First Day Housekeeping

Welcome to Advanced Composition. You have chosen to take a course that will challenge you to improve your introductions, construct theses, transition ideas, create original conclusions, correct mechanical distractions, and, in essence, fulfill your writing destiny as future college and career writers.

To give you more background of me, this is my fifteenth year of teaching. My first four years were at college level, the past eleven years at high school level, and my eighth year here at FZN. I have three collegiate degrees: BA in English, MA in English, and MA in Education. I have the fortune to teach AP and college-level English courses here, and my goal is to make you become the writer you could be, not the writer you should be. (Natalie Orf put that in a thank you note, and I realized that phrase truly encompasses my teaching philosophy in composition.

For today's class, we completed any necessary school information (lunches, tardies, food, etc.). Then, we looked over the syllabus so that you may see our upcoming units. As mentioned in class, we start with what many see as more simplistic levels of writing but are actually necessary components in communication - e-mails and summaries are necessary compositions for any collegiate student.

Next, we started our first unit of vocabulary experts. For your assigned word, you will be sharing the definition, two synonyms, and a memory trick for class. We will have four words for class tomorrow. Hence, homework tonight is prepping your vocabulary.

In our last moments, we started discussing student to professor e-mails. Reasons? Asking a question, reporting an absence, advising classes, gathering makeup work, asking for feedback/editing, turning stuff in, or requesting a rec letter. What mistakes can be made in e-mails? Lack of greeting, lack of capitalization, unspecified class, student, assignments, lack of spelling accuracy. I have a feeling there are a great deal more out there.

See you tomorrow for e-mail examples, suggestions, and writing your own -- hopefully without all the mistakes.