Academic Writing I Semester – אוניברסיטת חיפה
Academic Writing I Semester A 2017
Mondays 10-12 (409 Education Building)
and Wednesdays 12-14 (Main Building 615)
Office hours: 9-10am Mondays Rm 1601 Migdal Eshkol
and by appointment
General Objectives (these objectives, as well as many of our methods of achieving them, are shared by all sections of Academic Writing):
The aim of the course is to introduce students to the practice of academic writing in English for the Humanities, specifically for literature and linguistics, through reading and discussion of written texts. The student who passes the course will be capable of producing a well-structured essay, with a clear thesis statement, based on the content of non-literary and literary works. The student will also be capable of writing short essays under constraints of time and resources, on a topic of academic relevance and in response to written sources.
Students will have practice in the process of drafting and revising, both for content and for language. They will practice writing in various rhetorical patterns and will learn to integrate them effectively. Awareness of their own specific needs will enable revision and improvement, through the mastery of tools such as the dictionary, the thesaurus, grammar reference books and internet resources for writers.
By the end of Academic Writing I, the student should be able to:
In terms of the sentence:
o Choose appropriate tenses
o Use appropriate punctuation
o Identify and avoid agreement errors
o Identify and avoid sentence fragments
o Identify and avoid comma splices and run-on sentences
o Identify and avoid mistakes in parallel structures
o Identify and avoid mistakes in coordination and subordination
In terms of the introductory paragraph:
o Choose the subject
o Limit the subject
o Formulate the thesis statement
o Use effective opening sentences, moving from a broader scope to a focused point and phrasing a clear thesis statement
In terms of the support paragraph:
o Identify and write different types of paragraphs: description, sequence, definition, cause and effect, classification, explanation, compare and Contrast
o Write a topic sentence for different types of paragraphs
o Back the topic sentence with support points
o Use transitions and connectors to make support paragraphs cohesive
In terms of the concluding paragraph:
o Use different ways of concluding the essay
In terms of the whole composition:
o Phrase a thesis statement in response to a written text
o Write an outline for the whole paper in support of the thesis
o Make a clear distinction between topic and thesis
o Make logical transitions between paragraphs
o Make sure the paragraphs support the thesis
o Proofread the paper before handing it
In terms of learning strategies:
o Use dictionaries and grammar resources effectively
o Practice and apply the process of multiple drafting revision for content, structure, and language
o Distinguish plagiarism from legitimate use of sources
o Practice self-monitoring and self-correction techniques in order to achieve appropriate essay structure, paragraph structure, and sentence skills.
Texts and Materials: Students will have to read both literary and non-literary texts. The specific articles, stories and poems to be read in class will be assigned in class. Texts will be handed out in class or retrieved as offprints.
Worksheets will be handed out in class.
Requirements and Grading:
– 80% attendance.
– A final exam (50% of the course grade)
– Students must have a passing grade (65) in the final exam in order to pass the course
– In-class assignments (20% of the course grade)
– Home assignments: 8-10 essays (30 % of the course grade)
Your own essays should be submitted on Moodle, except when I have specified that you are to print them and bring them to class.
Plagiarism in any form will not be tolerated. We will review how to avoid plagiarism and what it is during the course of our semester together. Have a close look at the department page on it: http://english.haifa.ac.il/index.php/en/plagiarism
Classroom etiquette: Students must come to class with the reading printed out and prepared. Read the assignment, take notes, have questions and comments to share. Participation is encouraged as is respect for your classmates’ ideas. No electronics: no cell phones, laptops, or tablets will be permitted. Take notes in a notebook. Arrive to class on time or earlier and please keep food and drink to a minimum. This course is a lot of work but you will learn much and should manage to have some fun in the process.
Tutors: Appointments with the tutor are obligatory when recommended by the teacher.
Week 1 Unit one: how to write about lyric poetry
M 23 October first day: introductions, Robert Frost, “Never Again Would Birds’ Song be the Same”; the structure of the academic essay
W 25 October Thylias Moss, “Spilled Sugar”; bring in answers to questions on worksheet; in-class review of thesis statements and quoting from poems
Week 2
M 30 October Dobby Gibson, “Postscript”; sentence-level work submit an ungraded paper
W 1 November Stephen Burt, “Swingline Stapler”; organizing papers on the paragraph level
Week 3
M 6 November Javier Zamora, “Nocturne”; supporting your thesis statement
W 8 November Laura Kasischke, “The Wall”; revisiting paragraphing
submit paper #1
Week 4
M 13 November C.D. Wright, “Personals”; sentence structure issues
W 15 November A. E. Stallings, “Homecoming” integration of quotations
Week 5 Unit two: writing about short stories
M 20 November Sandra Cisneros, “The House on Mango Street”
submission of revision of paper #1 sentence-level coherence
W 22 November Aaron Tillman, “Smiling” sentence-level coherence
Week 6
M 27 November Lydia Davis, “Five Stories” comparison and contrast
W 29 November Alice Munro, “Leaving Maverley” comparison and contrast
submission of paper #2
Week 7 Unit three: writing about drama
M 4 December Amir Nizar Zuabi, “The Beloved”
W 6 December Amir Nizar Zuabi, “The Beloved” in-class midterm
Week 8
M 11 December Amir Nizar Zuabi, “The Beloved”
submission of revision of paper #2
W 13 December Amir Nizar Zuabi, “The Beloved”
Week 9 Unit three: Writing about Non-Fiction
M 18 December Tracy Kidder, from Mountains Beyond Mountains
submission of revision of in-class midterm
W 20 December Norman Maclean, from Young Men and Fire
submission of paper #3
Week 10
M 25 Christmas, no class
W 27 December Atul Gawande, “Is Health Care a Right?”
Week 11
M 1 January Joan Didion, “Self-Respect: Its Source, Its Power”
W 3 January Fred Strebeigh, “Defending Russian Wilderness”
submission of revision of paper #3
Week 12
M 8 January Andrew Solomon, “Circle of Fire: Letter from Libya”
W 10 January Danielle Ofri and Oliver Sacks, from The New York Times
Week 13
M 15 January last day of class
Final Examination: 24 January
Moed B: 12 February
Robert Frost, Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same
He would declare and would himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds’ song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.
Spilled Sugar
Thylias Moss, 1954
I cannot forget the sugar on the table.
The hand that spilled it was not that of
my usual father, three layers of clothes
for a wind he felt from hallway to kitchen,
the brightest room though the lightbulbs
were greasy.
The sugar like bleached anthills of ground teeth.
It seemed to issue from open wounds in his palms.
Each day, more of Father granulated, the injury spread
like dye through cotton, staining all the wash,
condemning the house.
The gas jets on the stove shoot a blue spear
that passes my cheek like air. I stir
and the sugar dissolves, the coffee giving no evidence
that it has been sweetened and I will not taste it
to find out, my father raised to my lips, the toast burnt,
the breakfast ruined.
Neither he nor I will move from the shrine
of Mother’s photo. We begin to understand
the limits of love’s power. And as we do,
we have to redefine God; he is not love at all.
He is longing.
He is what he became those three days
that one third of himself was dead.
Worksheet questions for Wednesday. Fill these out and bring it in.
How many stanzas does the poem have? How many lines per stanza?
What do the lines look like?
What is the language like: easy, difficult, complex, confusing? Give examples.
Circle the images in the poem. Which are metaphors?
Circle the verbs. Do you see any patterns? What do you notice about them?
The poem contains physical objects as well as concepts. Which are the concepts? How does the speaker try to imagine new ideas about old concepts?
What questions about the poem are you left with? List at least two.
