READING AND WRITING SKILLS

PATTERNS OF
DEVELOPMENT IN
WRITING ACROSS
DISCIPLINES
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:

1. distinguish the different patterns of development in writing across discipline;
2. critique a chosen sample of each pattern development;
3. apply appropriate use of pattern in a written text.
 LET’S WARM UP
T RY TO C O M P L E T E T H E F O L L OW I N G C RO S S WO R D P U Z Z L E U S I N G T H E C L U E S P ROV I D E D .
 PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT IN
WRITING

• Writing is one basic and important skill one should have in order to
communicate, whether it be for the humanities, sciences or business. Under
these various disciplines or fields where writing is required, we need to
determine which writing pattern is best to use.
• Composing paragraphs, essays or short answers for your homework are some
of the instances when you have to write. When you write, you need to know
your reason. Why do you need to write? What are you writing for? This sounds
a little difficult in the beginning. That is why it is necessary that you organize
your ideas first. How do you organize your ideas? Arranging your thoughts will
depend on the purpose you have for writing, hence, there are patterns of
written texts across disciplines.
 PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT IN WRITING

• The logical arrangement of ideas is known as the pattern of development. The

pattern helps you follow ideas easily and understand a text better. Having the
ability to recognize it will help you distinguish major details from minor ones
and predict ideas.

• a. narration • e. comparison and contrast

• b. description • f. cause and effect
• c. definition • g. problem – solution
• d. exemplification / • h. persuasion
classification
NARRATION
 NARRATION - IS A BASIC STRATEGY USED BY
WRITERS IN PRESENTING ACTION. IT IS USED BY
WRITERS FOR A VARIETY OF PURPOSES:

1. To illustrate and support ideas with anecdotes,

2. To entertain the readers with stories,
3. To predict what will happen with scenarios, and
4. To explain how something happens (or should
happen) with process narratives.
NARRATION TELLS A STORY OR EXPLAINS A
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS. IT CAN BE FICTION
OR NONFICTION.

Examples:

Novels, fables, screenplays, biographies, history books,

accident reports.
 IT CAN BE OBJECTIVE OR
SUBJECTIVE.

1. Objective narration presents facts to create an accurate

time line of events.
- Doctors use objectives narration to document a patient’s
history.
- Police officers write objective narratives to relate the
details of a crime or record the testimony of the
eyewitnesses.
2. Subjective narration conveys the impressions,
feelings, insights, or point of view.

- A student’s personal essay which details his four-

year pleasant experiences in the school is an
example of a subjective narration.
• The goal of narration is not only to retell everything
that happened but rather to screen and present only
the details which explain the significance of the
event.
 BELOW ARE THE IMPORTANT TIPS IN
PRESENTING THE POINTS IN A NARRATION.

1. Guide your narrative by focusing on the most important

thing you want the reader to know.
2. Delete minor details that do not support your main
point.
3. Focus on conflict or contrast to create tension or
drama.
4. Organize details to create strong impression.
5. Use specific words rather than abstract terms to provide
dramatic but accurate depiction of events.
6. Avoid shifting point of view unless there is a clear change
in focus.
7. Use tense shifts to show logical changes between past and
ongoing or current events.
 NARRATIVE LAC KING FO C U S

It was December 26, 2011. It was cold and rainy. The streets
were wet, and there were not many places to park with all the flooded
areas. It was the day I had to help my grandmother move out of her house
on the 28th . The house was being sold on the first of the year, and she was
moving into our house. Walking into the house was sad. It was empty. All
her belongings were in boxes heading to storage. She had two bags. Her
whole life was in those bags. I could see how sad she looked. I picked up
her bags, and I slowly helped her away from National Avenue for the last
time. She looked so sad. I hit the expressway and headed north. This was
the hardest thing I have ever done. I could not wait for this day to be over. I
just did not know what to say to her. She was so sad but never spoke.
 IMPROVED

I was home for Christmas vacation, so the task of moving my

grandmother into our house fell to me. She was no longer able to maintain the
house she had lived in for fifty-six years. She was leaving the small house she first
entered as a young bride, the house where she raised children and visited with
grandchildren. With my grandfather dead and her vision failing, she sadly accepted
the fact that she had to move. I knew this was coming. We all did. But as I walked
into her house that last day, the blank emptiness of the rooms hit me like a hammer.
I was unprepared to see all the pictures, books, china, souvenirs I had known since
childhood packed into boxes for storage. She had only two bags and a photo album
she was unable to see. I helped her to the car, and we left her home for the last
time. I expected that she might want last look, but she stared straight ahead into the
sun, her face wet with tears.
 USING TRANSITION IN A NARRATIVE

