Lesson One

Review the syllabus carefully and indicate to me that you understand all of the items.

Study the Grading procedures to see how/where you will be earning your grade.

This week you will be introduced to the process by which you write a formal, organized, and informative essay. That is the primary focus of the course. The building blocks for this process are the paragraphs you write. They, in turn, consist of several sentences designed to make and support a particular point. It is a bit like the process of building a house. The job should not be attempted without a blueprint (outline), and it requires the correct tools (your supplies include your textbook, your peer editor, a dictionary, a thesaurus, your "spell check" if you have one, and, of course, yourself). The job also requires the proper amount of time to finish the job, and it must follow a strict order so that it won’t collapse part way through the process.

Your book is very explicit about the theory behind each of the steps in the writing process. If you try to "go it alone" without studying the reading assignment, your work will not be sufficient to earn you the grade you hope for. More importantly, you will find yourself wasting time, wasting your peer editor’s time and my time, getting frustrated, having to do some work over again occasionally, and not making the kind of progress you can make in a course that is devoted to your improvement as a writer.

As I explain elsewhere, and will no doubt repeat many times, there are three things I want you to be sure to make time for with each week’s assignment.

• First, I want you to allow enough time for yourself to do the work. Many of you, I know, are busy with job, family, your community, and perhaps even a little leisure time for yourself, so plan ahead.

Secondly, you can always send me a draft to look at if you send it early enough. If you send me a draft by mid-week, I can usually get it back to you with comments within 24-36 hours, and you can then make whatever improvements you want on it with plenty of time to spare. IF YOU DO SEND ME A DRAFT, YOU HAVE TO START IT BY WRITING THE WORD, "DRAFT" AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ESSAY. IF IT’S YOUR FINAL DRAFT, WRITE "FINAL" AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ESSAY. THE COURSE SOFTWARE MAKES NO DIFFERENTIATION IN THE SUBJECT LINE, SO TELL ME AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ESSAY. IF I RECEIVE IT LATER THAN WEDNESDAY NIGHT, I WILL ASSUME IT’S YOUR FINAL DRAFT AND I WILL GRADE IT AS SUCH.

• Third, it is of the utmost importance that you proofread your work before you send it to me. There is no substitute for this. I do not have the time to read a final draft of yours that you have not proofread and edited at least a little bit so as to eliminate careless errors. It’s always disappointing when a student’s grade could have been 5 and sometimes even 10 points higher if that student had taken the time and trouble to double check his/her work. Get help. Read the writing aloud. Trade with another student even after your peer editor has read it. Make it a family activity around the table. Have a superior on the job or another teacher take a look at it. You can learn as much from the people you interact with while taking a course as you do from the teacher if you give them and yourself the opportunity.

Once again, if you are going to send me a draft to look at, make sure you put the word "draft" at the beginning so I will get it back to you as quickly as possible.

Note: Because of viruses, I prefer that you send work only through regular email messaging, or through the assignment window in the course itself. DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS WITHOUT ASKING ME FIRST. If I allow it, then make sure that it is an MS Word (Microsoft Word) document file, PREFERABLY MS WORD 1997-2003.

Also, be sure always to sign your name on messages to me and on your work, because in many cases, student email addresses do not contain the students’ names. I usually do not get to know your names before half the course is over. SIGN YOUR EMAILS AND YOUR WORK!!