Writing 2: English Academic Writing

Instructor: Zak Lancaster

Department of English Language and Literature

421 Liberal Arts Building (In-moon-guan)

Office phone: 2123-4710

E-mail:

Required text: Writing 2: English Academic Writing, ed. by Zak Lancaster

(This text will be distributed to you during the first week of class)

Description: This course can be viewed as a continuation of Writing 1.The principle focus will shift to(1) short essay organization and (2) incorporating other texts into your own line of argumentation. You will learn how to fairlyintegrate others’ arguments with your own and how to analyze and critiquesource materials.

The larger focus in the courseis to learn how to meet the expectations of the English-language reader in an academic discourse setting. Reader-expectations involveacademic conventions regarding argumentation strategies, organization, and style.

The course is structured according to the following issues:

(1)Consideration of audience and purpose

(2)Organization

(3)Style

(4)Flow

Class time: The majority of class time will be spent: 1) reading, analyzing, and critiquing student-written essays and 2) working on writing exercisesdesigned to improve your revising skills.

Due to the analytical nature of these exercises, there will likely be much silent time in class. This is expected and does not indicate a problem. In many cases, silence will actually be encouraged so that you can thoughtfully reflect on questions and formulate informed responses without the false pressure of immediate feedback. Become comfortable with silences. Please try to avoid, however, the tendency to interpret reflective silencesas opportunities to use your cell phone or to nap.

Assignments: This course requires the completion of three essays. (The use of secondary sources is encouraged for all three essays, but only actually required for the third.)For each of these, you will write three drafts. Between each draft you are expected to revise significantly. This usually means revising for: content, organization, style, grammatical control, vocabulary, and mechanics. Long before you begin writing, you will be given a detailed description of writing topic choices and requirements so that you will have plenty of time to plan and draft.

In addition to these three essay assignments, you will be assigned regular homework between classes. Homework will generally involve preparing for in-class discussions by reading ahead and thinking about questions. Homework will not be challenging in terms of quantity, but will require thoughtful reading and analysis.

Peer workshops: Before submitting your writing assignment to me, you will bring your first draft to class and participate in a peer review workshop. In these workshops, you will help your classmates revise their writing by giving them feedback, both written and oral. (For the written part, you will complete a questionnaire about your partner’s writing.)

After each workshop, you should consider the feedback you receive from your partner and decide how you want to use it to revise your writing. You should not feel obliged to always implement the suggestions of your partner.

Expectations: In this class you are expected to be a conscientious and active learner. This means that you 1) pay attention to class lectures and ask questions when you do not understand something, 2) contribute thoughtfully to small group discussions and writing exercises, 3) read ahead in your course book and give serious effort to analytical reading,and 4) work diligently on your writing assignments by thoughtfully planning, outlining, drafting, and revising. Perfection is not expected from you—a piece of writing is never perfect and, in a sense, is never finished—but a serious and thoughtful attitude toward improving your writing is expected.

Class etiquette: 1) All writing assignments must be submitted on time (see the class schedule for details). No late submissions will be allowed, unless there are extenuating circumstances that are credible, interesting, and compelling. Any type of “computer problem” is a good example of an excuse that no matter how credible is not interesting. Many precautionary measures can be taken to prevent computer problems: save your work often; make multiple copies of files, both on your hard drive and on disk; use anti-virus software; and give yourself plenty of time for formatting and printing. 2) All submissions must conform to the finished assignment format. 3) Always come to class on submission days, even if you are not finished with the assignment. 4) Bring your course packet to every class.

Additional requirements: To participate in this class you will also need:

Familiarity with MS Word

A diskette, on which you will save all of your work and submit to me on final submission days and which you will give to me when the course is over. When you save your work, you should create a separate folder for each assignment and name each folder as such: Assignment 1, Assignment 2, and Assignment 3. In each of these folders, you should save each draft as a separateMS Word documentand label the documents as such: Draft 1, Draft 2, Draft 3. Do not lose your disk but do not depend totally on your disk: also save your work in the same format on hard drive.