UNIT 4: How has technology affected your life?
The learning outcome (the writing goal) for U4 is to write a paragraph summarizing a text and to
then write an opinion paragraph giving your response to that original text.
Reading 1: Having a Second Life
Topics to be covered:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
The realistic online environment of ‘Second Life’.
‘Second Life’ has its own economy.
Residents in the world of ‘Second Life’ have their own social lives.
People use ‘Second Life’ in order to escape the real world.
Users can also create a fantasy version of themselves.
‘Second Life’ has even become a mixture of fantasy and reality.
Reading Skill: Taking notes.
Taking notes while you are reading will help you identify important ideas in a text. Underline or
highlight topics and main ideas. Underline supporting details and important words. Summarize the MI of
each paragraph in the margin.
Key words:
technology, benefit, explore, interact, limitation, realistic, transaction, virtual.
Reading 2: Living Outside the Box
Topics to be covered:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
A woman’s experiment to see if she could live without TV for one winter.
Her initial problems not being able to chat with colleagues about TV shows.
The positive changes in her life that came about as a result of not having a TV.
She didn’t give up all visual entertainment (still watched DVDs on her laptop).
The experiment became a permanent lifestyle change.
Vocabulary Skill: Synonyms
Synonyms are words that have similar meanings. Good writers use synonyms in order to make
their sentences more interesting. This gives their writing more variety.
Writing Skill: Writing a summary and a personal response
A summary is a shorter version of an original text. The aim is to tell the reader the main ideas of
someone else’s text in your own words (by using synonyms). A summary is usually just one paragraph
long. It gives a basic outline of the original text and presents the main ideas in the same order as in the
original. When you write a summary you must not copy whole sentences from the original, nor include
unnecessary details, nor include your personal feelings about the original text.
The second paragraph is where you give your personal response to the original text that you
have just summarized. You may agree with the writer’s opinions, you can criticize his/her views, you
might choose to make fun of the writer, you may want to condemn the writer, etc. It is up to you. But
your opinion paragraph must include reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Key words:
confession, discover, eventually, experiment, occasion, rare, regret, survive,
think outside the box.