7 7. Course Learning Activities

For this course, you will become involved in three types of Learning Activities:

• Class writing and discussion activities.
  We will spend much time together working on the different kinds of essays required in the class. We will talk about different options writers have for improving work and then put those options to practice with shared writing exercises. We will look at a lot of models to use for improving writing skills.
  
• Study exercises.
  I will provide for you a series of practices exercises reviewing some of the readings and discussions. These exercises will emphasize some of the important concepts of essay writing.
• Written documents.
  The backbone of the course will be a series of eight essays you will be required to write. Five of them will be out-of-class homework assignments on a variety of topics I will give you as we go along. The other three will be in-class essays, which will focus on writing a completed essay in a short period of time (remember that we will not actually meet in class to do these essays). The first two will be graded practices for the final timed-writing, which is a very important assignment. You have to do well with the final to do well in the course.
• Journal writing.
  Just like any other activity, the more you write, the easier it becomes. You can practice writing skills by using a daily journal. A journal will be required for this course. Each module will require a minimum of three journal entries each.You should spend at least 10 to 15 minutes on each entry, and you should focus on specific support for your ideas.