Lee Honors College

Lee Honors College

ATYP Writing Skills Course Description: Year Two

Abstract: ATYP is an advanced and accelerated program designed to engage and challenge students with a more rigorous and intensive learning experience than most traditional settings. Our program more than meets state mandated standards as outlined in the Michigan Merit Curriculum in a coherent and systematic manner; we provide an environment in which students learn in a university setting with experienced instructors and published writers. The program, which begins in middle school, meets and supplements ninth and tenth grade curricular standards, and over a period of three years, advances the student to the collegiate level, allowing for the possibility of dual enrollment in high school and university. Because our class sizes are small, students receive rich, personalized feedback from instructors and their peers, preparing them well for university. In all three years, students discuss and write about their writing processes and classroom literature analytically and creatively, with equal emphasis upon working independently and in a collaborative atmosphere.

ATYP Year Two

Plan: In year two, ATYP students continue to build upon their previous studies of American, British, and World Literature, while continuing to explore diverse perspectives. Students experiment in transformational thinking through written literary analysis and intensive classroom discussion. In year one, the GLECs under each Strand from the Michigan Merit Curriculum are addressed; in year two, students approach mastery of all.

Strand 1: Writing, Speaking, Visual Expression

Writing and speaking involve a complex process of inquiry and the discovery of meaning. Through writing, speaking, and visually expressing, students understand themselves, communicate with others, advance personal and professional goals, and participate in a democratic society. Effective communication requires an understanding of purpose and audience, and reflects well-developed ideas using appropriate conventions of genre, content, form, style, voice, and mechanics.

In year two, having already demonstrated fluency in writing, students now experiment with writing that further explores concepts, characters, and textual analysis. Students create a portfolio that focuses upon more academic writing which includes a researched position paper demonstrating logical thinking and the clear development of ideas. Emphasis is placed upon a clear thesis, argument, and acknowledgement of different perspectives on the chosen topic. Students participate in collaborative group work to present their findings upon any chosen text or topic and are encouraged to use the web based discussion board to facilitate their research projects and group work.

Strand 2: Reading, Listening, and Viewing

In constructing meaning while reading, listening, or viewing, students draw upon prior knowledge and engage complex strategies of comprehension and interpretation, and critical thinking. They develop skill, confidence, and independence in understanding narrative and expository texts, including aural, visual, and multimodal works. Students synthesize information through reading, listening, and viewing and also generate new thinking.

Students in year two are offered the opportunity to analyze and discuss texts at an elevated level, comparable to the atmosphere of a university classroom environment using the Socratic-circle as our model. When students write their papers, they are asked to examine and analyze all source materials from multiple types of media and to incorporate other views to reflect a rich, complex argument. After synthesizing information from sources, peer feedback, and instructor response, students are encouraged to revise and redraft their work and to make informed conclusions in their writing and presentations.

Strand 3: Literature and Culture

Students study and appreciate a rich and varied selection of classical and contemporary literary, cultural, and historical texts from American, British, and world traditions. They learn to make meaning from the experiences, ideas, and emotions of others across the ages, applying their understanding to contemporary circumstances.

The literary works for ATYP Year Two are carefully chosen by the instructor to be challenging to the student, representative of many cultures, and inclusive of both canonical and contemporary literature. Some of the writers used in the past include: Sophocles, William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton, Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvel, John Keats, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Edith Wharton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Frost, Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, N. Scott Momaday, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, Pablo Neruda, Lucille Clifton, Maxine Hong Kingston, Anna Akhmatova, Wislawa Syzmborska, Yusef Komunyakaa, Tim O’Brien, Mark Haddon, Jincy Willett, and Neil Gaimen.

Through intense classroom discussion and writing, students are asked to analyze, interpret, and draw connections between the novels, as well as relate the works to their own lives. Students learn historical context behind the works and are encouraged to relate them to modern circumstances. 

Strand 4: Language

Language is an evolving tool with powerful, personal, cultural, economic, and political implications. Knowledge of the structures of language (e.g., the history, meaning, and use of words; varying sentence structures and patterns of language; the conventions of standard English) is essential for the effective use of language for varying purposes (e.g., the development of a rich vocabulary, sentence structures for different rhetorical purposes, appropriate speech patterns for different social contexts). Understanding the political implications of language use is also critical for fostering a democratic society in which all voices are valued.    

Year two builds upon the use of rhetorical devices such as persuasion, argumentation, logic, and academic analysis learned in year one. They are then required to demonstrate knowledge of the appropriate time and setting for use of each rhetorical device in written and oral form. Students are expected to maintain a formal voice in certain pieces for their portfolio and allowed to experiment with voice and dialect in other pieces. The breadth of reading material covered in this course exposes students to myriad voices, perspectives, and dialects. Students are asked to demonstrate understanding of the texts and to discuss them in Socratic circles. They then identify how voice works and make connections between the texts and their own experiences.

 

Lee Honors College
1903 W. Michigan Avenue
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI 5244 USA
Phone (269) 387-3230 | (269) 387-3903 Fax
leehonorscollege@wmich.edu