First-Year Writing

ASTU 101 will introduce you to the ethical knowledge-making practices of scholarly communities, such as particular academic disciplines and research fields. You will begin to participate in scholarly conversations within those communities by performing the actions of apprentice academic researchers, scholarly communicators, and peer-reviewers. You will also produce work in several scholarly genres and familiarize yourself with the conventions of communication of specific academic disciplines. In doing so, you will begin to develop your own scholarly identity as a member of academic research communities. To that end, the course is organized into three broad, overlapping stages of 'learn/acquire', 'practice', and 'produce'. The course is heavier on lectures and coursework at the beginning as we learn new ideas and acquire new tools. The second phase involves practicing using those tools and integrating our concepts. Finally, by the end of the semester, coursework will be almost entirely about your own research projects. Course Theme: It's No Game: The Idea of Competition. The idea of competition is so fundamental that we often take it for granted as a natural good. Nearly every aspect of our lives involves competition: we compete in school, we compete for jobs, we compete at work, we compete socially, we compete in games and sports for fun, and when we are not competing ourselves we spend much of our time enjoying watching others compete. But our obsession with competition has several potential complications. A world divided into winners and losers, for example, is an inherently inequitable world-and there will always be far more "losers" than "winners". Competition also has a variety of interesting relationships with our inescapable need for cooperation and social cohesion. Attempting to disentangle cooperation from competition, in fact, can undermine both sides of this pair: a lack of either can lead to unproductive stasis, and worse. But a complete integration of cooperation and competition can lead to "us versus them" thinking and even war, which US rhetorical scholar Kenneth Burke called "the ultimate disease of cooperation." To better understand the idea of competition, we will examine the ways that it has been investigated and conceptualized in different academic disciplines.

Although much has been written about the history of commonplacing, there is a lack of evidence-based research to show the extent to which this historical practice may still be valuable today as a pedagogy that educates citizens in critical reading for democracy. This article describes an institutional-review-board-approved, experimental study to answer this question. Three sections of the same Yrst-year reading and writing course were compared: one section did not use commonplace books, a second section used commonplace books that included

It’s No Game: The Idea of Competition is an introduction to academic and scholarly discourse and writing that explores the concept of competition. The idea of competition is so fundamental that we often take it for granted as a natural good. Nearly every aspect of our lives involves competition: we compete in school, we compete for jobs, we compete at work, we compete socially, we compete in games and sports for fun, and when we are not competing ourselves we spend much of our time enjoying watching others compete. But our obsession with competition has several potential complications. A world divided into winners and losers, for example, is an inherently inequitable world: there will always be far more “losers” than “winners”. Competition also has a variety of interesting relationships with our inescapable need for cooperation and social cohesion. Attempting to disentangle cooperation from competition, in fact, can undermine both sides of this pair: a lack of either can lead to unproductive stasis, and worse. But a complete integration of cooperation and competition can lead to “us versus them” thinking and even war, which US rhetorical scholar Kenneth Burke called “the ultimate disease of cooperation.” To better understand the idea of competition, we will examine the ways that it has been investigated and conceptualized in different academic disciplines. For example, competition is fundamental to Business, Economics, and Political Science. But, because of its inescapable role in human society, competition is also an important topic in Psychology, in Anthropology, in Sociology, and even in the study and practice of Education. In this class, we will explore the ways that competition has been investigated in some of this recent research and scholarship, and students will complete research projects of their own contributing to that scholarly conversation.

ENC 1101 fulfills the first of two required composition courses at Florida State University. Adhering to Florida State University's College Composition Program's first-year composition course objectives, this course stresses the importance of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills, as well as the importance of using writing as a recursive process involving invention, drafting, collaboration, revision, rereading, and editing to clearly and effectively communicate ideas for specific purposes, occasions, and audiences. In addition to these objectives, this course will emphasize rhetorical composing: this course will help students determine purpose, audience, and the most effective strategies to use when composing. The purpose of Compose, Design, Advocate (CDA) is to help students approach and analyze composing situations. This course will offer concepts and vocabulary to help students make thoughtful choices in presenting visual, oral, written, and other multimodal communication. These rhetorical composing concepts include purpose, audience, context, strategies, medium, and arrangement.

