This course is about learning to write - analyzing your purpose and audience, researching a topic and citing your sources, stating a thesis and supporting it, and following a process that leads to polished work.

Short preparatory assignments will lead you through the development of four longer essays.  You will also write two more essays at a testing center to demonstrate what you have learned.   You will write in discussion forums where you and your classmates will give each other feedback. Everyone will complete assignments on the same weekly schedule (with some mid-week deadlines) to insure timely feedback.

The textbook and course assignments focus on the kinds of writing done in the everyday world.  The skills that you learn, however, will also apply to your college writing.

If you do well in this course, you will be able to:

• Read, summarize, critically analyze, and respond to college-level writing.
• Engage in all phases of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and reflecting.
• Incorporate your personal reading and life experience into the writing process.
• Write well-developed explanatory and argumentative essays that demonstrate your awareness of purpose and audience.
• Use correct grammar and mechanics in your writing.
• Use and incorporate outside sources of information in your writing with proper documentation and without plagiarizing.

Your course grade will be determined according to the following points:
 

There are 2 proctored exams in this course.

Last Updated: March 31, 2011