Narratives retell a past event.The sequence of events can be presented using

strategies like flashbacks – to previous events and flash-forwards – to the present
or future.To help the readers follow the series of action, transitional words and
phrases should be used.
 TRANSITIONAL WORDS AND PHRASES

• Before • Immediately • That morning, afternoon

• After • The following day
• After a while • In the mean time
• Next • First
• Following • Finally
• While • Suddenly
• Now • Hours, days
• Later • Weeks later
 EXAMPLE

When the grave finished, the wasp return to the tarantula to complete her
ghastly enterprise. First, she feels it all over once more with her antennae. Then, her
behavior becomes more aggressive. She bends her abdomen, protruding her sting,
and searches for the soft membrane at the point where the spider’s legs join its
body - the only spot where she can penetrate the horny skeleton. From time to
time, as the exasperated spider slowly shifts ground, the wasp turns on her back
and slides with the aid of her wings, trying to get under the tarantula for a shot at
the vital shot. During all these maneuvering, which can last for several minutes, the
tarantula makes no move to save itself. Finally, the wasp corners it against some
obstruction and grasps one of its legs in her powerful jaws. Now, at last the
harassed spider tries a desperate but vain defense. The two contestants roll over
and over on the ground. It is a terrifying sight and the outcome is always the same.
- Alexpander Petrunkevitch, The Spider and the Wasp
 STEPS IN WRITING A NARRATIVE
PARAGRAPH

1. Study your topic and use critical thinking by asking key

questions:
• Why do you want to write about this event?
• What did it mean to me?
• Why do I remember it?
• What is the most significant thing I want other people to know
about it?
2. Use your main point to guide your writing.
3. List supporting details that establish your point.
4. Review your list, deleting minor details and
highlighting significant ones.
5. If people speak in your narrative, consider using
dialogue rather than summaries of conversations.
6. Write a first draft of your paragraph.
7. Read your paragraph aloud and consider these questions:

•Does my paragraph make a clear point?

•Does it tell readers what I want them to know?
•Do I provide sufficient details?
•Are there unimportant details that could be deleted?
•Do I use specific words, especially verbs, to create action?
•Do I avoid illogical shifts in point of view or tense?
•Do I provide clear transitions to advance the narrative and
explain the passage of time?
 DESCRIPTION

Description creates a clear and vivid impression of the topic.

Description translates your experience of a person, place, or
thing into words, often by appealing to the physical senses.

• What does it look like?

• What are its characteristics?
 GOOD DESCRIPTION:

1.Creates a main impression-an overall effect, feeling, or image-

about the topic.
2.Uses concrete, specific details to support the main impression.
3.Uses details that appeal to the five senses.
 DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH EXAMPLE

The subway is an assault on your senses. You walk down the steep, smelly
steps on the subway platform. On the far right wall, a broken clock show that
the time is four-thirty. You wonder how long it has been broken. A mother and
her crying child are standing to your left. She is trying to clean dried chocolate
syrup off the young child’s face. Farther to the left, two old men are arguing
about the most recent tax increase. You hear a little noise and see some
paper trash roll by like a soccer ball. The most interesting thing you see while
you are waiting for your subway train is a poster. It reads “Come to Jamaica.”
Deep blue skies, a lone palm tree, and sapphire waters call you to this exotic
faraway place.
 VARIETIES OF DESCRIPTION

1. Objective Description
- looks into factual and scientific characteristics of what is being
described as objectively as possible
- the witer stays away from emotional impressions or responses
and instead, describes the scene as it is.
2. Subjective Description
- a sort of description that the author would normally use to
“paint a picture” of how he sees a character, or how he wants
the reader to see a character
- also used in a literary discourse when there is a stereotyped
image that can be attributed to a person, place, or an event.
 EXAMPLE

• My mother had hair so dark that it looked like a

waterfall of ink. She always kept it in a braid that
felll to her slim waist, and always tied with a plain
black band. The braid of black slung over her
shoulders, the plaits shining like scales.
 DEFINITION

- explains not just what something means or is, but also what
something does, what something is used for, what something
looks like,.

- explains what a term means. It uses denotation or connotation

1. Tells readers what term is being defined.
2. Presents a clear and precise basic definition.
3. Uses examples to show what the writer means.
4. Uses words and examples that readers will understand.
 EXAMPLE:

My father’s hands are grotesque. He suffers from

psoriasis, a chronic skin disease that covers his massive thick
hands with scaly, reddish patches that periodically flake off,
sending tiny pieces of dead skin sailing to the ground.
 WHEN EXPLAINING HOW TO DO SOMETHING,
WORDS UNFAMILIAR TO THE READERS SHOULD
BE DEFINED.

