Introductory Seminars and Workshops in Composition
ENGCMP 0100 & 0101 Intensive Workshop in Composition
This course combines two three-hour courses in order to create
an intensive workshop in composition for students who have had
limited experience as readers and writers. Students engage in
a rigorous program of college-level reading and writing that
introduces them to academic inquiry, analysis, and argument.
Discussion of student writing is central to the course, and discussion
of the readings will often focus on how students have written
in response to them. At the end of the term, students submit
a portfolio of essays (including one in-class essay) for review
by a faculty committee.
ENGCMP 0150 Workshop in Composition
This course is designed to give students who have had limited experience
with writing an opportunity to increase their control of written
language and their confidence in performing academic inquiry, analysis,
and argument. Students write in response to weekly assignments,
and instruction focuses on helping students to extend, revise,
and edit their work. At the end of the term, students submit a
portfolio of essays (including one in-class essay) for review by
a faculty committee.
ENGCMP 0152 ESL: Workshop in Composition
This course is designed to give students learning English as a
foreign language an opportunity to develop their ability to write
in English and their confidence in performing academic inquiry,
analysis, and argument. Students write in response to weekly assignments,
and instruction focuses on helping students to extend, revise,
and edit their work. At the end of the term, students submit a
portfolio of essays (including one in-class essay) for review by
a faculty committee.
ENGCMP 0200 Seminar in Composition
This introductory course offers students opportunities to improve
as writers by developing their understanding of how they and others
use writing to interpret and share experience, affect behavior,
and position themselves in the world. Although specific reading
and writing assignments may vary from section to section, in all
sections student writing will be the primary focus. As a step toward
college-level critical literacy, this course is designed to help
student writers become more engaged, imaginative, and disciplined
composers, better equipped to handle complex subjects thoughtfully
and to use sources responsibly. All sections will require at least
one crafted composition per week as well as participation in class
discussion about writing.
ENGCMP 0201 Composition Tutorial
This one-credit course is a series of once-a-week tutorial sessions
designed to help students with their writing at the sentence
and paragraph levels. Students work one-on-one with a consultant
in the Writing Center, using the papers they produce in Seminar
in Composition as materials for discussion. Much of the work
of the tutorial sessions is determined by the needs of each student;
and consultants report to Seminar in Composition instructors
on students’ participation in these sessions. Students
in Composition Tutorial are graded S/N by their Writing Center
consultant on the basis of a final portfolio. Students placed
into Composition Tutorial cannot pass Seminar in Composition
unless they earn an S grade in Composition Tutorial.
ENGCMP 0203 Seminar in Composition: Women’s Studies
This version of Seminar in Composition includes readings that comment
on gender difference and consider the ways in which language and
culture construct socially acceptable gender, sexual, and racial
roles for women and men. All sections will require at least one
crafted composition per week as well as participation in class
discussion about writing, women, and culture.
ENGCMP 0205 Seminar in Composition: Film
This version of Seminar in Composition includes a series of films
along with readings and discussions that focus on how film and
other media shape the ways we view and understand the world. All
sections will require at least one crafted composition per week
as well as participation in class discussion about writing and
film.
ENGCMP 0207 Seminar in Composition: Education
This version of Seminars in Composition includes readings that
consider issues of teaching and learning in American education,
and for this reason may be of special interest to students who
plan to become teachers. All sections will require at least one
crafted composition per week as well as participation in class
discussion about writing and education.
Intermediate Seminars
ENGCMP 0400 Written Professional Communication
This course examines the contexts for and rhetorical dimensions
of a variety of professional documents, including those documents
students produce in the course itself. Major assignments include
a set of career materials (resume, cover letter, career report);
a correspondence packet that addresses a conflict; a proposal;
and a longer report based on research and analysis. As students
engage in this work, they explore the nature of professionalism,
common features and efforts (enabling and disabling) of professional
discourse, and strategies for negotiating the "borders" of
specialized and non-specialized discourse. Note: Some sections
allow students to elect to work on a service learning project.
ENGCMP 0410 Writing for the Legal Professions
This course focuses on the rhetoric of law and the ways that legal
texts create a culture and a world through the language and arguments
they employ. Students interested in law, rhetoric, and questions
of cultural construction should find this course of interest. The
course will use literacy texts and the works of legal scholars
to consider how arguments, evidence, testimony, assertions, assumptions,
and judgments constitute a set of public issues and values.
ENGCMP 0420 Writing for the Public
This course explores the theory and practice of writing that serves
the public interest. Public writing is crucial in the nonprofit
sector, serving every kind of cause: safety and health, political
activism, the environment, animal rights, the arts. It also takes
the form of writing that facilitates communication between government
and its policies and those people who are impacted by those policies.
