Many students struggle to effectively break down an assignment into a sequence of steps that are manageable and result in a finished piece of writing that reflects both the project goals and the timeline. Students will learn strategies for pre-writing, selecting and organizing ideas, gathering evidence, and for moving from outline to draft. They will also learn how to self-monitor throughout these steps in order to make course corrections (e.g. “Am I on track with what this assignment is asking for?”) as well as to seek and integrate feedback for their work.

With all academic writing, there is the “doing” as well as the “understanding” of intentions for the assignment, i.e. what we are trying to achieve. The goal of writing is to make an argument throughout the paper. We will help students to learn to decipher the question being asked and shape their ideas into an argument that supports the intended outcome.

Whether it is in initiating, generating an idea, researching, forming a thesis, persisting when writing gets challenging, or editing, many students can get stuck. This course will provide strategies to help students get “unstuck” in all aspects of the writing process. We will also help students find their writing voice. By learning to trust their ideas and their voice, as well as embracing a repeatable writing process, students can remove the anxiety that often comes with starting, persevering or finalizing an academic writing assignment.

Students will leave with models for how to produce different types of papers including research, persuasive, and narrative essays. Those taking the High School course will also receive templates for literary and historical analysis.