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ENG 096 Index/Philosophy | Syllabus | Outline | Handouts | Quizzes | Accessing Files |
This outline is intended as a guide; it contains
more material than students can usually cover in a single semester.
Suggestion: in addition to using the goals linked below to move to a section,
use the Find command in the browser Edit menu to seek material on
a particular topic, such as comma.
Course Goals
Write essays displaying unity, support, coherence, and appropriate sentence structure. *Note
Identify patterns of development in essays (types of essays)
Write a minimum of four graded assignments, including at least two essays. *Note
Maintain effective system of record keeping and academic organizational strategies.
GOAL: Introduce and Review the Pre-Writing Process.
Outcome: student examines different audiences and purposes for writing
Suggested Activities
Audience and purpose group activity (Grassroots and Evergreen)
Note: instructor needs to give each group a different audience/purpose (examples: a letter to a friend, a police report, a news report, letter to a mental health professional, etc.)
Web Resources
General Writing Concerns Handouts from Purdue OWL
Assessment Measures
Outcome: student practices idea generation
strategies.
Suggested Activities:
Teacher models pre-writing Techniques
Group Activity: “Jigsaw” to introduce/review all techniques: Divide class into same number of groups as techniques to be reviewed; each group reads about/discusses/understands one technique; change groups to make new groups with one member representing each technique; all students explain techniques to group (perhaps demonstrate, too); assess understanding at end.
Assignment: Practice a variety of pre-writing techniques about a variety of topics.
Assignment: As first step to a future writing assignment, give students a list of topics from which to choose as they do pre-writing practice. (Tip: Give this assignment a name, perhaps linked to theme of first assignment, and/or use a particular font/color paper on handout with assignment & topics, and use same font/color when you give future steps to the graded assignment. Students sometimes have trouble seeing connection between early pre-writing assignments and later writing assignments.)
Web Resources ~ Freewriting and Mapping Resources
Freewriting - Texas A & M Writing Center
Brainstorming - Texas A & M Writing Center
Visualizing - Texas A & M Writing Center
Pre-test: Assess students’ knowledge about/experience with techniques via informal poll or open-ended question
Assess student ability to explain/demonstrate techniques (see jigsaw activity)
Assess successful generation of ideas for written assignments
Require students to submit pre-writing with their final paragraphs/essays.
Outcome: student prepares a writing plan or outline for each assignment
Outcome: student prepares a writing plan or outline for each assignment
Suggested Activities
Most texts cover outlining – either formal or informal.
Many texts provide graphic organizers tailored to specific kinds of writing
assignments:
See also Inspiration.com (Download materials for a free 30-day trial)
In-class Activities: Using a pre-writing sample (for ex: on overhead), instructor can model the process of grouping related ideas (showing that there are usually several possible ways). Students can do a similar activity individually or in groups, with a different pre-writing sample. Using some combination of instructor modeling and student participation, class works to create outlines from pre-writing samples. A variety of writing plan formats can be used, however – outlines, maps, etc. (Instructor choice – showing students a variety of techniques may be beneficial).
Activity (handout): Evaluating topic sentences and outlines (link)
Web Resources
Outline samples/templates:Limiting your topic activity:
“Focusing your Ideas:” 3 handouts available on line (also reprinted in this section)
Ask your course "coach" about Inspiration.com
(graphic organizer software available on campus)
Assessment Measures
Observation of the “Evaluating topic sentences/outlines” activity
Require students to submit outline or writing plan with graded assignments
GOAL: Improve and refine sentence structure and language usage.
Outcome: student correctly uses subject and verb forms.
Note: this is one of the primary
objectives for previous courses (including ENG 095). Review as needed to
meet the needs of your particular class (and note that not all students
will have taken ENG 095).
Suggested Activities
“Sentence Sense,” online text (see Web Resources below), provides interactive activities helping students to make sense of verbs (see 2.1 and 2.11 – reprinted here)
Most texts provide info. on such verb issues as subject/verb agreement (See also reprinted sample from “OWL” online resource).
Finding subjects (See Web Resources – reprinted here), or do a similar activity (individual or group) using any written material.
