This semester, I am teaching Writing 1. I wanted to do that because the students I was getting in Writing 2 were mostly unprepared for the class. I wanted to be sure that these students would have experience in writing textual analysis, using quotations, etc. Those students mostly didn't, or so it seemed, though all but a few had taken the prerequisite at this college.
The theme this semester is Hauntings. It is a variation on the Obsession class I taught a few years ago. We'll be reading and writing about that A.S. Byatt story I talked about earlier, "The July Ghost," Hitchcock's film Vertigo, and The Turn of the Screw. Students have a hard time with James, but I think they'll be ready for him by the time we get there because the techniques and themes will be familiar, if not the diction and syntax.
From what I see so far in the diagnostics, the students have no experience in using quotations from a text in their writing, but then I have only looked at 4 or 5 of them so far. They are vague and unspecific. This class should help address those problems.
3 comments:
Your text choices are intriguing. Good luck with these students, and remember--they just finished 201!
Most of them didn't. They mostly tested in. Perhaps many of them shouldn't have.
Some took 201 elsewhere. They mostly belong in 301 or ESL.
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