Taken in AY 18/19 Semester 1
1.5 hours tutorial
Assessment:
- Attendance and Participation 20%
- Blog (600-800 words) 35%
- Oral Presentation 35%
- Reflection 10%
One of the compulsory modules that all Year 1 FASS students have to take (provided that you have cleared the QET). For the first part of the semester, your tutor will teach you how to write an email and a blog. Basically, this module is about writing for non-academic purposes or writing that is essential for the workplace. For the email assignment, it is just an introduction of yourself and your goals for this module, and this assignment isn’t graded anyway so you don’t have to put too much effort into it. The key thing to take note for this assignment is to follow the format and practise concise writing (300 word limit).
The weightage for the class participation is very high so I think it is important for you to voice out if you want to get a decent grade for this module. Unless you are really great at presentations or writing otherwise it would be good to get those extra marks from the participation. Most people I knew got rather similar marks for both the blog and the presentation so just answer questions if possible and do the assigned work so that you can provide some constructive feedback (most people don’t bother getting these marks anyway).
For the blog, you have to write about a social issue from a certain perspective. The thing is, you will have to form a group with two other people who are interested in the same social issue as you. But this assignment is mostly just individual work because 90% of this assignment is based on your post alone. The remaining 10% will be based on the group’s blog design and the cohesion between the different posts ( having the same stand towards the issue). Some important things to take note for this assignment include providing evidence to support your claims (very important as it contributes to a bulk of your marks), the use of concise writing which has been emphasised throughout the past few weeks and the use of persuasive elements taught in class which include the usage of ethos,pathos and logos. Adhering to all these important criteria will enable you to do decently well for this assignment even if your language isn’t very good.
In the latter half of the semester, the tutor will teach you important public speaking skills such as non-verbal communication which is made up of things like gestures, eye contact and rapport with the audience. For the tutorials, you just spend most of the time analysing Ted talks and presenting to the class when necessary as a way to build up your confidence. This is also the time when you start preparing for your group presentation based on the social issue that you have written for the blog. This presentation is by no means easy to score, as you are being graded on your ability to employ meaningful gestures, engage the audience and introduce thought-provoking ideas. It is also rather stressful as the weightage for this presentation is very high.
In conclusion, the workload for this module is very light. It doesn’t even deserve to be considered as a 4 MC module. On hindsight, I didn’t really learn a lot from this module but oh well, it is something that I have to clear as a FASS student.
Expected Grade: B
Actual Grade: B+
Life 