Presentation (with handouts) to review subjects and verbs (if needed for extra review)
Large-print version intended for overhead transparency; small-print for student handouts. feel free to download & adapt—visuals? (if needed for extra review)
Revise student writing sample for S/V agreement and/or other verb issues
See also web resources (for ex: a pre-test/game is reprinted in this section)
Web Resources
· Purdue Online Writing Lab: Subj/V agreement (reprinted here)
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslsubverbEX1.html
· “Guide to Grammar and Writing,” subject/verb agreement page:
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/grammar/sv_agr.htm
· ESL issues: Website with activities and quizzes
http://a4esl.org/
· ”Writing Works” website: Subject/verb agreement page
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/grammar/subjectverb.html
·
http://ccc.commnet.edu/sensen/part4/irregular_verbs.html
(overview of irregular verbs; reprinted in this section)
·
http://ccc.commnet.edu/sensen/part1/two/forms.html
a verb’s 4 forms (reprinted for reference in this section)
·
http://ccc.commnet.edu/sensen/part1/two/non_verbs.html
(non verb forms that trick students into thinking they’re verbs
Assessment Measures
Outcome: student recognizes and writes complete sentences
(including compound and complex sentences), avoiding fragments
and run-ons
Suggested Activities
Note – many of these activities don’t use the terms “fragment” and “run
on” – they try to teach the correct sentence patterns).
Fragments and Run-ons
See web resources below.
Handouts: Run-ons summary and How to fix run-ons
Homework assignments: Ask students to edit a variety of texts for sentence errors.
Sentence Patterns
Group activity: Dependent/ Independent clauses - Put sentence halves on index cards. Distribute throughout class; students try to find classmates who have sentence parts that can be joined to their own. Together, students write combined sentences using correct structure/punctuation.
Powerpoint presentation: Sentence patterns (with handouts)
Powerpoint Presentation: Dependent/independent clauses (link)
Presentation (with handouts): Clauses & Phrases (not yet available online – see manual.)
Activity (handout): Writing sample for fragments and run-ons
Sentence Patterns Group Activity: Break students into groups, each group responsible for 2-3 of the sentence patterns in the table. Using a writing sample or article, students look for examples of the patterns. Students can copy these – instructor may want to compile all successful samples to share with whole class.
Homework assignments: Ask students to identify featured sentence patterns in a viriety of written texts; ask students to create original sentences following the featured sentence patterns; have students edit a variety of texts for sentence errors.
Handout: Comma vs Semicolon
Web Resources
Guide to Grammar and Writing - Includes dependent/independent clauses, fragments, run-ons. All linked from index page
Fragments: (Guide to grammar and writing):
Assessment Measures
Pretest: Give students writing samples with fragments and/or run-ons in them, and see if they can identify problems (but don’t have to say “fragment” or “run-on” yet –see what they know, first)
Pre-test: Give students compound/complex sentences with punctuation removed, and see if they can identify where punctuation belongs.
Post: Formal/informal quizzes
Sentence combining graded exercises and/or quizzes
Require use of specific patterns in graded writing assignments
Check students’ peer editing of classmates’ work for these focused correction areas.
Guide to Grammar and Writing website, interactive quiz area, includes several quizzes related to correct use of clauses, phrases and appropriate punctuation. (Students must do these quizzes online). http://cctc2.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm
Outcome: student effectively uses punctuation as needed.
Suggested Activities
Review end punctuation (see materials for ENG 095)
Presentation: Clause to comma (see notes under “complete sentence” outcome)
Presentation: Commas with intros and interrupters (with handouts) (link)
Web Resources
Purdue
OWL: Grammar, spelling and punctuation page
Scroll down to find handouts on
different uses of comma, including exercises and answer keys. (other punctuation
included too)
Scroll down further for interactive exercises index.
Guide to
Grammar and Writing: Punctuation home page
Or, link to anywhere from index page:
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/grammar/index2.htm
Assessment Measures
Pre-test: Students try to insert commas as needed in a writing sample with all
commas removed, (can include compound/complex sentences, or other uses of comma
as instructor desires).
Post:
Formal/informal quizzes
Require correct use of specific punctuation (instructor choice) in graded assignments
Guide to Grammar and Writing website, interactive quiz area, includes several
quizzes related to correct use of punctuation (Careful: Some of them are hard!)
GOAL: Write essays displaying unity, support, coherence, and appropriate sentence structure. *Note
Outcome: student creates unity by developing a main point or thesis (unity).
Suggested Activities:
Any of pre-tests (below) would be good introductory activity.
