Course Information Form Course title: Essay Writing Course Stage ...

Course Information Form Course title: Essay Writing Course Stage: Junior Students Teacher Name: Areen A. Muhammed e-mail: [email protected]

Goals & objectives The course is prepared to enable students of this level \ year to write pieces of composition in the form of a formal essay of different types covering various kinds of topics. This course attempts to arm the students with the necessary theoretical principles and techniques of essay writing .The practical aspect of the subject is seriously considered as well. Students are to be given suitable assignments to apply what they will have learned during the course. The practice is supposed to be conducted in teams and individually according to the nature of the topics in away that might help the students to find out their mistakes and detect errors in the process of writing and then help each other correct them and avoid committing them in the future. A good chance is even offered for the students to read essays written by professional writers whether published in newspapers, magazines or the internet in order that they may learn about actual products; first, develop their own skill in writing next, and writing about their impression about the articles they have read. Course overview An update course-book (2006) in essay writing is adopted as a text-book. It consists of a number of chapters that provide theoretical background about the important & basic steps, aspects, and techniques related to essay writing supported by examples and attached with exercises in end of each chapter. Besides, it is supplemented with mastery exercises for sharpening the learners' skills better. In addition to writing articles of their own, the students are also required to extract essays from English publications or the internet to learn how things are applied by professional writers and native speakers. (The course-book is entitled "COMPOSING WITH COFIDENCE: writing effective paragraphs and essays".)

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Course Syllabus ` 1. The reason for writing. 2. The composing process. 3. Composing a powerful paragraph. 4. Composing an effective essay. 5. Developing ideas. 6. Achieving coherence. 7. Writing directly and vividly. 8. Composing a description. 9. Composing narratives. 10. Drawing comparisons and contrasts. 11. Making classifications. 12. Examine cause and effects. 13. Summarizing and responding. 14. Writing essay exams. 15. Joining Sentences Through Coordination and Subordination.

Indicative resources 1) COLLEGE WRITING—FROM PARAGRAPH TO ESSAY (an upto-date American course book) by: D. E Zemach& L. A. Runisek. 2) COMPOSING WITH CONFIDENCE—Writing Effective Paragraphs &Essays ,2006-- by: Alan Meyers. 3) Websites on the Internet: a. www.roanestate.edu b. www.essaystown.com c. www.writeexpress.com d. www.edgalaxy.com e. www.randomhouse.com f. www.123helpme.com g. www.bestresumewriting.com h. www.lousywriter.com

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Areen Ahmed Muhammed (Asst. lecturer) College of Education-Chamchamal Department of English

Three Sample questions: Q.?/Do as required: A) There are 2 ways for organizing a comparison/contrast. What are they- in short? b) Write a text of two paragraphs comparing/contrasting eating fresh foods to canned foods. Q.?/ Answer the questions below: 1) What are the main reasons behind doing peer by writers? 2. Edit the following text to make it more powerful-do any changes you find fit: I have a friend. My friend is called Zana. My friend lives next door. My best friend is Zana. My friend plays football in his free time. I play football in my free time. I like reading detective stories. My friend, ZAna, often reads detective stories as he likes such kind of stories. Q.?/ Write an academic essay on one of these topics: a. What you dress tells others what you are. b. To live in a village or in a city centre. c. Studying abroad!

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Exam Marking: Semester exams: 30-35 Marks 5-10 Marks will go to the student’s attendance, participation and unexpected exams (quizzes). N.B.: The daily marks of the students (5-10 marks) will be given to the students according to their attendance, daily participation, quizzes and assignments before and after First Semester Exam. Final exam: 60 Marks

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