Where Mr. Sewall Got His Yelling Trick . . .

From a choir conductor in a New York City public school. See how these kids sing and move.  And what they sing is Classical: the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. This guy from New York is good. See how he strikes his first crystal clear chord on the piano, then turns to the choir for their first phrase -  "So sentimental," which he has gone over with them a hundred times, you may be sure  . . .

All this is to show the importance of practice (in music or sport) and revision (in writing.)  Practice that leads to improvement requires focus and effort.  Practice that leads to great improvement, especially in groups, usually has substantial elements of satisfaction and fun. These kids are all singing from the gut: just look at their body language. That's why we start Egl102 the way we do: writing from the gut. Finding our voices. Once you have found your voice, you are in touch with parts of yourself - interests, concerns, ideas - that you will learn about, develop and express in your Explaining, Problem Solving and Arguing essays.

Getting Organized

Hello everyone - Here are five preliminary tasks to be completed during our first week.  

1. Bring to class first day and EVERY day:

• Textbook (Stephen Reid, Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers, short 9th Edition). If you have a copy of the long 9th edition, you may use it. I dislike book publishers as much as you do. However, using the somewhat out of date 8th edition will put you at a disadvantage. Check out the text rental program at the Oakton Bookstore.
• Your JOURNAL: a 75-page notebook, which I will review periodically during the semester and at the end.
• Relevant Course Documents (#3 below).

This filebox stands for these tasks. When completed, they will extend your mind. So complete them now NOW and see the good things that happen later.

2. Course documents. Print out copies and bring them to every class. We will be referring to them often. These documents are housed at DocStoc, a user-friendly document storage site. To house them on your computer, create an"Egl 102" folder. Then, at DocStoc, click "Download", open the document when it's on your computer and save it to your Egl 102 folder.

• Mr. Sewall's Editing Marks Refer to it when reviewing my comments to your papers.
• Mr. Sewall's Parts of Speech  I expect you to know the eight parts of speech, which this sheet simplifies nicely.
• Waste Words. Take a good look at this document NOW! You will soon become an enemy, like me, of waste words: their implacable foe!
Fill out this Questionnaire for the first day of class, hand it in to me (even if you have done it before) 
• How to Write a Professional Email Use this format in your emails to me - I use it in mine to you.
• ENGLISH 102 COURSE SYLLABUS Read it carefully and read it now!
• Top 10 most annoying writing mistakes (to be posted later)
  
• Top 10 ways to improve your writing 
• Before and After Practice turning shabby writing into smooth writing.
• Mr Sewall's "OAKTON: Write for Real" student writing blog
• Essay #1 Assignment Sheet (Expository)
• Week 2 Topic Selection Sheet (in class exercise for all three essays) 
• EXPLAINING ESSAY PROPOSAL. THIS is your assignment sheet. You can download and begin work on it now:
• Section 003 - MW - proposal emailed to me by Sun Feb 6. Approved by me by Thu Feb 10.
• Section OW1 - SAT - emailed to me by Mon Feb 7. Approved by me by Sun Feb 13.
• Essay deadlines, first and final drafts:
  
• Section 003 - MW - First draft due: Mon Feb 14. Final Draft due: Mon Feb 21.

Section OW1 - SAT - First draft due: Sat Feb 19. Final Draft due: Sat Feb 19.

• Essay #3 Assignment Sheet (Problem Solving)
• Essay #4 Assignment Sheet (Argument)

3. Preformat all of the four essays that you'll write this semester using these two documents: Essay Preformat Instructions and  Preformatted Essay #1 Expository.  Download both docs from DocStoc and keep them open so you can make changes in your "Template" by following the "Instructions.

My PREFERRED email address is this gmail one, so please be sure to email me there - I don't check the Oakton email as often.

4. Get your Oakton library card. Bring to the library an Illinois driver's license or valid state ID and your concise student schedule for this semester. Time permitting, practice accessing Oakton's incredible research databases from home, especially Ebsco and Lexis/Nexis.  Don't hesitate to call a reference librarian at Oakton or at any public library for help in using these databases.

5. In your Internet Browser, create an English 102 Folder for links to sites you'll be using during the course. These include academic sites:

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL), a fine online grammar and composition site
• Sample OWL exercise for practicing verb tense consistency.
• Here is a useful map of the OWL site.
• EasyBib, which pretty much creates your own bibliography for you in the MLA format we use. 
• KnightCite Citation Service looks good - 

Your EGL102  folder will also include - in its own subfolder created by you - all of the useful sites you visit for your research papers. The sites will start piling up in number, so create three subfolders now for out three research papers. Trust me, it's no fun racking your brain to find a missing site when you're deep into the writing process!

Thanks for completing these tasks on time!