Final Words & Course Evaluation

Casey's note to students at the end of the semester...

Here we are at the end of Academic Writing Lab. This free course is designed to give entering college students a space to practice, learn, and improve college writing skills. It's not a traditional class, hence the use of the word "Lab" in the course title. 

I believe that writers teach themselves to write, but they need a supportive community to do so. Nobody learns in a vacuum. As your teacher, I'm part of this community, but there are many others: classmates, parents, friends, tutors, other instructors, etc. 

The best thing you can do to improve your writing (other than actually writing) is to read more and to be mindful of how other writers effectively communicate ideas. This is true for novelists, poets, literary critics, art reviewers, and so on. 

Your writing will improve as long as you continue to work on it. Don't think of yourself as a bad or insufficient writer; you probably just need more practice. Writing is truly difficult. You never know with certainty that you're getting it "right". It's difficult. Embrace this fact and you'll see improvement.

-- Casey

EVALUATIONS

To help your students locate course evaluations for each section, instruct them to click on the link for your course, the evaluation pops up as an alert under your dashboard, the link will say - “Please fill out the course evaluation.” I have sent out an email to all students to let them know, but please make sure to reiterate this information to them because their final grades will be locked until their course evaluations are completed.