Harvard University introduces expos 20 as an essential writing course included in the Harvard College Writing Program that suggests insight into expository writing (“Expos 20”). This course is rather useful due to the elements involved in it and various objectives. Expos 20 presents a fantastic opportunity to develop one’s writing skills and improve the mastery of building and defending an argument, searching and evaluating academic sources, crafting a thesis and suggesting analytical questions, and many other necessary options.
There are several major objectives predetermined by this course. The main thing is that the philosophy of Expos 20 views writing as indivisible from thinking, and good thinking requires perfect writing skills (“Expos 20”). This philosophy outlines the main aim of the course – to teach students how to express their thoughts in perfectly developed writing. What is particularly positive about Expos is that students are not required to have any previous experience regarding the courses’ topics. Such a position gives a possibility to any student to participate in the course that he or she chooses without worrying that they might not catch up with their peers. Moreover, during the course, each learner has as much personal attention from the instructor as he or she needs. Thus, the absence of background is not a problem.
Another positive idea about Expos 20 is that although there are some required texts, each course also suggests some freedom of choosing the reading material. It is so due to Expos being oriented on the final goal of teaching students the strategies of academic writing. The choice of reading material, thus, may be partially made by each student personally. The main idea is that readings, whichever the students choose, should develop their writing skills.
Expos 20 is a rather intensive course. It involves a great range of tasks and activities. For example, students learn the basics of gathering evidence, using and citing sources, and avoiding plagiarism. At Expos 20, students are given a diversity of tasks and topics. By allowing such an opportunity, instructors enable every student to find his or her strongest feature and develop that skill throughout the course.
One more great thing about Expos is that at each stage, students receive a lot of feedback from their instructors. Thus, if a learner fails to understand some important issues, the misunderstanding will be dismissed at the very early stage, and he or she will proceed with the course without any lengthy pauses. Short papers undergo several revisions, which is also rather advantageous as students have a chance to see their typical errors so that they could avoid them in the future. Class discussions of learners’ papers help to see the general tendencies of peers and evaluate one’s achievements in comparison with others.
The ultimate goal of Expo 20 is to develop students’ expository writing skills and teach them “to be his or her own best (severest) critic” (“Expos 20”). To reach this aim, many productive methods are employed. Students may feel some pressure at the beginning, but if they attend the classes regularly and cope with every task, they will become proficient in academic writing. The integration of writing and thinking, as dictated by Expo‘s philosophy, gives learners a wide range of opportunities in their studies as well as in their future profession. Therefore, the course is a great way of developing and enhancing one’s expositional writing skills in an intensive learning atmosphere with a variety of assignments and evaluation methods.
Work Cited
“Expos 20.” Harvard University. 2017. Web.