Help with How to deal with intensive writing courses

[dakims]

I'm especially bad at writing essays and I have nothing to say during discussions. Is there any way I can take these classes without dropping my gpa? I'm definately willing to work, but I'm just scared of subjective grading. Is it hard to make A's in writing or discussion based classes? Any suggestions on what I should do. I know my school offers several writing classes and seminars in biology and chemistry so I was thinking about taking those.

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[LikeClockWork]

I'm not sure I can offer much about the discussion classes, but I can tell you what I did in the writing intensive classes. Since it can be pretty subjective grading, you can show the professor how hard you're working so they have more info about what went into your writing before they grade it. I often tried to finish papers and projects a few days before the due date so I could take them to the professor for advice. Often times they would give me specific things to fix or topics to add. Then when they graded my paper, they could see the positive things I fixed as well as the negatives that were going to be there anyway. At least this way it had a balance to it. This sure isn't a fix-all, but I think it'll help.

 

[jochi1543]

You have to check ahead of time how much of the grade is based on your in-class contributions to the discussion. I also don't particularly like to speak up in literature classes and the like, but you will generally find that no matter where you go, there will always be one or two people completely dominating the discussion in such classes. Profs are aware of them, and believe it or not (friends with an English prof, so I have all the dirt ), a lot of times they DON'T like these people. Anyway, so MOST people won't get a chance to talk much, anyway. And some profs can be very accomodating towards people who are shy - they will encourage you to participate, but I've heard of some people being given the option of keeping a sort of diary, where they'd record their thoughts and submit it to the professor instead of speaking up, if they feel uncomfortable. I wouldn't go to a prof and tell him right away that you will NOT speak, but I would ask what options they have.

Also, even if they say that "class participation is worth 20%" or something scary like that, I've gotten As in those courses saying like one or two lines per class, at most. If your essays are great, profs generally feel somewhat biased towards you and will let it slide on some other things.

 

[nonesuchgirl]

+1 on asking your instructor.

You might also try the tutoring centre.

As for disscussions... c'mon, nothing? Just throw something out there. Even if it's "I don't get X." or "Can you go into more detail about Y?" at least you've started something and it might trigger something for you.

 

[kami333]

Never use Shift-F7