Course Syllabus

ENGL 2010 Intermediate Research Writing

Course Description

Students will build on the skills learned in ENGL 1010 in this intermediate writing course. ENGL 2010 is designed to improve students' reading, writing, research, and critical thinking skills. The course will include expository, persuasive, and/or argumentative writing emphases. The course will require several research-oriented writing assignments. Students must achieve a C- or higher in this course to receive GE credit.

Justification

ENGL 2010 (or ENGL 2014) meets a General Education (E2) requirement for graduation and will readily transfer to all state institutions.This course provides students with the opportunity to develop research and written communication skills necessary for a successful college experience and beyond. Critical thinking skills, which apply to all areas of study, are developed through challenging reading and writing assignments.

General Education Outcomes

1. A student who completes the GE curriculum has a fundamental knowledge of human cultures and the natural world. Students will explore human cultures and the natural world in their choice of topics, their research on those topics, and in planning essays on those topics. They will demonstrate their learning through the formal essays in the class, especially the research paper.
2. A student who completes the GE curriculum can read and research effectively within disciplines. Students find peer-reviewed and other research both in print and online for use in argumentative writing. They learn to locate, evaluate, interpret, and respond to such research. Their skills in this area are demonstrated most fully in the major research paper.
3. A student who completes the GE curriculum can draw from multiple disciplines to address complex problems. Students will complete a major research paper on a topic related to their majors or on topics from a variety of fields; this makes the class interdisciplinary because students engage with disciplinary discourse other than English composition. They will demonstrate this outcome with their research paper.
4. A student who completes the GE curriculum can reason analytically, critically, and creatively. Students will develop critical thinking and reading skills. Students will evaluating sources to determine their credibility. The sources will then be synthesized for maximum impact. This will be done most fully in the major research paper, but the discussion of credibility and synthesis will be integral to the class, and it is a crucial aspect of critical thinking.
5. A student who completes the GE curriculum can communicate effectively through writing and speaking. Students will write well-structured, rhetorically-effective prose and use an effective writing process to do so. They will demonstrate this skill through their formal writing assignments and the planning, drafting, and revising of them.

General Education Knowledge Area Outcomes

1. Students will be use principles of rhetoric to plan and write documents that are sensitive to audience expectations, genre conventions, assignment requirements, and the writing context. Students will demonstrate these abilities in short assignments and in research papers. Students will be use principles of rhetoric to plan and write documents that are sensitive to audience expectations, genre conventions, assignment requirements, and the writing context. Students will demonstrate these abilities in short assignments and in research papers.
2. Organize effective arguments that engage readers, provide needed background, present compelling evidence, and respond to opposing viewpoints. Students will practice logical organization patterns appropriate for a variety of rhetorical situations. Students will demonstrate these abilities in short assignments, in research papers, and on quizzes/exams.
3. Write using an effective process that includes planning, drafting, peer workshopping, and revision. This process should be explicit in class activities and assignment design; revision should improve the overall quality of the document. Students will learn the process of building a research paper from the planning stage to the research stage to the first draft stage. Students will also learn the value of peer-review and revision, meeting with their professor to improve successive drafts. Students will demonstrate these abilities by turning in drafts of papers and responding to comments on drafts.
4. Carefully and critically read written arguments, identifying the use of rhetorical techniques by the author. Students will learn to read critically. They will learn how to evaluate credibility. Students will demonstrate these abilities in short assignments and in writing research papers with appropriately cited in-text citations and a works cited page.
5. Think critically about arguments by exploring multiple perspectives. Students will move beyond mere pro-con issues by exploring the values, priorities, and assumed facts of multiple perspectives on a given issue. Students will demonstrate this learning in class discussions of readings and on written assignments, especially the major research paper.
6. Find and evaluate credible primary and secondary research and utilize that research appropriately to support an argument/position. In doing so, students will include precise documentation, avoid plagiarism, and integrate source material smoothly. Students will learn the conventions of scholarly documentations, including MLA/APA documentation, summary, paraphrase, and quotation. Students will learn to avoid plagiarism, and will learn how to synthesize sources. Students will be able to evalaute sources not only for quality, but for appropriateness to their particular papers. They will demonstrate this on assignments, in their research papers, and in exams/quizzes.

Course Content

With the support of instructor-chosen texts and electronic media (which may include writing handbooks, documentation handbooks, and readers), students will study the following:
• traditional and electronic research methods and source quality;
• how to avoid plagiarism through use of proper summary, paraphrase, quotation, and documentation techniques;
• how to synthesize personal ideas with those of a source in a clear and informative writing style;
• how to apply critical thinking skills in writing about a specific topic.
The content will be delivered through a combination of lecture, small group discussion, and workshop activities. As with all composition classes, students in ENGL 2010 are required to engage critically and thoughtfully with a variety of perspectives in their writing, including those that differ from their own. This will include assigned readings as well as in their class discussion and workshopping.