Learning to write rhetorically means that students in First-Year Writing courses produce a variety of texts, including those for electronic environments, while considering the concepts of audience and purpose. Each part of the First-Year Writing sequence is designed to help students develop a more sophisticated writing process and equip them with the rhetorical adaptability necessary for success in a variety of communication contexts.
Courses in the First-Year Writing Program
Engl 1103 - This course provides directed opportunities for students to develop strong and effective writing processes which are essential for success in Engl 1105. Students must be placed into Engl 1103 through the university English placement survey.
Engl 1104 - A version of Engl 1103 designed specifically for International Students who are speakers of other languages.
Engl 1105 - Provides instruction in rhetoric and composition concepts and practices that enable students to write effectively at the college level. Students will develop strategies for conducting academic research, constructing effective written arguments, and analyzing the arguments of others. Emphasis will be placed on writing for different audiences, purposes, and contexts.
Engl 1106 - A version of Engl 1105 designed specifically for International Students who are speakers of other languages.
Engl 1110 - Composition and Literature is a course which provides students guided practice in textual analysis, synthesis, and more sophisticated research practices.
Celebration of First-Year Writing Contest
Beginning spring 2013, students may enter writing they have produced in any of the above first year writing courses to compete for prizes and awards. Categories for the awards are :
- Researching with Accuracy - This category focuses on the accurate use of external sources in a piece of writing. Proper and correct citation along with elegance in the integration of quotations and paraphrases will distinguish recipients of this award.
- Writing with Power - This category rewards the best argumentative essay by identifying persuasive writing that is compelling without resorting to propaganda.
- Analyzing like Aristotle - Rhetorical analyses that rely on examining how ethos, pathos and logos are functioning in a text or how a text takes advantage of its rhetorical situation to be effective (or ineffective) will be contenders for this award.
- Reading Between the Lenses - Consciously applying a theoretical lens, such as feminism, ecocriticism, or post-colonialism (among others) in order to analyze a text is what it means to do literary analysis - even when the text examined is not a traditional, alphabetic text. Competitors in this category will exemplify the practice of seeing a text through a specific, and well-explicated lens in order to learn something new.
- Understanding Audience - Texts whose efficacy depends on an awareness of audience will be appropriate for this category. In particular, public texts, disciplinary texts, and texts that target specific readers and/or decision makers will be strong contenders for this award.
- Reflecting Learning - When we truly reflect on an experience, we learn something new about ourselves. This category is for those reflective pieces that compellingly depict a student's growth through writing.
- Best Use of "I" - Contenders for this award will provide strong, clear, and appropriate examples of texts that rely on the use of "I" for their effectiveness.
- Demonstrating Synthesis - The incorporation of multi-modality into a piece of writing is an increasingly common aspect of effective communication. Assignments submitted in this category will incorporate and synthesize information from different media (visual representations, images ... etc.) in order to present a coherent and persuasive argument.
- Most Creative Interpretation of an Assignment - Take a risk. You've heard your teacher say this before. Here is the category that rewards those students who took a risk by going beyond the terms of the assignment to do something creative and wonderful.
