Vocabulary
Babbling: the action or fact of talking rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited, or incomprehensible way.
Jabbering: talk in a rapid, excited, and often incomprehensible way.
Squiggle: a short line that curls and loops in an irregular way.
Ripples: a small wave or series of waves on the surface of water.
Teacher less: One who teaches, especially one hired to teach
Prefers: like (one thing or person) better than another or others; tend to choose.
Coherent: (of an argument, theory, or policy) logical and consistent.
Obsessed: preoccupy or fill the mind of (someone) continually and to a troubling extent.
Awkward: causing difficulty; hard to do or deal with.
Wordiness: using more words than necessary to express thought.
Mushiness: The quality or condition of being affectedly or overly emotional
Catch-as-catch-can: a situation of using whatever is available.
Tumble out: to fall, topple or drop from something.
Fiddling: annoyingly trivial or petty.
Jumpy: (of a person) anxious and uneasy.
Inhibited: unable to act in a relaxed and natural way because of self-consciousness or mental restraint.
Ingrained: firmly fixed or established; difficult to change.
Garbled: (of a message, sound, or transmission) confused and distorted; unclear.
Tactic: an action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end.
Lousy: Very bad or poor
Compulsive: irresistibly interesting or exciting; compelling.
Interruptions: the action of interrupting or being interrupted.
Hesitations: Doubt or reluctance; the action of pausing before saying or doing something.
Texture: the feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or substance.
Abandon: Leave
Ways with words
A. The words in the crossword puzzle are from the text. Find them in the text to solve the puzzle based on the clues given below.
Down:
1. to be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion: Obsessed
3. to move slowly and quietly in a particular direction: Creep
4. orderly, logical and consistent: Coherent
Across:
2. to utter rapidly or unintelligibly: Babble
5. to insert something between other things: Interpose
6. an unreadable handwriting: Squiggle
B. Use the following words in sentences of your own.
Massive: The police arrested two persons on the suspicion of massive fraud.
Consciousness: Human consciousness is not capable of understanding the fourth dimension of time.
Catch-as-catch-can: Nepalese politics has been relying on catch-as-catch-can for so long.
give up: Everything is possible if we never give up hope.
Abandon: She abandoned the wrecked car on the side of the road.
Lousy: The debate competition had a lousy beginning.
Editing: We should avoid editing in freewriting.
C. Word formation: Adjectives and Adverbs
a. Read the following sentences from the text and notice the words that are underlined.
i. Do free writing exercises regularly.
ii. Go quickly without rushing.
iii. No wonder the producer gets nervous, jumpy, inhibited, and finally can’t be coherent.
iv. You can throw away lousy beginnings and make new ones.
The underlined words in (a) and (b) are adverbs, and in (c) and (d) are adjectives. Notice that we can form adverbs by adding the suffix ‘-ly’ to an adjective, and adjective by adding the suffix ‘-y’ to a noun.
Note that adding the suffix ‘-ly’ to the noun makes that noun an adjective (e.g. friend – friendly, love – lovely, beast – beastly, scholar – scholarly, month –monthly, etc.).
b. Write the following words in the right columns. Change the adjectives into adverbs and nouns into adjectives, as shown in the example.
rain, careful, bush, spice, perfect, automatic, snow, blood, certain, cloud, fair, general,
heavy, bag, proud, rapid, mood, noise, proper, air, final, common, beautiful, frequent,
snow, hungry, cream, dust, ease, ice, oil, spice fun, hand, greed, health, hill
c. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate adjective or adverb.
i. Pramila is playing quietly (quiet/quietly).
ii. Hari speaks very loudly (loud/loudly).
iii. Mukesh is a careful(careful/carefully) driver.
iv. The test was easy (easy/easily) and we finished in time.
v. He is fitting the automatic (automatic/automatically) door in my house.
vi. My uncle speaks perfect (perfect/perfectly) Chinese.
vii. It was raining very heavily (heavy/heavily).
viii. She looked very calm (calm/calmly), but I am sure she was feeling very nervous.
Comprehension
Answer the following questions.
a. Why is freewriting also called ‘automatic writing’?