• The trouble is, though, that if, for any reason, the body has
more cholesterol than it needs, there is a tendency to get rid of
it by storing it on the inner surface of the blood vessels-
especially the coronary vessels that feed the heart. This is
“atherosclerosis”
• In an argumentative or persuasive objective in a written
text, terms should be defined so readers will have a
clear understanding of the idea being presented to them.
It is easy for readers to be persuaded or be moved to
take on a position on something they understand.
 TYPES OF DEFINITION

1. Standard Definitions – are definitions which meaning rarely change and is

universally accepted.
Example: Definition of right angle

2. Regulatory Definitions – are the meanings assigned by organizations and changes

depending on how it is used.
Example: PAG-ASA’s definition of critical level.

3. Qualifying Definitions – meanings of words that are subject for interpretation.

Example: Delinquent
4. Personal Definitions – are definitions which depend on
the interpretations or assigned meaning of the writer
himself.
Example: The definition of friendship

5. Invented Definitions – meanings given to words which

are newly-coined as already being used in the society.
Example: + The definition of flash mob
 SENTENCE DEFINITIONS: STRUCTURE

1. Strategy A: Diagnostic testing means identifying the

means weakness of the students.

2. Strategy B: These qualities are inherent which means

which means that they were passed on from
that parents to offspring.

3. Strategy C: In business letter writing, the mechanical

is/are arrangement of words on the page is format.

4. Strategy D: Many gardeners use materials from plants

called/ such as chopped leaves, peat moss, grass
termed clipping which is called mulch.
 SENTENCE DEFINITIONS: STRUCTURE

5. Strategy E: Photosynthesis refers to the food

refers to making process of plants.

6. Strategy F: In humans, the gestation period or

or length of pregnancy is approximately nine
months.
7. Strategy G: An ecosystem contains both a biotic
insert with (living) and abiotic (nonliving)
parenthesis
8. Strategy H: In reading, getting a lot of clues from
insert with dashes the page – bottom-up-reading- is helpful
comprehension strategy.

9. Strategy I: Fraternal twins, which originate when

which/that/ two different eggs are fertilized by two
where different sperm, do not have identical
chromosomes.

10. Strategy J: Hemophilia is called the bleeders disease

because because the afflicted person’s blood is
unable to clot.
11. Strategy K: When a mutagen leads to an
when increase in the incidence of cancer
it is called a carcinogen.

12. Strategy L: If the thyroid fails to develop

if properly, a condition called cretinism
results.
METHODS OF
DEFINITION
UNFAMILIAR TERMS CAN BE DEFINED USING
THE FOLLOWING:

1. Use Synonyms
- This is applied by using words having
similar meanings with the word being
define.

Example:
amiable = friendly
2. Use Comparison
- Define an unfamiliar term by using a technical term which is
more familiar with readers.

Example:
use window instead of casement
3. Describe the term defined by providing details about the
subject.

Example:
An airbag is an inflatable cushion which protects the
passengers in a vehicle during collision.
4. Use examples by illustrating a word’s meaning.

Example:
A cold drink.
 EXTENDED DEFINITION

• The extended definition includes strategies such as - word

history, personal experience, examples and dialogues.
 EXAMPLE:

Demes. A deme is a small local population

such as all the deer mice or all the red oaks in a
certain woodland or all the perch in a given period.
Although no two individuals in a deme are exactly,
the members of a deme do usually resemble one
another more closely that they resemble the members
of other demes, for at least two reasons:
• 1. They are more closely related genetically, because pairings
occur more frequently between members of the same deme
than between members of different demes; and
• 2. They are exposed to more similar environmental influences
and hence to more nearly the same selection pressures.
• It must be emphasized that demes are not clear-cut permanent
units of population. Although the deer mice in one woodlot down the road,
there will almost certainly be occasional matings, between mice from
different woodlot. Similarly, although the female parts of a particular red oak
tree are more likely to receive pollen from another red oak tree in the same
woodlot, there is an appreciable chance that they will sometimes receive
pollen from a tree in another nearby woodlot. And the woodlots themselves
are not permanent ecological features. They have only a transient existence
as separate and distinct ecological units; neighboring woodlots may fuse after
a few years, or a single large woodlot may become divided into two or more
separate smaller ones. Such changes in ecological features will produce
corresponding changes in the demes of deer mice and red oak trees. Demes,
then, are usually temporary units of population that integrate with other
similar units.
 CLASSIFICATION

• Classifying is one of the strategies in writing which involves

combining objects or items into categories based on distinct
characteristics. These grouped and classified items are labeled
under new combinations.
Division and classification are related methods for organizing objects
or information. In division, we divide a general category of things into
smaller subcategories.

For example, "There are three main problems associated with living
across from a high school: noise, trash, and traffic congestion." In
classification, we develop criteria for the items in a subcategory based
on relationships between the items.
• Classification sometimes refers to a ranking system by which things
or persons are evaluated.

