Linguistics Writing Assignment

Purpose of Assignment:

Apply the concepts of our course readings to real world situations, including real-world assignments from past courses at UCSB

Consider our past experiences and recognize which writing strategies may and may not be applied to university level writing 

Experience the entire writing process, from brainstorming (writing sample), to analyzing (through forums and ELI review), to outlining, to drafting, to revising, to providing peer feedback

Improve vocabulary and language skills through the revision process

Task:

Situation and audience: You have recently joined OISS’s international student mentorship program. This program puts current UCSB international students (like you) in touch with incoming freshmen who want to know more about university life and studies. Your audience, therefore, is your new mentee whom you have never met before. 

Purpose for writing: OISS has told you that your new mentee is interested knowing what they should expect in terms of university level writing. Therefore, your purpose for writing this letter is to 1. Introduce yourself to your mentee and 2. give this student a preview of what types of writing to expect in college by offering real examples from courses you have taken and 3. advice on how to successfully transition into university writing. 

To accomplish this purpose, first, briefly introduce yourself and describe your past writing instruction that you received and explain how university level writing is similar to or different* from the types of writing required by the SAT, TOEFL, or other writing high school writing assignments. 

After you have discussed this, evaluate, to what extent** your past writing instruction prepared you for university level writing. In order to support your argument, consider the types of prompts/assignments you received in high school  with assignments you have been given at UCSB. Feel free to use language from the prompts (if you still have them) or simply paraphrase what you were required to do. As you discuss these assignments,  draw on key concepts from our readings to develop your ideas.

*Depending on your experiences and opinions, you might only identify similarities or differences, but you may also choose to address both. 

**to what extent = how much. In order to answer this, you want to use words like “greatly prepared, did not prepare, somewhat prepared” in your response