Course aim and content:
The aim of this course is the continuing improvement of students’ ability to write the academic essay which was introduced in Integrated Language Skills I and further developed in Writing Skills I. In this way, Writing Skills II is a follow-up to both these courses with the difference that students will be expected to develop the content of their work to a significantly higher level. The assumption, therefore, is that students are already conversant with the academic essay format, hence the focus on substance. To this end, we will use dramatic literature in the form of full-length plays as the basis for the essay topics. The plays will be distributed by e-mail and/or posted on Moodle. Before turning to the primary literature, however, we will first look at the secondary literature in the reader as a means of providing students with a basic orientation to the theatre in order to facilitate the development of the content in their essays.