College writing assigments

angelx03 · Post by **angelx03** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:35 pm

Looking at my English syllabus, and I noticed the upcoming writing projects is going to be VERY different than what I experienced in high school. The professor expects all of us to be very open and be honest with ourselves when writing these papers. Also he expects us to discover new styles of writing. Is this how college writing class is like?

Moonlight Soldier · Post by **Moonlight Soldier** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:40 pm

So I've heard, yes. My Writer's Craft teacher claims that high school, is horrible since it's sooo unbelievably structured and in university/college everything is open. She said a prof would probably laugh if you ever even asked what was expected of you or something.

What are you persuing in your college state their Angelx03?

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:47 pm

I found it to be a bit of both. On one hand, the college classes do provide more choice, on the other - it's still usually not enough.

Plus, it depends on what kind of course it is. In creative writing, yea, the exploration is important. In argumentative/formal writing, structure is more strict. On the other hand, all I needed to know about essays proper (for university-level papers) I learned from my writing class.

Still, I loved the stuff I could do in writer's craft. For two of my major creative pieces, I did two parts of a rather dark, violent story, full of angst, blood and existential philosophy.

Or just athmospheric violence.

But anyways, it was all good. A word of warning - your experience will largely depend on your instructor.

angelx03 · Post by **angelx03** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:49 pm

I'm pursueing in civil engineering technology. English is part of my liberal arts requirements.

WarpedElements · Post by **WarpedElements** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 9:31 pm

An Engineer asks "How does it work"

A Scientists asks "Why does it work?"

A liberal arts major asks "Do you want fries with that?"

J-0080 · Post by **J-0080** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 9:48 pm

MinnieMoose wrote:An Engineer asks "How does it work"

A Scientists asks "Why does it work?"

A liberal arts major asks "Do you want fries with that?"

Nice

Trident · Post by **Trident** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 10:12 pm

*twitches* Yeah. I'm finishing up my fourth year of college, going for a degree in English. If it's a creative writing class, then yeah, be creative. If you have to write essays, uhm... use the five paragraph essay model and just expand them...

I dunno. After too many lit classes to count, I've learned to love classes in which I can be creative... papers with required topics make me suicidal...

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 3:15 am

I think it depends on what english courses you start with. If you're in the intro sections, they'll dictate everything, down to the number of paragraphs and marking the 'thesis statement' like you're still in high school. Once you get to the middle sections they tend to be more loose, just telling you the page limit and format (argumentative, persuasive, etc) for the assignment. But the higher level classes vary. My 'creative writing' class consisted of essays, stories, and poetry - very little control over the subject matter or page limit. My 'writing for professions' was very strict, but it was practicing specific types of reports and such - learning the proper format.

And then there's the literature courses that involve research papers. I think the strictest class I had in college was Shakespeare - that professor was anal to a fault, she even had you number the lines in the paper so that she could be sure you had exactly the correct word number (with the same text size used and page format) and grade accordingly if you're over or under. She specified the structure of the essays, the information you could use to build your arguments, and the sources you could use.

In comparison to the english classes, the reasearch papers and proposals I wrote in my engineering courses were very lenient. I mean, you have a strict format for lab reports, but otherwise engineers are horrid writers on average - and even the professors have trouble dictating proper structure for essays and non-lab reports. Those were the fun assignments - always good when you know more about writing than the man assigning the paper. ^_~

SS5_Majin_Bebi · Post by **SS5_Majin_Bebi** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 3:22 am

J-0080 wrote:
MinnieMoose wrote:An Engineer asks "How does it work"

A Scientists asks "Why does it work?"

A liberal arts major asks "Do you want fries with that?"
Nice

And so so true as well

Savia · Post by **Savia** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 9:38 am

Otohiko wrote:I found it to be a bit of both. On one hand, the college classes do provide more choice, on the other - it's still usually not enough.

Plus, it depends on what kind of course it is. In creative writing, yea, the exploration is important. In argumentative/formal writing, structure is more strict. On the other hand, all I needed to know about essays proper (for university-level papers) I learned from my writing class.

Still, I loved the stuff I could do in writer's craft. For two of my major creative pieces, I did two parts of a rather dark, violent story, full of angst, blood and existential philosophy.

Or just athmospheric violence.

But anyways, it was all good. A word of warning - your experience will largely depend on your instructor.

OK, after reading more and more people doing Creative Writing classes, I'm feeling even more depressed at how I've let my writing slip than ever. I'm a person with a dual personality in some ways- I have the rational, ordered, scientific side of me that does Physics and what have you, and I have the creative, artistic side of me that I all too often repress or neglect. This leads to me having these real 'down' periods where my two personalities vie for attention and dominance. As I'm about to start my Natural Sciences university course, I think that Arts Savia is having a tantrum, and making me feel awful =/