ENG121: English Composition I

Week One

Discussions

Discussions

Participate in the following discussions:

Post Due by Day 3. Reading Strategies. After studying the active reading strategies described in Chapter 2 of Essentials of College Writing, read Chapters 1 and 2 and the “Instructor Guidance” for Week One, apply the Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R) strategy as you reread the materials. Discuss how this reading strategy is similar to and/or different from the way you read course material previously. Did using SQ3R improve your comprehension of the course materials? If so, explain how, if not, explain why? Be sure to use specific examples and you can also explore how you might apply this strategy in your everyday life. How might SQ3R affect the way you read the newspaper or online articles, for example?

Your initial post must be 200 to 300 words in length and posted by Day 3.

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Generating Ideas for Writing. Review the techniques for generating ideas discussed inChapter 4 of Essentials of College Writing. Share your experiences with your peers about your ideas for a narrative topic and how you plan to go about developing it. In addition to your own topic, you can explore what you think are the key elements of a narrative. What makes a good story work?

Your initial post must be 200 to 300 words in length.

Assignment

1. Due by Day 3.Diagnostic Essay. This diagnostic writing exercise will help your instructor discover who you areas a writer. The essay will be used to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and it will allow the instructor the opportunity to identify grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical problems specific to each student. Do not fret over the idea that grammar, style, and mechanics will be evaluated in this assignment. This diagnostic writing exercise is merely one way to take a look at any particular patterns that exist in your writing. You will earn full credit for completing this assignment as long as you follow instructions.

A narrative is a story that you tell to an audience for a reason. You can use your own experience or your role as an observer to frame a narrative, but the story itself should stir readers into thinking about and remembering their own stories.

As children, we often seek out or create mysteries. Every town seems to have stories of haunted houses or swamp monsters. One reason might be that children have to learn how to conquer a fear of the unknown. Based on your

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Week Two

Discussions

Participate in the following discussions:

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Elements of Narration and Description. Review Chapter 6.3 and 6.4 in Essentials of College Writingand the “Instructor Guidance” for Week Two. Identify at least two elements that you might use inyour Narrative or Descriptive essay, the working rough draft of which is due this week. Describe how you plan to use these elements and what effect you intend for them to have on the reader. You are welcome to post a sample from your working draft to demonstrate how you are incorporating elements of the narrative essay.

ENG121: English Composition I Online

Your initial post must be 200 to 300 words in length and posted by Day 3

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing. In Chapter 1 of Essentials of College Writing,you reviewed a comprehensive list of typical college writing tasks, and you had the opportunity toidentify two tasks as strengths and two tasks as weaknesses. In Week One, you completed the Diagnostic Essay and Quiz. Based on the feedback you received and your own assessment, describe at least two of your strengths and weaknesses. Share with your peers what you plan to do further maximize your strengths and resolve your weaknesses. Use specific examples.

Your initial post must be 200 to 300 words in length and posted by Day 3. Support your claims with examples from

Assignment

1. Due by Day 7.Narrative/Descriptive Essay – Rough Draft. For this writing assignment, you have two choices.Please select one of the following options for your essay:

1. 1. Describe a person, place, or object that has special meaning in your life.

1. 1. Describe a particular moment or occurrence in your life that had special meaning to you.

Using the techniques described in the Descriptive Writing Pattern and Narrative Writing Pattern sections of Chapter 6 of your text and expanding upon the prewriting done in the discussion forum this week, your essay should provide specific details about the person, place, object, or event so that readers can visualize the subject and/or feel present in the story. Your description should be specific and appeal to the five senses. If you choose Option 1, utilize the Descriptive Writing Pattern described in Chapter 6. If you choose Option 2, utilize the Narrative Writing Pattern described in Chapter 6.

This rough draft needs to be between 350 to 500 words, and it should have a thesis statement that clearly states what you are going to be writing about.

The point of a rough draft is to allow your instructor to get a good sense of your organizational writing skills, to examine your use of the strategies of narration or description, and to give you feedback that you will incorporate into your Narrative/Descriptive Essay – Final Draft that is due in Week Five.

As you are writing this essay, please pay attention to the areas that you struggled with in your Diagnostic Quiz and Essay.

When submitting your essay, make sure to:

a. Proofread your work for errors in grammar, mechanics, and style.

b. Format the essay according to APA Style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

c. Perform a word count check to make sure the essay is 350 to 500 words in length.

d. Save the document as a Microsoft Word or compatible .doc or .docx file.

Week Three

Discussions

Participate in the following discussions:

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Strategies for Persuasion Using Compare and Contrast. In Chapters 6 of the text, youlearned about different types of personal writing, including descriptive essays and narrative essays. You also were able to use these techniques in the essay you wrote during Week Two. For this week’s assignment, you will be writing a comparison/contrast essay on the differences and similarities between a narrative essay and a descriptive essay, ending with a persuasive statement on which style of essay you believe is superior to the other, based on the examples you selected. For more information on how to write a persuasive statement, please reference Chapter 7 of your text.

