ASSIGNMENTS FOR MARCH 24 (AFTER SPRING BREAK)
REWRITE WRITING ASSIGNMENT 2
REVIEW ALL PREVIOUS ASSIGNMENTS on "Linking Two or More Ideas" and "How We Build Sentences" (located right after Study Guide 2) and on "Finding the Subject" (located right after Study Guide 3).
REVIEW THE ASSIGNMENTS FOR MARCH 10: Sentence Patterns, Subject-Verb Agreement, Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement, Apostrophe with Possessive Nouns.
ADD THESE NEW ASSIGNMENTS:
> Pronoun Case — Writer's Guide G3c; Study Guide 5 and insert titled "Chart of Personal Pronouns."
> Fragments — Writer's Guide G5; Study Guide 18.
> Run-ons / Comma Splices — Writer's Guide G6; Study Guide 9.
WE WILL HAVE A QUIZ ON THIS MATERIAL ON MARCH 24. THE SKILLS TEST ON MARCH 31 WILL COVER THE SAME MATERIAL IN DEPTH.
Students who have not done WA 2 or WA 3 should e-mail those papers to me by March 17.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR MARCH 10
(I apologize for not posting the March 3 assignment.)
> Prepare for Writing Assignment 3, to be written in class this week.
> DO ALL OF THE FOLLOWING — READ AND STUDY:
- Sentence Patterns (Study Guide 2, previously assigned)
- Subject-Verb Agreement (WR Section G1; SG 3)
- Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement (WR Section G3a; SG 4)
- Apostrophe for Possession (WR Section P5; SG 6)
DO NOT SHIRK ON THIS ASSIGNMENT; THERE MAY BE A QUIZ.
With considerable evidence that many students are doing neither the homework nor the readings for the writing assignments, we may begin to have frequent pop quizzes to force students to start working.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR FEB. 24
> REWRITE Writing Assignment 1.
Don't forget that you should return the corrected original paper as well.
> DO THE READING for Writing Assignment 2 and be prepared for a discussion.
> REVIEW all previous assignments.
Remember to bring A Writer's Reference to class for an open-book exercise.
I will be in LA 148 on Tuesday, Feb. 25, from 7:30 to 8:50 PM, for conferences.
Update – Posted Feb. 11, 5:00 PM
Because of the closing this week, all assignments for this week (listed below) are postponed until next week. I shall prepare an adjusted schedule of assignments to be distributed at next week's class.
In case you are rejoicing because of this unexpected "holiday," please note that the closing means that we will need to cover in fourteen weeks the same amount of material as is covered in fifteen. That will make everything a bit more intense and will demand faster turnaround of writing assignments. You will still be doing three essays before the spring break, which occurs March 15-19.
IF YOU WANT TO PICK UP THE CORRECTED WRITING ASSIGNMENT 1 EARLY, I WILL HAVE THESE PAPERS WITH ME IN LA 148 DURING MY OFFICE HOUR ON TUESDAY, FEB. 16. I EXPECT TO BE THERE FROM 7:30 PM UNTIL AT LEAST 8:30 PM. Each paper has received detailed comments. You may just pick up your paper, or you may take this opportunity to ask questions about it.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR FEBRUARY 17
> A Writer's Reference – Pages 3 to 18 – emphasize pages 14 to 18
> Study Guide 1 and its supplement "The Five C's"
> The blue "Essay Organization" chart in the Study Guide folder
> Study Guide 2
> "Linking Two or More Ideas" and "How We Build Sentences" (located right after Study Guide 2)
> "Finding the Subject" (located right after Study Guide 3)
Writing Assignment 1 will be returned at the February 17 class. You will be required to rewrite it for February 24.
NOTE: I have located the "lost" diagnostic papers. They were under my case. I shall return them at our next class.
WELCOME TO THE SPRING SEMESTER CLASS. If you have found this page, you now know where to look for announcements, homework reminders, and tips. This is the only page you need to refer to, but you might want to explore the rest of this website. Other pages in this section contain material that is specifically for Mercer students, but you will find a wide variety of material on this site – useful information in the Grammar, Words, and Usage section (which contains several subsections); conversations about language and other subjects among participants on the Message Boards; links to other good sites in the Links for Writers section; samples of my own writing in My Writing (which has several subsections), the informal Mudgelog, and the bimonthly column called The Grumpy Grammarian; and many other features. If you find any of this material to be useful or interesting, do your classmates a favor and tell them about it.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR CLASS #2 (February 3)
> Read the materials that were handed out at the first class.
> Sign the "Contract."
> Be prepared to write Writing Assignment 1 in class. Read the material, think about what you are going to write, and prepare an outline or list of points to bring to class.
This week you will get back (with some comments) the diagnostic papers that you wrote last time. Although these papers won't count toward your grade, I have labeled them "Passing," "Borderline," or "Failing" to give you a very rough estimate of your demonstrated skill level as the course begins. This is only an estimate based on spontaneous writing. As expected, none of these efforts were very good, but my comments should give you at least a preliminary indication of the challenges ahead. This week's in-class paper, for which you will have had the opportunity to prepare, will give you an even better idea. I'll have more to say about that in class.
We will also spend about an hour going over some of the answers to the diagnostic quiz, which you will also get back. (We probably won't have time to cover them all this week.) You were reasonably humble about it (19 of you rated it as "difficult"; 10 said it was "easy") – but not anywhere near as humble as you should have been. Most of you probably should have labeled it "very difficult" since only three students scored above 60%, and many got less than 50%. The only student who might have been entitled to call it "easy" was the one individual who made a passing score (above 70%), with a score of 80. Everyone else demonstrated a high degree of cluelessness. On average, you not only don't know very much about the English language, but you also don't know that you don't know it. I have not yet tabulated the overall average, but I expect it to be in the low 50s or high 40s – slightly better than might be produced by randomly circling answers.
| 