In the year since Sweetland took responsibility for supporting multilingual undergraduate students several new offerings have been developed. The section below describes them, and includes students’ views, as well.
Chen Yutong
As part of its service to international/multilingual students, Sweetland began offering Writing 120 in the fall of 2013, and it has now become an established part of the curriculum. In the section below, students who took the course explain how it has helped them.
My name is Chen Yutong and I found Writing 120 very helpful because it helped me learn about academic writing. Taking Writing 120 is one of the best choices that I have made after entering the university.
Before taking this class, I always considered writing in English as one of the most annoying things. Whenever I needed to finish a writing assignment, my inner feelings of weakness and helplessness came up incessantly. I couldn’t help thinking about the grammar mistakes I would make. I couldn’t even help thinking that I might have misunderstood the topic. The Writing 120 class was just like a quick acting drug that relieved my stress of writing effectively. Following, I list some improvements that I made by taking this wonderful class.
First of all, I learned how to write diverse types of academic papers in Writing 120. For example, now if my professor asks me to write a research paper, I won’t feel panic or confusion about how to write an introduction or what is an implication. Secondly, the number of grammar mistakes I make has been continuously decreasing. In my DSP essay, I made roughly 8-10 grammar errors per 200 words. Surprisingly, in my third assignment in Writing 120, there were about 2-3 grammar mistakes per 200 words. Last but not least, I have built my confidence in English academic writing, which will help me a lot for my future upper level writing.
Honestly, this writing experience has encouraged me to continue my path of writing. And I genuinely believe what I learned from this course would be beneficial for my entire university life.
Xiaohe Yu
Hi, I am Xiaohe Yu, a transfer student from China. I took Writing 120 in fall 2013 during my first semester at the University of Michigan. Writing 120 is a course especially designed to prepare international students for more advanced Writing courses. Now, I feel so lucky that I did not miss the course since Writing 120 is one of the best courses I have taken at the University of Michigan.
First of all, the course exposed me to some fundamental rules and basic writing knowledge. For example, it was in this course that I first heard and learned about MLA format; logical fallacies; and the difference between argument, evidence and example. Later, when my classmates used those terms in my first year writing class, I could confidently join their discussion without feeling like a blind person.
What is more, the course guided me to the correct way of using certain words and phrases, which helped to make my papers more native.
Last but not least, I liked the course because my instructor Lori really cares about the progress of each student. When I got Lori’s feedback on my first paper, I was deeply moved because her comments were so detailed. And she pointed out the mistakes as tiny as the misuse of punctuation.
Generally speaking, Writing 120 is indeed an excellent course. If you want to have a gradual and smooth transition to academic English writing, you should definitely take the course!