Here’s another thing that I’ve been reluctant to throw out until now…
Twenty years ago I took over coordinating an academic writing course for speakers of English as a second language at the university where I had just been employed.
The academic writing course they had was OK, but it was kind of hard to teach. And because I didn’t know any better I spent all my time rewriting the entire course so that I could teach it.
And then because I didn’t know any better I created a system to make it easy to mark including avoiding plagiarism without high-tech software.
Then I rolled this out to the half dozen or so other tutors who delivered the programme.
I prepared all the lessons. Standardised the delivery. And wrote the exams. Everyone seemed pretty happy and the students figured out how to write university-style essays.
Eventually, I just compiled everything and put it in a book. That turned out to be around 160 pages.
I think it’s still a pretty good course. Anything topical in the examples are now 20 years out of date, but the teaching ideas and structure still works.
I’d probably do things a bit differently if I got the chance to do this over again. Like a one-page poster, for example.
But I think I’m OK posting it here for free for anyone who wants it. If not, I’ll wait for the cease and desist letters.
I’ve taken the name of my former employer off the front.
Mostly, this is my work. It remained unchanged as the course book for at least 5 or 6 years after I left, at which point I lost track of things.
And while it is my work it does draw on a whole bunch of other stuff that others have done. Some of this is referenced. Some of it is not.
If I’ve missed something, sorry. I’m not going back to fix it. I just want to release it into the wild.
If you’re looking for a basic text on how to teach academic writing there are probably lots of good ones out there now.
If not, feel free to use and adapt this one. With or without citations.