Choose one story from the Narrative Essay list located in the Week Two Required Readings section and one story from the Descriptive Essay list. After reading, identify key elements such as the author’s purpose for writing the narrative, the intended audience, and impact on the reader. Compare and contrast how each essay addresses these elements. Which essay is more appealing and why? Keep in mind there is no right or wrong choice here. You are using your reading and critical thinking skills to explain your choice.

Your initial post must be 200 to 300 words in length and posted by Day 3.

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Thesis and Outline Development. Review Chapter 6 in Essentials of College Writing.In addition to simply comparing and contrasting elements of the narrative and descriptive essays you have chosen, you will develop a thesis that will persuade the reader that one essay is more compelling than the other. The key to a successful persuasive essay is a strong thesis statement. Post the thesis you have developed for your compare-contrast essay to this discussion.

Your initial post will only be a sentence, so there is no word count. The thesis statement must be posted by Day 3.

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Assignment

1. Due by Day 7.Compare-Contrast Essay – Rough Draft. In Chapter 6, you learned about different types ofpersonal writing, which include descriptive essays and narrative essays. You were also able to use these techniques in the essay you wrote during Week Two. For this week’s essay, you will be writing a Compare-Contrast Essay on the similarities and differences between a narrative essay and a descriptive essay, ending with a persuasive statement on which style of essay you believe is superior to the other, based on the examples you selected. For more information on how to write a persuasive statement, please refer to Chapter 7 of your text.

To assist you in writing this Compare-Contrast Essay, you were asked to choose one descriptive and one narrative essay to use from a list of possible essays. In the Week Two assignment, you wrote a draft of an essay that utilizes the techniques implemented by these authors.

During your discussion forums this week, you identified similarities and differences between the essays you chose. Now, you will use those items to create a Compare-Contrast Essay. Chapter 6 from Essentials of College Writing references two ways to organize this type of essay. In your essay, you will present several points of comparison and contrast in either block arrangement or point-by-point organization.

In your draft:

a. Present several points of comparison and contrast in either block arrangement or point-by-point organization. Make sure to address the structural components of each essay.

b. Incorporate the following:

§ A quote from one of the chosen essays.

 

§ A summary of a section of one of the chosen essays.

 

§ A paraphrase of a section from one of the chosen essays.

 

c. Conclude with a persuasive statement about which style of essay is superior, based on the examples you selected. Make sure to address how the structure of the essay contributes to its superiority.

This rough draft needs to be between 900 and 1000 words, and it should have a thesis statement that clearly states what you are writing about. For more information about writing thesis statements, review Chapter 5 of Essentials

Week Four

Discussions

Participate in the following discussions:

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Elements of a Compare-Contrast Strategy for a Persuasive Essay. After readingChapter 6, identify at least two elements of an effective compare-contrast essay and explain how you are utilizing these elements in your own final compare-contrast essay. How do these elements help you in persuading the reader that your comparison has merit? You must give examples from your selected narrative and descriptive selected readings as support.

Your initial post must be 200 to 300 words in length and posted by Day 3.

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Peer Review. As part of the writing process, you are expected to reflect upon your workand revise and edit accordingly. It is also useful to establish a community of learners where you help one another edit and proofread each other’s papers. Not only does this help you identify areas of strength and weakness in other’s writing, but you are also able to reflect on your own work and perhaps discover similar mistakes. It is truly a reciprocal relationship. For this week, you will be performing a peer review on your final Compare-Contrast Essay.

For the review, please either (1) upload your paper (DOC format) as a new thread with your name and title of paper, or (2) create a new thread where you cut/paste your essay into the body of the thread. After doing so, you will be performing two peer reviews in which you will complete the Peer Review Template and upload it as .doc file (available for download in your online course). Please peer review your classmates who have not yet received a peer review.

Assignment

1. Due by Day 7.Revision of Essays. This week you should begin revising your essay drafts in order to polishthem up and get them ready to submit next week. Make sure to review all of your feedback from your instructor on both drafts, as well as the feedback you received from your peer review activity this week.

2. Note: There is nothing to submit for this assignment.

Week Five

Discussions

Participate in the following discussions:

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Reflection on the Peer Review Process. Upon reviewing the feedback that you receivedlast week during the peer review process, as well as the feedback from your instructor, take a moment to describe the main areas of your paper that you need to work on, as well as areas that your reviewer felt you did well on.

How will you remedy any areas of weakness in your paper? Did your reviewer feel you did a solid job comparing and contrasting your topics? Did you effectively persuade your reader, why or why not?

