English: Written Expression

A foundational composition course featuring a sequence of writing, reading, and information literacy assignments. Students learn to write and revise for different rhetorical situations while increasing their mastery of academic conventions. Some sections designed for specific student audiences.

Non CAS first time first year students only until August 1st then non CAS sophomores may also enroll Open to degree and PACE students

Yes, you already know how to write. Or, no, you believe you can't write and never will. Either way, this is not why you're here, engaging with this text, about to enter the landscape of Written Expression. Yes, this college composition course will teach you how to become a better writer—and editor of your own work; but, more than that, the projects, assignments, and explorations on which you're about to embark will give you new sensitivities as a reader and writer. This course consists of four major writing projects: The Social Narrative, Research Question Posing, The Literature Review, and—as an exciting new addition—Reporting and Documentary Storytelling, a lens through which you will explore alternative forms of communication, evaluate audience, and delve into journalism: long or short, audio or visual, print or digital. Through each carefully scaffolded writing project, you will discover the importance of seeing both the world around you and the written word—others' and your own—in a discerning light. And you will take this newfound acuity—critical ways of thinking, close reading, writing, and revising—with you in future academic pursuits and beyond. You will hear not only your own words but also the term, “craft,” as you gather, focus, order, draft, write, revise—and revise again. Know that, at the end of this semester’s voyage of discovery, how you feel and think about writing and its potential to touch others will never be the same. For now, trust the process.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF FOUNDATIONAL WRITING AND INFORMATION LITERACY (FWIL): • Rhetorical discernment: The ability to write appropriately for varying audiences, contexts, and purposes, and to develop texts with sufficient detail, astute organization, and appropriate documentation, diction, and style. • Information literacy: The ability to a) pose appropriate questions and find reliable, relevant, and useful information to answer them; b) access and work effectively and ethically with print and digital sources, including: learning to discern searchable key words within a complex research question; distinguishing between primary and secondary and scholarly and popular resources; critically evaluating sources for relevance, currency, authority, and bias; c) to manage and appropriately document information sources and format citations; and d) to understand that, like writing, research is an iterative process. • Critical reading: The ability to identify, understand, and communicate the main ideas of a text and evaluate the evidence or strategies used to support those ideas; b) to read critically by engaging with ideas and texts, properly summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting others’ ideas while effectively integrating them with and developing one’s own ideas; and c) to understand that reading involves critical thinking strategies, such as questioning, comparing, contrasting and vocabulary building. • Substantive revision: The ability to compose and revise so that texts and ideas grow in effectiveness and complexity with the awareness and understanding that revision requires approaching writing as a process that includes rethinking ideas and organization, not merely copyediting and correcting mistakes; and b) to comprehend that writing is a process that requires multiple drafts to rethink ideas and structure, in addition to editing for clarity.

Four Writing Projects: 20% each Class presence and participation (includes discussions, peer workshops, and online journaling): 20%