Extensive reading for students in intensive English programs

By Erlyn Baack - ITESM, Campus Queretaro, Mexico

Here are two of my recommendations, both short essays, four pages and three pages.

For many years, I've used TWO essays for every advanced composition class I've taught (first semester, university level). I cannot remember a time when I haven't used them, actually. My classes are for Mexican students who are supposed to have 550 although some have only 530 TOEFLs. The first essay is Chapter Two from an old book that is out of print and absolutely impossible to get these days unless you can find it in a university library or at Amazon.com (for $250.00 USD (not my copy; I have my own :-) )).

The book itself is Teaching ESL Composition, Principles and Techniques by Jane B. Hughey, et. al. (Newbury House 1983). I bought my own copy during graduate studies, and I would definitely like to see a second printing of this book because I've never seen a book thoroughly cover all aspects of teaching English Composition as this one does.

I use chapter two from this book, available here, http://eslbee.com/whywrite.pdf. In four pages, the authors basically begin /Why Write?/ by noting a dichotomy between two types of writing (meaningless and meaningful), and then they go on to write about four reasons for writing. The chapter is not only excellent information for students who can easily give examples for each reason from their own writing, but the ORGANIZATION of the chapter is much the same as the organization required of university level writing students.

The second essay I use every semester is from the book, Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya by a the Kenyan author, Ngugi Wa. Thiong'o, now a distinguished professor of Literature at the University of California at Irvine. His website is at http://www.ngugiwathiongo.com/index.html. The title of his essay is just three pages, Writing for Peace, a paper he wrote during the Ronald Reagan administration, a paper in which he discussed the economic, political, and cultural exploitation of Kenya at that time.

Well, obviously, third-world readers (or, politically correct, "developing-world" readers) can see parallels between Kenya then and their own countries now. (One boy I had taught in high school, for example, was very political--active in the student government, active in political activities at both the city and state level, and he had even gone to the US, Washington, DC, and met Colin Powell, had his picture taken with and signed by Colin Powell, wrote to Colin Powell after 9/11 and before the invasion of Iraq--and after reading this essay during his first year in the university, he asked, "Erlyn, do you have any more essays like this?" Writing for Peace is available at http://eslbee.com/writing_for_peace.pdf with the permission of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o.

I recommend both these essays, not only because their content is exactly relevant for first semester university students (either in a multi-cultural US class or a foreign class as mine are), but also because their are easily accessible for advanced (or even less than "advanced") non-native speakers of English. It is easy for students to relate to both these essays. Finally, both are about writing and writers and their obligations as writers.

I have a few other essays I could recommend but none more highly than these two.