Activities (group or individual): Revise unfocused writing samples (or offer suggestions)
Activity: Read writing samples with topic sentences and/or thesis statements removed. Ask students to write topic sentences or thesis statements. (Use the following test to see if your topic sentence/thesis statement is really a sentence: Insert “I think that . . ." or “She refused to believe the idea that . . .” in front of the statement. If it doesn’t make sense, it’s probably not a sentence.
Activity (handout): Finding Main Points (After pre-writing: work toward finding possible main points to develop). (link)
Activity (handout): Evaluating topic sentences and outlines (link)
Handout (map): What is a thesis? (good summary sheet for students)
Web Resources
OWL handout discussion of thesis statements: Discusses different types for
different types of writing (may want to adapt to make more user-friendly)
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_thesis.html
OWL: What is a paragraph? (includes discussion of unity, support, etc., and
topic sentence). May need to adapt.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_pgrph2.html
From Capital Community College
Assessment Measures
Pre-test: Ask students (individually or in groups) to explain what a topic sentence (and/or thesis statement) is and what it does. Students write answers; use that as starting point for discussion.
Pre-test: Read samples of unfocused writing and ask students their opinion about it. Start with open-ended questions, and become more specific if desired. (Ex: What is the writer trying to say? What’s most important here? Is it clear what they want to say? Do Etc.)
Post: Similar to pre-test; also assess via peer editing of classmates’ work, and in the final results in student drafts.
Outcome: student writes sentences and paragraphs that support the thesis with facts, details and examples (support).
Suggested Activities
Sample Paragraphs for Support (Word handout) – use for group/individual activity, or it could be a pre-test, too (see below) (link)
Most texts include samples for evaluation, too.
In-class or for homework: Introduce idea of pre-writing (mapping, etc.) a second time, after doing initial pre-write and topic sentence/thesis statement, in order to find support points to back up the thesis. Point out that they’ll come up with more focused ideas this time, as opposed to first time, just pre-writing around the broader topic.
Group or individual activity: Add support to improve an inadequately developed writing sample.
“Giving Examples and Explanations:”
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/sensen/part3/sixteen/techniques_giving.html
OWL: What is a paragraph? (includes discussion of unity,
support, etc., and topic sentence). Applies to paragraph-length
assignments. May need to adapt.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_pgrph2.html
Assessment Measures
Pre-test: read examples of unsupported essays, and see if students see a problem. (Ask open-ended to more specific questions: What do you think is the main point? What does the writer do to prove/show that point? Is there enough information to prove it? Etc.)
Post: Similar to pre-test; also assess via peer editing of classmates’ work, and
in the final results in student drafts.
Outcome: student develops appropriate order (time, space, importance) to connect ideas (coherence).
Suggested Activities:
Intro (or pre-test): Read samples with order problems and see if students see a problem. Ask open-ended questions about the order/clarity of ideas.
Activity (group or individual): Re-write samples, changing order. Justify your choice of order. (There may be multiple effective options – follow up with discussion of choices)
Students pay attention to (and/or explain) their order choices in
outlines/writing plans and/or first drafts.
Web Resources
Principles of organization:
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/organization.htm
Assessment Measures
Pre-test: Read samples with order problems and see if students see a problem. Ask open-ended questions about the order/clarity of ideas.
Post: Similar to pre-test; also assess via peer editing of classmates’ work, and in the final results in student drafts.
Outcome: student links sentences and paragraphs together using transitions (coherence).
Suggested Activities
Powerpoint presentations
Overhead transparency presentation (with
handouts).
Warning: You need to check these all carefully, because they use
different terminology, etc. Choose, combine, and/or adapt as needed. Also, if
you use the OH presentation, you’ll need to add information. The overhead
presentation has a blank page, into which the teacher who used it inserted a
table of transitions that appeared in the student text. These include
transitions and use of repetition, synonyms & pronouns.
Web Resources
· “Sentence Sense:” online activity using
transitions:
http://ccc.commnet.edu/sensen/part3/sixteen/techniques_transitional.html
· Purdue OWL:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_transition.html
· GGW:
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/grammar/transitions.htm
· U. of Otago, Student Learning Center website, “Cohesion.” (explain to
students that this is the same as “coherence.”
http://slc.otago.ac.nz/studyskills/ch4sect10.asp
Assessment Measures
Pre-test (can also be used for post) – Ask students to fill in missing transitions to a sample paragraph. (optional) include a list of transitions from which to choose.
Post: Similar to pre-test; also assess via peer editing of classmates’ work, and in the final results in student drafts.
