General Goals and Objectives for English 300

English 300 stresses writing and reading within the disciplines. Reading assignments come from a variety of disciplines and stress how and why authors make rhetorical choices that are appropriate to disciplinary writing. Reading assignments are designed both to immerse students in the written conventions of disciplinary writing and to develop the ability to read critically and to synthesize multiple sources within their own writing.

English 300 give students plenty of opportunity to practice shorter, informal writings in preparation for longer, more formal assignments. Longer, more formal writing assignments give students plenty of opportunity for discovery, drafting, and revision.

English 300 requires a documented research paper appropriate in content and style to the student's discipline. This requirement may be met by one long research paper of at least 2,000 words and six scholarly sources. If the teacher elects to require multiple research papers, at least one must be 1,200 words and draw on at least four scholarly sources.

English 300 classes stress how various disciplines call for different choices in language, structure, format, and tone. As such, formal assignments are constructed in ways that allow students to approach their own writing as a part of the academic “conversation” within their discipline.

English 300 classes encourage students to build experience with their own writing processes and stress the collaborative and “conversational” nature of disciplinary knowledge. As such, every stage is open to appropriate class discussion and peer review. Teachers help students learn to articulate their rhetorical choices before they begin to write, and employ peer-review in discovery, drafting, and revision processes.

English 300 gives students adequate instruction in finding, evaluating, collecting, citing, and synthesizing appropriate scholarly sources and includes instruction in the appropriate use of sources as support for original arguments. Additionally, teachers may have students write journal or informal writings that are graded at some minimal level. Journal writing may be an appropriate place for students to practice abstracting, summarizing, synthesizing, paraphrasing, quoting and otherwise responding to sources and to rehearse their own arguments for the formal papers.

By the end of English 300, students should be able to:

Write longer formal essays that include significant support from appropriate scholarly sources.

Use a citation style appropriate to their discipline.

Make choices of voice, tone, format, structure and usage based on an analysis of disciplinary and academic conventions.

Employ their own writing processes to produce academic and disciplinary texts that include significant and properly formatted sources.

Work in a collaborative setting both with their own texts and with those of other students.

Be able to read disciplinary essays and to comment critically on their meaning and structure.