English 109.02 |
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In this section of 109.02, you will be involved in work that may not be what you think of when you think about a "writing class." This class will ask you to do more than simply read and then write about what you've read: it revolves around the concepts of literacy and community and incorporates hands-on work with a group of students from Johnson Park Middle School as one of the primary course activities. In addition to this, we will examine different types of communities (focusing, in part, on middle school communities) to discover what "community" means, what communities include, and how to approach a particular community in writing. The service-learning piece of the course involves your working as the Johnson Park students' editorial staff, editing the writing the JPMS students are doing for their newsletter. You will use your skills as readers and writers to work with the JPMS students who are creating this community publication. As you work with the JPMS students, you will also be building your writing and editing skills, and you will apply those to your own individual and group writing projects. This work will also inform your own classwork by helping you think, talk, and write critically about literacy. Your Writing Project 2 will draw on your observations about community, literacy and the work you have been reviewing for the Johnson Park students. With several of your classmates, you will collaborate, using each group member's strengths in reading, writing, and critical thinking to develop your own projects exploring and/or directed toward a community of which you are members. This project will require that you use what you have learned about audience, "public" writing, and your own community literacy(ies) to develop a non-academic publication. The writing you do for class will take a variety of different forms--from formal to informal, "published" to personal, and lots of different types in between. As far as major writing assignments go, you will have two more-or-less traditional assignments (Writing Project 1: Community Literacy Narrative) and the final (an individual self-assessment) and you will work with your classmates on a less traditional assignment (Writing Project 2), directed toward a particular community of your choosing. These writing projects will give you an opportunity to write about literacy and community and expand these ideas to help you think critically about literacy here at the University. In addition to these major writing assignments (which I'm defining as those which involve lots of drafting and revision), you will have informal writing assignments that will ask you, amongst other things, to reflect on the readings and on your work with the Johnson Park Middle School students. We will meet two days a week in a "traditional" classroom setting and one day (Thursday) in the computer lab, Denney 308. We will use this time in the computer lab to research texts that you will read and write about. You will also be able to use some of this time in the lab to work together for class projects, including Writing Project 2. At two points during the quarter, Weeks 5 and 9, you will submit a draft to a Writing Center tutor assigned to work with our class through the Success Challenge program. As with the drafts you submitted last quarter, you will decide what you would like your tutor to give you feedback about. The fact that you will have choices, based on what stage of the drafting process (and what piece of writing) you are working on by Weeks 5 and 9, and what your group has determined is important to the success of your Writing Project 2, this part of the process will be especially important for you to plan. Materials for the Course: Perlstein, Linda. not much just chillin': the hidden lives of middle schoolers. New York: additional readings related to Writing Project 2 topics (selected by the class, mid-quarter) a folder to hold your drafts and informal writings. This will be collected at the end of the quarter. a writing handbook of your choice (one from last quarter, leftover from high school, etc.) I recommend a flashdrive to back up your documents, or at least ask that you use your eportfolio to save drafts of your writing assignments. access to a printer outside DE 308 : please find a printer on campus that you can use to print out your work for days on which we will be working with your drafts and for assignments which you are handing in to me. |
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES FOR THE GENERAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM
Writing and Related Skills
Goals/Rationale:
Writing courses across the disciplines develop students' skills in writing, reading, critical thinking, and oral expression.
Learning Objectives:
1. Students apply basic skills in expository writing
2. Students demonstrate critical thinking through written and oral expression
3. Students retrieve and use written information analytically and effectively
