This course will help students find their place in the world of academic and critical writing—and enjoy that world. Students will learn to participate in ongoing debates, forming and developing their own opinions in written responses. We will:
- Think of writing as entering a conversation with someone else's train of thought. Enter that conversation to agree, disagree, or redefine the problem. For example, "Some Germans see home schooling as _________. I think________.”
- Read and respond to writing prompts in our textbook: They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (2018) By Birkenstein and Graff
- Learn to cite sources using the MLA (Modern Language Association) Style sheet. The following links are useful: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/?_ga=2.19623804.558179429.1522454400-1709346682.1522454400 and https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/EngPaper/
Weekly essays and in-class writings will be analyzed and edited by the instructor and your classmates. Please come to the first class with a list of at least three topics that strongly interest you. You are invited to consult the “they say, I say” blog: http://www.theysayiblog.com/
Required Text: They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (2018) by Birkenstein and Graff |