Composition I

Spring 2023 ENG 100 Composition I (007)

MWF: 10:30-11:20am

Classroom location: KUY 213

Instructor: Christina Nakyong Lee 

 

Course description

Introduction to the rhetorical, conceptual and stylistic demands of writing at the university level; instruction in composing processes, search strategies, and writing from sources. Students may not earn credit for both ENG 100 and 190. Pre: placement. Freshmen only. FW. 

NOTE: If you are unsure whether you have been cleared for English 100, you should go to the General Education office in Bilger 104, email them at gened@hawaii.edu, or call them at (808) 956-6660. The English Department does not handle ENG 100 placement.

 

Expanded Course Description 

What do you feel most passionately about? What change do you want to see in the world? In this class, we will be learning about different types of social justice and community issues. By the end of the course, I hope we can start to see the impact argumentative and rhetorical writing have on making a change in society. 

We will begin our class learning about how to write to a specific audience. Our first assignment will be a blog/social media post about a specific issue you feel passionately about. What type of language captures a larger audience’s attention? What about pictures? How do they work with words to tell the story? You will then create an annotated bibliography, collecting credible sources based on your passion topic and write a research proposal. Based on the annotated bibliographies, you will compose a 1,500-word research-based argumentative essay. Finally, for your final project, I want you to take control over your own story. We often forget that it isn’t just the textbooks that tell us about history. We are both created by and the creators of history. Write a 500-word memoir that situates you in a community or historical moment that you find is most important to you. I’ll guide you through the genre of memoir-writing. Then, write a 500-word reflection about your creative process. I want you to take control over your own learning. This final project will be self-graded. In other words, your reflection will also act as a justification for the grade you think you deserve. 

We will be having in-class peer reviews for your research proposal and research essay. I will be meeting with you at least once for one-on-one conferences for your final projects. There is, no matter what stage of writing you are in, always room for growth. As Carol Dweck states, “once we know that our abilities are capable of growth, it becomes a basic human right to live in places that create that growth, to live in places filled with ‘yet’.”

***This is a no-cost textbook course. I will provide for you the supplementary materials/readings as PDF in Laulima. 

 

Student Learning Objectives: 

  1. Identify the purpose, audience, major claims, and kinds of evidence offered in a variety of texts;
  2. Participate in academic discourse, as well as other forms of writing, by producing text with a clear purpose and audience, supported by evidence acceptable to that audience and, when applicable, using an appropriate citation style;
  3. Develop recursive writing and researching processes, including identifying a controversy within a conversation or discourse community, conducting appropriate research, planning, drafting, critiquing, revising, and editing – taking into account written and oral feedback from the instructor and from peers;
  4. Demonstrate essential information literacy skills, including discovering subject-specific information and arguments, understanding how information and arguments are produced and evaluated in relevant academic communities, critically evaluating claims in sources, and using source material effectively in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning;
  5. Locate resources for the continued support of their development as writers; and
  6. Develop credibility by using appropriate language and diction, by effectively incorporating source material, and by portraying ideas in clear and clean prose.

 

Minor assignments: 

    1. Reading Responses (10%): You will have up to 5 reading responses this semester. Reading responses are 100 words each and will be graded on a 20-point scale. 
    2. Drafts, Workshops, and Conferences (10%)

 

Major Assignments

  1. Audience: Social Media/Blog Post=(15%: 150 points): 500 words about a social justice issue
  2. Annotated Bibliography + Research proposal (15%: 150 points): Annotated bibliography of at least 5 sources. For each of your five sources, you will be creating a 200-word annotation which includes a thorough summary of your source and an analysis of how it relates to your research topic. Then, write a 500-word research proposal based on your findings in your annotated bibliography.  
  3. Research Paper (15%: 150 points): 1,500-word research-based persuasive paper in which you propose a conversation about the issue you’ve chosen in your social justice letter. I do not want you to see the final paper as just a grade, but as a means of self discovery and call to action.
  4. Memoir (25%: 250 points): 1000-word memoir that situates you in a community or historical moment that you find is most important to you.