REACTION WRITING

R
EACTION WRITING
Follow these guidelines by answering the following questions to express your comments and feelings
about a news article. Let us choose to work on the topics “child labor” or “child marriage” in these
guidelines.

1. Feelings
 How do you feel about what happened to the person in the news? (sad, shocked, perplexed,
dumfounded, …)
 How do you feel about their decision? (proud / relieved / baffled / surprised / …)
Why do you think it was a difficult decision to make? Do you think it needed a lot of courage or
bravery? Did they risk their lives in acting so?
 Did they know their rights have been violated? How do you feel when they tried to fight for their
rights?

2. Opinions
Use modal auxiliaries, past modals, and if-clauses (type 1 and 3) to express your opinions. You can
also use a lot of verbs that signal opinions, like believe, think,

Give your opinions about possible causes

- What do you think might have happened earlier within the family?
- What might have pushed the parents to send their daughters to work? Why do you think
girls are deprived from the rights to education in this country?
- Why do you think boys have the right to education, but not girls in this country?
- Why do you think the father had become an alcoholic?
- If their parents had taken good care of those children during their childhood, would they
have been forced to labor for 16 hours a day?

Give your opinions about the measures taken

- What is the government supposed to do when the rights of children are violated?
- In your opinion, did the community leaders / government officials / human right activists
make the right decision when they encouraged parents to send their children to school?
/ when encouraging parents to save their daughters from early marriage? / when
pushing parents / victims to join an association?
- Are you optimistic (or pessimistic) about the measures taken by the government to fight
child labor / child marriage despite the obstacles to the solutions (mentioned in the
passage)?

Example answers: “The grim reality of Nepalese child laborers” (T4 13)
“The reason why Nepalese girls are deprived of an education is unclear to me, but this must be
because of financial problem, or because of the different treatment between boys and girls. Boys’
education might be more valuable in Nepal as once graduated, they can become the breadwinners,
whereas educating girls might not be necessary as they depend on their husband to feed them.

… If their parents had taken care of them, they would not certainly have been forced to labor for 16
hours a day.

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In my opinion, lack of job opportunities might have led the father to become an alcoholic. Like some
people, he might have turned to alcohol to forget his family problems…” if the father had had a
decent job, I am sure he would not have turned into an alcoholic…

Some organizations might get involved in the fight for the rights of girls; however, since sending their
daughters to work proves to be more beneficial to impoverished families, it is hard to put an end to
the discrimination in the treatment of male and female children. As a result, Nepalese girls are less
likely to have a bright future.

“Despite the obstacles to the measures taken by the Nepalese government, I am optimistic / I’m sure
that within 5 years, many parents will be convinced to treat their daughters in the same way as their
sons, by providing them with an adequate education so that they do not get into early marriage.

3. Case of Madagascar
Here are some questions to help you write a descriptive paragraph about the case of Madagascar.
You can follow the order of these questions and write a paragraph out of it.

 Do many underage children work (/ get married)? What are the most common positions held by
underage girls? What kinds of labor do boys do? How many hours a day do they work? What is
their average salary? Is it enough for their survival? Why not?
 How do parents react toward child labor? i.e. Why do Malagasy parents prefer to send their
daughters to work as maids? What skills do the girls need before they get married? Why do
Malagasy parents prioritize boys’ education?
 Is there any organization that fights against child labor / child marriage? What has UNICEF done
to reduce / eradicate this problem? Why does the problem of child labor / child marriage remain
unsolved in Madagascar?

Some example statements to answer the questions: “The grim reality of Nepalese child
laborers” (T4 13)
… In Madagascar, boys and girls are also treated differently by their parents. It is common for parents
to give their sons some education, but girls are trained to be good housewives. Thus, many underage
boys often work in the fields to help their parents do the farm work, like planting rice and raising
cattle. Young girls, however, leave their family at the age of 13 especially if the family is poor. Quite
often, parents send their daughters to work as maids for families in big cities. Many Malagasy
parents from the countryside prefer send their daughters to work as maids in big cities to acquire the
necessary skills to maintain a household when they get married. As maids, young girls may work for
more than 8 hours a day, from sunrise to dinner time, with very little breaks. They have to do all kinds
of chores, including doing the laundry, cooking, baby-siting and taking younger children to school.
Sometimes, abusive employers make them work until very late at nights; thus, they have hardly any
breaks. UNICEF has tried to promote girls’ education and reduce child labor, but the problem remains
unsolved because of differing values. In many families, getting married early is more valuable than
having a good education.

4. Solutions
Use the following guidelines to start your pitch:

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- To eradicate / tackle / crack down on / put an end to (child labor / child marriage), what
should be done (= Verb 1, Past participle form)?
- Why do you think V1-ing (V1, gerund form) will be an appropriate / adequate solution?
- How [V1 => Noun] ( = Noun from the Verb 1) can be done?

To answer, you can say:

[Noun] can be done by Verb 2 + Object, by Verb 3 + O, and by Verb 4 + O.

- If this solution is well implemented, what will be the outcomes?

o Will parents still send their daughters to work / early marriage?
o Will they still need the money from their children to survive?
o Will underage girls still need to work as maids to get the essential skills to maintain a
household?
- What will be the final result? (Will child labor / child marriage decrease or Will it be
eradicated?)

Some example answers, always based on the article: “The grim reality of Nepalese child
laborers” (T4 13)
To eradicate child labor, parents should be educated and informed about the rights of children.
Educating parents is a good solution because if they know the basic skills like reading, writing and
doing simple maths, they will be able to get low-skilled jobs. In my opinion, this could be done by
providing free basic skill education to uneducated parents who live in the countryside, by training
them to improve their farming methods, and by teaching young women and mothers about how to
maintain a household. If this solution is well implemented, parents will qualify for a position at a low-
skilled factory and get a decent monthly salary. Also, if they have the right skills to improve their farm
products, they can gain more profits from their farming and agriculture. Therefore, they will no longer
depend on their children’s meager salary to survive and send their children to school. Besides, trained
parents can pass on their homemaking abilities to their daughters before they get married. As a
result, child labor will decrease.

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