English Composition 1 — Weeks 1–8

Details of my experience at UoPeople.

📚 Content

1️⃣ During Unit 1, we learned about note-taking strategies and grammar rules. I think it’s great that UoPeople provides this course to give non-native English speakers the opportunity to prove their English proficiency and to improve their grammar and punctuation.

💡 Note: This is a skill that we will definitely need during our degrees because all UoPeople courses require weekly written assignments, as I have been able to read in the syllabus repository.

This week, I learned a lot about misplaced modifiers, dangling modifiers, sentence structure, the appropriate use of commas, semicolons, and conjunctions.

2️⃣ During Unit 2, we were introduced to pre-writing techniques to brainstorm and plan our assignments. We also learned the basic structure of paragraphs, the types of paragraphs, how to write an effective paragraph and the role of the topic sentence.

Mind mapping turned out to be a very helpful technique to choose my essay topic.

I decided to choose an essay topic that I really felt connected with. I recommend doing the same because you will work on this assignment during the entire term.

💡 Note: By the end of the course, you will have written a 5-paragraph essay for a topic of your choice! 🎆

3️⃣ During Unit 3, we learned how to read critically, how to write a thesis statement, and how to properly cite following the APA style rules to avoid committing plagiarism.

During this week, I learning how to paraphrase. If you don’t change the words completely and forget to add quotations marks, you would be committing plagiarism. (Yes, you have to be very careful! 😱)

I also suggest learning different ways to introduce quotes and paraphrases for your written and discussion assignments. You may find this resource helpful.

During this week, you also create your 5-paragraph essay outline. You need an introduction, a thesis, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. 👍

4️⃣ During Unit 4, you use your outline to start writing your essay, and practice how to use the UoPeople library.

💡 IMPORTANT TIP: I found this book online and it was a lifesaver that guided me during the process of writing my essay:

A Visual Guide to Essay Writing — by Dr Valli Rao, Associate Professor Kate Chanock, and Dr Lakshmi Krishnan

It is free to download and it has awesome pedagogical and visual explanations for each step of the process of essay writing! ❤️

5️⃣ During Unit 5, you learn what an abstract is and its main purpose. To apply your knowledge, you will analyze an abstract of your choice.

6️⃣ During Unit 6, you will find three external sources for your essay. You will need to quote or paraphrase them and properly cite them using the APA style rules.

💡 Note: It is very important not to include too many quotes or paraphrases in your essay. Most of your work must express your own opinion on the topic you chose. External resources should be used to support and complement your claims, not to “speak” for you.

7️⃣ During Unit 7, you will add the three external sources that you found in Unit 6 to your essay, and you will read an article on Neil Gaiman’s perspective on the use of fiction.

8️⃣ During Unit 8, you will read a story from Dubliners by James Joyce.

This week has a lighter workload to give you more time to study for the final exam. Unit 9 will be available during this week to give you access to a review quiz and a PDF review with exercises.

9️⃣ The final exam is on Unit 9 (Week 9). I took the final exam yesterday, and let me tell you that it was very challenging. I’m waiting to receive my final grade for the test. 🙏

💡 Note: Each week has a written assignment, a discussion assignment and a learning journal assignment. You will read and analyze stories from world-renowned authors such as Agatha Christie, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Anton Chekhov and many more!

😄 Experience

I really love the structure of this learning environment. I’ve researched so much during these past weeks to go beyond the content presented in the course thanks to free educational resources that offer a unique opportunity for students all around the world. The internet is full of amazing resources that you can use to complement your learning.

🌐 Global Community

During Unit 1, we were asked to introduce ourselves to the class. It’s amazing how so many lives across the world can connect and work on a common goal. My more than thirty classmates come from different countries all around the world, and this creates a global classroom to exchange ideas. 🌎 🌍 🌏

📎 Assignments

The assignments are challenging. The approximate time that UoPeoplerecommends to dedicate to a course per week is very accurate, 10–15 hours approximately.

Each week has three written assignments (there might be exceptions).

• A discussion forums assignment (graded by peers).
• A learning journal assignment (graded by the professor).
• A written assignment (graded by peers).

For the discussion forums assignments, you will read, summarize, and analyze stories written by world-renowned authors and share your point of view with your classmates.

The best part is that you can choose the readings that you like the most from several options provided each week. 👍

💡 Note: don’t panic about unfair grading in peer-graded assignments 😱, if you feel that your grade is unfair, you can ask your professor to review your work and he/she will adjust your grade if it’s necessary. I can personally testify that this is true, because I requested grade reviews for my written assignments and the professor responded very promptly.

Every week, you will grade three written assignments submitted by your peers. To do this, you are given a rubric with criteria and yes/no answers or 1–5 ranges for each criteria. This was a fun experience because I was able to apply my knowledge and provide feedback for my peers.

⏰ Time management

The assignments for this course were challenging. They can be very time-consuming if you want to submit a high-quality work, so I suggest starting the planning and writing process very early in the week.

Due dates are very strict and they are determined by UoPeople’s clock. Our professor told us from the start that no late work would be accepted. After the due dates have passed, there is no way to receive a grade an assignment, so time management skills are vital to succeed in this structured learning environment.

I created my own due dates for every assignment:

• Thursday and Friday: Read and learn new content. Grade peers from previous week.
• Saturday: start working on my discussion forums assignment and written assignment.
• Sunday: Complete and submit discussion forums assignment and continue working on my written assignment.
• Monday: Complete and submit written assignment.
• Tuesday: Reply to forum posts (You must reply to at least three of your peers on the discussion forums every week).
• Wednesday: Submit learning journal (the due date is on Thursday).

I’m testing and continually improving this schedule, but I think it’s nice to space work across the week to avoid being overloaded just before the due date.

🎆 Finally…!

The overall course experience was great. I really enjoy online learning. Yes, it requires extra discipline to create a fixed schedule and enough inquiry and curiosity to go beyond the material presented in the course. But if you achieve this, and create a routine, it is a wonderful experience! I’m really loving it so far.

I look forward to starting my next term at UoPeople Foundations! 😄