advanced writing

[Betty Leaver]

This is in response to Melissa Frazier's question about teaching writing to
advanced students.

1. There are third-year textbooks that can help.
2. There are books on stylistics in Russia, but I don't know how many can be
obtained here. You might call Kamkin or other distributors and see what they
have.
3. Depending on how you are defining "advanced" (Level 2 proficiency, as per
ACTFL), or truly advanced (Level 3 and higher), a textbook, no matter how
good, may not be the answer. In teaching Level 3 and 4 speakers at the FSI,
we used authentic materials (i.e., texts prepared by native speakers for
native speakers with no pedagogical intent) from a variety of genres
(journals, newspapers, scripts, books, letters) in areas such as . One can
then analyze the structure of those texts, have students choose a different
topic, and write a composition, following the structure. This puts the onus
on the teacher to organize the course syllabus, but it can be much more
effective than using a textbook. Any textbook presumes a class of typical
students. No class is ever filled with only typical students.

Betty Lou Leaver
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