101 Instructor’s Manual - English Programs for ...



English 101 Course Description and Required Elements

The following statement lays out the basic goals and required elements for all sections of English 101 for 2009-2010. Please ensure that your syllabus incorporates all these goals and elements. Thanks!

Course Description

English 101 is designed to offer students structured, sustained practice in critical reading, analysis and composing. During the semester, students will read a range of challenging, linguistically rich texts in a variety of genres--which may include academic, literary, rhetorical, cultural, and multimedia works—and write expository and analytical essays in response to them. Through these reading and writing assignments, they will explore the interconnectedness of reading and writing, and they will learn how to use both reading and writing as venues for inquiry, learning, thinking, interpretation, and communication. The course will provide instruction and individualized feedback to help students advance as careful, thoughtful readers and as effective writers.

Course Goals

In English 101, students will

• Encounter a variety of challenging texts representing a range of literary and non-literary genres;

• Learn and practice strategies for reading carefully, closely, and critically;

• Work through a full range of writing processes—including invention, planning, drafting, revision, and editing—in order to produce effective college-level essays;

• Develop, organize, and produce effective expository and analytical essays;

• Become acquainted with conventions for summarizing, paraphrasing, and documenting reading material in accordance with MLA guidelines;

• Develop a clear, effective writing style, free of major errors and appropriate for academic audiences.

Required Elements

Assignments and texts for English 101 will vary somewhat from instructor to instructor. However, the First-Year English Program requires that all sections adhere to the course goals above and incorporate the following:

I. Reading Assignments

All sections of English 101, except for Honors, TRIO, and Capstone sections, will use textbooks selected from the approved lists on page 7. [NOTE: All instructors must integrate the approved textbooks into their syllabi; instructors may not tell students that the required textbooks are “optional” or encourage students not to procure the textbooks.] From these textbooks, instructors should select reading assignments that

• Represent a variety of genres, preferably including at least one literary, non-literary, and visual or multimedia text

• Challenge students beyond what they’ve been expected to read in high school (for example, texts that are challenging in content, theme, style, rhetorical strategy, genre, variety, length, etc.)

• Are limited in number, to allow plenty of time for close reading and analysis. Assigning or covering a large number of texts is not the goal of this course; it’s better to work through fewer texts carefully and thoughtfully.

II. Writing Assignments

During the semester, students should produce the equivalent of 20-30 double-spaced pages of finished written work. (This page total includes major essays, as well as short writing assignments completed outside of class and submitted in a typed, relatively polished form.) Students should write frequently in English 101, in response to the following general kinds of assignments:

• Frequent short writing assignments: Students should compose frequent short pieces that reinforce close, critical reading processes and thoughtful composing processes. Short assignments should give students a range of opportunities to compose both informal and formal documents and to write during class time and outside of class. Short assignments will ideally lead up to longer essays. (Examples: summaries, reading responses, critical and analytical exercises, invention exercises, topic proposals, responses to discussion or reading questions, peer critiques, freewriting, group exercises.)

• Longer essays: Students should write 4 longer essays. Major essay assignments must include the following:

Required Major Essay Assignments

1. An analytical essay that develops a close reading of a text.

2. A second analytical essay focused on a text that differs from (1) in genre, medium, or both.

3. An essay that considers two texts in relation to each other (for example, an essay that applies the arguments or interpretive framework from a critical essay to a literary text; or a comparative analysis of two different texts that tell the same story.)

4. An essay that draws on contextual material (historical, biographical, or cultural information) to analyze a text. (Recommended: To prepare students for more intensive research in 102, we recommend that you ask students to incorporate one or two outside resources into this essay. The Thomas Cooper Library will prepare special guided resources to assist us with this assignment.)

Essays assigned late in the semester may ask students to draw material from previously completed essays. For example, an instructor might ask students to write essay (3) on one of the texts they analyzed in essay (1) or (2); or, an instructor might ask students to draw material from essays (1)-(3) as part of essay (4).

III. Composing Processes

Each major essay should guide students through a full range of composing processes, to encourage them to fully develop their arguments and to work towards effective, polished final drafts. For each major essay, students should

o Receive an assignment sheet detailing the rhetorical context, expectations, and major deadlines.

o Have opportunities to submit and receive feedback on a topic proposal or other prewriting materials early in the process of developing the essay.

o Turn in and receive your feedback on at least one draft of the essay before revising it to submit for a final grade.

o Participate in a peer revision activity and incorporate peer feedback before submitting a final version of the essay.

IV. Research Skills, Formatting, Grammar, Mechanical Conventions

During 101, students should receive instruction in and opportunities to practice the following:

o Accurately summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting material from their reading, using MLA conventions.

o Finding in the library and incorporating one or two appropriate outside sources into a paper. (The Thomas Cooper Library will develop introductory online guides especially tailored for English 101 students; more information about these guides will be distributed at Orientation.)

o Composing paragraphs and sentences that are clear, readable, and logically organized.

o Using conventions of grammar, mechanics, and style typically expected in college papers.

**Note: While it’s important that students learn to use these surface-level conventions, grammatical and mechanical correctness should not be the primary focus of your feedback on and grading of their work. See “evaluation of student writing,” below.**

V. Evaluation of Student Writing

While we encourage you to develop routines and procedures that work best for you and your individual class, all sections of English 101 should incorporate a few basic practices (consistent with the goals articulated in the WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Writing Courses; see Appendix 1.)

• Individual Feedback, addressing “Big Picture” Issues: Please provide students with individualized feedback on their work via written comments and/or individual conferences. Research suggests that students will likely benefit most if you foreground “big picture” issues (such as focus, audience, logic, and organization) in your responses—especially on early drafts. Therefore, sentence-level errors in grammar, mechanics, etc., should be primarily addressed within their larger rhetorical context. Please do not devise grading systems that award automatic numerical deductions for particular errors (e.g., “minus seven points for each comma error” or “any paper with more than three grammatical errors will automatically receive an F”).

• Final Portfolios: At the end of the semester, each of your students should turn in a final portfolio containing all drafts and finished versions of his or her major essays. The materials in this portfolio should count for the major portion of the course grade. As in prior years, you must keep students’ portfolios on file for one calendar year after the end of the semester.

Grading standards and the Academic Responsibility Statement for First-Year English are posted on the program Website, at .

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