Intro To College Writing

Welcome to WR101, Section O, Fall 2009

My overall goal with this course is to prepare you to participate in a community of college writers. In order to do this we will be reading writing by both professionals and students, paying close attention to their academic arguments and thinking critically about language and how we present our thoughts in writing.  

You'll be doing a lot of your own writing as well, in order to use what you've learned and develop good writing habits including planning and revision. Through peer review we'll also develop our own community of writers--because every piece of writing has an audience, and can get better with help from an editor!

 Or, in more academic terms, my goals for you this semester are to:

• Read a wide variety of writing and think critically about both the argument and rhetorical structures and strategies involved
• Produce written pieces that identify significant issues and use sources meaningfully to develop analysis, interpretation and argument
• Write essays with a strong proposition, sound organizational structure and a meaningful ending
• Analyze other students’ works in progress and offer useful insights and suggestions for revision through the peer review process
• Develop productive revision practices (recognizing that writing is a process, not just a means to an end product)

I look forward to reading your work! 

~Claire

Digication is an online portfolio system, where you can share your own work and read and comment on what your classmates have written as well. Click on one of the four units at the top or one of the page links to the left to get started.

Ever since a young age I've been writing. I can remember writing in journals and diaries constantly around the age of eight. I remember writing my first real papers in junior high and completing two thirty page business manuals during my last years of high school. To me, writing comes naturally when I'm focused on a subject that really interests me or on a subject that I'm really passionate about. I guess I could describe my writing mostly as being passionate.

My personal style of writing is very laid back and straight forward. As I mentioned before, my last two years of high school I had to write a thirty page manual. Usually some kids would worry about this, but I was really excited about it. The manual was an opportunity for me to create this business plan completely from scratch. I had complete creative freedom. Whenever I have that kind of freedom to write, I can go on a roll. One of my manuals was based on this jewelry business I created. I had to come up with a campaign plan and had to write about jump starting my business. This is where I was the best at writing. I came up with this complete campaign about my proposed business where my focus was on the entire business. It was so much fun. Having that freedom in what I could write about really made me love to write.

In college I hope to continue my writing experience. I really want to improve my grammar and my ability to push the envelope with my creativity. This semester I am looking forward to the different assignments that will help my writing performance. I am in the marketing communications major, so I need to be able to write full out business proposals and plans really well.