Menu
  • Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon Home
    • Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon Higher Ed.
      • Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon English 
        • Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon MindLanguage
          • External link opens in new tab or window Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon Literature
            • Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon Lit
              • External link opens in new tab or window Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon eslstation
                • External link opens in new tab or window Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon Read
                  • Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon  Politics
                    • External link opens in new tab or window Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon
                      • Link Icon Link Icon Link Icon A Government of Hyenas


                    Enroll in Our CLASSES-              External link opens in new tab or windowTOEFLETS

                    Inquire About Our

                    External link opens in new tab or windowEnglish Writing Classes

                    Our knowledgeable representatives will attend to your queries as soon as they can.

                    Read MoreRead More

                    AMAZING PARALLELISM  - LITERATURE AND REAL LIFE




                    External link opens in new tab or windowThe Merchant of Venice:  Read it and you shall know why I asked my readers to do so.


                    By Sisanda Qwabe-Coutaud

                    Suddenly Disney is out of magic, Paris is no longer romantic, New York doesn’t stand up anymore, the Chinese wall is no longer a fortress, and Mecca is empty.

                    Hugs and kisses suddenly become weapons, and not visiting our loved ones has become an act of love.

                    Suddenly you realize that power, beauty and money are worthless, and can’t get you the oxygen you’re fighting for.

                    The world continues its life and it is beautiful. It only puts humans in cages. I think it’s sending us a message:

                    “You are not necessary. The air, earth, water and sky without you are fine. When you come back, remember that you are my guests. Not my Pilots.”

                    • External link opens in new tab or windowLET US SMILE FOR A MOMENT OR TWO
                    • External link opens in new tab or windowEnhance your reading, listening and critical thinking skills
                    • External link opens in new tab or windowWriting Training
                    • External link opens in new tab or windowImagine
                    • External link opens in new tab or windowNavigate eslstattion.net developed by professor Kathleen Hanson and Dr. Sabri Bebawi

                    Why Do I Write

                          "I feel a strong urge to explain myself and why I write the essays I do. I do not feel obligated to explain myself. However, I feel a sense of responsibility toward my readers.
                     
                    Throughout my discussions on Facebook and elsewhere, I am astonished at the idea that many American citizens feel an obligation to love and respect their president-want-to-be, Donald Trump. This very same idea is the scariest of any. If all citizens of the world would have to love and respect their prime minister, president, chancellor, or leader, then the world would have been nothing less than hell. We would not have had the French Revolution. We would not have had Magna Carta. We would not have had the defeat of Hitler. We would not have had the collapse of the Soviet Union or have had the American Civil War or even the collapse of Osama Bin Laden.
                     
                    Socially responsible citizens watch and observe, and fight against what they see as corruption. This writer writes in defiance and in resisting the status quo in a country that he loves, the United States of America. Although this writer has become an expat because of selling the White House and the American government to a criminal gangster, he is still an American at heart and wishes America well.
                     
                    If I were, like many of my friends on Facebook and other places, to like Donald Trump because he is a president-want-to-be while knowing that he is a criminal gangster who is taking America to a Nazi and a fascist path, I would not be any different than any of Hitler’s Gestapos. I would not be any different from the ex-members of the communist party in the ex-Soviet Union, and more and more examples in history like that.
                     
                    Alternatively, it is no; I took the path of resistance as many before me did. That is called social responsibility. It is called conscience. It is called awareness, and it is called fighting for freedom. Yes, I have taken it upon myself, despite my poor health, to take Donald Trump on and to prove that he is a criminal gangster who literally, for the very first time in the US history, was able to buy the government with his enormous amount of money and his unscrupulous supporters.

                    Those of us who are complacent, and silence is the voice of complicity, shall be ashamed of themselves and shall be hunted down, just like Hitler’s Gestapo men and women have been hunted down up until today.

                    External link opens in new tab or windowRead the great book critic and reviewer, Kirkus, review of Dr. Sabri Bebawi's novel "God on Trial." 
                    A man’s arraignment of God for crimes against humanity becomes a passionate investigation of faith.

