My class for the under-prepared

If you could create a course for helping under-prepared students during their first semester of college, what would that course look like? What would the goals be? What kind of skills would you teach?  What kind of classroom atmosphere would you create?  What kinds of things would you have students read and and write about?

Okay, this is fun because it’s what I’m supposed to be teaching this semester, so I guess I’ll just tell you what we’re working on and what I’m trying to do with the class.

Our college-dictated SLOs are that SWBAT:

1. Demonstrate the ability to control sentence structure and basic mechanics.

2. Exhibit the ability to use the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising) to complete essays that support a main idea statement.

3. Reflect on own writing process.

My goals for the students is that they gain confidence in their writing so that they no longer fear assignments and can walk into a developmental writing class knowing they can tackle that first assignment. I want students to move beyond their biggest writing errors—that is, to learn what is holding their writing back the most and leave with some strategies for tackling that (be it run-ons or word form errors or computer formatting). I want students to find a writing process that they can use effectively in other classes. I also think this class needs to cover some basic college-survival skills for students, like effective studying, note taking, organization and planning.

Grammar skills taught include sentence boundaries (recognizing run-ons or fragments), FANBOYS and prepositional phrases. At the paragraph level: topic sentence, support sentences (description, definition, examples), concluding or transition sentence. At the essay level, what an introduction and conclusion should include. For process, I teach brainstorming and drafting strategies, global revision and editing for specific errors.

The class includes a lot of group discussion and sharing of writing assignments. Grammar practice is done individually, in groups and on the board for all to see and check. We use a class website (wordpress) to turn in short grammar quizzes. Each day includes about 45 minutes of writing “lab” where students work on assignments and I go around the class trying to answer individual questions.

Readings include success stories, stories about being a student, and work by previous students. I’d like to get better readings lined up for this class. Early in the semester, we write about the college—process paragraphs on how to get your student ID or print in the library or sign up for tutoring, for example. I try to have students leave with a few paragraph types under their belt and we work our way up to essays:  process, compare/contrast, descriptive, summaries.