Ans: Freewriting is also called ‘automatic writing’ because it is done spontaneously without paying attention to grammar, punctuation, spelling, coherence, or other aspects of writing.
b. How do you differentiate writing from speaking?
Ans: Writing is different from speaking in the sense, it has the advantage of permitting more editing but speaking works with the tumbled words without it.
c. What are the biggest obstacles in the writing process, according to Elbow? Do you agree with him? Why? Why not?
Ans: According to Elbow, the biggest obstacles in the writing process are the obsession with mistakes and the consciousness of compulsive premature editing.
d. How can freewriting overcome ‘writer’s block’?
Ans: Practicing freewriting regularly can overcome ‘writer’s block’ as it undoes the ingrained habit of editing at the same time one is trying to produce and it will make writing less blocked because words will come more easily.
e. What do you mean by ‘voice’ in writing?
Ans: ‘Voice’ in writing means the spontaneous flow of words and ideas in the writer’s mind.
f. Elbow uses a simile to explain that freewriting “is like writing something and putting it in a bottle in the sea.” What does this mean? Explain.
Ans: Elbow uses a simile that freewriting “is like writing something and putting it in a bottle in the sea”. It means that if we write something and put that in a bottle to leave in the sea, nobody would ever try to find and read that. Practicing freewriting is the same because it is done not for any intended readers but for one’s writing improvement.
Critical thinking
a. How does the author persuade readers in this essay? What is he trying to communicate to the readers?
Ans: The author persuades the readers to practice freewriting in the essay by presenting different methods, ideas, logics, reasons, and outcomes supporting the significance of it. He regards it to be the most effective way to improve academic writing. He asks the reader to start writing spontaneously for ten minutes at least three times a week without taking care of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and even cohesion. One should not be obsessed with mistakes and mental editing of the words. For him, freewriting is an exercise in bringing together the process of producing words and putting them down on page.
The author is trying to communicate to the readers that freewriting is the tool to improve one’s writing that instills spontaneous flow of words while writing and undoes ingrained habit of editing during the time of writing .
b. Elbow said, freewriting “is an exercise in bringing together the process of producing words and putting them down on the page.” Do you agree with his statement? Why? Why not?
Ans: Yes, I agree with this saying that freewriting is an exercise in bringing together the process of producing words and putting them down on the page. It is because, when we are engaged in freewriting we produce words, ideas, and thoughts spontaneously and write them down on the page without taking care of mistakes. We do not think about the intended audience or even the audience. Our sole intention is to train the brain for effortless writing.
c. How did you learn to write? What was particularly difficult in writing? What inspired you to write? What are some of the challenges that you still face while writing?
I learned to write in school when I was in grade four or five. Firstly, I learnt to extract information out of the texts in our coursebook. That is my first experience of writing on my own. Occasionally, my teachers inspired and instructed me to write a few paragraphs about myself, my family, my school, or something related to myself. In middle school, I learnt some essence of writing and also got an inner motivation to write. I wrote poems, stories, essays, about my experiences, memories, and different hypothetical situations. Some of them were part of my assignments while others were the outcome of my own passion and interests.
At that time the particular difficulties in writing were lack of vocabularies, poor language, excessive use of incoherent and wordy sentences, and so on. However, I continued to write and continued to learn too.
Self-satisfaction was the major inspiration for me to write at that time. Besides, the praises from my teachers and rewards I would get from writing competitions were some others.
Obviously, I still face several challenges while writing. The major one is I still get baffled in using proper words for particular ideas or thoughts. Besides, I edit things a lot in my mind before producing them on paper. Also, I think I am yet to learn sufficient vocabularies required for standard writing.
Writing
A. Decide a topic of your choice for free writing exercise. Write a paragraph on the topic for five minutes. Do not stop for spelling or go back. Just write as much as you can. When you finish, you can share (verbally) what you wrote to your friends.
When I was eight, I saw a tractor for the first time. It had a trolley beside it and the man who was driving was transporting stones on it that were required for a building construction. I had seen buses and cars before, and it was the first time with a tractor. I was not impressed with it as it had very slow speed and was making a loud noise. With great interest I watched it go. After a day or two, I saw another tractor without a trolley-and I laughed at it first. For me, it was just a transport vehicle without a tail. “Look, somebody chopped its tail out”, I exclaimed. An old man overheard me, turned, smiled but did not say a word. I thought it might have got into an accident and lost its tail. That evening, I told my father about this incident. “That’s a trolley that can be replaced. It’s not a tail”, he giggled. Now, I realize how foolish I was then. Or you can say innocent because nobody told that to me before.
