What about group discussions!

[Latoof]

I'll try to think of something tomorrow- it's very late here and time for my bed.

Good night,
Whenever you will be ready, just consider that it will be better if you will use stories or poems of 2/3 pages.
Thank you.

Do you mean 2 to 3 pages?

I have an assigment for you. Write a short story of 500 words or less. It can be about anything. It can be a true story or it can be fiction. You have a week.

:wink:

Word 1,219. I am sorry I could not stop at just 500 words.
Latifa

“I will go to the library, but I won’t be late. Ok, see you later” said Latifa to her friend Reem. Latifa thin, tall, nineteen years old girl. Latifa is studying English Language and Literature major in the university. Reem is her best friend. They are together since the beginning of their study as English major students. Twelve years ago, Latifa have experienced a very tragic event when she was at age of seven. Latifa was in her class when the administrator came and had a private talk with Ms. Mouza, Latifa’s Math teacher. Later, the teacher came back and she asked the rest of the student to leave the class. She told them that it would be a day-off. Ms. Mouza looked sadly toward Latifa and she sat down next to her. “Latifa… I want to tell you something.” Latifa looked at Ms. Mouza’s face and asked her to correct the Math problem, which she has solved when Ms. Mouza was outside the class. It took two hours of Ms. Mouza to tell Latifa that her father was dead. Ms. Mouza looked at Latifa’s face to see her reaction, but Latifa said, “Can you check my answer, please?” Latifa was then seven years old girl. She looked innocent in her school blue uniform, with her hair almost covering her face. Ms. Mouza took Latifa between her arms and cried painfully.
Latifa was not able to understand the concept of death. She has heard her mother weeping her sister once and later her two months old son. However, she could not figure out the catastrophe yet. The first time Latifa cried her father was seven years later when she was fourteen. A student in her class experienced the same tragedy. She has lost three of her family’s member in a car accident. Latifa looked at her friend and wept her father to the end of the school day. From that day and on, Latifa began to miss her father whom she loved very much and whom she could not remember anything about him, not even his angelic face. At the recent time, Latifa focused on her studying in order to achieve the success, which she has dreamt off.
After she had come from the library she met her friend Reem by the next class. It was Mr. Ron’s listening class. Mr. Ron was about fifty years old. He was a British married teacher. He was so kind to Latifa and her group as they were the most active, excellent, and noisy group in his classes. They had a very special relationship, which was like a father to daughters’ relation. Latifa was so attracted to her teacher. She found in him the person who can fill the gap of her father absence. The whole group was attracted to this kind teacher, as the same was he. He had no suns or daughters and so we can understand the two sides’ feelings. Mr. Ron knew belatedly that Latifa was an orphan. At the beginning he allowed her to send him messages via the e-mail. Latifa was so happy as she was able to keep in touch with her kind teacher. However, she started to feel jealous of the rest of the group as they also were allowed to send him e-mails.
Reem noticed the changes on Latifa’s character toward her. Reem talked to Latifa and asked her once a question, which was the access to Latifa’s feeling toward Mr. Ron. Latifa answered Reem question, which was why do she want to have another course with Mr. Ron? Latifa said that she felt very comfortable in his classes and that he was a very kind to all of them. She felt him a father figure according to her situation as an orphan. She said to her friend “I lost my father once and I don’t want to live this horrible experience again”
Mr. Ron felt that there was something unusual with Latifa. She kept sending him e-mail in the father’s day, telling him that he was a father figure and these sorts of things. Mr. Ron understood that the lack of a father in Latifa’s life was what made her to feel so close to him. He thought about making her to understand that he got a wife and his wife had daughters of an ex-marriage and that he had his own family. He tried to make her to understand that she was his student, and nothing more. Although it was too difficult for him to ignore her he was sure that it would be the best for both of them. She has sent him an email and waited for a reply, but she did not receive any. She sent him another e-mail asking him to reply. She wrote literally:
“Why don’t you answer my e-mails? Please don’t be angry with me, I won’t help see you angry. Listen, I rather to day than to live alone once again, your daughter”
Mr. Ron recognized that Latifa was broken entirely because of her father’s death. He knew that she needed a counselor to talk with. He sent to his friend James who was a therapist for help. James wrote back in a reply to Ron’s letter:
“What I can see is that Latifa is in need to a man who can play the role of a father in her life. But I am so afraid of her use to the idea of death. I know that these people think that they are in a challenge with the death. They say if the death will take our beloved and prevents us of being with them, so we can proceed him and stop the lovely moments we live by dying. I think there was not anyone to talk to her after her father death to make her to understand the death as her father died while she was too young. She was needed to talk out all the fear and the sadness in side her. What can say to you is not to ignore her for a very long time. You can answer one of her messages, to make her to feel that you are supporting her. But never get so close. Yours James.”
Two weeks later, Latifa stopped sending messages to her teacher and she remained quieter. Once, it was Mr. Ron’s writing class, but it was not Latifa’s section. After ten minutes of the class beginning, Latifa entered the class. She looked at her teacher and went to set at the end of the room. Mr. Ron carried on in teaching. The lecture last an hour and twenty minutes. When all the students left the lass Mr. Ron looked at Latifa to asked her to talk. But Latifa was gazing at her teacher silently. Her eyes were frozen and her lips were blue. He asked her again, and sat on the floor next to her. Mr. Ron took her hand and he discovered a very horrible thing she did to herself. Latifa was bleeding all the time as she has cut her arteries. She left on her disk a paper and wrote by her blood “Sorry, but I was not able to see you disappearing from my life”
Latifa died at that time, and her teacher screams for help were not useful.