ENG121: English Composition I

Online

When responding to your peers, direct them to the various resources for improving academic writing that have been discussed throughout the course. These could be links to the Ashford Writing Center, the Ashford University Library, or any other resources that have helped you improve and develop as a writer.

Reflection posts must be 300 to 400 words in length and posted by Day 3.

1. 1^st Post Due by Day 3.Reflection on Reading Strategies. Throughout this course you have been exposed to amultitude of reading strategies geared at improving your reading comprehension. As you journeyed through this course, what reading strategies have you found most helpful and which ones do you see yourself using in future courses?

Reflection posts must be 300 to 400 words in length and posted by Day 3.

Final Portfolio

The final assignment for this course is a Final Portfolio. The purpose of the Final Portfolio is for you to culminate the learning achieved in the course by revising your rough drafts of both your Week Two and your Week Three essays to create two final polished essays. The Final Portfolio represents 35% of the overall course grade.

ENG121: English Composition I Online

Part 1: Narrative/Descriptive Essay – Final Draft

In Week Two, you wrote a rough draft of an essay that reflected one of the following options:

1. Describe a person, place, or object that has special meaning in your life.

1. Describe a particular moment or occurrence in your life that had special meaning to you.

This week you will complete this draft and turn in your Narrative/Descriptive Essay – Final Draft. If you chose Option 1, utilize the Descriptive Writing Pattern described in Chapter 6. If you chose Option 2, utilize the Narrative Writing Pattern described in Chapter 6. The Narrative/Descriptive Essay – Final Draft needs to be between 550 and 800 words.

Your essay must include:

1. A clear thesis statement in the intro paragraph.

1. Specific details about the person, place, object, or event so that readers can visualize the subject and/or feel present in the story. Your description should be specific and appeal to the five senses.

3. A conclusion paragraph.

As you are writing this essay, please pay attention to the areas that you struggled with in your Diagnostic Quiz and Diagnostic Essay, as well as incorporate all of the feedback provided to you by your instructor on your rough draft and your writing throughout this course.

When submitting your Narrative/Descriptive Essay – Final Draft, make sure to:

1. Proofread your work for errors in grammar, mechanics, and style.

2. Check that the essay is 550 to 800 words.

3. Format the essay according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

4. Save the document as a Microsoft Word or compatible .doc or .docx file.

5. Use a naming convention that includes your last name, week number, and the assignment number (e.g., smith_w5_a1.doc).

Writing the Narrative/Descriptive Essay – Final Draft

The Final Draft:

1. Must be 550 to 800 words in length, and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

1. Must include a title page with the following:

ENG121: English Composition I

Online

a. Title of paper

b. Student’s name

c. Course name and number

d. Instructor’s name

e. Date submitted

1. Must begin with an introductory paragraph that has a succinct thesis statement.

1. Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.

1. Must end with a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.

Part 2: Compare-Contrast Essay – Final Draft

In Week Three you wrote a rough draft of a Compare-Contrast Essay that examined a narrative and a descriptive essay to determine which style of essay was superior. This week you will complete the final version of your essay. Your Compare-Contrast Essay – Final Draft needs to be between 1500 and 1700 words and should have a thesis statement that clearly states what you are writing about. Your essay must:

1. Present several points of comparison and contrast in either block arrangement or point-by-point organization.

2. Incorporate the following:

a. A quote from one of the chosen essays.

1. 1. A summary of a section of one of the chosen essays.

c. A paraphrase of a section from one of the chosen essays.

1. Conclude with a persuasive statement about which style of essay is superior based on the examples you selected. Make sure to address how the structure of the essay contributes to its superiority.

ENG121: English Composition I Online

As you are writing this essay, please pay attention to the areas that you struggled with in your Diagnostic Quiz and Diagnostic Essay, as well as incorporate all of the feedback provided by your instructor on your rough draft and your writing throughout this course.

When submitting your Compare-Contrast Essay – Final Draft, make sure to:

1. Proofread your work for errors in grammar, mechanics, and style.

1. Check that the essay is 1500 to 1700 words.

1. Include a title page and a reference page (these are not counted in the word count).

1. Format the paper according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

1. Save the document as a Microsoft Word or compatible .doc or .docx file.

1. Use a naming convention that includes your last name, week number, and the assignment number (e.g., smith_w2_a1.doc).

Writing the Compare-Contrast Essay – Final Draft

The Final Draft:

1. Must be 1500 to 1700 words in length, double-spaced, and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

1. Must include a title page with the following:

1. 1. Title of paper

1. 1. Student’s name

1. 1. Course name and number

d. Instructor’s name

e. Date submitted

3. Must begin with an introductory paragraph that has a succinct thesis statement.

4. Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.

1. Must end with a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.

1. Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

1. Must include a separate reference page, formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
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