Welcome+Letter

Dear Student, Let me welcome you to our writing class, which I hope will be the opportunity for you to express your ideas, opinions and feelings and at the same time perfect the skills necessary to meet the criteria set by the school to complete courses, get the credits required, and graduate. Those are my expectations for you in this class. I want to hear from you, and I want to know your opinions and feelings about various issues or readings, but I also want more than anything for you to pass the ACT and to become successful, both academically and professionally.

I’d like for you to remember that first and foremost I’m on your side. No matter what I seem to be on the exterior (hard nosed or rude) I’m really kind of soft on the inside and if you want to you can easily get over. (although I don’t want to be your mother). But also at the core I am very much concerned about your academic success. This is my job. I want you to pass this course and I want you to pass the CUNY ACT, the basic skills proficiency exam.

Even though passing the ACT is a priority, I don’t want you to think that preparing for the test is what writing is all about. It’s not. That’s why the first 10 weeks of the course is spent on exploring reading and writing. During those first 10 weeks we’ll be doing all types of writing based on all types of readings. We’re going to read not one book but two books during the semester. (Look at your syllabus for the text titles.) We’ll also be reading articles from the NY Times and other sources. We’ll read sample student essays and model essays to give you a better idea of what is required for an academic essay. Many of you moan and groan that this is not a reading class but what you may or may not be aware of is that studies have shown that reading ability is the best predictor of writing ability or success in writing courses. If you aren’t reading, if you aren’t being exposed to new ideas, if you are not learning new vocabulary, what do you have to say? We all have our life experiences and that is important but unless we are readers, we are limited in our writing about new topics by our lack of education and our limited experience (and no one has experienced everything and every subject). We need to read what other people have said, learn to consider the perspectives of other people about topics that we think we know all about. We need to stay abreast of current events and issues that are being debated in the public such as whether felons should lose the right to vote or not. These are issues that we may or may not have discussed, maybe personally affected by, but usually we haven’t thought about or weren’t aware of or if we have thought about them, we have a set (usually strong) opinion about and we have never even considered another point of view. Reading helps us learn how to reserve judgement long enough to consider another perspective. Being aware of the other perspective and being able to consider more than one point of view through reading will help us learn how to develop our own arguments to support our own perspectives. This is critical in writing. We need to be able to explain what our opinions are and to support those opinions with solid sound arguments. Reading other people’s arguments will help us understand how to do this.

Apart from reading the course involves a lot of discussion. We want to be able first to express orally the opinions or ideas that we will write about. This is just another way to learn how to develop sound arguments. I like to use other input in class that will hopefully generate that discussion, like video clips from news magazines like 20/20 or Bill Moyers NOW. If we have time, there are some films that present some provocative topics. Whatever it takes to stimulate discussion, generate ideas and help us develop our arguments, we will try to do.

All of this serves one primary purpose – learning to write more effectively, so of course, the course is primarily about writing. You can expect to write 1 composition outside of class per week with multiple drafts expected and 1 in-class essay per week. We’ll read each other’s essays and give feedback and rewrite and then I’ll read your essays and give feedback with the expectation that you will rewrite. Please, please, please…remember that rewriting is very important. It’s through the process of revising our own work that we become conscious of our own writing style and through revising that we can begin to catch some of the ambiguities that occur in writing the first draft.

How will all this take place…pen and paper and Microsoft word as well as online Discussion Board activities and tons of paper. It’s a lot of work.

Only the last 3-4 weeks of the semester will we focus on test preparation. Why? I think that taking the test is only a part of the course. The real purpose of the course is to learn to read carefully, think and reflect and express ourselves more clearly and effectively and persuasively.

I hope that we all learn something from each other and that you will never have to see me again after the end of the semester, not because I don’t like to see former students but because if I don’t see them it means that they passed, succeeded and have moved on to new and better things, new challenges and new successes.

I want the best for you and for the class. Let’s work together to make this a great semester.

Good luck! Cynthia Wiseman