(Summary) Bernstein teaches developmental courses in writing and reading at a public, open-admissions university in downtown Houston. Bernstein believes the courses are valuable because they help people with unconventional ways of learning reach their potential. » Jump to indexing (document details) Full Text (1317 words) (Copyright Oct. 10, 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education) More than 25 years ago, as an anxious freshman at a small, private, liberal-arts college in the Midwest, I sat stoically in front of a midterm exam in introductory geology. The course had been designed for geology majors, but it could be taken by nonmajors-like me-to fulfill the distribution requirement in science. Having grown up along with the environmental movement, I was very interested in nature and ecology, and I had especially appreciated the hands-on learning of our class's field trip to a limestone quarry near the Mississippi River, not far from our college. There, breathing the crisp autumn air and surrounded by dappled leaves on the changing trees, I had felt at peace. But peace was hardly what I experienced when I saw the charts and diagrams on the midterm. Although I had studied for the exam for days, I was lost without textbook illustrations that I could not reproduce from memory, and confused as I tried to remember how the lectures had fit with the professor's chalkboard drawings. I struggled through the multiple-choice and short-answer sections, squirming with frustration at the thought of my college career's ending as it was just beginning. Then I reached the essay section of the exam. I knew I was saved: I could write my way out of any pit that I managed to fall into. I don't remember the wording of the question, but I do remember my response. I wrote about our field trip to the limestone quarry-about the natural setting of that environment, including the features of the Midwestern landscape, the geological history that had led to the formation of limestone, and the dew on the spider webs almost hidden behind the trees.

This study reports findings of a comparative corpus-based analysis of informality in L1 and L2 undergraduate student argumentative essays. Data consist of two corpora of student essays: 101 high-rated essays written by L1-English students and 254 high-rated essays written by ESL students in US universities. Based on a taxonomy of the 10 most common informal features cited in style manuals, we compared informal language use in L1-English and ESL undergraduate student essays. Results reveal that overall frequency of informal features is significantly greater in L2 student texts. Findings also indicate that both groups rely on similar informal elements, yet they differ in distinct ways. While ESL student writers tend to employ significantly more anaphoric pronoun it and second-person pronouns, they use most other types less frequently than L1 writers, and generally appear to observe prescriptive rules more strictly. In contrast, L1-English writers tend to adopt a more liberal attitude toward these rules, employing a broader range of informal types, particularly those that have become relatively legitimized in academic writing. The paper concludes with implications for ESL composition pedagogy.

ENC 1101 fulfills the first of two required composition courses at Florida State University. Adhering to Florida State University's College Composition Program's first-year composition course objectives, this course stresses the importance of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills, as well as the importance of using writing as a recursive process involving invention, drafting, collaboration, revision, rereading, and editing to clearly and effectively communicate ideas for specific purposes, occasions, and audiences. In addition to these objectives, this course will emphasize rhetorical composing: this course will help students determine purpose, audience, and the most effective strategies to use when composing. The purpose of Compose, Design, Advocate (CDA) is to help students approach and analyze composing situations. This course will offer concepts and vocabulary to help students make thoughtful choices in presenting visual, oral, written, and other multimodal communication. These rhetorical composing concepts include purpose, audience, context, strategies, medium, and arrangement.

WRDS 150 will introduce you to the ethical knowledge-making practices of scholarly communities, such as particular academic disciplines and research fields. You will begin to participate in scholarly conversations within those communities by performing the actions of apprentice academic researchers, scholarly communicators, and peer-reviewers. You will also produce work in several scholarly genres and familiarize yourself with the conventions of communication of specific academic disciplines. In doing so, you will begin to develop your own scholarly identity as a member of academic research communities. To that end, the course is organized into three broad, overlapping stages of 'learn/acquire', 'practice', and 'produce'. The course is heavier on lectures and coursework at the beginning as we learn new ideas and acquire new tools. The second phase involves practicing using those tools and integrating our concepts. Finally, by the end of the semester, coursework will be almost entirely about your own research projects.

