Class Three

This lesson began by looking at another writing by John Sutherland, only this time we were analysing a text that we were going to have to do our first essay on, which of course made everyone slightly nervous! As we had already previously studied one of his texts it did make analysing his writing style slightly easier. Most of the class by now recognised that he gave a lot of background information to his subject so that anyone reading it would understand his point of view, when he got to it! Although I think, especially for myself, as the thesis statement in this essay was not as obvious, many people were worried that they would not be able to find it when they came to do their essay! 


The class then moved on to an article 'The Role of English in Research and Scholarship.' by Swales and Feak. Again we were analysing the structure of the text. For me, this was slightly easier as I did recognise that there were different sections within the text that differed to each other. These sections we found out were: Background, Problem, Solution and Evaluation. In our groups we then had to summarise this text in 50 words, which was a lot harder I found than the first part. The three of us did eventually managed to summarise it! However it did show me that cutting down texts is just as hard as bulking up any text that you may have, for example an essay that needs to be handed in!

Class Two

This lesson was the beginning of our preparation for future assignments. We learnt about the writing styles of writers, how they structure their essays and most importantly I (eventually) learnt what a thesis statement was- something that I did not know about previously!We began preparation for our first assignment by trying to spot these things within an essay by John Sutherland "Why does the count come to England?". We read through the essay in groups and were given cards to put in order to show which arguments came where. Interestingly, many of the groups were not able to put his thesis statement in the right place as it came at the very end. For me his writing was so subtly persuasive I wasn't able to see where his thesis statement was, that and I had not quite understood what a thesis statement was at that point! After we went through it together and picked his writing apart I began to see how persuasive his writing skill was without it being overly direct. He writes for all levels of knowledge and begins by explaining background information to his subject before giving his own points of view.We were also told about modal verbs in class- something which I had never previously heard of! I was fascinated by how many different grammatical groups there are in the English Language that most people are oblivious to! 

Class One

In our first class we were initially given an overview of the "writing skills" course, as I don't think many people were sure what the class entailed. We were told that we would be studying texts much more closely than at A level. As many people on the course had previously taken the module "close reading skills" many people asked whether it would be like this, as it did sound quite similar but we were told that although there were some similarities we would be studying the structure of the texts and the language in a different way. We were also introduced to the "moodle" website where all the writing skills information would be available. This was incredibly helpful for all the writing skills information on essays. 


Then we were put to the test. We were given Hemingway’s six word story: “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” and were told to discuss whether this was a story or not! Initially many people were not convinced that this could be a story but after further discussion people were able to make up their own story about what these words might mean. The class began to see that even though there were only six words there was indeed a beginning, middle, and an end and that these words could mean anything that they wished! In fact, I think the creative license that Hemingway gives us here as the reader is vast and that it can be argued that this story is more interesting than those that are given to us, word for word.