Open to: Grades 6 and 7
Format: Email and Flexi-paced
Challenge Level: High school senior
Prerequisite: Qualifying verbal score and one course below:

Recommended School Credit: 0.5 credit
Session Based: Session Dates and Application Deadlines
Length:

• 20 weeks (Fall and Early Spring -- Email)
• 12 weeks (Early Summer -- Email)
  
• 6 weeks (Intensive Midsummer -- Email)
• up to 9 months (flexi-paced)

Writing for an Audience provides an intensive writing experience for students in grades 5 - 7, which continues their introduction to the process of writing. However, in Writing for an Audience, the emphasis is on revising for an audience. These 10 assignments focus on drafting to shape a writer's ideas and on revising to communicate those ideas to an audience. Students write five projects, which may include:

1. a persuasive letter,
2. a critical essay about literature,
3. an analysis of a literary character,
4. the sense of place in a poem, and
5. an experiment with writing style.

For each project, students complete an assignment for two stages of the writing process:

1. drafting and
2. revising drafts for an audience.

In critiques that are typically one page long, instructors comment on what students did well and on what they could do to improve their writing.  Exchanging letters about the process of writing is an important part of the course.  With each assignment, students send a letter discussing the experience of composing the assignment.  The instructors then respond to those meta-cognitive reflections.

Formats cover the same concepts, but differ in approach.

• In the email format, students email finished essays to instructors and receive detailed critiques of those essays. They download an assignment packet at the course's start.
  
• The flexi-paced format uses a web-based course management system that delivers assignments, receives finished essays, and returns instructor critiques. Students and instructors use the course management system's messaging module to communicate. Because due date schedules vary by student, peer review workshops are not possible. Students and instructor need not be online at the same time.

Sample Assignment

Time Required:

Email Format

• 2 hours weekly for 20 week sessions (Fall and Early Spring)
• 3.5 hours weekly for 12 week Early Summer Session
• 1.5 hours Monday - Friday during Intensive Midsummer Session

Review Summer Session Daily Schedules
Learn more about the summer sessions

Flexi-paced Format

• 4 hours per assignment

Learn more about the summer sessions.

Get more information from Frequently Asked Questions.

Detailed Course Information

Read Comments and Feedback from Students, Parents, and Teachers

Tech Skills Students Need for Emailing

System Requirements

Course code: ema2