The Writing Program is a short-form dive into effective composition practices geared toward fitting into the busy life of a professional. The presentation and progression of topics works toward getting overly rigid/formal and overly informal/conversational writing into a middle ground of clear and concise written communication across genres from writing work instructions to sending emails.
As an instructor led course, The Writing Program is broken into 7 modules that are organized around 2 main sections. It begins with an introduction to the Program’s organization, giving participants an idea of what to expect in the coming lessons. The first section centers around the difference between grammar and style and how discourse communities shape the forms of communication people participate in. The second section focuses on the presentation of a revision strategy and gets participants working on their own writing with the availability of the instructor for guidance.
The 7 Modules cover the following topics:
Section 1
- What is Grammar? Understanding the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammars with an overview of the form classes and structure classes.
- Grammar VS Style. Bringing participants to the point of understanding the rule governance of grammar, and the myriad ways grammatically fit writing can be shaped by different considerations.
- Style And the Discourse Community. With a grounding in style and grammar, participants are now exposed to the way different groups of people shape language both as an organic development and for specific reason to achieve certain goals.
- Concepts of Formal Writing. This Module examines the way very and overly formal writing was developed and why it has been crafted in that way.
- Understanding the Audience. Participants now examine the very broad or limited perspectives that can come to bear on any one piece of writing and how to shape their words to fit the expectations of that audience.
Section 2
- The Revision Strategy. This module presents a specific revision strategy aimed at sentence and paragraph level composition. Participants are exposed to the ways that sentence level composition can affect an entire piece and exposed specific methods including shifting an adjective to a prepositional phrase, bringing a subject to the forefront with active voice, and creating multiple units of meaning from an overly long sentence. Paragraph level composition is tackled through the idea of a topic or subject string – placing repetitive (not redundant) concepts in the subject position of sentences to give paragraphs coherence.
- Theory in Practice. This final module invites participants to bring in pieces of writing and revise them in line with concepts and revision strategies presented throughout the Program with the instructor as an at-will reference.
As an engaging and interactive form of learning, The Writing Program is interspersed with activities and opportunities for both synchronous and asynchronous learning. If you are interesting in learning more, please reach out to Eric through the Contact page (by clicking this link).
Eric King 