Good morning everyone 🙂
I’m gonna give you a low down on English 112 (specifically Dr. Paul Endo’s sections). I was in his 9:00 AM class (if that’s of any significance), and to my knowledge, Dr. Endo taught two classes this term.
English 112, described as “techniques for university writing” is really different depending on the prof that you have.
Certain profs give a lot of at home work, prereadings, and the
writing assignments do vary from prof to prof.
For my class, Dr. Endo told us that his focus for Eng 112 is to improve our critical thinking, which I discovered was mostly through in class discussions based on a few prereadings of articles (these were almost all economics based, for example, the relationship between money and happiness, and the gift giving economy).
Assignments:
In my class, we only had a few assignments:
– In class summary (from a paragraph in the prereading – I was able to prep for this the night before by taking notes)
– Take home research essay (basically a summary of other research essays – subject of your choice, but we had to check to make sure it was okay before writing about it)
– Take home argumentative essay (6 different prompts to choose from)
– In class rhetorical analysis (essay to analyse was given on the day of the in class write, it was quite short, easy to understand)
A few times, we also did some in class, group work (not for marks), where we would do a shorter version of the assignment, and then he would go over every groups and point out things that were good and things that could be improved. I found this to be pretty helpful when it came to actually writing my papers.
Final Exam
All Eng 112 classes have final exams, which also differ from prof to prof. You have three hours to write the exam, and Dr. Endo’s exam was composed of two parts:
1. Rhetorical Analysis
For the Rhetorical Analysis we were given an essay about the increasing popularity of cosplay and what it tells us about the declining American economy (pretty interesting if you ask me.. though I’m still not entirely convinced that it’s a logical connection).
2. Argumentative Essay
For this, we were given two options to discuss:
The first was something to do with the gift giving economy (based on an essay we read.. I don’t entirely remember the prompt because I didn’t choose to write about it)
And the other was about the “fairness” in sports, and what we define to be “fair” when it comes to genetic ability, high tech training facilities and performance enhancing drugs. We read a short essay about this and discussed it for a class.
Don’t worry too much about the final. Prep in reading the essays that he tells you to read, go over important terminology, and go over your past assignments to review what you have to improve on, but remember: you’ve technically been studying for this exam the entire term. There’s only so much prep you can do, so don’t stress. It’s not a difficult exam, and it’s definitely doable in three hours.
Tips for English 112:
1. Take notes in class! Obviously, your prof will go over specific things that you should take notes on (for example, the logical fallacies), but when your prof is talking about an assignment, take notes on what they’re saying. You might find it to be helpful when you’ve got a writer’s block. (I found it to be really helpful to just quickly type up notes on my laptop in class.)
2. EasyBib (or any other internet bibliography formatter) is your friend. Just remember to be putting things into the correct format. I found that EasyBib always correctly cited my.. citations (redundant much? sorry), but it’s worth double checking, just in case.
3. Go to class and participate. Kinda obvious, I know. I know it’s tempting to skip an “elective” class, but you’ll really gain a lot from going to class and taking part in the in class discussions. If you ask me, I think that participating in the discussions allows the prof to give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to marking your assignments because they have a better understanding of how you think.
All in all, I really enjoyed Paul Endo as a prof. He’s engaging and funny, but he does have very high expectations for your writing, so heed my warning (my class’ average was 67)!
(Sorry for the extremely long post, but I hope that it’s helpful!!)