Teaching reading/writing class to freshmen...any insights?

My new uni has me teaching 12 hours of reading/writing class to freshmen next term. I have the text-book and it is not a whole lot of fun. I have never taught this class before. I am sure some of you have. Anyone has any tips as to how to make this a more fun/useful class?

12 hours of writing is the equivalent of 24 hours of oral. Depending on where you are (hangzhou, if I remember) that should be about 8 to 14 thousand. Seriously, Chinese university graduates have writing skills that compare poorly to high school students in western countries. Working in a foreign language and trying to navigate our foreign conventions only makes it harder for them to express their thoughts coherently. Marking (or editing) their work is very time consuming and often quite exasperating. It's also exasperating for them, especially when they're trying to learn something that just never quite jives with what they've spent a lifetime doing. You've got to walk a tightrope, cultivating a capacity for hard-nosed cirtical thinking and editing, and yet instilling a sense of confidence and self-worth. Lots of luck with that.
Keep your introductions as short and to the point as possible, give them as much in class writing as possible, and mark as much in class as possible. Teach them to bubble plan, to flowchart, to separate ideas into distinct sentences and paragraphs, and how to write a topic sentence. Teach them how to KISS. (Keep It Short and Simple. What did you think I meant? Jeez, you guys)

'Book but no book' technique:  you teach the book's topic each class but don't ruin the students' day by forcing them to use an awful book.

You'll have to go through a lot of lessons about plagiarism.

Your best bet is to focus on the functionality of writing for future career success rather than having fun. If the students do well, then try some creative writing assignments.

Oh, I did not mean fun as in "lalalala ...fun...lalalala"...I meant  as in not interesting. Some of the practical info in the book is usable, the topics are not bad but the texts used are mind-numbingly boring. I have already been writing my course outline and my Ten-Goals-Plan for each lesson. Basically, that is the ten things the students should have learned by the time the lesson is over. I thought it best if I focus the writing on academic writing, writing CV's and such. I am also going to make them parse sentences. I know, not really writing but that is the first lesson homework, which will give me an idea of their knowledge of the basics of grammar.

I know I will be teaching freshmen, so I am trying to find some easy text examples for them to read. Very, very easy....

Teach them how to do Literature Circles. Accountability is built in to the process and you get to "facilitate" the class. It makes them take responsibility for their role in the "circle" and if they don't do their job then they will have to be accountable to the other group members.

http://www.eltworld.net/china/?cat=148

All the links you need are there to get you started. Once you train them in how to do it you can get a lot of mileage out of it. Also, it incorporates reading, writing, listening and speaking. It really is the perfect technique to teach ELL.

If you don't want to go through the expense of printing the handouts, just create a portal or wiki and make them print out their own worksheets.

I taught writing for 3 years to high school students who needed to be able to write at a college level (that is, they were taking SAT and AP exams and going to college in the States) and we spent a lot of time on the 5 paragraph essay (thesis and support essay) that is pretty much the staple in high schools back home. They need to be able to write a topic statement and give evidence and examples that support their argument.

Their Chinese teachers will have taught them to write in a totally different style and they'll have to unlearn all of what they've learned. It isn't uncommon for Chinese students to be writing an argumentative essay and then in the middle of their essay to have an entire paragraph that totally contradicts their point, like they're all of a sudden making points for the other side and then not even refuting them point by point. They've been told they need to do this in order to be fair and objective but it can be a total essay killer. You'll also see a lot of cliches and a big reluctance to abandon them. Get ready for lots of "every coin has two sides" and "as we all know" in inappropriate places.

Lots of Chinese students have been given "models" by their Chinese teachers for essays, where basically the bare bones of an essay is given to them and they just plug in the blanks with words and phrases relevant to the topics. They memorize these models and try and use them every single time. Getting them to write without a crutch can be a challenge.

You will also want to spend some time on sentence structure and writing devices -- things like parallel structure, transitions words, comparisons, how to present evidence, how to link sentences, when to use commas, all of that technical good stuff.

I actually rather enjoy teaching writing but it is fairly time consuming and it is really easy to get behind on grading. Definitely have them do lots of in-class writing because that's really the only way you can ensure you're getting the students' own work.

Mlaeux, that does sound and look like a nifty exercise, but I cannot see it working with 30 students. In my experience, students here are just as hopeless at group activities in class as freshmen high schoolers are at home. Lit circles would be a lot of fun to do, I agree completely, but as the uni has made it clear they expect me to use the text-book extensively. However, the homepage did give me heaps of good ideas, it is a really spiffy homepage. Thanks

TLD: That is kind of what I expected. I have been reading Strunk&White and the Palgrave Guide to Writing Academic Essays and have been asking the local Chinese teachers what the basic structure of an academic essay is here, doesn't really help teaching the poor mites MLA if that format is wrong. However, since these are freshmen, I have to take it a wee bit easy with them. I have considered doing several small writing exercises and telling them that the course will end with a 4 page essay, on any subject they want, as long as they can do the research. Naturally the sub-title of this course is also "Plagiarizing and why that is evil!!"

I taught a reading class for an entire academic year (not to freshmen...to 3rd year double majors). During the first semester I used the textbook, and it was a bloody disaster and a complete waste of all of our time. The highlight of the semester was translating pirate English from "Treasure Island" and getting my students to chant in unison, "Ayyy...ye scurvy dogs!!!" and "Avast ye, skulking lubbers!!!" 

 At the start of the second semester I literally threw the textbook in the garbage and received a standing ovation. I taught Gladwell's "Outliers" and Kerouac's "On the Road". Pure gold, baby.

I've also done a lot of writing classes. Plagerism is the first rule; I told them DON'T COPY! If they do, they will get 100% on the paper as its perfect and since its better than what I can do, they are obviously better than me. So they can now leave the class. The other issue is their concern for word count. Repetition Repetition Repetition of words or ideas "I am a truckdriver, I drive a truck"

I emphesise:

They can take the thoughts and ideas from others, but write it in their own words

Grammar - i.e. verb tenses and matching clauses (but not Santa)

As LTD said, the five paragraph essay
- intro (interesting and summerises the essay)
- body 3 major points each one make a statement and support it telling me who/what/where/when/why/or how
- conclusion like the intro only different words

The other big thing I stress is don't tell me what I know and explain what I don't

In the beginning, try to keep the stories short or you'll be marking papers for hours on end

These are freshmen so I don't think I can do Kerouac and Beckett and other literary luminaries. I was considering using more approachable material, like Aesop's Fables, Peter Pan, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, fairy tales by both Andersen and The Grimm's, a Wodehouse short story and similar material.

Oh yeah ETR you will just have to suffer and do Wodehouse, you poor man.

my advice is to devise a clear and efficient system for peer correction, i.e. getting them to mark each other's  paragraphs in class.

so you work through the target language points for the class, then ask them complete a pargraph on a certain topic using these points (usually with a certain amount of scaffolding on the screen/board), then after the time is up, they swap with a partner and correct in terms of a specic set of criteria (usually the class target points e.g. discourse markers etc) ... NOT correct the whole things, just an aspect of the thing.

Then, in the end, they swap back and you produce a sample answer and work through it on the screen.

This way you can take in assignments every month or so, that are a culmination of several weeks of this kind of training. You mark less often, and what you do mark has already gone through a couple of stages of proofing.