高級寫作(一)

General Information 1. Course purpose. The course seeks to coach students’ writing skill in English and familiarize them with the culture in which an English speaker would understand what writing is. Various non-fiction genres (biography, profile writing, memoir, business writing, etc.) will be attempted by students under the instructor’s guidance. 2. Class attendance is mandatory. If you happen to be absent from class, you must report to the instructor for the make-up assignment, if any, and get an official leave of absence from the University administration (http://stuoffcourse.nctu.edu.tw/) to be qualified for the full attendance bonus grade (q.v. “Grading Scale”). 3. Class protocol: a. Always get enough sleep the evening before the class. b. No food or beverage (except drinking water) is allowed in the classroom. 4. Electronic gadgets: a. Switch off your cell phone, or switch it to the flight mode. b. No texting or checking online information through an electronic device (such as a cell phone) within the classroom even during the breaks. c. No recording, audio or visual, or podcasting is allowed in class. d. The electronic dictionary is discouraged from use for in-class writing. 5. Office hour: a) Always make an appointment for the office hours. b) When it is not during the office hours, do not knock at the instructor’s office door, unless an appointment has been made in advance. 6. E-mail policy: a) Announcements related to this class will be made through e-mails. Make sure that your e-mail account at e-Campus and the NCTU Online Course Registration System (https://course.nctu.edu.tw/) is current, and check your e-mails regularly. b) Always identify yourself by noting your student’s ID and your name in Chinese when you write. Feel free to write in English or Chinese, although the instructor will always write to you in English. c) Follow the rules of writing your e-mail as you would in the business setting.