GOAL: Identify patterns of development in essays (types of essays)
Outcome: student produces at least two different types of essays (for
example, narration, description, illustration)
Suggested Activities
Web Resources
· “English Works” website: Explanation of
essay types (with visuals)
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/writing/essay.html
Links to different kinds of essays, samples:
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/writing/main/essay.htm
(both of these reprinted in this section)
· Guide to Grammar and Writing: Introduction to the 5-paragraph essay:
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/grammar/five_par.htm
(includes discussion of organizational patterns)
· OWL handouts: How to take an essay exam. Connects to the different
types of essays.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_essay.html
· “Sentence Sense” writing assignments (several reprinted in this
section)
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/sensen/part3/seventeen/index.html
Assessment Measures
Assess student essays
GOAL:
Improve
the ability to revise one's own work
(Note – See information for this section above, in relevant areas)
Outcome: student recognizes and creates unified paragraphs and essays.
Suggested Activities
· Peer review activities can help
students to develop/refine revision skills. Many texts provide peer
review forms.
· Peer Review Form (You will
probably need to adapt it to your own assignment, especially in the
sentence skills section, unless you choose the same “sentence skills”
areas as your focus for this assignment)
Web Resources
Guidelines for Peer review: http://cctc2.commnet.edu/sensen/part3/sixteen/techniques_peer.html
· English Works website: Discussion of
introductions & conclusions:
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/writing/introconslu.html
(reprinted in this section)
·
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/sensen/part3/sixteen/index.html
“Sentence Sense,” essay-writing: includes limiting topic, writing topic
sentence, paragraph breaks, thesis, intros & conclusions, etc.
· Review of stand-alone paragraph structure: “What is a paragraph?”
(below)
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_pgrph2.html
Assessment Measures
Outcome: student recognizes and provides adequate support in essays.
Suggested Activities
Web Resources
Assessment Measures
Outcome: student recognizes and produces
coherence in essays.
Suggested Activities
Web Resources
Assessment Measures
Outcome: student identifies individual writing challenges and develops
strategies to address those challenges (lab with tutor, grammar log, revision
checklist, etc)
Suggested Activities
Ask students to reflect on own progress in written assignments, via questionnaires, etc. (See the First Draft Self-Reflection form.)
Use peer-editing to strengthen student abilities in this area.
Give students logs or worksheets itemizing their own writing challenges; ask them to do various activities with these (ex: check own drafts for these items, compare new and old assignments in terms of these items, etc.)
Ask students to reflect on own progress in written assignments, via questionnaires, etc.
Use most applicable
items from web resources below for writing errors checklist.
Web Resources
Assessment Measures
· Pre test: First week of class, student
write letter to instructor about self as writer: past experience (if
any), perception of strengths/weaknesses, help needed, etc.
· Post: Follow up with periodic self-reflection throughout the semester
and at the end.
· Portfolio Assessment (if desired – see
Portfolio handout in
this section)
GOAL: Write a minimum of four graded assignments, including at least two essays. *Note
Suggested Activities
Web Resources
Purdue OWL What is a paragraph? (includes discussion of unity, support, etc., and topic sentence). May need to adapt.
Guide to Grammar and Writing: Introduction to the 5-paragraph essay
Assessment Measures
GOAL: Maintain effective system of record keeping and academic organizational strategies.
Outcome: student organizes class materials (syllabus, handouts, notes, written
work)
Suggested Activities
Communicate record-keeping expectations to students up front (instructor choice); give students regular reminders (for ex: when returning papers) about where these papers should be stored.
Frequently ask students to re-write/adapt old assignments, creating incentive for effective organizational system.
Web Resources
Assessment Measures
Check student notebooks (or organizational systems) regularly
Assess student ability to retain all required information (for example, by requiring pre-writing to be included with final drafts, etc.)
Outcome: student tracks own progress through self-assessment for specific assignments.
Suggested Activities
Periodically ask students to estimate their current grade, by averaging graded work returned so far (and/or adding up homework points, etc., as determined by instructor). Instructor may need to provide worksheets for students to use (for ex: following grading criteria from syllabus)
Ask students to reflect on own progress in written assignments, via questionnaires, etc.
Web Resources
Assessment Measures
· Assess student self-reflection activities.
· Final portfolio (if applicable)
*Note: To achieve this writing goal, students may complete several drafts as well as ungraded assignments.