Gary Todd
Fall 2009                                                 Phone:  (310)434-4097

Office:  Drescher 311C   Welcome to English 21A

Prerequisite:  Instructor’s recommendation in English 81 or English placement test Group B.

  Textbooks:          Robinson and Tucker, Text and Contexts
                             Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
                             a paperback dictionary (American Heritage or Webster’s)

Materials:  White, 8 1/2” x 11” paper (one side of paper), blue or black ink pen for in-class writing, and a stapler.  Neatly crossing out is acceptable on handwritten and typed assignments.  Typed essays should be double-spaced with one-inch margins.  Out of class essays must be typed.  Consider enrolling in a keyboarding course and also take advantage of on-campus computer labs. 

Course description:  This course is the first semester of a two-semester course, English 21A/B.  It will emphasize the following:

            1. writing as a recursive (repetitive application) process. 

            2. reading and critical thinking by discussing and analyzing essays

            and fiction

            3. writing practice from you, both in and out of class

            4. review of and drill in, English grammar, punctuation, and spelling.