Pre-intermediate composition
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Pre-intermediate composition
Prof. Kent Lee
Syllabus:
Contents
1 Course description
This course is designed mainly for juniors and seniors in social science and humanities fields (other majors are welcome, too, as well as exchange students). It will require you to write critically about your field of study, and thus requires at least a junior level knowledge of your field. The goals of the course consist of improving your English writing skills, and expressing yourselves better in English. This includes specific skills like:
- Writing different types of paragraphs (definition, classification, narrative, etc.)
- Prewriting techniques
- Using basic sentence types effectively; this includes common second-language issues such as essay structure, style, wording, and grammar issues.
- Developing main ideas, topic sentences, and body paragraphs
1.1 Readings and materials
The textbook for this course is a course packet, and other materials will be provided. Other materials will be available online at the course website.
- Course packet: English Writing Manual 1: Pre-intermediate [EWM1]. This will be made available for free online; the link will be emailed to all who are registered for the course.
1.2 Tentative schedule
This is tentative, so you can expect changes and other activities, including readings, short paragraph assignments, and other short assignments.
| ! Week | Topics |
|---|---|
| 01 | Intro; narrative paragraphs |
| 02 | Descriptive ¶s; verb tenses |
| 03 | Classification & example¶s; delimiters |
| 04 | Definition ¶s |
| 05 | Contrast & comparison ¶s |
| 06 | Cause & effect ¶s |
| 07 | Process ¶s; infinitives, gerunds |
| 08 | Midterms |
| 09 | Process ¶s; |
| 10 | Analysis ¶s; modals |
| 11 | Inductive, deductive, & hypothesis testing ¶s |
| 12 | Problem-solution ¶s; relative clauses |
| 13 | Argumentation |
| 14 | Argumentation |
| 15 | Finals week |
2 Course components and evaluation
You will be graded according to the following criteria. See the website for grading and evaluation criteria. Points are deducted for late assignments.
| Attendance | 10% |
| Paragraph assignments (¶) | 40% |
| Minor assignments (e.g., homework) | 20% |
| Midterm paper | 10% |
| Final paper | 20% |
