Written Expression is a one-semester composition course designed to teach you strategies and give you practice in doing college-level writing. The assignments ask that you approach writing as a serious, sometimes frustrating, often enjoyable multi-stage process, addressing different subjects in a variety of voices and genres to audiences of your classmates (in writing groups) and me (of course).

Throughout the term, I want you to share your writing with classmates, to listen to their responses, and to revise and edit with their suggestions in mind. And I want you to read your classmates’ drafts and help them in return. In addition, I wi ll ask you to try out various revision and editing strategies, weekly, and coach you as best I can on how to make your writing as strong as possible.

In the course of the semester, we will examine the several roles writing plays in the college community: 1) discovering and exploring ideas; 2) organizing and developing thought, 3) researching and finding new information, and 4) revising texts to make them as sharp and coherent as possible. I hope that during our 15 weeks together, you will join me in viewing yourself as a "writer"—someone for whom the act of writing is an important and regular part of living in a complex, literate soc iety.

Please purchase The Working Writer, by Toby Fulwiler (Blair Press, 1995) in which you will have weekly reading assignments. Student pairs will lead discussions on selected chapters to the class (see attached schedule for discussion sign- up times).

In addition, purchase (if you do not already own) a good college-level dictionary (e.g., WEBSTER’S NEW COLLEGIATE or NEW WORLD, THE AMERICAN HERITAGE, THE RANDOM HOUSE, etc., and plan to use it.)

Finally, budget some funds (about $15) to purchase copies of the three "class books" we will write, edit, publish, and read by the end of the term.

Plan to complete the following assignments during your fifteen weeks in English 1; successful completion of these as demonstrated in the class books and portfolio will be the primary basis for your course grade:

• Personal profile: Write a profile of a yourself, emphasizing your most important, distinctive, or defining feature—or whatever version of yourself you are willing to share with our class. Plan to base this self-portrait on both internal impres sions (memories, thoughts, emotions) as well as external sources (artifacts, interviews, recorded data). (Three hard drafts, five weeks, five finished pages; chapter in class book)

• Essay on Work: Write an essay exploring the kind(s) of work you might (or plan to) pursue when you graduate from college. Investigate this potential career through field and library research, report what you find, and speculate upon why this w ork will give you pleasure. (If you are unsure of this field, select a potential field.) Unlike your personal profile, the main focus of this assignment should be on the field of work, not on yourself. Keep track of all your research in your journal. (T hree hard drafts, four weeks, five finished pages; chapter in class book.)

• Research Essay. Select for close examination an issue, object, text, or institution that you are curious about and would like to know more about. Plan to include substantial information from knowledgeable sources, both personal (interviews, obser vations) and textual (library, Internet). Keep track of research information as well as the evolution of your ideas in your course journal. I would like you to pursue this project in collaboration with one or two classmates of your choice. (Three hard dr afts, four weeks, ten finished pages; chapter in electronic and personal portfolio.)

Class books. Everyone will be invited to contribute to each of three class books that we will publish during the semester. Editorial teams of two to three student each will collect, edit, organize, and publish these books on "personal pro files," "work," and "learning with computers." Student who elect to edit these three books will not be required to lead discussions on The Working Writer.

Note: The third class book, learning with computers, will be the primary responsibility of the team of students (2-3) who is willing to elect this topic as a research project. Each student in the class , however, will also contribute at least a p age to this book about some aspect of life in a computer writing classroom. Topics to be open or assigned by editors. (One hard draft, two weeks, chapter in class book.)

Journal. Keep a "writer’s journal" to (1) speculate about ideas related to your writing, (2) record observations and research notes, and (3) witness yourself as a thinker and learner. Plan to make this journal a combination of handwritt en and electronic entries—to facilitate this, purchase a three-ring loose leaf notebook which will also serve as your portfolio binder at mid and end-term.)

E-mail Letters. Each week, by week’s end, please send an e-mail letter to me, along with your writing group members, to share ideas about your emerging paper; this is also your chance to comment on and ask questions about the reading and w riting assignments in the course or any other matters related to writing that concern you. I, along with your group mates, will respond to you and, in return, share some of our questions, concerns, and insights with you.

Portfolio Assessment. Plan to keep all of your completed paper drafts in your three-ring binder along with journal entries, letter print-outs, and selected class exercises. I would like to see this portfolio twice (mid-term & end-term) for a ssessment. Your completed portfolio will consist of (1) a cover letter which explains and assesses your work to date in the course [1-2 pages typed], followed in chronological order by (2) final copies of all essays [clean copy, typed double space], (3) early drafts commented on by classmates and instructor, and (4) self-selected samples from your journal entries, class exercises, and letters—these all your choice to help me better understand your experience as a writer).

Throughout the term I will comment on your papers (in handwriting, electronically, in class, & in conference), but not attach individual letter grades to any draft. At any time after mid-term, you can discover your letter grade by conferring w ith me about your portfolio-to-date.

At term’s end we will arrive at a final grade based upon (1) the quality of your finished manuscripts as demonstrated in class books and final portfolio. Also factored into your grade, but counting less, will be the amount of (2) risk and (3) effo rt demonstrated in your paper drafts, and (4) class attendance and participation.

Note: As you know by now, this is the first-time offering of this writing course in a new classroom equipped with computers. During the term I will be experimenting with ways in which the in-class computers can improve the efficiency and quality of yo ur writing as well as my writing instruction. Though I have written on word processors for some fifteen years now, I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a computer expert—I seem to learn and remember only the computer commands that I actually need and use in my own writing—so that I know something of Word for Windows and a lot less about Macs and surfing the Internet. So, throughout the term, I will accept as much help as you can give with both the "Word" programs Windows and Macintosh as well as the accessing and researching on the Internet. If you’ll be patient about my computer expertise, I’ll be the same about your writing expertise.

Tentative Schedule of Classes

1. (9/2) Talking and writing about writing

(9/5) Working Writer (WW) 1 Problems, 3 Process

2. (9/9) Profile d/1

(9/11) WW 9 Sharing, 23 Limiting ___________________ __________________

3. (9/16) Profile d/2

(9/18) WW , 22 Revising, 24 Switching _________________ _________________

4. (9/23) WW Ref i, Class book 1: Profiles (d/3 due editors)

(9/25) WW 8 Journals, ___________________ ____________________

5. (9/30) Conferences (group)

(10/2) ) Profiles (eds.) ______________ _____________ ________________

6. (10/7) Work d/1 (aspirations & experience)

(10/9 WW 7 Inventing, 17 Field Research _________________ ______________

7. (10/14) Work d/2 (interviews)

(10/16) WW 5 Audience, 6 Voice __________________ ___________________

8. (10/21) Mid-term portfolios due

(10/23) Internet research; no scheduled class

9. (10/28) Class book 2: Work (d/3 due editors)

(10/30) WW 26 Openings ______________________ ____________________

10 (11/4) WW 16 Research, 18 Library _______________ _________________

(11/6) Work (eds.) ________________ ________________ _________________

11. (11/11) Research d/1 (incl. Learning with Computers ed. Group)

(11/13) WW 21 Sampler, 25 Paragraphs _______________ ________________

12. (11/18) Research d/2

(11/20) WW 20 Documenting __________________ _________________

13. (11/25) Research d/3

THANKSGIVING

14. (12/2) Class book 3: Learning with Computers (d/1 due eds.)

(12/4) Workshop: Learning with Computers d/2, WW) 27 Sentences

15. (12/9) Learning with Computers (eds.) ___________ ____________ __________

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