What to Expect:

In this course, we will focus on strengthening writing skills in preparation for college-level coursework. The emphasis is on developing and organizing ideas in paragraphs and essays. In order to be well-informed on the writing topics, we will build knowledge and vocabulary through short readings and research projects. We will have weekly vocabulary quizzes based on the known high frequency words of academic English. In your writing, we will focus on academic language, organization, development and expression of critical thoughts, and your specific grammar and structure problems. It is a goal of this course to help you become an independent writer, one who can analyze and improve your own work. To build fluency in writing, we will attempt to use a variety of writing exercises and approaches.

Here are our goals:

• To develop the skill of writing well-supported, clear, concise paragraphs, and eventually short essays.

• To utilize and benefit from the writing process: pre-writing, drafting, proofreading, and revising – and to produce polished essays.

• To write with fluency in English, without translation errors which limit the reader’s comprehension and distract from the quality of the ideas.

• To build and use a rich, academic vocabulary in writing

• To prepare for 100-level English courses and future college-level writing.