1. Name that something right here.

2. Now, tell me how you learned to do it. Tell me right here.

3. Now tell me what made you really learn this thing. What internal and external factors caused you to learn how to do this thing so well?

4. Now tell me why you are in this course. If you are forced to be here because it is a program requirement, tell me that. Then, forget about the requirement and tell me what YOU want to get out of this course. I mean, since you are here--you are really here, right?--you might as well get something out of being here--besides three credit hours and a grade. So, why you are here? We will call this:


YOUR COURSE OBJECTIVES

5. Now let’s compare your course objectives with mine.

MY COURSE OBJECTIVES


1. To master the types of effective writing typical of business, industry, and government.

2. To develop the analytical power to determine the requirements of any writing situation, the ways to generate the information to fulfill these requirements, and the skills to put it all together into a polished piece of written work that will knock your boss’ socks off and win you the love, trust, admiration, and/or screaming,raging jealousy of your co-workers, friends, and enemies. (You get to pick who gets what.)

3. To develop a prose style that will meet the demands of the technical environment, yet be flexible enough to be under your control to meet the demands of any environment.

4. To learn to use graphics as an effective and indispensible first component of all technical writing.

5. To learn the forms and formats typical of the working world: reports, letters, memos, abstracts, etc.



Now, tell me how your course objectives are different from mine.

6. Tell me why yours are so different from mine. Or tell me why I ought to adopt one or more of yours in to my syllabus. Or tell me both.

7. I hope you can already see that you are going to learn this semester by doing, not by reading, not by talking, not by listening, but by DOING. I am going to make you do stuff and through doing that stuff, you will learn. You will meet the course objectives by DOING things, not just by listening to me.

I will make you a deal. If you answer all the questions I ask you throughout this course and do all the activities I give you the chance to do, you will meet the course objectives (both yours and mine) and get the grade you earn. (And you can earn any grade you want to earn, if you want to earn it badly enough to pay the price.) You tell me what price you want to pay and I’ll tell you what grade that will earn.

8. If you have any questions for me, ask:

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