[Latoof]

How about an autobiography of the same length?

Word 630. I am sorry it is not an autobiography, but I wrote something I really like. It is a letter for my father who passed away a very long time ago.
Dear father,

How are you? I know it is not the question to be asked. But I have something to say. Things I kept them buried in side me for ages waiting to be released. I hope you will be able to remember your lonely daughter whom you left a very long time ago.
I am sorry for not writing and for waiting these long years to say goodbye. I have been thinking of you since you have left me without saying any word fifteen years ago. I was still by that time a child who knew nothing of this life, not even what does it mean to never see you again to the end of my life. I am so sorry because it took me so long to understand that you are no longer existed; to get use not to wait you by the doorstep everyday to take me by your hug joyfully no matter of your tiredness; to persuade myself that those dead wires can no more hold your voice to ask me to be ready for a beautiful journey in the toys shop; to believe that the unfinished bed story will never has an end. That story which you have started it, but never have the chance to make the princess to marry her beloved. I have to persuade myself that those lovely fingers will not be able to play with my hair any more.
I am sorry for being too young to understand that you were dying and that the diabetes was taking all your energy. I am terribly sorry for asking you innocently to hold me on your shoulders, to run all over the house, and to annoy the neighbors. I am sorry because I kept asking you always to be the brave, strong, and loving father while you were not able to help yourself to love as strong as you wanted for me.
I wanted you always to excuse my childish dreams and soul. To excuse me for not being awake to hold your hand when your body did not help you to stand on your foot. For not being their when you were falling down dead. I am sorry father because you forced yourself to stand on your foot just to stop my pompous screams to play with me.
I am sorry because you were alone under the ground for all these years. Alone, and so far that no one could hear you, alone with the silence and the darkness. Please, forgive me for this loneliness. I am sorry because I could not remember any moment in my life when you were alive and I felt lonely; you were always there.
Nowadays, and while you are lying there I want you to know that you still with me. Your soul was always a candle lightening my life and forever it will be. I still feel every night your warm kiss on my forehead. I just understood belatedly that you were the candle, burning yourself to light my way, and to keep the darkness so far from our warm house.
Dear father, as you promised my mother to make me a good daughter once I am promising you now to keep up the good work. I promise you to be always the good daughter you have dreamt of and never to give up. Just wait me, I really miss you and I am waiting badly to lye next to you as we just used to once when we were together and I will ask you to complete the unfinished story. I will ask you to play those tricks again. More than that I will remain forever in your hug and we will never be parted.
Father, I do really miss you.
Your daughter,
Latifa.

[Red5]

[ I'm moving this discussion into the General Language Topics area ]

[Tdol]

Word 630. I am sorry it is not an autobiography, but I wrote something I really like. It is a letter for my father who passed away a very long time ago.

My father died recently; he was 75. I had spoken to him on the phone a couple of days before- he had forgotten my birthday, as always, and rang for a chat a few days later. The day he died, he'd spoken to one of my brothers and arranged to meet for lunch. That night he felt ill, went to the hospital and died of a massive heart attack. I got a phone call before seven o'clock from my eldest brother and I knew something ghastly had happened. The loss of a parent, even though it happened to me at a much later age than you, is a terrible thing. You grow up thinking that they are something fixed and permanent in your life, then suddenly you find out that this is not the case. One of my close friends lost his father at an early age and he speaks of his father and his loss in much the same way as you. In my forties, the loss hurts; to lose so much younger is to be robbed. To be honest, I can't suggest anything like corrections for what you wrote- it's a piece of real writing and the emotions and love come straight through.

