ENG101 Syllabus Example

ENG101 Syllabus Sample

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The KCTCS Catalogue describes English 101 as follows:

Focuses on academic writing. Provides instruction in drafting and revising essays that express ideas in Standard English, including reading critically, thinking logically, responding to texts, addressing specific audiences, researching and documenting sources. Includes review of grammar, mechanics and usage.

English 101 builds on what you have learned from previous writing experiences, focusing on the writing skills and strategies that can be used in any situation, but especially for future college courses and the professional positions for which a college degree prepares you.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

You will practice using writing as a process of thinking that will help you to learn and grow, not just to present the final product of your thinking. Furthermore, because every writing situation you encounter, in and out of college, will have different expectations, you will learn to apply the elements of good writing to specific readers and situations.

Therefore the HCC English Faculty identified the following Learning Outcomes for ENG 101. In this class you will learn

• To merge creative and critical processes of thinking to discover and explore meaningful writing topics.
• To engage in an ongoing process of evaluating strengths and weaknesses in your writing.
• To engage in dialogue with peers, texts, and/or the instructor relevant to your writing.
• To use these creative, critical, evaluative, and dialogic processes to rigorously revise your writing.
• To adapt your writing to meet the conventions and expectations of the academic essay (listed below).

The conventions of academic essays below reflect the expectations of an academic audience (teachers, fellow-students, other professional colleagues):

1. Write a thesis that appropriately focuses and controls the essay.
2. Provide sufficient, relevant, and specific support for that thesis.
3. Organize the supporting information logically using conventional essay structure—an introduction, body, conclusion.
4. Demonstrate the essay’s organization and relevance to the thesis by the effective use of topic sentences and transitional devices.
5. Avoid errors in grammar, usage, mechanics, and punctuation that may confuse your audience or cause them to lose confidence in your ideas.
6. Summarize, paraphrase, and quote from sources according to accepted professional standards: be accurate, don’t plagiarize, and document according to an accepted style.

You should learn to adhere to these expectations. These conventions also reflect concepts that you are expected to be at least somewhat familiar with as you begin ENG 101. As this and future semesters unfold, you should acquire a deeper, more sophisticated understanding of how to adapt these conventions to the varied writing tasks you will do in college and as a professional.

In addition, each course in your degree program is expected to provide you with practice and evaluation of General Education Learning Outcomes. ENG 101 addresses these Learning Outcomes for “Written and Oral Communication”:

1. Write clear and effective prose in several forms, using conventions appropriate to audience (including academic audiences), purpose and genre.
2. Plan, organize, revise, practice, edit, and proofread to improve the development and clarity of ideas.

HOW YOU WILL LEARN:

Practice: We all truly learn by doing, not just listening to someone tell us what to do or watching others. So this class will emphasize your writing, rather than listening or reading about writing: you will practice annotating, freewriting, and journal writing, in addition to drafting and revising essays. As with any skill, lots of practice will make you more comfortable and confident as a writer.

Feedback: While practice alone will help you learn to a point, eventually you will need feedback, or at least a response, from others to grow as a writer. You will share your writing, with me, with other students in the class, and possibly even with readers outside of the class. Sharing your writing will make you aware of how your writing communicates to a real audience. More importantly, sharing and discussing your work will help you to see it differently, which will aid in revising.

Reflection: Finally, you will reflect upon your writing and the feedback you receive to complete the learning process. In What the Best College Students Do, Ken Bain says, “You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting upon experience” (). Thinking about your writing process will help you to take control of it, rather than following the habits of practice or simply following someone else’s direction.