...A Thank You to Liz Writing has never been one of my strong points in school or life. I knew taking English 101 was going to be a challenge, especially considering I haven’t been in school for fifteen years. Turns out, the class isn’t as bad as I thought it might be. In fact English is one of my more enjoyable subjects this semester. The primary reason for this enjoyment is because of my wife Liz. She is currently pursuing her master’s in English and has a great deal of knowledge on the subject. Liz’s help in several aspects of my writing is the reason I have done so well. Here are a few examples of this help. One of the major aspects of writing Liz has helped me with is brainstorming. She would sit down with me and read the essay topic and instructions. Then we would begin to gather a list of ideas on the topic. Next we would discuss each topic and decide whether or not to keep it. Liz is very good with giving pros and cons on why to use or not use an idea. In the end we would narrow my list down to one idea to use. This brainstorming help gave me a great start to most of my essays. Another aspect that Liz helped me with is sentence structure. I sometimes write sentences that are awkward or to “wordy” as she says. Here is an example from the rough draft of this essay: “Now factor in that I haven’t been in school for fifteen years and you can probably see why I dreaded the idea of taking English 101.” Now read the second sentence of the opening paragraph and...
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...I was pretty nervous being a fairly new college student going into my second semester of college and taking my second English class. I had many different thoughts going through my mind of what to expect. I was apprehensive, but I was ready to take on the challenge. I knew that I needed to strengthen my English skills, and was hoping this class would help. It is okay if you are feeling nervous and scared, it’s normal. College is a very scary thing, especially if you feel you are not prepared for the courses. I feel as if English is one of my worst subjects because I have trouble comprehending and writing grammatically correct. I feel as if my high school English classes may have not prepared me enough for college. College English classes are not extremely hard if you stay on top of your work at all times. I did not have trouble writing my essays; however, I did have trouble when it came to proofreading my work. Now that I have successfully completed English 101 and 102 I feel that I have learned how to improve my writing skills, research skills, and I feel confident in any future writings....
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...experience. I have learned a lot academically, about myself, and about life in general. As I progressed though the year my viewpoints had changed. I had many new experiences that broadened my horizon. My classes opened me up to knowledge I could apply to my life, that I found interesting, and benefitted me. I learned a lot about myself, including what I want out of my college experience, and what my passion is. Despite the numerous papers, multitudes of exams, tremendous amount of course work, and athletics I believe I have done well. One of the many demanding classes this semester was English 101. In this rigorous course, students were asked to gain rhetorical knowledge, engage in critical writing, perform research writing, and improve their style and grammar. These goals are closely related to those of the WPA Outcomes published by the Council of Writing Program Administrators. The WPA...
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...send before class starts. I walk into the warm, musty computer lab and sit at my usual spot with the view of the library through the tree limbs. I am always sure to come to English class because I know of my terrible history in this subject area. I have always struggled with English and before this semester had assumed that the college level class would be the death of me. As I read over the syllabus for this class it states that we will learn to understand writing assignments as a series of tasks and develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading the assigned papers. I shuddered at the sheer thought of having to write five papers. Narrative, Evaluation, Profile, Position. These words might as well have been written in another language because I had no idea how to differentiate between them. Despite my fears, I believe this semester’s English 101 course has truly helped me develop my writing skills and advance to a more capable writer. Throughout my life English has always been my most difficult subject. Even back in elementary school I would have 100 percent averages in all of my other classes except English. I do not know what it was that challenged me so much but I had a terrible time. With the start of my high school career coincided the beginning of my paper writing experiences. I would work for hours each day trying my best to write a paper that made sense and would flow smoothly between paragraphs. My countless hours of work, however...
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...Walking into high school and into college are two very different things. The atmosphere is different, students are different, and teachers are different. Many things are different in college. Professors are not scared to use profanity. Class styles are all different. Students are not babied in college. College is a time in a student's life to realize their dreams. However, first, they must pass basic courses. One of these basic courses includes English 101. Some students struggle with this course because they believe they are not good writers. But bad writing can be fixed, laziness cannot. As a student who has taken English 101 twice now, I have a few helpful tips for incoming freshmen on how to succeed at this course. Students who wish to end their English 101 class with a bang should avoid procrastination, correct essay mistakes, and celebrate successes and failures....
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...ENG2602/101/3/2015 Tutorial letter 101/3/2015 GENRES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE: THEORY, STYLE AND POETICS ENG2602 Semesters 1 & 2 Department of English Studies IMPORTANT INFORMATION: This Tutorial Letter contains important information about your module. CONTENTS Page 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 3 2 PURPOSE OF AND OUTCOMES FOR THE MODULE............................................................... 4 2.1 Purpose ........................................................................................................................................ 4 2.2 Outcomes .....................................................................................................................................4 3 LECTURER(S) AND CONTACT DETAILS................................................................................... 5 3.1 Lecturer(s) .................................................................................................................................... 5 3.2 Department ................................................................................................................................... 6 3.3 University ...................................................................................................................................... 6 4 MODULE-RELATED RESOURCES ..................