[RonBee]

Hm. There are some interesting problems here. Let's begin. :)

“I will go to the library, but I won’t be late. Ok, see you later” said Latifa to her friend Reem.

Unfortunately, it is not clear what the connection is between going to the library and being late.

Latifa thin, tall, nineteen years old girl.

You need to make that a sentence. Perhaps:

• Latifa was a thin, tall, nineteen-year-old girl.

Latifa is studying English Language and Literature major in the university. Reem is her best friend.

That first sentence doesn't quite make it. Perhaps:

• Latifah is studying English at the university. Her major is English Literature.

They are together since the beginning of their study as English major students.

You need to decide that tense you want the narrative to be in--past or present? If it's past tense, say:

• They had been together since the beginning of their studies as English majors.

If it's present tense, say:

• They have been together since the beginning of their studies as English majors.

It will take me a while to finish.

:)

[Latoof]

Word 630. I am sorry it is not an autobiography, but I wrote something I really like. It is a letter for my father who passed away a very long time ago.

My father died recently; he was 75. I had spoken to him on the phone a couple of days before- he had forgotten my birthday, as always, and rang for a chat a few days later. The day he died, he'd spoken to one of my brothers and arranged to meet for lunch. That night he felt ill, went to the hospital and died of a massive heart attack. I got a phone call before seven o'clock from my eldest brother and I knew something ghastly had happened. The loss of a parent, even though it happened to me at a much later age than you, is a terrible thing. You grow up thinking that they are something fixed and permanent in your life, then suddenly you find out that this is not the case. One of my close friends lost his father at an early age and he speaks of his father and his loss in much the same way as you. In my forties, the loss hurts; to lose so much younger is to be robbed. To be honest, I can't suggest anything like corrections for what you wrote- it's a piece of real writing and the emotions and love come straight through.

Thank you very much for your nice words. I am so sorry about your father.
I have said that losing one of the parents in an early age is less harder than to lose them when you are so close friends many time to myself.
Thank you again.

[Latoof]

"It will take me a while to finish."

What I have finished this story in a day, and not a week. Ok, you still have two days ONLY!
Thank you very much.

[RonBee]

Twelve years ago, Latifa have experienced a very tragic event when she was at age of seven.

Too many words! Try:

• Twelve years ago, Latifa experienced a very tragic event when she was seven.

Latifa was in her class when the administrator came and had a private talk with Ms. Mouza, Latifa’s Math teacher. Later, the teacher came back and she asked the rest of the student to leave the class. She told them that it would be a day-off.

That's a little confusing. The first sentence doesn't indicate that Ms Mouza left the room. Perhaps:

• Latifa was in math class when the administrator came and took Ms Mouza, Latifa's math teacher, out of the room for a private conversation.

Ms. Mouza looked sadly toward Latifa and she sat down next to her. “Latifa… I want to tell you something.” Latifa looked at Ms. Mouza’s face and asked her to correct the Math problem, which she has solved when Ms. Mouza was outside the class.

That is somewhat of an odd response by Latifa. I would expect her to wait to hear what Ms Mouza had to say instead of telling her teacher about a math problem she had solved while the teacher was out of class.

It took two hours of Ms. Mouza to tell Latifa that her father was dead.

Try:

• It took Ms Mouza two hours to tell Latifa that her father was dead.

:)

[RonBee]

It took two hours of Ms. Mouza to tell Latifa that her father was dead.

Say:

• It took two hours for Ms Mouza to tell Latifa that her father was dead.

Or:

• It took two hours for Ms Mouza to tell Latifa that her father had died.

There is a subtle difference between the two sentences, and I would prefer the second one here.

Ms. Mouza looked at Latifa’s face to see her reaction, but Latifa said, “Can you check my answer, please?”

I would assume that Ms Mouza was looking at Latifa's face anyhow. How would you rephrase that to say pretty much the same thing but without "looked at"? Do you think Ms Mouza was surprised by Latifa's response?

Latifa was then seven years old girl. She looked innocent in her school blue uniform, with her hair almost covering her face. Ms. Mouza took Latifa between her arms and cried painfully.

I don't think you need to mention again that Latifa is a girl. How would you rephrase "school blue uniform" so it is idiomatic English? Do you think the reader will wonder why Latifa's hair was covering her face?


:)

[Tdol]

I know it is not the question to be asked.

I would write: I know it is not a question to ask.