ECA (英語基礎表現) II (Super A): 秋期末作文

Hello and Happy New Year!

How are you? I hope you had a great New Year's break! In this blogpost, I'll tell you about our final writing assignment for the fall semester (秋学期).

Project
You have three (3) choices about your final writing project. Choose one (1) of them:

1. Write about a unique, interesting, or special real experience (経験) that happened to you. 

For this topic choice, write about a unique, interesting, or special experience you really had, like a school trip or a holiday. It can be about any time of your life - it could be when you were a child, or it could be from when you were in high school - or even something that happened to you this year. 

I am gathering writing on this topic into a book called Places & Traces.  

2. Write about a unique, interesting, or special song, album, movie, or TV show. 

For this topic choice, write about a unique, interesting, or special song, album, movie, or TV show that you like. It can be about any kind of music, movie or TV program. Write about something that means a lot to you. 

For music, I am gathering writing on this topic into a book called Words on Music, and for movies and TV shows, I am thinking of a new book to gather them into - one I don't have a title for yet! 

3. Write about your plans for the future after you graduate from Seigakuin. 

For this topic choice, write about your plans for the future after you graduate from Seigakuin. What are you planning to do for a career? Where do you want to live? What kind of place would it be (a small town, a small city, or perhaps a major city like Tokyo)? More importantly, where do you see yourself in four years' time? 

I am gathering writing on this topic into a book called Future Dreams and Real Lives. 

How much to write
How much do you write? I would like you to write as much as you can, because your work may be published (出版した) on both this blog and in the books I talked about in class. 

I would like to see 3-5 paragraphs - and I would like to see you try to write the most that you can. Try to make your paragraphs longer - make each paragraph as long as you can. 

Schedule and deadline (締め切り)
Here is our schedule: 

1/12 - assignment introduction, topic selection
1/19 - first draft review, advice, and suggestions for final draft
1/26 - final draft completion and submission (提出)

Please remember that the deadline (締め切り) will be 1/26 (木). Print it out and hand it in when you are finished. 

IMPORTANT NOTE
I want your file correctly formatted! Please see the handout I gave you about formatting your writing. Please check about formatting your Word file on your formatting handout.  

Good luck with this! I hope you can have fun with this, and enjoy this writing!

Images: Top and bottom - personal photographs of public art in Nakano, Tokyo. All rights reserved to the artists. 

特別ポスト - ECA (英語基礎表現) II (Super A): Words on Music

Hello,

How are you? Here I will introduce some of your writing that will go into a collection called Words on Music. It's writing on the pieces of music such as the ones you have done. 

I hope you can enjoy this writing again. I was very impressed with what many of you did in writing about music from Jacques Loussier's version of Bach's Siciliano in G Minor. Here is the music from YouTube once again: 

Now here are some selections you wrote about this music:

The main melody was very beautiful but sad. I felt the sound of piano fantastic, and I also felt something mysterious. It brought me to the world of fantasy, separated from the reality. It made me imagine the story.

In a small town in Austria, there was the calm lake floating some red lotuses. It was in the park far from any buildings, and it was near the forests. The silence controlled the all-time in the park. The place was not warm but little bit cold. The season was early spring. No one was there but a crying young girl sitting on the bench in front of the lake. She looked twelve or thirteen. Her face was pain badly because she lost her favorite clarinet given by her grandmother. She would often play the clarinet in the park and she loved the time passed so slowly.

She knew that she had to go home and tell her grandmother the truth. But she was reluctant to do so then. She did not want to see the sad face of her grandmother and did not have any courage confessing her mistakes. So she wanted to stay in the place any one was not. Only stars knew where she was and what made her cry and stars were shining for her for a long time.

That's fantastic! Here's another:

One teenage girl had sad something, and she escaped her house garden. Soon she was in deep forest.

She ran and ran in the forest, and she got tired. She felt that this forest was maze and lost. She was alone and got sad. However, she thought happy, because she could forget her troubles. At that time, she heard something noise at back little trees. And she turned around. There were little rabbits and they stared at her, because it was strange and nobody have never come in the deep forest, so rabbits were think that today is a special day. Rabbits called to many animals. The many animals were guide to center of the forest. She could see many rabbits, birds, lions, snakes, horses, wolfs, hyenas, elephants and more many kinds animals. She was welcomed. Then, they were enjoyed the party. They ate cakes and drank elegant fruit tea. Then they danced together with splendor music all night. They had a good time. She completely forgot her troubles, and noticed that here is my place to live.

After that, she loved this forest and animals, so she decided that lived in here. They still living with and happy.

Great! Let's check out another: 

Once upon a time, a family lived in the big residence in the forest. The family members were father, mother, daughter and a few dogs. They looked happy and the house full of a laughing voice every day. However, since all of them passed away, around the residence became quiet. The building also became sad.

One day, big storm came to the forest. Because of it, the residence became worse and worse. However, after few years, many plants came up around the residence but also in the residence. A lot of seeds were carried by the storm. Many animals lived in the forest gather this residence and started living in there.