EN-101

Friends

Kareen Gibson "Friends" photo used with permission

 

Course Description and Objectives from the catalog:

EN-101; English Composition I (3 class hours 1 recitation hour 3 credits)

 

Prerequisite: A score of 480 on the SAT, or 75% on the New York State English Regents, or a passing score on the CUNY/ ACT Writing and Reading tests. Note: Credit will not be given to students who have successfully completed EN-103.This course focuses on the development of a process for producing intelligent essays that are clearly and effectively written; library work;6, 000 words of writing, both in formal themes written for evaluation and in informal writing such as the keeping of a journal. During the recitation hour, students review grammar and syntax, sentence structure, paragraph development and organization, and the formulation of thesis statements.

 

EN-101addresses the following General Education objectives of the college:

Course objectives/expected student learning outcomes:

By the end of EN-101, students will be able to perform the following tasks:

 

In addition to these explicit aims and scopes, there are also goals relating to the institutional designation of EN-101 as a Cornerstone experience. Cornerstone courses require students to demonstrate the following skills:

 

In EN 101, students work to acquire writing abilities and to develop a critical sensibility that will enable them to learn such essentials of writing as purpose, situation, audience, research, form, tone, and style. The focus is on learning to create effective texts in a variety of genres. Through the study of genre, students learn to see the connections between reading and writing.

 

Writing is a process in which all writers, experienced or inexperienced, can engage, and the stages of which inform the pedagogy of the course. This process includes generating a subject, generating ideas to develop that subject, organizing research strategies to further develop and support the subject, understanding the purpose and audience for which the writing is intended, making organizational and stylistic choices, and responding to self, peer, and/ or instructor critique by reevaluating, revising and editing.

 

Course Organization

Writing assignments are typically constructed across the semester to move from the personally expressive to the more objectively academic . We suggest unifying the coursework around a theme or themes such as " community" or "cultural difference ." The trajectory of the course may be seen as forming a narrative . A narrative/ thematic approach gives a specific context for reading, writing, and class discussion and encourages the construction of writing assignments that build on earlier ones.

 

In addition, we suggest an appreciation of genre not as a limitation of form but rather as a site of exploration that actively responds to variations within rhetorical, thematic, and social situations and considers the role that writing plays within such positions and contexts. Research is viewed not in isolation but rather as an ongoing process that engages methods of inquiry such as the scaffolding of assignments or the investigation of sources as steps that lead to and enrich completed projects.

 

Reading Assignments

Reading in EN-101should be closely aligned with the writing that students do. This can manifest itself in a number of ways: writing responses, in-class writing as precursor to discussion, more formal assignments that ask students to mimic/ adapt/ rewrite published texts, to name just a few. Reading assignments should also help control or focus the work of the semester. In addition to aiding students to get a handle on the content/ themes of the course, reading can help students to create a "narrative" for EN-101: if student readings are linked by a common theme or narrative, they can aid students in understanding how their own writing is linked by a common purpose (imagining an audience, envisioning their writing as "doing work" outside the classroom).

 

Some in and outside English studies dismiss first-year writing, and particularly the first semester of this sequence, as a "course without content." We contend that the "content" of English 101is writing. This does not make reading secondary, however. Although studies are inconclusive about whether "good" writers must necessarily be good readers, one thing is not debatable: writers need readers. As a consequence, writers must be readers in order to know what readers want/ need.

 

As a way toward discussing readerly concerns, this study of texts should involve an ongoing discussion of genre. Rather than general labels like "essay" (for reading assignments) and "paper" (for writing), we encourage instructors to aim for exactness and help their students realize that all reading and writing in the English language is a part of a long history of texts and of a wide continuum of genres and writing/ reading situations. The only way we--as readers, writers--know how to identify any kind of text is by comparing it to other texts we've read and written. For this reason, we urge instructors, whenever possible, to use specific generic terms like "analysis," "memoir" and "narrative" in addition to more general ones like "essay." That said, nearly any reading assignment imaginable can "do work" in EN-101: the exploratory essay, literacy narrative, personal argument, news article, letter, fiction, poetry; how-to instructions, reflective musings, script--and even non-print sources like film, television, advertising and music, to offer a very short list.

 

Writing Assignments

Students who pass the course will be able to produce texts that reflect a clear thesis logically supported by details and examples; show an understanding of the logic of arrangement (cause and effect, comparison, definition, process); use appropriate vocabulary; and have a sufficient command of standard grammar, punctuation, and spelling to ensure reasonable clarity of expression. In addition, students will be able to analyze published essays and respond to them in well-organized essays of their own, citing relevant research and quoted, summarized or paraphrased portions of the published essays with in-line citations. (See section on the research component below. ) Students will be able to demonstrate these skills not only in revised and polished texts, but also in texts written in class within a limited amount of time.

