President Kim B. Clark
FDENG 101 Writing Foundations Online
Credits: 3
Estimated Enrollment per Offering: 45 Students
Outcomes
- Use effective written and oral communication within varied academic and social contexts.
- Recognize, carry out, and reflect on the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, revision, editing, and publishing).
- Identify, assess, and evaluate the primary traits of effective communication in your own writing, in the writing of your peers, and in professional documents.
- Think critically by asking effective questions and recognizing fallacious reasoning.
- Conduct effective research, distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources, and synthesize and cite sources accurately.
Description
Why are we here?
“This is one of the great blessings of university life, to learn to speak together and think together in a kind of challenging environment . . . to perhaps verbally scrap and argue together over public issues and matters of broad interest.”
President Gordon B. Hinckley
We’re here to learn. One of the best ways to learn is to write. You cannot think without language. You cannot write without thinking. And it’s the thinking we’re after. We write to get somewhere--to learn, to explore, to communicate, to commune.
What if I struggle with writing?
Join the club. Writing isn’t easy. As William Zinsser explains, “If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things that people do.” But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it should be avoided. Most worthwhile things in life take hard work. As you hone your writing skills, you’ll improve your thinking ability and begin to cultivate a skill that you will use throughout life.
How do we become better writers?
I’ll let Ursula K. Le Guin, a successful writer, answer that question: “You write. Why do people ask that question? Does anybody ever come up to a musician and say, Tell me, tell me—how should I become a tuba player? No! It’s obvious. If you want to be a tuba player you get a tuba, and some tuba music. And you ask the neighbors to move away or put cotton in their ears. And probably you get a tuba teacher, because there are quite a lot of objective rules and techniques both to written music and tuba performance. And then you sit down and you play the tuba, every day, every week, every month, year after year, until you are good at playing the tuba; until you can—if you desire—play the truth on the tuba. It is exactly the same with writing. You sit down, and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned to do it.”
What do we assume?
What do we assume about you and about this class? First, we assume anyone can write. Anyone can succeed. Second, we assume your writing will improve with practice. We’ll practice a lot. Third, we assume you can’t learn all there is to learn about writing in one semester. Our aim is mastery of a few key principles. Fourth, and perhaps most important, we assume you are here to learn. Eliot A. Butler explains: “it is painfully obvious that one can obtain a degree without becoming an educated person, and that unfortunate truth applies worldwide. . .. You can choose to get credit, or you can choose to change your life (still receiving the credit, but now with an improved grade).” His point is that working for a grade will get you, at most, the grade. Learning is more than the grade. You can choose to learn or you can choose to get by. You’ll get more from this course—more from life--if you choose to learn.
Topics:
The writing process; rhetorical aims and strategies; audience awareness; research and documentation; style; and editing.
Required Materials
Total Cost: Approx. $45
- Hartvigsen, M. Kip, ed. I Think. 1st ed. Rexburg: BYU-Idaho Press, 2008.
- MyComp Lab Access (Purchase an access card that will allow you to access an online style guide, text, and writing services).
Prerequisites
None.
Course Tools
Assignment Submission/Grading Tool
Discussion Board
Grade Center
Adobe Connect
