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Writing Programs Worldwide - Profiles of Academic Writing in Many Places, 2012a

Writing Programs Worldwide - Profiles of Academic Writing in Many Places, 2012a

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Zurich University <strong>of</strong> Applied Sciences (Switzerland)<br />

BLOCK 3<br />

Knowledge reproduction: <strong>Writ<strong>in</strong>g</strong> summaries and reflect<strong>in</strong>g on knowledge<br />

constitutes the third block. Students are briefly <strong>in</strong>troduced to the specifics <strong>of</strong><br />

academic writ<strong>in</strong>g and the necessity <strong>of</strong> reproduc<strong>in</strong>g other texts. They perform an<br />

exercise <strong>in</strong> class called “text reproduction <strong>in</strong> slow motion,” <strong>in</strong> which they reduce<br />

a text to its core elements and write their summaries on the basis <strong>of</strong> these (the<br />

procedure is described <strong>in</strong> Kruse & Ruhmann, 1999). This procedure allows<br />

all questions about quot<strong>in</strong>g, understand<strong>in</strong>g texts, reproduc<strong>in</strong>g texts, plagiarism<br />

and writ<strong>in</strong>g discursive texts to be discussed<br />

BLOCK 4<br />

Argumentation: <strong>Writ<strong>in</strong>g</strong> arguments and critical essays is the focus here.<br />

Students are <strong>in</strong>troduced to the traditions <strong>of</strong> rhetoric and the importance <strong>of</strong><br />

argumentation. They are <strong>in</strong>troduced to argumentation theory on the basis<br />

<strong>of</strong> a model provided by Booth et al. The text they write is a Plädoyer (a genre<br />

that has no exact correspondance <strong>in</strong> English; it might be translated best as<br />

“plea,” an open text form that allows one to speak <strong>in</strong> favor <strong>of</strong> or aga<strong>in</strong>st a<br />

statement).<br />

BLOCK 5<br />

Journalism: <strong>Writ<strong>in</strong>g</strong> news reports and commentaries. The last block <strong>in</strong>troduces<br />

journalism as a field <strong>of</strong> writ<strong>in</strong>g with highly regulated text norms. Participants<br />

learn to understand several journalistic genres like the news report, commentary,<br />

squib, and column, and have to produce a report and a commentary.<br />

The second part <strong>of</strong> the course is ma<strong>in</strong>ly directed towards look<strong>in</strong>g at text systems<br />

and at texts <strong>in</strong> context. The topics for their classes are as follows:<br />

BLOCK 1<br />

Introduction to the course programme and to the task to be performed.<br />

The dossier they are to produce is expla<strong>in</strong>ed and they are <strong>in</strong>structed that they<br />

can write on anyth<strong>in</strong>g that is connected to writ<strong>in</strong>g or language and to our<br />

university. They may, for <strong>in</strong>stance, write a dossier on writ<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> architecture,<br />

on foreign students study<strong>in</strong>g at our university, or on the travel experiences <strong>of</strong><br />

students go<strong>in</strong>g abroad. They receive some <strong>in</strong>formation on group creativity and<br />

use a bra<strong>in</strong>storm<strong>in</strong>g procedure to develop <strong>in</strong>itial ideas.<br />

411

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