230515 Basic Writing (S) (WiSe 2006/2007)

Your own writing forms the nucleus of this course; the weekly homework tasks and a wide variety of writing activities in class are designed to help you develop greater assurance and control when using written English to communicate in a range of different contexts, and to become a more confident and competent editor and critic of your own, and others', writing.

Amongst the kinds of texts you can expect to produce in Basic Writing, either as homework or in class, are: cv's/resumés; letters and email texts; summaries of short articles or audio material in English or German; discursive or speculative pieces; reports, articles, interviews, reviews; technical descriptions or instructions; stories, anecdotes, accounts; travel brochure texts, advertisements.

There will be regular work on vocabulary and points of grammar and usage arising from the writing tasks. Apart from that, we will do tasks that focus on text structure and on structuring texts (e.g. by reconstructing jumbled texts, expanding notes, completing texts), and on register, punctuation, spelling, word order etc. In class, you will often be working in groups to produce short texts, or to edit your fellow students' writing.

Although there will be a class test (a summary of a German text), the grade is awarded mainly on the basis of a portfolio made up of selected, revised pieces of writing.