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...Education Writing 101 St. George 20 September 2011 English Loses Ground: Rhetorical Analysis In Rochelle Sharpe's writing, "English Lose Ground," she attempts to persuade and inform her readers of one of America's growing problems. To persuade her readers, Sharpe utilizes statistics, logic, and expert opinion to show that in the United States, non-English speakers and linguistically isolated households in the United States has increased to a point where it is becoming an issue. However, the way Sharpe utilizes statistics, and fails to see the other side of the argument reduces her credibility and ultimately makes her argument less persuasive. Effective writing requires many different tools, strategies, and devices, which could be applied by Sharpe to improve her argument. Although Sharpe has many flaws in her argument, she also utilizes many positive tools. One of these positive aspects in her argument was the comparing of time periods. By stating that there has been a significant increase in foreign language speakers from 1990 to 2007, and specifically stating how much, she concretely gives an example of her argument and the scale in which her argument is relevant. Although this comparison of time periods is a positive aspect in her paper, there is also a problem with her information. Sharpe’s data is no longer current. Now that the current year is 2011, any 2007 data is considered out dated, and is less relevant to the present day. Now that her positive aspect of time...
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...Connie Contoravdis Petersilie ENGL 101.49 16 September 2014 Unit One Prior to attending Washington State University, English was my favorite subject in high school. I feel that when entering English 101, and Unit One I was at an experienced/expert level. There are certain aspects such as; writing, organization and analyzing skills that I felt confident with. However, grammar and summarizing texts were skills I felt I was lacking. When approaching the Summary and Response paper I had concerns with overcoming the skills I was not as confident with with such as; grammar and the summarizing portion of the paper. I feel that when I am writing a paper I don’t usually struggle with the content or structure of it, but rather the grammar and punctuation aspects. Also summarizing was another skill I was nervous about, sometimes I feel I either summarize to little or too much. Having the opportunity to write the Summary and Response paper gave me practice and the chance to portray my strengths and weaknesses and in the end bettering me as an English student. The major project, summary and response paper, was not to difficult but at the same I experienced a bad case of writers block during my writing process. My biggest concern with beginning the project was that I was not exactly sure what the writing expectations were and as well the page limit. I feel that because it was only my first major project I was hesitant to how to approach the paper. To begin the paper I started off...
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...English 101 Alex Gouirand Winter 2015 Writer’s Portfolio Due: Thursday, March 19 by class time. For this assignment you will focus on one aspect of your writing that you have identified as needing attention. With the help of students, librarians, and other community resources, you will practice this skill and demonstrate improvement. In the completed portfolio, you must have: 1. Identified the skill you hope to target. 2. Found a sample of your writing from this quarter that shows the need for improvement 3. Made a list of resources you might use to help you improve in that area. Resources could be in the community (your friends, peers, family), at school (librarians, textbooks, the Writing Center), on the internet, or etc. 4. Done the fieldwork. This could mean talking to librarians, doing research, having others critique your work… 5. Revised the passage or written a new sample to demonstrate your growth in the target area. 6. Written a narrative evaluation detailing everything you did in steps 1-5. The portfolio is worth 5% of your grade. Late work will not be accepted. Portfolio Rubric Steps are clearly labeled. | No | Yes | Sections are clearly divided. | No | Yes | 1. Target skill. | Basic: the skill is identified. | Superior: A reason for choosing the skill is given. | 2. Writing sample—before | Basic: A writing sample is provided. | Superior: Comments are included at key points to further illustrate the problem with...
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...Curriculum Robin Bettasso ECE 101 Heather Gans September 30, 2013 Creative Curriculum Pupils will run a school newspaper on the school website. They will use different literary forms to present the news of the school. Key vocabulary: Fact; OpinionThe goals the students will create a school newspaper containing three aspects: Latest News, Editorial, and Sports the students will post the school newspaper on the school website. In the standard NYS Learning Standards: English Language Arts students will read, write, speak, and listen for information and understanding. Intermediate. Students will-compare and synthesize information forms different sources and use a wide variety of strategies for selecting, organizing, and categorizing information. They will distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information and between fact and opinion. The students will relate new information to prior knowledge and experience. They will understand and use the text features that make information accessible and usable, such as format, sequence, level of diction, and relevance of details and establish an authoritative stance on the subject and provide references to establish the validity and verifiability of the information presented. Develop information with appropriate supporting material, such as facts, details, illustrative examples or anecdotes, and exclude extraneous materials and use the process of pre-writing, drafting, revising, and proofreading (the "writing process") to produce well-constructed...
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...John Pappas Mrs. Fogle English 101 14 December 2009 Best Paper After looking through the four papers that I submitted throughout the past semester, it was easy for me to establish which one I feel is my best piece of writing. I think that my autoethnography paper is my best example of good writing. Going through this paper starting from the top, the introduction and thesis sentence are both flawless. They provide direction for the reader and touch base on what will be presented in the rest of the paper. Moving onto the body paragraphs of this paper, I use many transitions, in-text citations, and the organization, structure and flow of the paper are all perfect. In addition, very few revisions were necessary after I turned the first draft in. Just things like word choice and sentence structure were the only major changes that were necessary in order to consider this paper an A paper. Moving on to the conclusion of my autoethnography paper, it is safe to say that it ties up any loose ends and reiterates my rhetorical purpose. A reason why this paper is better than the other papers that I have written, would be because I did not wait until the night before the assignment was due to write it. By spacing my work schedule out and working on the paper a little bit every night for several nights, I was able to produce a very good paper. The only thing that is lacking in my paper is a works cited, however I feel as though I do not need one because I have no one to cite except...
