OVERVIEW
Writing in English is an important skill for students to acquire. Traditionally, university level English writing has focused on essays or reports and occasionally students have written their graduation thesis in English. We will continue to emphasize such writing and wherever possible will include academic content. This includes skills such as summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting which are important so that students can refer to sources correctly (thereby avoiding plagiarism). In addition, in an increasingly digital world, forms of writing such as e-mails and blogs reflect the kinds of writing that citizens in the twenty-first century need to be able to do. It is important that university students are exposed to these varieties of writing in English and are able to critically reflect on them.
DIFFERENT LEVELS
We would like all students in the first year to become familiar with the structure of a basic essay. A common format is the five paragraph essay that includes an introduction with a thesis statement, body paragraphs with topic sentences and support, and a conclusion. This is not the only way to structure an essay (and is not covered in all textbooks) but it is a basic form that is useful for more extensive academic writing. We would also like teachers to show students how to avoid plagiarism through simple referencing, quoting, summarizing and paraphrasing. We would also strongly encourage teachers to reinforce the basics of how to send a clear email message. Students should have had some practice of email writing in the first year.
At lower levels in the first year, as well as essays and emails, the content of writing is likely to include personal topics and genres such as descriptive reports and stories. Higher level students can write more formal academic reports on various issues, especially in the second year. Very high level students in the second year may be encouraged to write faculty specific research papers
TEACHING APPROACH
We encourage teachers to use a process writing approach wherever possible (brainstorming, planning, drafting and editing) but this does not stop teachers from paying attention to grammar and errors. It is important to emphasize that students can learn a lot from each other as well as the teacher through peer feedback and review of each other’s writing. It is not expected that teachers give feedback each week on student work – if a process approach is taken then four or five assignments in a semester would be more than sufficient.
Expected word counts will vary according to each teacher’s approach and student level, but as a rule of thumb 400 words is a good target for manys students, although some may have very little experience of writing and 400 words is a good challenge. At all levels students need to be encouraged to do as much extensive writing as possible. This can be in class through ‘fast writing’, and out of class through journals or blogs. Students also need to practice writing using a computer. Teachers do not have to explicitly teach computer skills but can make it clear to students that assignments should be typed.
TRANSITION FROM YEAR ONE TO TWO
In the first year lessons will have emphasized process writing techniques, fluency and personalized topics. Students should have learned the basic format of an essay, how to write emails and how to avoid plagiarism. In the second year we would like to continue to use process writing but encourage students to focus on objective writing, formal style, logical organization and accuracy. Students do not have to produce research papers but it would be good to move away from personal topics and subjective ways of writing to produce papers that have a more academic focus. This can be done in a variety of ways depending on student level and major and the teacher’s approach and choice of materials.