 

Students will write a minimum of 6,000 words through a series of purposeful writing tasks, including both formal essays and various other genres as well as informal writing (journals, "free writing, " letters, short responses) or more focused writing exercises to teach a specific skill (such as summary or paraphrase). To prepare students for essay exams that they will do in other classes, instructors are required to assign a final exam (see below).

 

At least half of students' writing will be evaluated by the instructor. The 3, 000 words may be in the form of four 750-word or six 500-word formal texts or in some other similar combination, and one of these assignments will be written in class. These texts should have some sort of logical narrative progression (generally from the expressive to the analytical), and as a group, the writing assignments may be organized (at least loosely) around some central idea or theme, so that the second and third essays build on what the student has written before. Students should be taught to write multiple drafts and to revise and edit their formal essays. Students should also be taught to organize, write, proofread, and edit within the limited amount of time of an essay exam.

 

The Research Component

Research should be a constant and inextricable component in the training of writers. Throughout the semester, research should be a taught as a fundamental component of communication. Rather than limiting students to a single, long research paper (often relegated to the end of each semester), the instructor should ask for research and documentation in the writing assigned throughout the term. In addition, students need to be made aware that "research" is not limited to hunting for "information about X" in the library or online, but is rather a way both of looking at the world around them, and also one in which they are active and creative contributors to knowledge-making. Instructors should also structure writing assignments to incorporate references both to texts discussed in class and to outside source materials. Students should be asked to cite their sources on the EN-101final exam.

 

This research component--built into most if not all writing assignments given in a semester--will help students learn to value research as a relevant way to develop their own ideas within any discursive situation.

 

Research activities, which may or may not result in a formal text, should include finding, evaluating and collecting information from reliable sources—in the library, on-line, as well as from members of the community. An instructor who gives more emphasis to personal experience may ask students to incorporate research into their writing in the form of interviews, observations or surveys. An instructor may also encourage students to explore alternative source material including new and old media, films, museums, and graphs and charts. Because such alternatives to traditional research may be new to many students, a good deal of guidance in doing the research (and reflecting on the process of doing that research) should be incorporated into each course).

 

Expanding the idea of research can also mean enlarging the range of textual representations from summarizing, paraphrasing, documenting with parenthetical references and creating works cited pages, annotated bibliographies and literature reviews, to more non-traditional forms of research such as visual images and electronic, networked media including audio and video.

 

The Conference Hour

Of the four hours that the class meets each week, three are for classwork and the fourth is a "conference" or workshop hour for which activities are to be planned that focus on specific writing strategies and capabilities. These activities may include peer critiquing or other group work, sentence combining, freewriting exercises, or other ways of developing writing competencies.

 

Syllabus and Assignment Schedule

A course syllabus and assignment schedule must be distributed to each student at the beginning of the semester. Writing assignments should be fully developed, clearly and completely explained, and distributed in written form. (SEE COURSE OUTLINE TEMPLATE)

 

Description of the EN-101 Final Exam

Students will take a final exam, a text that they will compose in one or more classes. The exam will require students to reflect on course readings, class discussion, and / or supplementary material, and to develop a clearly-stated idea using relevant material from coursework and /or research. The final exam grade will count for a significant portion of the student's overall grade for the course; a suggested range for weighting is between 15% and 25% of the course grade. Every instructor will design an exam that addresses the way he or she teaches EN-101 and will use the departmental rubric:

EN-10 1 Final Exam Rubric

Showtime

Lisandro Vargas "Showtime" photo used with permission

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

At the heart of the educational process are the opportunities provided for students to demonstrate understanding and knowledge in each of their courses and to have their command of subject matter evaluated by faculty. Students must be guided, therefore, by the most rigorous standards of academic honesty in preparing all assignments and writing all examinations. In cases of doubt about ethical conduct, students should ask their instructors. However the following rules apply in all cases:

These rules will assure probity in student evaluation and performance standards that are equal for every student enrolled in classes at the College. Any deviation from the aforementioned rules may result in a failing grade (F) for the work in question and for the entire course at the discretion of the instructor. More serious penalties may result in those instances in which the University's Student Disciplinary Procedures stated in the handbook are invoked.

 

ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS

It is very important that students attend every scheduled class meeting of a course.

 

Attendance is monitored from the first day a class is scheduled to begin. Absence from class can seriously reduce the student's chances of completing a course successfully. Generally, absences beyond 15 percent, or excessive lateness, may result in failure in a course. However, students should consult instructors for individual course requirements. For information on students' rights and privileges in regard to attendance on certain days of religious observance, please see the Student Regulations section of the QCC catalog.

 

Copyright Jodie Childers

 

Click links to view syllabus examples:

Talbird Syllabus

Paliwoda Syllabus

Harris Syllabus