The Writing Curriculum

At Paul VI Catholic

High School

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” -- E. L. Doctorow

“Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing.” -- Gertrude Stein

“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” -- Paul Valery

“No stile of writing is so delightful as that which is all pith, which never omits a necessary word, nor uses an unnecessary one.” -- Thomas Jefferson

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” -- William Strunk, Jr.

“Good reading is damned hard writing.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Let’s face it, writing is hell.” -- William Styron

“Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.” -- James Joyce

“The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.” -- John Steinbeck

“No writing is a waste of time, -- no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work.” – Brenda Ueland

PVI’s Grade-level English ClassesLiterature-based courses with

a consistent emphasis on the development of strong writing skills that prepare students to be successful in academic as well as work environments

The Writing Process and Product

The process -- all the steps taken to create the final version of a paper.

The product -- the resulting final paper.

Process

The MIT Writing Center defines the steps of the writing process as

Prewriting Drafting Revising Editing http://web.mit.edu/writing/Writing_Process/wri

tingprocess.html

Process According to The Online Writing Lab (OWL)

at Purdue University the process steps are Invent Compose Revise http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/70

1/01/

Writing Guidelines and Criteria for Essays about Literary Works Use literary present tense Use active voice Use action verbs Vary sentence structure Avoid too much plot summary Avoid slang, clichés and informal language Unless otherwise instructed, use third person Do not use contractions Use transitional words and phrases

Guidelines and Criteria

Mechanics count! For example, be careful of things such as subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement and punctuation

Include the title and author in the introductory paragraph

All paragraphs begin with a topic sentence and end with a concluding statement

All quotations, summaries or paraphrased statements have a parenthetical citation in MLA format at the end of the sentence

The body paragraphs include supportive evidence from the text

Guidelines and Criteria

End the introductory paragraph with a bona fide thesis statement that clearly indicates what the writer will prove

Restate (using different wording) the thesis in the concluding paragraph

Draw an overall final conclusion Consistently use MLA style to format the

paper and document sources in research writing assignments in English classes

The Thesis Essay

During the freshman year, students learn to properly construct a five paragraph analytical/expository thesis essay with a topic related to literary selections in the curriculum.

Students continue to develop this type of essay during the sophomore, junior and senior years, concentrating on stylistic improvements, depth of analysis, and voice.

The Research Paper

Research skills are introduced in the sophomore year curriculum with the I-Search project.

During the junior year, students complete a more advanced research paper concentrating on an American author or literary subject. This paper incorporates the use of literary criticism as a secondary source as well as the primary literary work.

Seniors write a paper expressing and examining their own insights supported by documented research as they compare and contrast the film version of a narrative to that of the original written work.

MLA (Modern Language Association) Style

Uses in-text parenthetical citations and a list of works cited

Official MLA website: http://www.mla.org/style

Owl at Purdue website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/

Rules for Writers by Diana Hacker (required text for grades 10-12)

Plagiarism Defined

Dartmouth College:

“REGARDLESS OF INTENT, the failure to provide proper acknowledgment of your use of another's work constitutes plagiarism. . . . Plagiarism is defined as the submission or presentation of work, in any form, that is not a student's own, without acknowledgment of the sources.”

(continued) “With specific regard to papers a simple rule dictates

when it is necessary to acknowledge sources. If a student obtains information or ideas from an outside source, that source must be acknowledged. Another rule to follow is that any direct quotation must be placed in quotation marks, and the source immediately cited. 1 “Plagiarism can occur whenever you make use of the ideas or work product of someone else without including an appropriate citation” (Dartmouth College, “What is Plagiarism”).

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sources/about/what.html

Indiana University at Bloomington: “What is Plagiarism and Why is it Important?” “In college courses, we are continually engaged with

other people’s ideas: we read them in texts, hear them in lecture, discuss them in class, and incorporate them into our own writing. As a result, it is very important that we give credit where it is due. Plagiarism is using others’ ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information.”

(continued)“How Can Students Avoid

Plagiarism?” “To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use another person’s idea, opinion, or theory; any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings—any pieces of

information—that are not common knowledge; quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words;

or paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words.”

Instructional Support Services: Writing Tutorial Services, http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml

Consequences At PVI, an act of plagiarism constitutes

a violation of the Academic Honor Code and carries serious disciplinary and academic consequences as stated in the student handbook. A second offense of the Academic Honor Code during a student’s time at PVI may result in a School Council meeting.

During September, all PVI English teachers taught a lesson on plagiarism prevention and all students were instructed to register for English classes on Turnitin.com.

Turnitin.com

Turnitin is a web-based technological tool that quickly shows instructors matches between a student’s written work and that of billions of pages of writings in its data base. Turnitin NEVER states that a paper is plagiarized. That determination is left solely to the professional judgment of the instructor.

See www.turnitin.com

Elective Writing CoursesJournalism (news writing)YearbookCreative Writing

Thank you for attending tonight’s presentation. I hope you learned something helpful.