Grammar Power—English 074

If you are wondering if this is the right class for you, the answer is this: If you have ever written a high school or college paper that came back covered in too much red ink, you’re in the right course.

Hi. My name is Dr. Elaine McKeand and I’ll be your instructor for English 074, Grammar Power. I’m so glad you’ve decided to refresh or improve your grammatical skills. Some of us may not have had the opportunity to study English grammar, and, others of us may have studied it, but forgotten some of what we learned. Regardless of your skill level, we will begin at the beginning. No prior knowledge is necessary. This course is designed to increase your self-confidence as a writer, whether you are writing college or professional papers.

If you’ve ever had a teacher write “frag” or “ro” or “cs” (fragment, run-on, comma splice) on your paper, we will work to make sure these mistakes are things of the past. We will begin by studying the parts of speech and the parts of a sentence. Once we repair our sentence structure, we will begin building a variety of college-level paragraphs which will culminate in a longer paper at semester’s end.

We will work on punctuation as well, reviewing all pieces of punctuation while paying special attention to apostrophes and commas…pieces of punctuation that often give students trouble.

Once you complete the course, you will be able to view your own writing in a fresh, new, grammatically knowledgeable way…you can now edit your own work and our English teachers can pack away their red pens.

Please be aware that you will not be given access to your online class until the first day of regular classes. At that point, you will log into UCompass using your WebAdvisor username and the four digit mmdd of your birthday as your password. (Don’t use the year…If your birthday is January 3, your password is 0103.) You can contact me at emckeand@henryford.ucompass.com. Use your Ucompass email to message me, because if you use free accounts like Google or Hotmail, Ucompass will filter them out as spam. If you run into any technical problems, you may click on the Technical Support link—or, call these helpful folks at Information Technology at 313.845.9663. And Voila! You’ve entered English 074.

The text I have chosen for the class is Reviewing Basic Grammar, 8^th edition by Mary Laine Yarber and Robert E. Yarber, published by Pearson. I have ordered copies for the College Bookstore, but you are also welcome to buy this online. If you do purchase the text online, buy the interactive edition which gives you an access code for the website that accompanies our text. The ISBN is: 978-0-205-63422-4. The first menu item you will see when you log into our course next Thursday, August 25, is the Announcement button. Always click on that as you enter the course because this is where I’ll keep you updated on all matters pertinent to our course, like due dates, helpful hints, fun facts, and occasionally just encouragement.

Again, welcome to Grammar Power. I think you will leave this course feeling empowered as a writer. I am looking forward to meeting you online.