First Steps in Academic Writing

First Steps in Academic Writing is intended for high-beginning writing students of English as a second language. It takes beginning writers from understanding the concept of a paragraph (Unit 1) to writing three basic types of paragraphs: chronological process (Unit 2), spatial description (Unit 3), and listing (Unit 4). Unit 5 shows students how to use examples, and Unit 6 shows how to express and support their opinions. In these last two units, the forms for personal letters and business letters are also taught.
Examples of real writing abound. Exercises and writing assignments are contextualized to make them more engaging to the student and to reinforce the notion of writing as discourse. An effort has been made to limit the vocabulary load, but in a few cases glosses help students understand the potentially unfamiliar words that were retained in the interest of providing engaging models and exercises. Verb tenses are also limited to those that beginning students are likely to be comfortable with.