The scientific prose style as opposed to the belles-lettres style

1. Skim the following 4 boxes and identify which style they refer to: poetic, belle-lettres, newspaper, or scientific prose style. What features help identify the latter style?

A.

For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified – have tortured – have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror – to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place – some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

B.

Ouch! Now that’s a question that carries with it a bit of pain It’s going to be hard to explain Not quite clear on it myself I’ll probably end up confusing both them and me Succeed in eliciting blank stares A sprinkling of quizzical expressions A murmur of hissing whats? Like air Flowing from a punctured tire And get the feeling that my language is my enemy, a hungry lion And the classroom an arena into which I’ve just been thrown…

C.

With so much to do in the latter part of their teacher training, would-be teachers can find the task of actually finding a newly-qualified teacher (NQT) job for September slipping to the bottom of their list of priorities.

But there are many options to research over the next few months, such as the type of school in which they would like to work: independent or state, community or voluntary-aided, mixed or single-sex, inner-city or rural? What kinds of experience do they want to gain? Do they want to consolidate their training in a school similar to, or the same as, their teaching practice school? Or are they eager for a complete change?

D.

Brainstorming is an activity used to generate ideas in small groups. The purpose is to generate as many ideas as possible within a specified time-period. These ideas are not evaluated until the end and a wide range of ideas is often produced. Each idea produced does not need to be usable. Instead, initial ideas can be viewed as a starting point for more workable ideas. The principle of brainstorming is that you need lots of ideas to get good ideas.

Brainstorming has a wide range of applications. Since 1930, it has been used successfully in business for invention and innovation (VanGundy, 1981). In the language classroom, brainstorming is often used in teaching writing. Activities such as free-association and word-mapping are often included as part of the pre-writing or warm-up phase (Richards, 1990:112).

Is brainstorming useful in teaching conversation? In particular, is it a useful activity for warm-up in conversation classes? This paper will help answer this question. Section A shows how brainstorming can help our students to become better learners. Section B describes a research study on brainstorming in the conversation classroom. Section C gives some simple brainstorming techniques.