Essentials of Writing
Essentials of Writing I: Foundations of Writing – Fall 2022
Essentials of Writing II: The Five Paragraph Essay – Spring 2023
Essentials of Writing III: Research and The Argumentative Essay – Fall 2023
Essentials of Writing IV: The Compare and Contrast Essay and Literature Essay – Spring 2024
Creative Writing II
A Literary Study of the Short Story
Essentials of Writing
Learning to become a clear written communicator takes practice, and the best way to develop strong writing skills is simply to begin writing and then revise, revise, revise! Each person approaches writing from a unique perspective, and it is my goal as a writing instructor to highlight each individual’s strengths, as well as to make students aware of weaknesses or areas of focus and to challenge them to give extra attention to those areas as they revise. We will discuss the principles of essay writing as a class, but much of the learning process comes through the students’ own efforts of prewriting, writing, and applying my comments to their essays as they make their revisions. I provide clear, thorough, constructive, and encouraging comments to each piece of writing a student completes, and all students will be given the opportunity to correct their essays for resubmission since the goal is for them to learn from their own errors and to be able to approach all writing assignments with increasing confidence.
This series of writing courses has been developed as a two-year curriculum with the intent of equipping students to communicate effectively and analyze essay prompts and literary texts confidently.
These courses include the following:
- Weekly reading assignments
- Weekly writing assignments
- Regular grammar exercises/quizzes
- One-hour weekly online class discussions
Students will need access to the following:
- http://www.dropbox.com
- Microsoft Word-compatible program
- PowerPoint
- Zoom
Essentials of Writing I: Foundations of Writing – Fall 2022
This class is designed to be an introduction to writing where students will develop a strong foundation of the basic components of academic writing. Students will write weekly paragraphs about topics relevant to their lives.
- Sentence Structure
- Computer Basics
- Dynamic Word Choice and Additional Detail
- Proofreading Exercises
- Paragraph Writing
Prerequisite: Students should be familiar with the parts of speech and should have some experience using a computer.
Essentials of Writing II: The Five Paragraph Essay – Spring 2023
This class will build upon the Foundations of Writing course. Students will study the five paragraph essay format and will complete two fully revised five-paragraph essays throughout the course of the semester.
- Prewriting Skills
- Introductions
- Body Paragraphs
- Conclusions
- Proofreading/Revising
- Grammar
- MLA Format
Prerequisite: Students should be comfortable writing coherent paragraphs with complete sentences and proper use of capitalization and ending punctuation. Students should also show competency in computer skills.
Essentials of Writing III: Research and The Argumentative Essay – Fall 2023
Students will learn research skills and use the five paragraph format learned in Essentials of Writing II to write an argumentative essay based on their research.
- Research Using Several Types of Sources
- MLA Citations
- Avoiding Plagiarism
- Writing an Annotated Bibliography
- Argumentative Approaches in Writing
- Supporting Argumentative Statements
- Review of Revision Skills
Prerequisite: Students should have a clear understanding of the five paragraph essay, including the MLA requirements for formatting an essay.
Essentials of Writing IV: The Compare and Contrast Essay and Literature Essay – Spring 2024
Students will build upon the skills they learned in Essentials of Writing III and learn how to write a compare and contrast essay using research to support their points. They will also study how to write an effective literary essay and practice this type of essay writing by addressing a prompt on Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.
- Compare and Contrast Essays
- Topic Analysis
- Point-by-Point Organization
- Subject-by-Subject Organization
- Reading Literature
- Genres
- Elements of a Story
- Narrator Points of View
- Active Reading
- Writing Literary Essays
- Analysis vs. Plot Summary
- Approach to Focused, Relevant Discussion of Topic
- Appropriate use of Background Information
Prerequisite: Students should have the ability to research topics from a variety of sources and incorporate their research confidently and effectively to support their points in their essay. They should also be able to demonstrate an understanding of how to cite their sources using both in-text citations and writing a Works Cited page.
Creative Writing II – Spring 2021
“Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom, and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.” Sir Walter Scott
By expressing creativity we imitate the very attribute through which God made us and all creation, and this is one of the ways we can glorify God and enjoy Him forever. In addition to being The Word, Jesus Himself graciously engaged with His followers using parables and word pictures. When we are worried, Jesus admonishes us to “look at the birds of the air” (Matt 6:26). When we are at a loss for words, God has provided us with a storehouse of psalms, songs, and laments in His Word that we can engage to praise Him and cry out to Him. Throughout the Bible we see biographical narratives of how God worked in the lives of men and women bringing beauty out of ashes and nations out of people who thought they would remain childless. It is my hope that by studying Creative Writing, students will appreciate the beauty of the written word, learn the lessons inherent in the authors’ stories, and view characters as well as those around them three-dimensionally to see their fellow man with hearts of compassion.
The purpose of this course is to look more closely at the manner in which writers explain the complex nature and development of God’s most precious creation – mankind. We will explore the moral lessons taught through fables, the three-dimensionality of humans as seen in the wide array of character traits, and man’s dynamic nature as we examine character development. In addition to studying the writing of others, students will apply these lessons to their own writings. The topics and assignments for this course include the following:
- Study
- Aesop’s Fables, The Arabian Nights, THE JAPANESE
- Identification of the moral
- Analysis of character traits through a study of men in the Bible
- Study of character development through short biographies of historical figures
- Memorization and recitation of one poem
- Writing
- Interview, research, and write short biographies of a family member
- Write original fables, acrostics, and character sketches
- Write descriptive, narrative, and sequential paragraphs
- Practice vivid and descriptive word choice
A Literary Study of the Short Story – Spring 2021
The short story is so much more than an enjoyable read that someone can finish in one sitting. This form demands an economy of words, setting as a plot point, and intentional interaction between characters from the writer who sets his or her pen to paper to create such captivating tales. In this course we will study the masters of the short story and how they skillfully craft their stories through the following elements:
- Study
- Identify the parts of a short story
- Development of characters
- Define, recognize, and develop the plot
- Identify the viewpoint of the author
- Recognize and develop the mode and the worlds of fiction
- Writing
- Authors
- Ernest Hemingway
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Guy de Maupassant
- Corrie ten Boom
- Alice Walker
- Heywood Broun
- Edward Everett Hale
The Mightier Pen 