WRIT 150 is foremost a writing course—among the chief goals of the semester’s work is to help improve your writing and to practice and develop your familiarity with the conventions of persuasive academic writing (a genre that we will soon discuss is not so easily narrowed down into a single thing).
However, improving one's skills as a writer takes sustained effort and time—a single semester is too brief an amount of time to gain full proficiency in the writing work we'll be doing. Furthermore, we come with different literacy histories that may present specific advantages and disadvantages to the tasks at hand; we also present different skills as communicators that make a "singular" WRIT 150 experience nigh impossible.
In recognition of that challenge, our shared task is to determine how to most effectively improve our writing within the context of the class and within the constraints of the semester. It will require a significant amount of work for all of us to ensure that we collectively see the benefit of this course.
In pursuit of that work, we will focus on several areas of writing pedagogy:
In WRIT 150 we will analyze and practice the different writing processes and techniques that people use to fulfill writing goals in different argumentative and analytical contexts.
We will use a variety of approaches for developing critical reasoning skills in this class, including participation in scholarly conversations with multiple sources and perspectives in order to develop new knowledge.
In addition to developing these writing and reasoning skills, we will specifically focus on how we conduct critical analysis at the collegiate level. As part of a university academic community, we are challenged to delve deeply into the issues that we encounter in the world and in our academic disciplines.
Instead of focusing only on the final texts that are produced, we will explore how we can develop multiple recursive processes of writing, including:
finding and developing new ideas that might be of interest and value to certain communities (pre-writing; invention strategies, audience analysis);
exploring these ideas and “writing to learn” (epistemological function of writing);
experimenting with a variety of writing features and techniques (drafting);
supporting our work with purposeful and/or credible voices (research strategies);
changing and improving our ideas and drafts based on our own and others’ responses to our texts (revision; reflective and reflexive thinking); and
presenting our ideas in the forms that our readers expect and value (style, documentation, editing, and proofreading).
We will discuss and practice these skills and explore how such processes of writing and critical reasoning are recursive; they will overlap, double back, and repeat.
By the end of this course, you should have a better idea of the writing process broadly as well as a clearer articulation of what works for your own writing process.
This thematic is incredibly "meta" in the sense that we will be talking and critiquing education while participating in the formal practice thereof. To that end, the course and its practices (and policies) may reflexively respond to those critiques and conversations. We also come into these discussions with our own histories, values, and purposes in pursuing educational endeavors. To that end, we will be sharing our perspectives, opinions, and critiques regularly.
The thematic approach of Education and Intellectual Development presents a lot we can unpack. While COVID-19 presented many challenges to education that doubtlessly has shaped your recent educational experience (and my own), the conditions of and approaches to learning have been a regular topic of debate and discussion for thousands of years.
That is to say, we’re joining a long-running discussion, and quite a bit has been said prior to the beginning of our work together in this course. The thematic can inspire practical considerations as well as larger philosophical considerations of what it means to learn in the world.
As we consider the theme of education and intellectual development, there are major underlying questions that we may contend with:
What is the purpose of education?
How do teachers and students relate to each other in the classroom?
What other forces influence what, how, and why we learn?
What is knowable?
How do people learn differently?
How do we know what we do not know?
How do we learn what we do not know?
While those questions might be a bit too “big picture” to grapple with for our purposes in the written assignments we will be doing, how we are able to answer those questions about learning include many "answers" that have been built into the systems of education in which we participate. Whether those answers are the most fitting for the purposes of learning is something I want us to examine and critique.
We might more readily recognize formal education as the locus of many of our discussions, but learning is a lifelong and multifaceted set of “things"—both formal and informal. Crucial to many of our conversations will be the acknowledgement that learning is much more complex than what is taught in schools. Together, we want to develop a robust sense of how we can talk about learning and education and to engage in well-informed, critical arguments about the practice (and future) of education.
Regardless of how similar or different you may feel your views to be in comparison to your peers (or to me), I invite you to participate openly and courageously in these conversations. We do not have to agree with each other to learn from one another—in fact, it may prove more educational to work through disagreements or differences of opinions to help us to better understand our own ideas.
more info on reflective and reflexive thinking:
Allen, Will. "Reflective and Reflexive Practice." Learning for Sustainability, 2022, learningforsustainability.net/reflective-practice/.
