Open to: Grades 7 - 12
Formats: Web-based with CD-ROM,
Challenge Level: College freshman
Prerequisite: qualifying verbal/reading score or successful completion of Writing for an Audience
Materials Purchase Required:  Visit our textbook web page
Recommended School Credit: 0.5 credit
Session Based: Session Dates and Application Deadlines
Length: 30 weeks (full academic year)

This course uses the same curriculum as the 20-week version of Crafting the Essay. In addition, it emphasizes grammar, such as verb tenses, pronouns and antecedents, and subject-verb agreement, focusing on the needs of bilingual students. Students work on both sentence level grammatical structures and the larger content and structural issues. By the end of this course, most students should be prepared for Writing Analysis and Persuasion, but some may need further grammatical work in Language Rules: From Structure to Style.

Crafting the Essay uses the personal essay to explore narration, description, and reflection. Students discover and practice techniques that make prose more lively, interesting, and powerful. Students also experiment with a variety of techniques for organizing essays and for beginning and ending work effectively. As students' writing becomes more fluent, students will start examining voice (consistent diction and psychology) and how voice interacts with audience and purpose.

This format is highly interactive. Lessons include smaller exercises. As students work through them, the instructor comments on their writing, and both student and instructor collaborate to build a final writing assignment. Students also participate in a required, Web-based writing workshop in which students critique peers' work, praising strengths and pointing out areas for improvement.

Sample Assignment

Time Required

Learn more about the summer sessions.

Get more information from Frequently Asked Questions.

Detailed Course Information

System requirements

Course code: cdbl