Syllabus for a first year writing course at Georgia Tech where students analyzed print and digital comics about mental illness in preparation for creating their own digital research-based comics designed to raise awareness about mental health issues and resources for the Georgia Tech Counseling Center. Taught in Fall 2018.

WRDS 150 will introduce you to the ethical knowledge-making practices of scholarly communities, such as particular academic disciplines and research fields. You will begin to participate in scholarly conversations within those communities by performing the actions of apprentice academic researchers, scholarly communicators, and peer-reviewers. You will also produce work in several scholarly genres and familiarize yourself with the conventions of communication of specific academic disciplines. In doing so, you will begin to develop your own scholarly identity as a member of academic research communities. To that end, the course is organized into three broad, overlapping stages of 'learn/acquire', 'practice', and 'produce'. The course is heavier on lectures and coursework at the beginning as we learn new ideas and acquire new tools. The second phase involves practicing using those tools and integrating our concepts. Finally, by the end of the semester, coursework will be almost entirely about your own research projects. Course Theme: It's No Game: The Idea of Competition. The idea of competition is so fundamental that we often take it for granted as a natural good. Nearly every aspect of our lives involves competition: we compete in school, we compete for jobs, we compete at work, we compete socially, we compete in games and sports for fun, and when we are not competing ourselves we spend much of our time enjoying watching others compete. But our obsession with competition has several potential complications. A world divided into winners and losers, for example, is an inherently inequitable world-and there will always be far more "losers" than "winners". Competition also has a variety of interesting relationships with our inescapable need for cooperation and social cohesion. Attempting to disentangle cooperation from competition, in fact, can undermine both sides of this pair: a lack of either can lead to unproductive stasis, and worse. But a complete integration of cooperation and competition can lead to "us versus them" thinking and even war, which US rhetorical scholar Kenneth Burke called "the ultimate disease of cooperation." To better understand the idea of competition, we will examine the ways that it has been investigated and conceptualized in different academic disciplines.

Hailing from Papua New Guinea, the world‟s most linguistically and socially diverse locale, the JCDS: Journal of Communication and Development Studies (formerly titled the JLCS: Journal
of Language and Communication Studies (ISSN 1992-1322) is published twice a year (June and January)  by  the  Department  of  Communication  and  Development  Studies  at  the  Papua  New Guinea  University  of  Technology.  It  is  interested  in  research  papers  falling  under  two  broad disciplinary „umbrellas,‟i.e., English for Academic Purposes (EAP)/English for Special Purposes (ESP) and Communication for Development.

Wise 3 acknowledges the growing influence of graphic design on composition. In "From Analysis to Design," George writes, "If I have given the impression that the media revolution of the fifties and sixties was a tough one for composition teachers, then I must say here that the world of graphic design, electronic text, and Web technologies certainly will prove even more difficult, though ultimately perhaps more useful for future understandings of composition as design" (223). George, Kress, and the NLG have called attention to the fact that composition is in the midst of a media revolution. The dominant medium of writing has shifted from the page to the screen, the screen having its own internal logic: "And whether it is true or not that their teachers are aware of the difference between the blank screen and the blank page, our students are certainly aware of this difference" (George 224).

It’s No Game: The Idea of Competition. The idea of competition is so fundamental that we often take it for granted as a natural good. Nearly every aspect of our lives involves competition: we compete in school, we compete for jobs, we compete at work, we compete socially, we compete in games and sports for fun, and when we are not competing ourselves we spend much of our time enjoying watching others compete. But our obsession with competition has several potential complications. A world divided into winners and losers, for example, is an inherently inequitable world – and there will always be far more “losers” than “winners”. Competition also has a variety of interesting relationships with our inescapable need for cooperation and social cohesion. Attempting to disentangle cooperation from competition, in fact, can undermine both sides of this pair: a lack of either can lead to unproductive stasis, and worse. But a complete integration of cooperation and competition can lead to “us versus them” thinking and even war, which US rhetorical scholar Kenneth Burke called “the ultimate disease of cooperation.” To better understand the idea of competition, we will examine the ways that it has been investigated and conceptualized in different academic disciplines. For example, competition is fundamental to Business, Economics, and Political Science. But, because of its inescapable role in human society, competition is also an important topic in Psychology, in Anthropology, in Sociology, and even in the study and practice of Education. In this class, we will explore the ways that competition has been investigated in some of this recent research and scholarship, and students will complete research projects of their own contributing to that scholarly conversation.

