Due to the nature of the environment in which I have created these activities, it’s important to concentrate on the goals put forth in the areas of grammar and content with the understanding than any progress in these areas will undoubtedly have a positive influence on the student’s writing.  At the beginning of Chapter 4 the authors outline their goals in the areas of writing, content, and grammar.  The grammar goals can be divided into three areas: 1) structures that show logical relationships (Activities 5,9),  2) noun usage (Activities 3,10), and 3) conveying tone (Activities 2,7,12). Additionally, I've included activities that provide practice with verb usage (Activities 1,6,8), vocabulary (Activities 11,14), and reading comprehension (Acitivities 4,13,15).   The content goals can be divided into two areas: 1) criteria for evaluations and 2) recognizing bias.  The majority of activities fall into one or both of these categories, since the theme of "evaluations" permeates the entire set of activities. 

The chapter activities culminate in a final writing assignment where the students compose an original evaluation of a film. The activities and links on this site provide the students with  much needed exposure to both formal and informal critiques of films, which will then result in an expanded vocabulary and a greater sense of the criteria critic use to evaluate films. By reading other evaluations, students will hopefully do some evaluating of their own as they decide how and what to write in their final papers.