Like other large universities in the U.S., Ohio State has many students who are non-native speakers of English. Most of them speak languages quite different from English, most of them come from cultures no less different, and most have had little or no previous instruction in academic writing. A sure recipe for failure? Not necessarily. Dedicated and well-prepared teachers can work successfully with these students, who are some of the most talented in the university. English 881.03 will provide a chance to develop several kinds of knowledge: 1) a detailed understanding of rhetorical and grammatical relations in written English; 2) a capacity to analyze a wide variety of errors--and to find ways of coping with them; 3) an ability to develop useful writing assignments as well as an ability to evaluate student performance on such assignments; 4) a knowledge of the implications of research on second language acquisition, discourse analysis, and writing pedagogy; 5) an awareness of the cultural and professional contexts in which ESL instruction takes place.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Linking Literacies, ed. by Diane Belcher andAlan Hirvela. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001.

Controversies in Second Language Writing: Dilemmas and Decisions in Research, by Christine Casanave. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.

The Grammar Book, by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman. Boston: Heinle and Heinle, 1999.

REQUIREMENTS, PAPERS, EXAMS: One paper, two in-class presentations, homework, and a take-home final exam.