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English 1010 Introduction to Writing

Course Description

Welcome to Weber State and to Introduction to Writing. The principal goal of this course is, most obviously, to help you to improve and fine-tune your writing skills. Its more subtle goal is to enable you to see the extent to which your perception of the "world" is determined by language, and to help you to use language in ways essential to discovery, to learning, and to knowing. Thus, English 1010 is, first and foremost, a survival course in that it teaches you the writing skills that will improve your chances of success in any field of study or occupation. More immediately, this class is designed to prepare you to handle the writing assignments you will be given during your career at WSU. Only in successfully completing the writing assignments in your courses (and, quite naturally, also in this course) will you be able to "survive" at WSU and graduate with strong qualifications for the job world. Welcome and enjoy!

As the title of this course suggests, English 1010 will focus on composition–on the art of arranging and developing your ideas in writing. This means that the course attempts to teach you to write, mainly by examining, analyzing and practicing various modes of writing. (It is not a course in spelling, grammar, and mechanics, even though we may take time out to talk about these). On a most fundamental level, its goal is to raise your awareness with regard to both your writing and reading. Through the careful study of thought-provoking texts, including film, you will develop better reading skills and understand the effects of these texts on you more clearly. At the same time, frequent assignments in and out of class will sharpen your writing skills and make you more aware of your own way/style of writing. Only by understanding more clearly the nature of your own writing will you be able to make use of the suggestions of improvement that are at the center of this course.