Teaching assistant: Anna 蔣鳳瑜 (anna9447623@gmail.com) for grade releases

[Grading Scale] 1. Throughout the semester, there will be 4 in-class essay assignments, each of which will be graded with the scale of 1 to 15. The grades are interpreted as follows: 9 for satisfactory, 10 average, 12 fair, 13 very good, and 14 and above excellent. However, the highest grade you receive for a make-up assignment is 12. 2. The 15 blogs and 15 quizzes you write or take will each be graded with the scale of 1 to 5. 3. Keep all your in-class essays for your record. 4. Your semester grade will be calculated according to the chart below: -Quizzes (on On Writing Well) : 25 points -Blogs (on Sixty Steps to Précis): 20 points -In-class Essay Assignments: 15 points -Midterm Examination: 15 points -Final Examination: 15 points -Class Participation: 10 points -Extra bonus (with full attendance) 5% of total grade, with total 85 as ceiling 5. If you should miss either the midterm or the final examination, you cannot receive a passing grade for the course. 6. If you have a full attendance the whole semester, you will receive a 5% extra grade for your overall semester grade. For example, if your grade is 80, it will be increased to 84. If after the adjustment your grade exceeds 85, you receive 85. 7. In the case in which a student should owe any missing work by the end of the semester, he or she shall not be allowed to take the final exam. A make-up final will be given only after all missing works have been turned in. As it is a make-up exam, the grade received shall time 0.8, as a penalty. 8. During the interval before the make-up exam is taken, an “incomplete” grade as “I” will be granted as the temporary semester grade. If the student should fail to turn in any missing work or make up for the final by the time when the “incomplete” must be resolved and its final grade be sent, his or her extant grade on file shall be his or her semester grade. 9. Should you have questions about your grades, send your queries to the teaching assistant, as well as the instructor. [Class Participation] 1. Students are expected to join the class discussions and will be given a credit each time they speak up. They must learn, among other things, to make summaries and form opinions on the assigned readings. 2. English is the language used in all discussions. [Blogs and Essays] 1. Honesty matters. In all cases, plagiarism will not be tolerated. Credits must be given to the authors or sources you cite, if any. 2. Weekly blogs: a) Length: Except for the weeks that are marked with an asterisk (*) in the Course Schedule below, you write a weekly blog of 5 to 25 sentences in English as your response to at least two out of the four essays in Sixty Steps to Précis assigned for you to read each week. b) Submission: To submit your blog, click on the “Discussion” button in the panel on the left on our page at e-Campus. Go to the forum “Weekly Blogs” for the week you should do your posting, and click on the “Reply” button to start. For your blog’s title, fill in the subject slot (主題) with your student’s ID, to be followed by a topic of your choice, such as: 0519088 Our Brain Is Smarter Than You Think. c) What to Write: You can always turn in a new blog or write a response to the blogs written by your classmates. Either way, you write as pertinently as you can in your response to your chosen essay(s). Explain why it is a fine essay (or not), what writing skill or lesson you have learned from it, and how it has assisted you in writing better English. Feel free to agree or disagree with a good cause. You may write a comment, a remark, a criticism, but never a description, a summary, or a free association. All internet protocols apply—such as to refrain from trashing the essay(s), writing offensive remarks, making a personal attack, or using the expletives, etc. d) Deadline: The blog deadline is 11: 59 p.m. each Tuesday evening. Submit your blog as early as you can. There is a grace period between 12:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. Wednesday. Should there be an internet breakdown, the instructor shall assume no responsibility. e) Grading: Your blog will be graded with the scale of 1 to 5. Expect your grade to fall between 4.0 and 4.9 on average. If no blog is turned in, the grade is 0. A late blog will be graded as 3.5 as the highest. 3. Essay assignments: a) You write your essays in class in the booklets given to you. b) Thesaurus: You must bring your own thesaurus, or you will not be allowed to write your in-class essays. c) Dictionary matters: You are strongly discouraged from using an electronic dictionary when you do your writing in class. A print dictionary is always preferred. Students who should violate this rule will not be allowed to take the midterm or the final examination (q.v. “Quizzes and Examinations”). d) Mechanics: Each of your essays should be handwritten clearly in double spacing. Leave ample room in the margins. Pay special attention to your spelling and punctuations. e) Time matters: Given that time is compressing each time you write your assignment in class, you must do your best to beat the 12:00 p.m. deadline. f) Essay information: On the cover of your essay booklet, you must mark the week number (Week 1, Week 2, etc.) and the time (11:32 a.m., 10:55 a.m., etc.) you hand in your work. You must also mark the word count at the end of your essay. g) Upload: When your writing assignment has been edited and returned to you, you must type and upload it to our e-Campus site. Go to the forum “Essay Assignments” and look up for the exact topic (Essay Assignment 1, 2, 3, or 4), where you post your edited essay using your student’s ID and your essay title as your subject (主題), for example: 0519088 My Last Summer Vacation. [Quizzes and Examinations] 1. Except for the weeks in which no readings are assigned, a quiz on William Zinsser’s On Writing Well will be held at 9:00 a.m. at each meeting. There will be no make-up quiz for those who are late or absent. 2. There are four short questions in each quiz. The highest score is 5 points, while the least score you can get is 1 point. 3. If you should miss the quizzes for more than 3 times (i.e., for at least 4 times) the whole semester, you will not be allowed to take the final examination. 4. The midterm and final examinations comprise two parts each: a) Vocabulary: This is a test on the vocabulary you find in both On Writing Well and Sixty Steps to Précis. b) Essay writing: You will be asked to write an essay (or essays) according to the video in English you are given to watch. No subtitles, English or Chinese, will be available on the video. You must bring with you your own thesaurus, without which you will not be allowed to take this writing test.

Required textbooks: (1) On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. By William Zinsser. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Collins, 2006. (2) Sixty Steps to Précis: A New Approach to Summary-writing for Overseas Students. Ed. L. G. Alexander. Essex: Longman, 1962; rpt. 1989. (3) Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2014. Recommended: (1) Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. 2nd ed. Oxford: Macmillan Education, 2007. (2) Collins Cobuild English Dictionary. Ed. John D. Sinclair. 8th ed. Andover, UK: Heinle ELT, 2008. (3) Roget’s Thesaurus. Ed. Barbara Ann Kipfer. 6th ed. New York: Harper, 2003. (4) The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations. By Morton Benson, Evelyn Benson, and Robert Ilson. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins; Taipei: Bookman, 1997.

地點

Office: HC414, HA Building 3

時間

Office hours: Wednesday, 3:30 – 5:30 PM, and by appointment

聯絡方式

(1) E-mail: limk728@g2.nctu.edu.tw (2) Tel: 03-5731792 (or campus extension 3-1792)