EngL5630: Theories of Writing and Writing Instruction Sp06

The following assignment is designed for Language and Communication, a writing composition class for freshman in the Humanities, in a national university in Venezuela.

Usually in Venezuela the students don’t receive any kind of specific training for writing before start College; they are expected to learn this by themselves.

This particular intake is a personal transition between I used to do in my Venezuelan classes and what I’m learning here, in my PhD. It has elements that I suspect are linked with the way academic activity is conceived in my country (we “assume� that students have to know how to write, in despite of anyone cares about how they can learn)

I conceive this in-class assignment with time and word limit, because I want to see how concise-good writing can be my students, as opposite the idea good writing is long writing.

I, representing the “Humanities academic world�, am the audience of this assignment. Its purpose is clearly assessment of the student writing abilities and must be done individually.
Usually I don’t provide any criteria for success, except time and extension limits, but the students can use dictionaries.
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Universidad de Los Andes. Venezuela
Language and Communication

First day in-class assignment

1) Explain in a 150 word essay what does “writing appropriately in college� means for you. Include any information or course that you have got in order to learn how to write in college.

2) List at least 3 resources that you use to obtain help when you write something for academic purposes

3) Summarize in few paragraphs your favorite movie (1)

(1) I realize that the underline segment is a manipulation that I used with my students in order to say: “Hey, we are in Humanities Community, and we are used to being involved in cultural activities such as seeing movies�. Additionally I have a hypothesis (and this is part of my interests in my PhD) that seeing movies is a facilitating activity for syntactical strategies