Effective: 2022-03-31

Course Description

The course outline below was developed as part of a statewide standardization process.

General Course Purpose

ENG 111 prepares students to write in academic and professional contexts. Students will apply the writing process to generate ideas, organize their thoughts, draft texts in various genres and modes (e.g. digital and print), and revise, proofread, and edit to improve writing. Students will produce texts that reflect critical thinking and knowledge of active reading and rhetorical situations. Students will develop information literacy, learning to use traditional and digital technologies to conduct introductory research. Students will produce multiple texts, totaling at least 4500 words (15 pages typed).

Course Objectives

• Writing Processes: Writers use multiple composing processes to conceptualize, develop, and finalize projects. Composing processes are seldom linear and are also flexible. Successful writers can adapt their composing processes to different genres, contexts, and occasions.
• Demonstrate the ability to use a recursive writing process to create a variety of academic texts, including at least one essay that incorporates and correctly documents outside sources, producing a total of at least 4500 words (approximately 15 pages) of polished, graded writing.
• Use prewriting strategies to plan assignments (e.g., selecting/refining topics, brainstorming, organizing ideas).
• Create multiple drafts of an assignment, and revise according to feedback from peers and others to improve development, organization, documentation, and clarity of writing.
• Reflect on assignments and writing processes.
• Incorporate appropriate, college-level vocabulary in writing.
• Edit writing with consideration to surface features, including syntax, usage, punctuation, and spelling appropriate to the rhetorical situation.
• Rhetorical Knowledge: Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to analyze writing, reading, and speaking occasions and then make strategic choices to negotiate the rhetorical situation. Rhetorical knowledge includes the ability to demonstrate command of purpose, audience, and context.
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of rhetorical concepts.
• Use key rhetorical concepts to discuss writing, reading and speaking occasions.
• Analyze the purpose, audience, and context of a wide variety of texts.
• Make and discuss composing choices appropriate to purpose, audience, and context.
• Demonstrate understanding of and use a variety of genres and media to address a range of audiences.
• Adapt voice, tone, and level of formality to a variety of rhetorical situations.
• Active Reading and Critical Thinking: Active reading is the process of engaging texts to identify main ideas and supporting evidence, to discern surface-level meaning, and to make logical inferences. Critical thinking refers to the ability to investigate ideas and solve problems through analyzing, interpreting and evaluating information, situations, and texts.
• Demonstrate the ability to use active reading strategies and think critically about course materials and concepts.
• Read and comprehend a variety of non-fiction, college-level texts in a variety of genres using active reading processes, including annotation, summary, reflection, response, and evaluation.
• Distinguish main ideas from supporting details, evaluate claims and evidence, make inferences, and interpret texts.
• Demonstrate understanding of vocabulary in texts they read.
• Discuss course texts and use reading as a form of inquiry.
• Integrate information from course texts and their own ideas into their writing.
• Inquiry and Information Literacy in a Digital Age: Inquiry and information literacy refers to asking questions, developing an understanding of documentation, composing texts grounded in evidence, using a variety of print and digital resources, and producing print and/or digital texts.
• Demonstrate their ability to use digital and print technologies to produce, evaluate, document, and submit texts.
• Use word processing software to compose and edit texts.
• Evaluate the relevance and trustworthiness of digital sources.
• Demonstrate understanding of the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and copyright) that motivate documentation conventions.
• Find information using library databases and/or informal digital networks and distinguish between scholarly and popular sources.
• Select and incorporate information from digital and print sources into writing relevant to genre, audience, and purpose.
• Knowledge of Discourse Conventions: Conventions are the formal rules and informal guidelines that define genres; they govern such things as mechanics, usage, spelling, and citation practices. College-level writing often demands adherence to conventions of academic discourse communities. These communities shape readers' and writers' perceptions of correctness or appropriateness.
• Discuss and implement conventions of academic discourse, demonstrate knowledge of various genres and audiences, and use documentation formats.
• Demonstrate understanding that conventions differ across communities, disciplines, and genres.
• Use Edited American English in texts they compose.
• Demonstrate contextually appropriate usage and linguistic structures (e.g. syntax, mechanics) in texts they compose.
• Use conventions of format, structure, style, design, and documentation, appropriate to the text's rhetorical situation.
• Apply documentation and style conventions systematically in their own work using instructor-specified formats (e.g. MLA, APA)

Major Topics to be Included

• Writing Processes
• Rhetorical Knowledge
• Active Reading and Critical Thinking
• Inquiry and Information Literacy in a Digital Age
• Knowledge of Discourse Conventions