Many of those who write for the public are working to make a difference
in the world. The course will explore the ethics of writing for
the public, the impact of rhetorical contexts on writing, and how
writing and revision can allow people to understand a problem or
issue in a new way. We’ll use examples of public writing,
theoretical articles, and the work of students in the class to
inform our discussion. Note: Students may elect to work on a service
learning project during the course.
ENGCMP 0440 Critical Writing
This course is designed to help students improve as critical writers
by becoming more observant and discriminating evaluators of the
ways in which they and others use language to interpret and judge
the world. Students will be asked to reflect upon the behavior
of critics they have encountered in order to define what they believe
as a critical writer, at her or his best, should do. They will
then be asked to test, and perhaps refine, their definitions through
work with some texts and topics selected by the group as well as
through close analysis of writing samples provided by the instructor.
The course is discussion-based, and class members' writing will
be its steady concern.
ENGCMP 0450 Research Writing
This course explores the skills needed for good research writing
and the different forms of research writing that a college graduate
may encounter. While the course will give attention to methods
of library and Internet research and citation, it will focus on
the challenge of reporting on research, starting with the evaluation,
summation, and outlining of sources, then broadening as the term
progresses into an examination of different kinds of researched
writing, including the personal philosophy statements required
in many graduate and professional school applications. Much of
the class time will be devoted to workshop discussions of student
projects and the writing that results from individual research.
Students should expect to write a 10-page final project; in addition,
the class will work together on a series of research assignments
that will be used to illustrate methods and sources of research
materials.
ENGCMP 0500 Topics in Composition
This course provides a space for faculty to identify a particular
topic in composition on which to base a semester of inquiry.
ENGCMP 0515 Persuasive Writing in Advertising and Fundraising
This course will address such questions as: How can we best communicate
with others in order to persuade them? How can we promote a position
or product while maintaining high ethical standards? In this course,
students will analyze and create the kinds of persuasive writing
used in the fields of advertising and fundraising. Coursework will
involve readings, discussion, and brief papers that analyze and
critique work done in these fields; a class presentation; and an
original written project that can become part of a student’s
portfolio to show prospective employers. Students will have opportunities
to have their work reviewed in class, to participate in discussions
with people currently working in advertising and fundraising, and
to revise their written work.
ENGCMP 0550 Topics in Public and Professional Writing
This course provides a space for faculty to identify a particular
topic in public and professional writing on which to base a semester
of inquiry.
Advanced Seminars
ENGCMP 1200 Advanced Topics in Composition
This course provides a space for faculty to identify a particular
topic in composition on which to base a semester of inquiry for
advanced students.
ENGCMP 1210 Tutoring Peer Writers
This course prepares students to be effective tutors for peer writers
by introducing them to issues and scholarship in teaching, writing
and working as a tutor. Students from any discipline who are interested
in careers in teaching, or students who recognize the importance
and difficulty of responding well to drafts written by others will
find this course of interest. The course is a prerequisite for
those students wishing to work as peer interns in the Writing Center.
ENGCMP 1220 Advanced Composition
This course offers students who have fulfilled the introductory
composition requirement an opportunity to develop more advanced
strategies as writers and a deeper understanding of how “effective” writing
gets defined in various contexts. As they work on their on writing,
students will read and discuss work by a wide range of writers
whose prose has received acclaim. Weekly writing assignments and
exercises will provide the occasion to explore different styles
and approaches to one’s audience, and students will be expected
to revise their work after receiving commentary from the instructor
and their peers.
ENGCMP 1250 Advanced Topics in Public and Professional Writing
This course focuses on varied topics that address theoretical,
social, or historical issues of writing in public and professional
environments.
ENGCMP 1900 Internship: Public and Professional Writing
Public and Professional Writing (PPW) internships offer students
a productive, substantive writing experience in which they learn
from and contribute to the sponsoring agency, company, or project.
Students will also learn more about theoretical, social, or historical
issues of writing in public and professional environments through
their work in one-on-one meetings with administrators from the
PPW program. PPW interns keep a journal, meet regularly with
a director of the PPW program, and work with a Writing Center
consultant on their final presentation. Interns can access a
discussion board that allows them to share their reflections
on their experiences and prepare for their presentations. Students
commit a minimum of 12-15 hours per week to the internships and
are expected to perform as reliable and responsible professionals.
Students who are employed may petition to create their own internship,
provided that it encompasses a new and distinct project and is
not a part of a traditional workload.