For example, a classification system is used in the military to rank

officers, and hotels are ranked and classified according to quality,
cleanliness, and other features.
 THE USE OF CLASSIFICATION IS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE
EXAMPLE BELOW:

There are essentially three categories of machine:

1. Simple Machines
Simple machines, to all intents and purpose are nothing more than powerful
mechanical muscles; they are either controlled by human being, or have been designed and
constructed to perform an endless series of repetitive acts. Hydraulic excavators, steam
engines and motor cars fall into this category.
2. Programmable Machine
Programmable machines are more sophisticated. They are devices which can
be programmed to do any of a number of different task or, in the more ambitious cases, as
sequence of task. The program is set into the device by the human who controls it. They
have only become widely used in recent years, though some of the very earliest versions
were invented at around the same time as the first simple machines. Jacquard's loom was
programmable machine - and it was also one of the first true machines.
3. Robots
The robot is different, and in an important way. It, too, is
capable of performing a variety of task, or a sequence of task, but the
choice of task at any particular moment is determined not only by a pre-
set program, but also by some information fed into it from the outside
world which is relevant to the task it is performing. The information it
absorbs is fed into it through sensing devices attached to its own
structure, and not by command signals from a human. A simple machine,
or even a programmed one, is capable of performing quite a complex
task, but it will go on doing it indefinitely in really blockheaded fashion
until something intervenes to stop it; a robot, on the other hand, will
take account of change in its environment and adjust its behavior
accordingly.
 WRITING CLASSIFICATION
PARAGRAPH

• In a classification paragraph, items are categorized and

classified for a more comprehensible written text.
• Readers would be guided on the subdivisions of ideas, thereby
avoiding confusion. The first step in writing a classification
paragraph is to group together items based on distinct
characteristics or attributes.
 BELOW SHOWS HOW TO WRITE A STRUCTURED AND
ORGANIZED CLASSIFICATION PARAGRAPH:

1. Make clear what is being classified. The writer

should provide a clearly stated definition of what is
to be classified or grouped.

For example, abiotic and biotic should be defined

first before categorizing living and nonliving things
under these categories.
2. Choose and state a single, useful basis or guiding
principle for the classification.

For plants, fruit-bearing or size may be guiding

principle for grouping. Energy may be categorized as
either "renewable" or "non-renewable".
3. Name all the species according to a given
basis. In the case of renewable resources, a
list of species includes cotton, trees,
rubber, animals, etc.
4. Make sure that each species is separate and distinct; that there is no
overlapping.

Classifying teachers according to their academic rank - instructor, assistant

professor, associate professor, and full professor is separate and distinct, but
adding to this another species like the performance of the teacher is
considered an overlapping.
- Mills and Walter,118-120
 EXAMPLE:

Dogs are domesticated animals that have been

living with humans for generations. Dogs can be classified
in a number of different ways. For example, they can be
classified by breed. Examples of different breeds include
beagles, basset hounds, poodles and countless others as
defined by the American Kennel Club (AKC). They can also
be classified by their role in the lives of their masters and
the work they do. For example, a dog might be a family pet,
a working dog, a show dog, or a hunting dog. In many cases,
dogs are defined both by their breed and their role. For
example, a dog could be a beagle that is a family pet.
 OFFICIAL AND
PERSONAL
CLASSIFICATION
 CLASSIFIC ATION PARAGRAPHS C AN BE ORGANIZED USING
AN OFFICIAL OR PERSONAL CLASSIFIC ATION.

• Official classifications include widely-known and accepted

categories used by the government, a business, or an
organization.

For example, the classification used by PAG-ASA are yellow

rainfall warning, orange rainfall warning, etc.
 A PERSONAL CLASSIFIC ATION IS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE
EXAMPLE BELOW:

When I worked at Reynolds, I ran into three types of supervisor,

the best ones had a superior knowledge about the plant, products, and
industry and had a great human relation skills. Ed Norton and Sally Deptford
were perfect examples. You could go to them any problem and g et not only
the information you needed but also some support and maybe a tip on
getting a promotion. They were fun to be around and you could learn a lot
by just sharing a cup of coffee with them.
 The next group had a superior knowledge and would
help when you had a problem, but they were cold and
distant. They always acted like you were interrupting
something important, and they made you feel guilty for
not knowing some arcane serial number or computer
code. They stayed in their offices or work cubicles and
never spent free time with the rank and file.
 The worst supervisors were either brand new
and just as clueless as you were or nearing retirement
and would rather calculate their pension than keep up on
the new codes. Both types were useless. They may have
been friendly, but they never had any answers to the
questions I had.

- Adapted from Get Writing by Mark Connelly

ACTIVITY 1