                    It might be a great idea for my readers to watch this great true story External link opens in new tab or windowfilm about a Czechoslovakian activist who went through Hitler Nazism and communism."


                    External link opens in new tab or windowTO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
                    SUMMARY PLOT OVERVIEW

                    Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression, but Atticus is a prominent lawyer and the Finch family is reasonably well off in comparison to the rest of society. One summer, Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has come to live in their neighborhood for the summer, and the trio acts out stories together. Eventually, Dill becomes fascinated with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place. The house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother, Arthur (nicknamed Boo), has lived there for years without venturing outside.


                    Scout goes to school for the first time that fall and detests it. She and Jem find gifts apparently left for them in a knothole of a tree on the Radley property. Dill returns the following summer, and he, Scout, and Jem begin to act out the story of Boo Radley. Atticus puts a stop to their antics, urging the children to try to see life from another person’s perspective before making judgments. But, on Dill’s last night in Maycomb for the summer, the three sneak onto the Radley property, where Nathan Radley shoots at them. Jem loses his pants in the ensuing escape. When he returns for them, he finds them mended and hung over the fence. The next winter, Jem and Scout find more presents in the tree, presumably left by the mysterious Boo. Nathan Radley eventually plugs the knothole with cement. Shortly thereafter, a fire breaks out in another neighbor’s house, and during the fire someone slips a blanket on Scout’s shoulders as she watches the blaze. Convinced that Boo did it, Jem tells Atticus about the mended pants and the presents.


                    To the consternation of Maycomb’s racist white community, Atticus agrees to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman. Because of Atticus’s decision, Jem and Scout are subjected to abuse from other children, even when they celebrate Christmas at the family compound on Finch’s Landing. Calpurnia, the Finches’ black cook, takes them to the local black church, where the warm and close-knit community largely embraces the children.


                    Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, comes to live with the Finches the next summer. Dill, who is supposed to live with his “new father” in another town, runs away and comes to Maycomb. Tom Robinson’s trial begins, and when the accused man is placed in the local jail, a mob gathers to lynch him. Atticus faces the mob down the night before the trial. Jem and Scout, who have sneaked out of the house, soon join him. Scout recognizes one of the men, and her polite questioning about his son shames him into dispersing the mob.


                    At the trial itself, the children sit in the “colored balcony” with the town’s black citizens. Atticus provides clear evidence that the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob, are lying: in fact, Mayella propositioned Tom Robinson, was caught by her father, and then accused Tom of rape to cover her shame and guilt. Atticus provides impressive evidence that the marks on Mayella’s face are from wounds that her father inflicted; upon discovering her with Tom, he called her a whore and beat her. Yet, despite the significant evidence pointing to Tom’s innocence, the all-white jury convicts him. The innocent Tom later tries to escape from prison and is shot to death. In the aftermath of the trial, Jem’s faith in justice is badly shaken, and he lapses into despondency and doubt.


                    Despite the verdict, Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the judge have made a fool out of him, and he vows revenge. He menaces Tom Robinson’s widow, tries to break into the judge’s house, and finally attacks Jem and Scout as they walk home from a Halloween party. Boo Radley intervenes, however, saving the children and stabbing Ewell fatally during the struggle. Boo carries the wounded Jem back to Atticus’s house, where the sheriff, in order to protect Boo, insists that Ewell tripped over a tree root and fell on his own knife. After sitting with Scout for a while, Boo disappears once more into the Radley house.


                    Later, Scout feels as though she can finally imagine what life is like for Boo. He has become a human being to her at last. With this realization, Scout embraces her father’s advice to practice sympathy and understanding and demonstrates that her experiences with hatred and prejudice will not sully her faith in human goodness.

                    More English Resources


                    Many students ask me about logical and verbal bridges.  Please read this, courtesy of Purdue University:


                    On Paragraphs

                    What is a paragraph?

                    A paragraph is a collection of related sentences dealing with a single topic. Learning to write good paragraphs will help you as a writer stay on track during your drafting and revision stages. Good paragraphing also greatly assists your readers in following a piece of writing. You can have fantastic ideas, but if those ideas aren't presented in an organized fashion, you will lose your readers (and fail to achieve your goals in writing).

