英語表現演習4 (金): Mid-term writing assignment・中間作文

Hello!

How are you? Here is our mid-term writing assignment – writing about a particular material, and devices or inventions that are made from the material.

Look at the picture above. It is of a carbon filament, over a piece of human hair. As you can see it is very thin, but strong and useful. This has become one of the most useful materials of our time, used in so many things from carpets to aircraft. 

Guidelines

You can choose any material, and any innovative or useful device or invention from the present or the past made from that material. It can involve inventions, devices, or technological innovations developed in Japan, or other countries, or invented or developed elsewhere and brought here.

For the part of your writing on inventions, devices, or other technological points, you can write about things that have a mix of different materials – but with things where the material you focus on is the most distinguishing feature, or perhaps was what made the invention or device unique or most useful.

When you write, you can think of these points:

• What the material is
• Very important - what chemical properties (such as types of metals) it is made of
• The characteristics (材質) of the material
• When it was first developed
• What immediate applications (使用) for things the material has
• What other things it may have
• Very important - what you believe to be the most innovative or useful invention or technological innovation made from it
• What impact you believe the material has had in Japan or worldwide (optional point - including what personal impact it has had on you)

Special note: If the material is no longer used  – what impact did it have in its time? Was it replaced by improved material? What made it go out of use (for example, was it made outdated by innovations in material technology)?

How much to write

I would like you to write a composition as long as you can, perhaps about 3-4 paragraphs' worth of writing, and more if possible, with an outline.

If you believe you can write more than that, go for it! I will recognize and reward writing that you put effort into for length.

Your final draft has to be typed up, but your first draft (下書き) can be written by hand. I will show you a format in class next week (10/19) about how to write your name, class, assignment, date, plus title.

Deadline (締め切り)

November 9th (11/9), so you have almost three (3) weeks to do this.

I want you to bring in an outline next week (10/19) in your notebooks in pencil. I will give some more details, and where I can, review your ideas. Then you can write a first draft (下書き), changing things about your ideas as you need to, then write to the finish and turn in your work on 11/9.

Good luck with this! I will post more on this assignment with support about outlining and writing. I look forward to reading your great writing on this topic!

Image: By No machine-readable author provided. Saperaud~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=350295