and external factors have to be taken into account.

Working Women

A significant improvement can be appreciated in the allowance of women to perform many types of jobs traditionally reserved for men. In the medicine area, for instance, in 1890, women constituted only 5 per cent of the doctors, whereas nowadays the percentage arises almost to 20 per cent. Similarly, legal jobs have shown an increasing acknowledgment in feminine rights: in 1930, from each 100 lawyers and judges, only 2 were women; that number reached to 22 in 1989. However, the most remarkable advance can be perceived in the political field-mainly due to its influence in the course of the Nation-in which women have been able to occupy sites of great influence as senators, majors, governors, Supreme Court judges, etc, in a relatively short period from the law that gave them the chance to vote in 1920. All these achievements leave open the hope of finding women, not only covering a larger number of employments, especially in new areas, but also contributing with their skills and capabilities in the most important making-decision jobs.

• Metacognitive Analysis:

After watching the videos about Paragraph Structure, going to the theory from the book From Paragraph to Essay and receiving the LEE IV teacher’s feedback, I could become aware of the mistakes I made when writing my paragraphs. Although the general structure was fine, the topic sentence of the first paragraph should have been more specific: the body sentences listed external and internal factors that could lead students to failure while the topic sentence prepared the reader to find “…reasons (…) which can be considered the most important ones.” That was too general and did not get to the point. Taking into account Halliday’s three functions of language, it can be said that the interpersonal was not fully achieved at some points: one of the sentences in particular was too long and there was too much circumlocution in general. Also the fact of mentioning “experts” stating something without citing any work that supports it is something out of the question in academic writing. In addition, despite the fact that there were isolated mistakes like for example writing “economical background” instead of “economic background” (awful mistake by the way), there weren’t significant problems regarding cohesion and the use of cohesive devices. Finally, there was circumlocution present in the conclusion sentence as well, including the use of terms like “triggers”, something that takes the reader too far from the main point of the paragraph. This metacognitive analysis and the teacher’s feedback contribute a lot to my future writing tasks because as a future teacher, it is crucial for me to enable readers to understand the ideas I want to transmit, and because I always want to give the best of myself.