                    The Basic Rule: Keep one idea to one paragraph

                    The basic rule of thumb with paragraphing is to keep one idea to one paragraph. If you begin to transition into a new idea, it belongs in a new paragraph. There are some simple ways to tell if you are on the same topic or a new one. You can have one idea and several bits of supporting evidence within a single paragraph. You can also have several points in a single paragraph as long as they relate to the overall topic of the paragraph. If the single points start to get long, then perhaps elaborating on each of them and placing them in their own paragraphs is the route to go.

                    Elements of a paragraph

                    To be as effective as possible, a paragraph should contain each of the following: Unity, Coherence, A Topic Sentence, and Adequate Development. As you will see, all of these traits overlap. Using and adapting them to your individual purposes will help you construct effective paragraphs.

                    Unity

                    The entire paragraph should concern itself with a single focus. If it begins with one focus or major point of discussion, it should not end with another or wander within different ideas.

                    Coherence

                    Coherence is the trait that makes the paragraph easily understandable to a reader. You can help create coherence in your paragraphs by creating logical bridges and verbal bridges.

                    Logical bridges

                    • The same idea of a topic is carried over from sentence to sentence
                    • Successive sentences can be constructed in parallel form

                    Verbal bridges

                    • Key words can be repeated in several sentences
                    • Synonymous words can be repeated in several sentences
                    • Pronouns can refer to nouns in previous sentences
                    • Transition words can be used to link ideas from different sentences
                    A topic sentence

                    A topic sentence is a sentence that indicates in a general way what idea or thesis the paragraph is going to deal with. Although not all paragraphs have clear-cut topic sentences, and despite the fact that topic sentences can occur anywhere in the paragraph (as the first sentence, the last sentence, or somewhere in the middle), an easy way to make sure your reader understands the topic of the paragraph is to put your topic sentence near the beginning of the paragraph. (This is a good general rule for less experienced writers, although it is not the only way to do it). Regardless of whether you include an explicit topic sentence or not, you should be able to easily summarize what the paragraph is about.

                    Adequate development

                    The topic (which is introduced by the topic sentence) should be discussed fully and adequately. Again, this varies from paragraph to paragraph, depending on the author's purpose, but writers should be wary of paragraphs that only have two or three sentences. It's a pretty good bet that the paragraph is not fully developed if it is that short.

                    Some methods to make sure your paragraph is well-developed:

                    • Use examples and illustrations
                    • Cite data (facts, statistics, evidence, details, and others)
                    • Examine testimony (what other people say such as quotes and paraphrases)
                    • Use an anecdote or story
                    • Define terms in the paragraph
                    • Compare and contrast
                    • Evaluate causes and reasons
                    • Examine effects and consequences
                    • Analyze the topic
                    • Describe the topic
                    • Offer a chronology of an event (time segments)

                    How do I know when to start a new paragraph?

                    You should start a new paragraph when:

                    • When you begin a new idea or point. New ideas should always start in new paragraphs. If you have an extended idea that spans multiple paragraphs, each new point within that idea should have its own paragraph.
                    • To contrast information or ideas. Separate paragraphs can serve to contrast sides in a debate, different points in an argument, or any other difference.
                    • When your readers need a pause. Breaks between paragraphs function as a short "break" for your readers—adding these in will help your writing be more readable. You would create a break if the paragraph becomes too long or the material is complex.
                    • When you are ending your introduction or starting your conclusion. Your introductory and concluding material should always be in a new paragraph. Many introductions and conclusions have multiple paragraphs depending on their content, length, and the writer's purpose.

                    Transitions and signposts

                    Two very important elements of paragraphing are signposts and transitions. Signposts are internal aids to assist readers; they usually consist of several sentences or a paragraph outlining what the article has covered and where the article will be going.

                    Transitions are usually one or several sentences that "transition" from one idea to the next. Transitions can be used at the end of most paragraphs to help the paragraphs flow one into the next.



                    sabri.org

                    close lightbox