All About English Creative Writing

[baong]

Hi all,


did anyone buy these from planetastar to train your kids on creative writing, comprehension and cloze passage? Are the series good/effective? Any comment is greatly appreciated.

MTIA.

baong

[The Alternative Story]

tianzhu:

The Alternative Story:

It is grammatically incorrect to say that 'I did not expect this to be a lot more difficult' so it is still wrong.

You could say 'I did not expect this to be this difficult' or 'I expected this to be a lot more easier'
TAS

Hi TAS
Thank you for your reply.

Could you help to explain why the sentence is grammatically incorrect?

Is it ok to say?

1)I did not expect this to be a lot more difficult than the previous test.
2)I did not expect this to be so difficult.

Best wishes

Hi tianzhu,

It is grammatically wrong because when you say 'I did not expect this to be a lot more difficult' you should have a comparison at the back, 'a lot MORE difficult than something\". When you have the word 'more' in the sentence, you are making a comparison but in this sentence, it is not clear what the comparison is.

In contrast, your 2 suggestions are possible. For sentence 1, you are comparing to a previous test. For sentence 2, there is no 'more' in it so you are not making a comparison, just stating a fact that it is difficult.

TAS

[The Alternative Story]

Herbie:

Hi TAS,


Thanks for yr feedback wrt to my query.

Many thanks!

Hi Herbie,

No prob

TAS

[The Alternative Story]

baong:

Hi all,


did anyone buy these from planetastar to train your kids on creative writing, comprehension and cloze passage? Are the series good/effective? Any comment is greatly appreciated.

MTIA.

baong

Hi baong,

We are familiar with planetastar as we have read through the books. The way they teach creative writing is interesting. They show you a lot of descriptive phrases that helps a child to know how to 'show' a scenario and not just 'tell' it. They also teach the children how to have varied sentence structures.

For cloze passage, they will have an article to go through first and then later they will take out some words from the article and your child can fill them up. It makes learning easier for the child as he has an article that he can focus and learn from first.

For grammar, they will go through common grammatical mistakes and this helps your child to look out for them and not make them himself.

The book also comes with a CD. It is a good buy

TAS

[Picolo]

baong:

Hi all,


did anyone buy these from planetastar to train your kids on creative writing, comprehension and cloze passage? Are the series good/effective? Any comment is greatly appreciated.

MTIA.

baong

I saw the materials in a bookfair about a year ago but didn't buy. My friend bought one set (including a story book) for her P2 dd. Her dd was not interested in the story in the first place, hence she found it very boring and probably didn't finished reading it. Maybe other parents who have purchased any of the materials can share.

[tianzhu]

The Alternative Story:

It is grammatically wrong because when you say 'I did not expect this to be a lot more difficult' you should have a comparison at the back, 'a lot MORE difficult than something\". When you have the word 'more' in the sentence, you are making a comparison but in this sentence, it is not clear what the comparison is.

Hi TAS
Thank you for your reply,
It surely helps.

I’d like to go back to one of your earlier example.[quote]'I expected this to be a lot more easier' [/quote]Why is this sentence grammatically acceptable? It also consists of the word more.

Best wishes

[tianzhu]

The Alternative Story:

tianzhu:

Hi TAS


Removing his shirt, John rushed to the river.

Is Removing a gerund or participle?

Best wishes

Hi Tianzhu,

'Removing' here is an action, not a noun- it is not used as a name of an activity. Hence 'removing' is a verb (participle) not a gerund.

TAS

Hi TAS

Thank you for your reply.

I find it difficult to differentiate between gerunds and participles at times.

I can understand why removing is a participle as in the above example.
The participial phrase,Removing his shirt, functions as an adjective modifying John.

I would like to make a comparison with one of my earlier question.
[quote]We saw her talking to Alice last night.[/quote]Earlier, you’ve identified talking as a gerund.
Talking to Alice is a participial phrase which functions as an adjective describing what one is doing, in this case her.
Could you help to advise why talking is a gerund not a participle?

Best wishes

[baong]

Hi TAS and Picolo,


Thank you very much for your reply.

I went to the bookfair in Suntec last night and attended the talk by Planet A-star on creative writing. They gave some notes for those attending the talk too. It was quite interesting. And I find the notes on describing the essential elements on creative writing especially useful.

Naturally I went to their booth and run thru their series. Hmm, i find their books on CW quite structured and systematic or… shd I say the exercises let the kids start from very simple practices and then gradually expanding to more difficult ones in a very structured way. Dunno shd invest in it as its quite expensive even after discount.

TAS, the set I intended to buy did not come with CD, which book did you get that comes with the CD? and wat is the CD about? Listening comprehension/Oral?

Picolo, i think I know which book your friend got for her DD, i find that too dry too.

Think most prob I’ll have to go back Suntec tmr/Sunday …

Thanks for sharing again.

[buds]

Baong, can bring the notes tomorrow and share with me?

I'd love a look at it. Tell me more tomorrow k.. This time i
will save a seat for you to sit with us. This way, even if u
arrive later, we'll be in the same group.

[baong]

buds:

Baong, can bring the notes tomorrow and share with me?

I'd love a look at it. Tell me more tomorrow k.. This time i
will save a seat for you to sit with us. This way, even if u
arrive later, we'll be in the same group.

Sure no problem buds! See u tmr!