Course before 39A.
Before taking writing 39A, I was in writing 20C with professor Kim. She's really nice as a professor. We've been focusing on writing a proper academic essay in 20C. I think she successfully helped us to learn how to do effective researches for our writings. I also learned more about constructing my outline and writing style.
Self-assessment on writing.
I've been tortured by two main problems on writing.
The grammar. Since English is not my first language, and I'm not a good English learner, I always confuse about the grammar of the English. When I learn some new vocabularies and try to use them in my writings, it's hard for me to put them in proper sentences or positions.
I find it diffcult to transfer things in my head to the paper in English. That's probably because when I think, I think as a Chinese instead of a English speaker. Language represents culture, and it's not easy to convert concepts between two culture.
Reflection on weekly assessment.
To be honest, I got score higher than I expected on "Language and Grammar Diagnostic" at Connect. I got many wrong on the punctuation questions. To be specific, the usage of quotation mark, comma, and italic. I'm quite confusing about when to use quotation mark and when to use italic.
Core elements of the course.
Syllabus: We'll use more than five main sources and platforms to achieve the goals of this course. They are Connect composition, reading texts, Wix, Perusall, and other platforms. This course will require work time of 12-14 hours per week. It is important to use available resources at maximum to pass. Avoid plagiarism, and respect you mates and instructors.
Course objectives: Practicing more about read and understand various texts, enhacing writing abilities, helping to increase collaboration and communication skills, improving "Habits of Mind".
Grade contract: This course aims to help student to becomes a "more effective communicator." To achieve this goal, we as students needs to meet these seven conditions.
"Attendance/Participation"
"Conference with the teacher"
"Complete Work on Time"
"Meet the minimum requirements on assignments"
"Be collaborative"
"Sustain effort and investment"
"Proofread"
Hi Yinda,
This is my first writing course at UCI and I am glad to hear that you had a great experience in your previous writing course. I found it interesting to read that you think in Chinese and have to write in English. I do that sometimes when I think of words in Korean, but I don't know to express that word in English because there is not an exact word that translate. A suggestion that I have is maybe write everything out in Chinese first and then translate it to English. It may be more work, but it could help you convey your ideas better. But that's just a suggestion :)
I have had troubles with your grammar. I suggest you start with basic words and sentence patterns. This will be much simpler.