Welcome!

Welcome to the writing workshop called College Writing 122.  This is a course where you are given the opportunity to write three essays and have the coach give you feedback on how well you have done in your efforts.

The purpose of this course is for the student to demonstrate the ability to structure sentences, paragraphs, essay sections, and ultimately, the whole essay into a polished finished product.  That will mean the grammar is carefully structured and the sentences are complete thoughts. It means that each paragraph will have a topic which is developed in the paragraph. Further, it will mean that the subject of the essay is clearly presented with an introduction, the main body of the essay, and a logically sound conclusion.

There are three essays which the student will prepare. The first is an essay in which the student will write about a person whom the student knows and who has had an impact in the student’s life. The second essay is expected to be persuasive in nature. There are several topics from which to choose. The student need only pick a topic and write the essay. Whether the position you defend is really yours is not going to be graded. The final essay is a research paper in which the student is expected to demonstrate the ability to do research, properly document the sources of quoted material, and to format the essay in such a way as to demonstrate academic writing capabilities.

We pray that God will give you the patience to develop this strategic skill. The ability to communicate clearly in writing is one which will always serve the servant of God well. God has created us  with the ability to communicate our thoughts and convictions to another person. Writing those thoughts can be a daunting task. But with patience and good effort, the student will grow in the ability to have their thoughts be understood by others.

We want you to understand that this is a writing lab. Your efforts need to be focused on using the skills in grammar and sentence construction you have been learning in the companion course. The way you build each paragraph and the entire essay is more important than having your subject matter be complete or somewhat unusual.

The way you will be graded is by considering how well you wrote. Any misspellings, missed verbs, using the wrong gender pronoun or the wrong number verb will detract from your grade.  Forgetting to write a careful introduction to your essay will drop your grade. Failing to keep your paragraphs to a single topic will lower your grade. And so forth.

What this is trying to convey to you is that you are beginning with a 100% grade.  Any sloppy writing will result in the grade lowering. The intent of the critique of your writing is to make it better. So, in view of that, each student will be able to rewrite the essay taking into account the critique so that you can earn a better mark.

This is an important benefit to you. However, if an essay is turned in that obviously had no effort put into it, the critique will simply say, “The student needs to start over and do their best work before turning this in again.”

Once again, welcome to the writing lab. Our prayer is that we will be able to work together to help everyone to be a better writer.