This packet contains prompts for a research proposal and an accompanying research paper on material culture and cultural heritage/ancestry.  These assignments encourage first-year writing students to use archival and/or genealogical research, and to engage with the elders in their families and communities regarding the objects that shaped or improved their respective worlds, and the storied histories that comprise them.

Supporting students transitioning from high school into college continues to be a
challenge for many academics and policy makers. In this conceptual content analysis
study, first-year composition (FYC) course syllabi were examined based on Kuh’s (2008)
High-Impact Practices (HIP) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities’
(AAC & U) rubric and HIP tenets: Civic Learning and Community Engagement that
focused on writing assignments, activities, and projects embedded within selected syllabi.
Specifically, this study analyzed ten FYC syllabi at one urban, public, four-year
university in Southern California during the 2015–2016 academic year. Using Dedoose
(2016) the researcher deconstructed the syllabi, identifying two themes: Pedagogical and
Conceptual. Overall findings indicate that more FYC course syllabi embedded the
Pedagogical theme (88 occurrences) than the Conceptual theme (64 occurrences). While
the university’s mission statement suggests Civic Learning and Community Engagement
tenets for FYC students, the essence of the Conceptual theme, FYC syllabi embedded
more evidence of the Pedagogical theme. It is hoped that HIP practices have the
opportunity to minimize further marginalization of students in need of developmental
composition support and construct critical thinking, civic learning, and community
engagement in citizens during an age when civic leaders are needed the most.

This Writing Pedagogy Project seeks to provide teachers with methods for implementing a genre-based process curriculum for teaching writing in Online Writing Instruction (OWI) contexts. The project uses the Sydney School's Teaching/Learning Cycle to design course curricula, develop content, and scaffold meaningful interaction with students in the online writing classroom.

Literacy pedagogy in the 21st century should address multiple mediums of communication – print and digital – and be supportive of a diverse student population. To accomplish this goal, a metalanguage needs to be developed for the classroom that responds to a multiplicity of semiotic systems and is supportive of diverse learners, including English Language Learners (ELLs), students with learning disabilities (LD), students of low socioeconomic status (low SES), and minorities. In 1996 the New London Group (NLG) sought to address both of these literacy demands in their conceptualization of multiliteracies, which encompasses "the multiplicity of communications channels and media, and the increasing saliency of cultural and linguistic diversity" (63). The NLG suggested the development of a metalanguage, a functional grammar based in systemic functional linguistics (SFL), "capable of supporting sophisticated critical analysis of language and other semiotic systems, yet at the same time not make unrealistic demands on teacher and learner knowledge" (77). The field of multiliteracies is still in its infancy. Unsworth's Teaching Multiliteracies Across the Curriculum is, perhaps, the definitive textbook on multiliteracies. Additionally, an edited collection Multiliteracies in Motion: Current Theory and Practice was published in 2010. Although the NLG suggested the development of a metalanguage like SFL for the classroom over twenty years ago, not much progress has been made in this arena. Composition research into multimodality has mainly focused on student production of multimedia, which does not explicitly address the issue of developing methods to help students critically analyze multimedia. While multiliteracies has been explored within the context of K-12 education, little research has addressed the development of multiliteracies pedagogy in higher education, especially first-year writing. The field of rhetoric and composition needs a functional, rhetorical metalanguage to aid students and

Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s writing textbook, “They Say / I Say,” has triggered important debates among writing professionals. Not included within these debates, however, is the empirical question of whether the textbook’s templates reflect patterns of language use in actual academic discourses. This article uses corpus-based discourse analysis to examine how two particular “moves” discussed in the textbook are realized in three large corpora of professional and student academic writing. The analysis reveals important differences between the textbook’s wordings and those preferred by student and professional writers. It also uncovers differences in use of “interpersonal” functions of language by experienced and less experienced writers. In offering this detailed analysis of academic prose, I aim to extend calls to recenter language in writing research and instruction. I conclude with implications for discussing academic argumentation with students.

