Hi, everyone. I'm Rick, your teacher for Writing III and IV. I hope you will enjoy these classes, and improve your writing over the year.
Let's talk about Writing III first. The first thing to say is that we will use a textbook,
TRIO Writing 2, published by Oxford University Press. The second thing I want to mention is that we will use three different online tools for this course. In this way, while improving your English, you will also learn more about using computers, and I think this will be useful for your future. We will learn about them little by little, so don’t panic! Just remember to make notes of URLs (web addresses), usernames, and passwords!
The three online tools are:
- TRIO Writing 2 Online Practice: This is a companion to the TRIO Writing 2 textbook.
- A blog: Most of you already have a blog. Let’s use it regularly. We will often do timed writings on the blog. You will also post book reviews, after writing them in Manaba. In addition, you will post your corrected essays on your blog, after first writing them in Manaba. You will use Tags (called Labels in Blogger) to organize types of posts together.
- Manaba: I will ask you to write 3 essays (in Microsoft Word) and upload them to Manaba.
Class schedule
April
9th: 1th class
16th: 2th class
23rd: 3th class
May
7th: 4th class
14th: 5th class
21st: 6th class
28th: 7th class
June
4th: 8th class
11th: 9th class
18th: 10th class
25th: [This will probably be cancelled, and there may be a 補講. To be confirmed later.]
July
2nd: 12th class
9th: 13th class
16th: 14th class (海の日) (regular classes)
23rd: 15th class
ACTIVITIES
TIMED WRITING
Fluency is important in writing, just as it is in speaking. To help you learn to write faster and more confidently, we will do an activity called
Gofun ha Juubun at the beginning of most classes. You will just write for five minutes and count the words. At the end of the first semester, and at the end of the year, you will make a table and a graph of the number of words you wrote. (The number of words will not affect your grade; the purpose is to know how your fluency has changed.)
WORKING WITH THE TEXTBOOK
We will use the textbook in Writing III and Writing IV. It has 9 chapters. We will do 4 or 5 chapters in Writing III. You will also do some of the online practice. You will notice that the book contains the Oxford 2000 vocabulary list. Those are the most important 2000 words of English. It’s important that you learn not only what the words mean, but how to use them together in a natural way.
BOOK REVIEWS
In order to improve your writing, it is important to read as much English as possible. To practice reading and writing together, you will need to read a book and write a review of it every week. You can write them in Manaba, and then post them on your blog after getting some comments from me.
ESSAYS
You will write three essays during the first semester. The first one is a self-introduction. It should be a corrected version of the one you submitted to Mr Tomei and that he commented on. You should submit it to Manaba, making note of the deadline. After I have commented on it, you should write an improved version on your blog. I will tell you about the other 2 essays later.