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...Practice Tests and Hints for IELTS Listening • Reading • Writing • Speaking fully updated for new IELTS Speaking Test format 101 Helpful Hints for IELTS PUBLISHER'S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The publishers are grateful for permission to use copyright material. We would like to acknowledge the original sources of text material listed below. Permission has been sought to reproduce all material whose source could be identified. Information that will enable the publishers to rectify any error or omission in subsequent editions will be welcome. The nine Band Score descriptions on page 12 are reproduced from The IELTS Handbook, a joint publication of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, The British Council, and IDP Education Australia: IELTS Australia. The reading passage "Regional Student Survey" on page 97, is adapted from The ELICOS Student Contextualised - Facts & Figures by Ms. CM. Bundesen, with permission of the author. AUTHORS' ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to acknowledge the support of the following people: Bruce Bell, HelenkaPiotrowski, Laurent Seibert, Andrew Thomas (Sydney English Language Centre), and Soon-Young Yoon. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Terry Peck and Garry Adams have extensive IELTS coaching experience, both having been involved in implementing and designing IELTS coaching programmes. Terry Peck was an IELTS examiner for a number of years in Sydney, Australia. AVAILABLE BY THE AUTHORS: '101 Helpful Hints for IELTS - Academic Module' International...
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...Hints for IELTS Listening • Reading • Writing • Speaking fully updated for new IELTS Speaking Test format 101 Helpful Hints for IELTS PUBLISHER'S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AUTHORS' ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The publishers are grateful for permission to use copyright material. We would like to acknowledge the original sources of text material listed below. Permission has been sought to reproduce all material whose source could be identified. Information that will enable the publishers to rectify any error or omission in subsequent editions will be welcome. We would like to acknowledge the support of the following people: The nine Band Score descriptions on page 12 are reproduced from The IELTS Handbook, a joint publication of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, The British Council, and IDP Education Australia: IELTS Australia. The reading passage "Regional Student Survey" on page 97, is adapted from The ELICOS Student Contextualised - Facts & Figures by Ms. CM. Bundesen, with permission of the author. Bruce Bell, HelenkaPiotrowski, Laurent Seibert, Andrew Thomas (Sydney English Language Centre), and Soon-Young Yoon. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Terry Peck and Garry Adams have extensive IELTS coaching experience, both having been involved in implementing and designing IELTS coaching programmes. Terry Peck was an IELTS examiner for a number of years in Sydney, Australia. AVAILABLE BY THE AUTHORS: '101 Helpful Hints for IELTS - Academic Module' ...
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...Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost Generation of Business Writers? ZANE K. QUIBLE FRANCES GRIFFIN OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA ABSTRACT. Business professionals and instructors often view writing skills as one of the most important qualifications that employees should possess. However, many business employees, including recent college graduates, have serious writing deficiencies, especially in their ability to use standard English. As a result, American businesses spend billions of dollars annually to remediate these writing deficiencies (College Board, the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004). In this article, the authors examine possible reasons for these deficiencies and offer evidence that a modified context-based approach, the glossing approach, and consistent error marking can reduce the number of sentence-level errors students make. Keywords: context-based approach, grammar, punctuation, rules-based approach, writing deficiencies Copyright © 2007 Heldref Publications T hat many employers in the United States are dissatisfied with their employees’ writing skills is not a surprise to individuals who frequently peruse the professional literature in nearly any academic field or discipline (Gray, Emerson, & MacKay, 2005; Wise, 2005). Although the expressions of dismay are frequent and often strong, educators have done little to rectify the situation. Costs of Employees’ Poor Writing Skills material to...
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...Grand Canyon University COM-101 Kimberly Thompson 1/24/2010 The Understanding of Communication in Language and Diversity Communication is a very important aspect in our life. It helps human beings connect with each other. Communications brings people together and acknowledge the different cultures. Today, we have so many different cultures, language and skin colors. Each culture has its own way of communicating. I am from Bangladesh and I can honestly say how hard it was for me to communicate when I first arrived in America. It took me several years to understand the American culture, speak English, make friends and communicate. I learned how important it is to understand communication in language and diversity to develop and appreciation for different cultures in order to improve our communication skills. There were two things that stood out in the two resources that I found. One thing was I was able to compare my life with the author’s writing. Steven A. Beebe, Diana K. Ivy and Susan J. Beebe (2008) point out in Communication: Principle for a Lifetime to manage your anxiety to adjust. I was very anxious to learn English and be like an American. I was impatient and wanted to fit in with my classmates and make friends. Richard D. Bucher (2008) in Diversity Consciousness: Opening Our Minds to People, Culture and Opportunities point out how important it is improve our diversity skills in order to communicate. Although I couldn’t speak much English I tried and became friend...
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