Paragraph organization
A paragraph is usually a group of sentences on a topic. Most of the paragraphs are often five to ten sentences long, but they can be longer or shorter depending on the topic.
A paragraph has a topic sentence, supporting sentences and a concluding sentence. The topic sentence introduces the topic with a controlling idea, the supporting sentences further explain the topic sentence and the concluding sentence often repeats the information in the topic sentence in a different way. The topic sentence is usually the first sentence of the paragraph and the concluding sentence is the last.
B. Read the following paragraph. Identify the topic sentence and the concluding sentence.
Students require more recreational time in order to better focus on lessons in class. In fact, studies have shown that students who enjoy a recess of more than 45 minutes consistently score better on tests immediately following the recess period. Clinical analysis further suggests that physical exercise greatly improves the ability to focus on academic materials. Longer periods of recess are clearly required to allow students the best possible chances of success in their studies. Clearly, physical exercise is just one of the necessary ingredients for improving student scores on standardized tests.
C. Write a paragraph on any one of the following topics.
a. My school library
My school library is a wonderful place to study with fruitful and mesmerizing books in it. It is well equipped and beautifully furnished with a peaceful reading space. The readers who like to read in private can use small chambers to avoid the curious gaze of other visitors. The big rows of book racks, labeled according to genre, are arranged in a separate demarcated cell in one of the corners. There are two kinds of books- some of them we can take home after borrowing, and others we have to use the library space to read. We are not allowed to explore the books ourselves, but we can turn the catalog to find books of our interest and ask them with the librarian. The librarian is a wonderful lady who always prescribes us not only to study our course books and references but also other amazing books out of our syllabus. My school library is small but it houses wonderful books that can lure all bookish people including me.
b. Moral values I like most
Moral values are the key components of a person’s character. They are personality traits guiding people to make decisions and judgements according to their own sense of what is right and wrong, based on collective and individual experiences. There are different sets of moral values which are very significant to make this world worth living. Among them, the ones I like most and also follow are-honesty and compassion. Honesty helps to develop good attributes like kindness, discipline, truthfulness, moral integrity and more in people. Likewise, Compassion helps us connect with others, mend relationships, and move forward while fostering emotional intelligence and well-being. Therefore, I always try to remain honest and compassionate.
Grammar
Position of adverbs
A. Study these sentences.
a. Perhaps she is not coming to the party.
b. I sometimes visit him in the supermarket.
c. He drove the car carefully.
Here the words in bold are adverbs. Adverbs can be placed at the front, in the middle or at the end position of a clause or sentence.
B. Rewrite the following sentences with the adverbs in the appropriate place.
a. I watch television. (often)
> I often watch television.
b. Have you been to Janakpur? (ever)
> Have you ever been to Janakpur.
c. They play football on Saturdays. (sometimes)
> They sometimes play football on Saturdays.
d. The weather is bad in November. (always)
> The weather is always bad in November.
e. We have fish for dinner. (seldom)
> We seldom have fish for dinner.
f. Pritam doesn't get up before seven. (usually)
> Pritam doesn’t usually get up before seven.
g. I was very tired and I was hungry. (also)
> I was very tired and I was also hungry.
h. Did you enjoy the flight? (both)
> Did you both enjoy the flight?
C. Rewrite the following sentences placing the underlined words in the right position.
a. I never have understood her.
> I have never understood her.
b. We are often invited to the parties.
> We are often invited to the parties.
c. We all were tired, so we all fell asleep.
> We were all tired, so we fell all asleep.
d. Rajan drives always to work.
> Rajan always drives to work.
e. Pradip hardly ever watches television, but he reads newspapers a lot.
> Pradip hardly ever watches television, but he reads newspapers a lot.
f. We enjoyed very much the party.
> We enjoyed the party very much.
g. My brother speaks fluently English.
> My brother speaks English fluently.
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