Mister James Teaches English

Autobiography is the writing about the self, or yourself. It is a particular type of writing that needs you to use a certain set of rules. These include how the reader meets the narrator (the person telling the story, which is always I in the telling of your own story) and how time works - it is mostly in the past tense. One of the most famous autobiographies is by Malala Yousafzai , I am Malala (You can download the book from the link).  Sayeeda Warsi, writing for The Daily Telegraph, giving the book four stars out of five, wrote "Malala has turned a tragedy into something positive". Entertainment Weekly gave the book a "B+", writing "Malala's bravely eager voice can seem a little thin here, in I Am Malala, likely thanks to her co-writer, but her powerful message remains undiluted." Metro lists the book as one of the "20 best non-fiction books of 2013", praising that Yousafzai's story as "one of idealism and stubborn courage"...

  In this lesson, you can learn about sentence structure in English. You’ll learn how to construct all kinds of sentences in English, from the simplest possible sentences, to long, complex sentences which contain many different ideas. Practice using correct sentence structure and post your example sentences in the comments! Get more details about English sentence structure with a certified teacher from OOE. Try a lesson today and see how they can help you improve: http://bit.ly/ooe-teachers . See the full version of this lesson on our website: https://www.oxfordonlineenglish.com/s... . Contents: 1. How to Build a Simple Sentence 0:32 2. Complements - What Comes Next? 2:58 3. Adding Description to Your Sentences 8:43 4. How to Make Complex Sentences with Independent Clauses 11:41 5. How to Make Complex Sentences with Dependent Clauses 15:36 In this lesson, you'll learn: - How to build simple sentences. - Using compliments. - Adding onto simple sentences to create more deta...

Broad Topic Sentences Active and Passive Voice Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. Passive voice means that a subject is a recipient of a verb’s action. You may have learned that the passive voice is weak and incorrect, but it isn’t that simple. When used correctly and in moderation, the passive voice is fine. In English grammar, verbs have five properties: voice, mood, tense, person, and number; here, we are concerned with voice. The two grammatical voices are active and passive. Active voice When the subject of a sentence performs the verb’s action, we say that the sentence is in the active voice. Sentences in the active voice have a strong, direct, and clear tone. Here are some short and straightforward examples of active voice. Active voice examples Monkeys adore bananas. The cashier counted the money. The dog chased the squirrel. All three sentences have a basic active voice construction: subject, verb, and object. The subject monkey performs ...

First, second, and third person are ways of describing points of view. First person  is the  I/we  perspective. Second person  is the  you  perspective. Third person  is the  he/she/it/they  perspective. More information here

What Is a Paragraph? A paragraph is a distinct section of writing covering one topic. A paragraph will usually contain more than one  sentence . A paragraph starts on a new line. Sometimes, paragraphs are indented or numbered. (Whatever format you use, be consistent.) The "perfect paragraph" will start with a topic sentence. It will have detail sentences in the middle and end with a concluding sentence. It will only cover one topic from start to finish. The length of a paragraph is supposed to be determined by the topic, but often writers will create a paragraph simply to ensure they're not presenting too much text in one chunk. A paragraph could be part of a text that informs people, describes something, critiques something, compares things, persuades people, lists a process, makes an argument, offers a solution or narrates a story. And, the level of detail will vary from text to text. All this diversity means that it's not always easy to determine what "one top...

  Steps for Writing a Song 1. Choose and Compose a Title of your Song. What do you think you would like to be that sums up the heart of your song’s message? You will need to come up with the subject of your song. A good way is also to brainstorm song titles as well.  2. Write from Experience or Fantasy. You may wish to brainstorm possible lyrics. What you want to say about your title and what you think your listeners might want to know? These are the questions to want to ask yourself. You may write some sort of an experience or feelings. 3. Choose a Song Structure. Currently, the most popular structure is: Verse / Chorus / Verse / Chorus / Bridge / Chorus. Thus, a formula of: ABABCB. Also, analyze the chord structures of your favorite songs. Are they verse, verse, chorus, and then bridge, or do they just repeat verses and choruses? Say your favorite song is “Someone Like You” by Adele, what is the song structure of like? 4. Construct a Temporary Chorus and Verse. What do y...

This is an amateur video that attempts to explain theme in the simplest terms possible using the movie Cinderella

Keywords are words that summarise or a very important from a topic, theme or text. For example, if you were to choose ‘Cities’ as a topic some keywords you may choose to summarise the topic are: suburb; capital; metropolis; city center; downtown; suburb; outskirts; neighborhood; borough; block; city limits; locality; vicinity; environment; surroundings. Once you have compressed your ideas down to single words -  whether you have taken the ideas from somewhere else or they are your ideas that you have been creating -  then you can express them in writing based on those single words. You can also link up the words to form bigger ideas or concepts (a concept is a collection of ideas).  Can you think of 10 keywords that summarise your individual project? 

Brown Girl Dreaming is a biographical work. It contains photos of the family members described in the book. There are many historical figures mentioned in the book too. A biography is a story written about a person. An autobiography is when someone writes about their own life. One of the strong points of Brown Girl Dreaming is how Jacqueline Woodson makes her own early life a symbol, or connects it to, the time she lives in, with its background of the civil rights movement in the United States. Another example of a similar autobiographical story, where the person speaking about their own life connects it to the time they live in is the Swedish Somali hip hop star Cherrie. Here she speaks about how she grew up, what is important to her and where she comes from: What do you belong to; a family, a way of living, or maybe it is about your hobbies and interests. One thing you do belong to is Generation Z. Generation Z or Gen Z , also known by a number of other names, is the demogr...

Jacquline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming speaks about the writing process Brown Girl Dreaming and The American Civil Rights Movement The Civil Rights Movement was a multi-decade movement intended to achieve equal rights and treatment for African Americans. The movement is considered to have taken place from 1954–1968, though it drew on a long history of protest against the mistreatment of African Americans. As Woodson notes multiple times in the book, even after the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, Jim Crow laws and general prejudice prevented African Americans from equal treatment in many arenas. Many see the end of World War II as the impetus for the Civil Rights movement. Many African Americans fought in World War II, a war predicated upon the United States's commitment to freedom. This made the blatant discrimination they faced upon returning home to the United States all the more salient. Tensions from the post-war 1940s spilled ...