Thursday, July 19, 2012

New Advanced Project and Research Seminar Proposals Posted on SNL Writing Guide

Are you currently working on either Advanced Project or Research Seminar proposals? If so, the SNL Writing Website, http://snl.depaul.edu/writing/index.html, has been updated with new AP and Research Seminar sample proposals, projects and papers. All of the newly posted items were 2011 – 2012 Student Excellence award winners. Check them out today!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

New 5 week Writing Course available in the Fall (A5, A2X, and FX competencies available)

WriteNow: National Novel Writing Month
 
Course Description: November has been designated National Novel Writing Month, and over 200,000 participants each year challenge themselves to write a book-length project during this month. As part of this 5-week course, SNL students are invited to earn competence by accepting a similar challenge: Anne Lamott said that the most important ingredient for writing is the act of “sitting.” During five weeks in October/November, students will focus on this seemingly simple act of the creative process. The focus of the course is on the generation of written material – the quantity rather than the quality. As such, students choose their own fiction or nonfiction writing topic(s) and project for these five weeks, and may use the material they create in a later effort (ILP, AP, etc.) To kick off one session, a group of professional writer panelists will reflect on their own creative processes as they have developed their latest works.

Dates/Time:     LATE START Fall 2012 Quarter
                        Class meets Wednesdays in the Loop 10/10, 10/17, 10/24, 10/31, 11/7

Credit Hours:  2

Students must choose one competence only: A5, A2X, FX

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

SNL student, Jason Spitzer, gets published

SNL Student, Jason Spitzer, is a lifelong soap opera fan and hlntv.com invited him to write about it! He writes about his passion for daytime television in his articles titled, "Love in the afternoon: An ode to soaps" and "My favorite soap was canceled...Now what?!" Last month, Jason flew to Los Angeles to cover red carpet arrivals for the Daytime Emmy awards. Of the experience, he says, “Everything is happening so fast and I'm just along for the ride!” 

Anxious about writing for school?

If so, you are not alone. Here is what some other SNL students had to say about writing for school:

It’s a challenge, especially the writing. Pretty much just getting back into it. — Jessica

Yeah, I had mouth sores. — Sam

Jessica and Sam were two of twenty-five newly returned adult students whom I spent over sixty hours interviewing in the fall of 2008. Twenty-three of these students expressed significant anxiety about writing for school. Like Sam, some had anxiety so intense it produced physical symptoms like mouth sores and muscle spasms. The main sources of their anxiety were not knowing what to write because they had a hard time imagining the university and not knowing if they were writing well enough because they had a hard time imagining themselves in the university. As David Bartholomae has pointed out, “every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for the occasion” (60). Because adult students are less likely to have the academic currency and cultural capital of their younger peers, inventing the university can be particularly challenging. As Sam put it, “I don’t fit in here; I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Many students find that it helps to know that they are not alone in their anxiety about academic writing, so you can help yourself and your peers by sharing your concerns with them. You will also find resources to help you on this website.

The excerpt above is from SNL Writing Coordinator Michelle Navarre Cleary’s article, "Anxiety and the Newly Returned Adult Student," which appeared in Teaching English in the Two-Year College (TETYC) 39.4 (2012): 364-376. The article is available for download at: http://works.bepress.com/navarrecleary/6