About this course
- Catalog description:
- The first required course in a two-semester sequence, English
Composition I teaches techniques for brainstorming, planning,
drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading. Students move from
expressive to persuasive writing while improving reading
skills. Course work includes student-instructor conferencing, small
groups, and multi-draft approach to assignments. Students keep an
informal journal.
- Prerequisites:
- 52-1101 INTRO TO COLLEGE WRITING or
52-1100 ESL INTRO TO COLLEGE WRITING
- Goals and Objectives:
- Use processes of brainstorming, drafting, revising, and editing to
compose original essays that generate and communicate personal and
intellectual discoveries;
- Develop a controlling idea, exploring it in depth with
illustrative detail;
- Use organizational strategies appropriate to their audience and
purpose;
- Craft coherent, well-developed paragraphs and sentences free from
distracting mechanical error;
- Read and respond to student and published writing critically;
- Respond to 2-3 published authors in the context of an essay, using
MLA style citation.
Course Overview:
This course is divided into four units, each taking approximately
three weeks. Each unit will build on the previous one, expanding on
the writing methods we learn and the explorations we conduct. The
units explore four facets of our culture that effects who we are and
how we relate to the world.
- Unit 1: Discipline (Career)
- In unit one we will begin to explore your writing style and
practice doing short bursts of writing. You will use this time to
consider your burgeoning relationship to your discipline. (In this
context, discipline refers to the field you're working in rather than
punishment.) You'll ask what your discipline means to you, why you
are considering it, and how your writing will affect your performance
in it.
- Unit 2: Family
- Unit two expands from private to public writing spaces; we will
move from individual writing activities to collaborative ones. In
doing so, you will explore the relationship between yourself, your
family, and your discipline. As you connect these disparate elements,
your map will become more clear.
- Unit 3: Entertainment
- As we pass the half-way point of the semester, we will take time
to consider more strategies for revision and focus on audience and
purpose. Your map will expand to include culture—you will ask how the
institution of entertainment orients your world, and what how it
relates to the other institutions.
- Unit 4: Community
- The end of the semester will present a navigation challenge to the
course. We will move from more abstract, personal writing to specific
public writing, considering how argument and persuasion come into play
in writing. You will use the self-map you have been constructing to
generate “directions” to the solution of a public-policy issue.