Higher education is in crisis. This is a cry heard throughout the country, and universities and colleges find themselves in ever increasingly difficult positions as they are both blamed for creating this crisis and called upon to resolve it. Key elements of the attack on higher education are that it is too expensive and ineffective as many leave college carrying heavy student loan debt unable to find jobs. According to critics of higher education, even those who are able to find jobs often discover that the education they received in college does not serve them well in their jobs . "The problem is that most college seniors are simply not ready for professional jobs. They either don't have the hard skills in computer coding and data analysis, or more important, the soft skills employers are seeking, such as problem solving and the ability to communicate and collaborate with co-workers and customers" . Employers consistently report that new graduates lack strong "written and oral communication skills, teamwork skills, ethical decisionmaking, critical thinking, and the ability to apply knowledge in real-world settings" .

This course was designed to develop students’ academic writing, critical thinking, rhetorical strategies, reading and library skills. The course focus was thematic, revolving around the problem of “American Education in Constant Crisis and Transformation.” As such, our assignments, readings, and writings were tied to issues therein.

This course was a flop in that I was ten years removed from teaching Freshman Composition and didn't receive as much help as I'd asked for, perhaps intentionally now that I reflect on it. As well, I found it hard to ask new college students to reflect on their privileged status as college kids who were "making it." They were lucky enough to escape much of the Common Core testing and policies that were just hitting Washington state at the time they matriculated into college, and it was hard to get them to see beyond their own experience and how well their K12 education had served them.

Highlights included discussion of the two films. I offer this syllabus mostly for those who might be interested in knowing how a college professor attempted to cover 21st century education policy and reform exigencies in a Freshman Composition course.

One way to approach the study of literature is as a series of conversations between texts, scholars, and readers. This course seeks to understand adaptation as a method of critical engagement. Our source will be Homer’s Odyssey, an epic poem that has had a profound impact on many English-language works. We will use it to ask larger questions about literature, such as: What is the relationship between translation and adaptation? In what different ways do various genres interpret the same story? How do works engage with a canonical text and to what effect? Texts studied include Stanley Lombardo's translation of the Odyssey, Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, Junot Díaz's Drown, Louise Glück: Meadowlands, Naomi Iizuka's Anon(ymous), and
Njabulo Ndebele's The Cry of Winnie Mandela.

Serving as the introduction to TETYC’s special issue on disability in two-year college English, this article centers disability as a necessary consideration for two-year colleges’ mission of open access. Drawing on the work of disability justice activists, advocates, and disability scholars, this introduction frames the work of the special issue’s contributors by tracing the ableist obstacles faced by disabled people in two-year college English and how these ableist structures overlap and intersect with other marginalized identities, thus creating a nesting doll of ableism.

Ensuring that all students can access information, demonstrate mastery, and feel comfortable in the classroom is important, yet first-year composition (FYC) faculty may find reaching the diverse populations in their classrooms daunting. Learning styles, comfort levels with writing and English language skills, disabilities, and family responsibilities impact all students, leaving us to wonder how best to facilitate student success. Though students in all classrooms are affected by these concerns, those enrolled in first-year writing classrooms are new to the postsecondary school setting, returning to school after a leave of absence, or having taken developmental English courses. These additional identity markers can make the FYC classroom a more difficult pedagogical environment. In the composition classroom, traditional and nontraditional first-year students alike must determine how to navigate the university and develop their own academic identity. Melanie Kill explains the importance of considering one's classroom identity, especially for first-year students:

Drawing upon concepts from service-learning theorists Sarah Ash and Patti Clayton's DEAL Model for Critical Reflection (2009), this article suggests an innovative approach to critical reflection. Rather than create separate reflection assignments, which can be problematic for a number of reasons described in this article, the author offers composition teachers strategies for embedding critical reflection concepts into composition assignments to create a "reflective course." The author provides models of types of reflective assignments from a first-year service-learning writing course, including a research paper, a proposal letter to a member of the community, and an oral presentation. These models are adaptable to many levels of rhetoric and composition courses, to many genres, and to students working with a wide range of community partners. H ow we set up reflection matters. It is, after all, "the hyphen in service-learning" (Eyler 35). The hyphen embodies the philosophy behind the service-learning pedagogy: that the service and learning are not disparate concepts, but rather are intimately connected. Service-learning

One way to approach the study of literature is as a series of conversations between texts, scholars, and readers. This course seeks to understand adaptation as a method of critical engagement. By looking at source texts with their adaptations, we will consider the different ways that literature can be its own critic. We will use adaptation to ask larger questions about literature, such as: What is the relationship between translation and adaptation? In what different ways do various genres interpret the same story? How do traditionally marginalized groups engage with a canonical text and to what effect? Texts studied include Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Jo Baker's Longbourn, Aimé Césaire's A Tempest, William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Natasha Trethewey's Bellocq’s Ophelia.

The focus of the study is to examine the content of the most popular, currently-used English composition textbooks.  The study pulled its theoretical framework from research conducted by Dr. Richard A. Griggs who researched psychology textbooks providing a topical analysis as well as an objective analysis (Griggs, R.A. & Jackson, S. L., 2013; Griggs, R. A., 2014).  The researcher looked at the top five bestselling books published by Cengage Learning by using a taxonomy from the WPA Outcomes of First-Year Composition.  The researcher color-coded the topics and collected and analyzed data regarding first-year composition textbooks.  Results revealed the analysis of the textbooks’ Table of Contents only. 
Keywords: first-year composition; WPA Outcomes, textbooks; Cengage Learning

(formerly ENG 122) No credit after ENGL-1190. The focus of this course is the writing of critical essays based upon readings in literature, and the further development of writing skills learned in ENGL-1180 or ENGL-1210. The course places extensive emphasis upon research. Students who have completed ENGL-1190 successfully should NOT take ENGL-1220. Students will NOT receive credit for both. (3 contact hrs)

It’s No Game: The Idea of Competition is an introduction to academic and scholarly discourse and writing that focuses on the concept of competition. The idea of competition is so fundamental that we often take it for granted as a natural good. Nearly every aspect of our lives involves competition: we compete in school, we compete for jobs, we compete at work, we compete socially, we compete in games and sports for fun, and when we are not competing ourselves we spend much of our time enjoying watching others compete. But our obsession with competition has several potential complications. A world divided into winners and losers, for example, is an inherently inequitable world – and there will always be far more “losers” than “winners”. Competition also has a variety of interesting relationships with our inescapable need for cooperation and social cohesion. Attempting to disentangle cooperation from competition, in fact, can undermine both sides of this pair: a lack of either can lead to unproductive stasis, and worse. But a complete integration of cooperation and competition can lead to “us versus them” thinking and even war, which US rhetorical scholar Kenneth Burke called “the ultimate disease of cooperation.” To better understand the idea of competition, we will examine the ways that it has been investigated and conceptualized in different academic disciplines. For example, competition is fundamental to Business, Economics, and Political Science. But, because of its inescapable role in human society, competition is also an important topic in Psychology, in Anthropology, in Sociology, and even in the study and practice of Education. In this class, we will explore the ways that competition has been investigated in some of this recent research and scholarship, and students will complete research projects of their own contributing to that scholarly conversation.

This article traces a brief history of multimodal composition practices in the field of writing studies. It frames writing instruction through the theoretical lens of democratic pedagogy
and presents the works of key composition scholars. The author then describes a mixed methods research study, conducted with first-year students on the STEM campus of a state
comprehensive university. Students participated in a survey that asked their attitudes towards multimodal writing assignments, digital literacies, and learning outcomes. The
author draws conclusions about the effectiveness of multimodal composition based on students’ responses and provides supplemental information on the types of assignments and
examples of student work.

A handout that seeks to gain insight into the individual behind the need for completion of a research project in their first-year composition and research course (an example of using this resources is also provided in this conference presentation collection of documents).