IFY Reading into Writing Formative Task Student Guide
Learning
Outcomes
Assessed
Reading
R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9,
Writing
W1, W2, W3, W4, W5, W6, W7, W8, W9, W10,
Reading
You are preparing to write the following essay:
According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
(2014), “cities and urban areas are at the heart of economic and
environmental processes that affect sustainability. Achieving
sustainable development will therefore require well-planned
urbanisation.”
What is urbanisation? Outline the current global trends in
urbanisation and explain the major causes.
You must complete the following tasks:
1. Annotations
Read the two texts provided to you by your teacher. For both texts make annotations
on a copy of the texts:
a. Highlight sections which relate to the essay title.
Task
Description
b. Highlight ideas and important details you might use to answer the essay
question.
c. Highlight and record the meaning of key vocabulary and phrases.
d. Summarise key ideas in your own words.
e. Add your own reflections and questions to the ideas in the text as you are
reading.
2. Summary and Synthesis
Complete the summary and synthesis table provided by your teacher. You should:
a. Summarise the key ideas which relate to the essay prompt.
b. Synthesise the ideas which relate to the essay prompt.
Writing
1. Essay
Write an essay of 700-900 words to respond to the essay prompt using the two texts
provided:
a. Define urbanisation.
b. Outline the current global trends in urbanisation.
c. Explain the major causes of urbanisation.
© Northern Consortium UK Ltd.
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Your essay must:
 Be written in continuous prose with no bullet points or headings.
 Include an introduction with a clear thesis statement.
 Be written in paragraphs with clear topic sentences.
 Include a conclusion which follows from the evidence presented, clearly
summarises the key ideas and responds to the essay prompt by offering some final
re-assessment or reflection.
 Use sources to support the ideas you present.
 Be accurately referenced with in text citations and a reference list.
 Be formatted using:
o
o
o
o
Arial size 12
Double line spacing
Name and ID in the header
Page numbers in the footer
Text 1:
Study Session 5 Urbanisation: Trends, Causes and Effects – Sections 5 - 5.2.2
https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=79940&printable
=1#section3.1
Links to
Materials
Text 2:
Chapter 3: Estimates of Past and Future Urban Populations and Urbanisation Levels (pp
10-14) in the working paper Urbanisation concepts and trends.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep01297.pdf?ab_segments=0%2FSYC6061%2Ftest&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ac3c0dd94f10730c0856b4e3ab0e91fc0
© Northern Consortium UK Ltd.
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