Welcome to 1201-0130

For the first time in Seton Hall's history, students have the opportunity to take College English and Reading Skills with the same teacher and the same class.  This will allow you to spend extra time on the readings--and learn something about critical reading skills--in a way that is completely integrated with learning to write effectively.

Anyone can learn to write well. Half of learning how to write well is realizing that in fact you have a lot to say—you just have to develop some techniques for accessing that stuff. The other half is realizing that the same words on the same page can be perceived in very different ways by different readers. So my job is (1) to give you LOTS of experience writing and provide opportunities to write about things that have some potential to be interesting and (2) to give you lots of experience seeing how your writing is read by others. 

I also need to introduce you to the world of writing in college. You might think of academia as being a new culture about which you have to learn what’s expected and valued. Every culture has its own language, and I can help you learn it. Now, YOUR job is to approach with an open mind the opportunities to write that I provide you but also to take risks, to ask questions about what I’m asking you to do, to make suggestions regarding how you learn best, and to take yourselves and each other seriously as thinkers and writers.  In other words, we need to work together; we need to listen to each other.

Roughly half the course focuses on writing, and the other half focuses on reading; but in fact the two halves are inseparable, and the 1201-0130 course is really ONE course, not two.  However, we will spend considerable time focusing on how to understand an author's meaning and purpose for writing, as well as learning how to borrow or explore or challenge the ideas from someone else's writing to develop your own ideas and to learn how to solve your writing problems by examining how others write.