Barrett, Tom. "Reflective and Reflexive Thinking Practices: What's the Difference?" The Dialogic Weekly, 23 October 2021, edte.ch/blog/2021/10/23/reflexive-and-reflective-thinking-practices-whats-the-difference/.
There are several challenges to offering accommodations to students' learning, especially regarding the core requirements of the course as it has been accredited and ensuring fairness for all students. However, I am open to suggestions and/or will work with you to determine how we might ensure your success.
Some common accommodations that may be helpful:
Extensions for Final Draft submissions
Make-up ancillary work to account for absences in the course
Opportunities to work with peers outside of class to earn credit for in-class workshop activities
Your success in this class is important to me. You may need accommodations because we all learn differently. I will do my best to reasonably and fairly accommodate your learning and well-being in this course regardless of whether you have official accommodations from the Office of Student Accessibility Services.
If there are aspects of this course that prevent you from learning or succeeding, please let me know as soon as possible. Together you and I will develop strategies to meet your needs while fulfilling the requirements of the course.
If circumstances develop during the semester that impact your learning experience or well-being, I sincerely invite you to reach out to me. My approach to education is built upon a pedagogy of care. If I am unable to offer you direct assistance, in any matter, my goal is to help you navigate the support systems that do exist to support you as a student and as a person. I am here for you.
I encourage you to contact the Office of Student Accessibility Services (OSAS) to determine how you could improve your learning as well. If you need official accommodations, you have a right to have these met. There are also a range of resources on campus, including the Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity, The Writing Center, and Campus Support & Intervention.
1. Rhetorical Knowledge and Judgment
At the end of Writing 150, you should understand how to:
Discover genuine issues and focus on significant purposes in your writing
See writing as an interaction between the writer and reader and recognize how to meet the readerʼs needs
Assess different rhetorical situations and respond in a manner that maintains the integrity of your point of view
Identify and use conventions appropriate to the rhetorical situation (e.g., citation conventions in various disciplines)
2. Critical Reasoning and Ethical Inquiry
At the end of Writing 150, you should be able to:
Use writing as a tool of discovery to facilitate genuine inquiry, creativity, personal learning, independent thinking, and compelling communication
Integrate your own ideas with those of others (establishing your own authority while appropriately employing outside sources) to both understand and enter scholarly discussions Interrogate assumptions that underlie personal, social, and cultural beliefs
Understand the epistemic and ethical uses of writing and critical reasoning in the creation of meaning and knowledge
3. The Craft and Processes of Writing
At the end of Writing 150, you should:
Understand the function of the writing process in terms of creating and completing a successful text
Develop multiple tools and flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading texts
Understand the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, but also the individualʼs responsibility in terms of authorship of the finished product
Be able to critique your own and othersʼ works
Identify the components of your own writing style while experimenting with diverse styles
4. Grammatical and Genre Conventions
At the end of Writing 150, you should:
Understand common formats for different kinds of texts
Demonstrate knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics
Be familiar with the appropriate means of documenting your work
Understand the crucial importance of controlling surface features such as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling
Four formal out-of-class essays written in response to different assignment prompts. The first three essays should be a full 5–7 typed pages, and the fourth—part of the final portfolio—should be a minimum of 6–7 pages. Demonstrate the ability to document sources correctly and to prepare a Works Cited or References Page.
An in-class diagnostic essay written in response to a previously discussed topic or as prewriting for one of the out-of-class writing projects.
Regular informal writing assignments (e.g., responses to readings or class discussions, etc.). Over the course of the semester, students should expect to write 10,000 words in total in the formal and ancillary assignments.
A portfolio consisting of Writing Project 4 along with ancillary materials.
Research activities in support of argumentative or analytical writing projects.
Regular attendance throughout the semester and active participation in class discussions and workshop activities. (For a complete explanation of the attendance policy, see the Course Policies section of this syllabus)