Readable Writing gets great results—much improved student writing—in record time. Plus–it engages students, gets them completely involved, wakes them up, and lights up their eyes.
Readable Writing hammers home a few key writing behaviors that make all the difference. Its exercises build from the simple in Week 1 to quite complex in Week 12. It’s a well-tested course that I’ve taught more than 70 times at Boston-area colleges and universities. The first eight weeks covers sentences and the last six weeks essay writing.
Students find this course fresh and engaging because it’s not the same-old same-old. A typical comment after the semester: “I never knew writing was this easy.” Another comment: “This is nothing like an English course, but at the end of it, I know how to write.”
Robert Garnet of Gettysburg College says:
I like your approach very much, with the strong emphasis on the concrete. I also like the multitude of exercises, which hammer the ideas home and make for an active experience for the students (and a time-saver for the instructor). If I were teaching composition this coming year I would definitely employ your text, and I will hang on to it and recommend it if anyone asks.
Please click around this web site. You’ll find several articles, sample pages from the book, and samples of student writing. You really need to look at the samples of student work to see what this course can do.
The best way to see how this approach works is to order a copy of the book and look for yourself. You will find an unusual textbook where the explanatory material is concise and interesting. Most important, you’ll find bushel-baskets of all kinds of exercises, which can be done in the classroom and for homework. There’s a complete answer key.
If your students work the exercises, their writing will change from vague and confusing to vivid and concrete. You’ll spend much less time reading and having to grade terrible papers.
Many instructors have bought the book. Kim Holcomb of Ohio University said this:
“Their writing improved a lot this semester—it might be the best semester I’ve had. Their sentences got a lot better…. I’m a real fan of this book; I tell everybody about it. I don’t have the time to invent more materials for my classes, and this package really works. I’ve been teaching college writing for more than 20 years, and this is the best resource I’ve found.”
Training students to be readable is a simple and logical idea, and when you do that, students write better, and much faster than you would believe.
Every conscientious writing instructor will want to check out this new approach that is good for your students and will save you a lot of work. Order it and see for yourself? If you like what you see, there’s still time to get it to your college bookstore. And the book retails for less than $20!
John
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