A composition course focusing on skills required for effective writing in a variety of contexts, with emphasis on exposition, analysis, and argumentation, and also including introductory use of a variety of research skills. Develops analytical reading and writing skills through the investigation of methods used in cultural and literary studies and the application of those methods to specific texts.
Rhetorical Knowledge
- Rhetorical knowledge focuses on the available means of persuasion, considering factors such as context, audience, purpose, genre, medium, and conventions.
- Explore and use with purpose key rhetorical concepts through analyzing and composing a variety of written texts. These concepts include:
- Rhetorical situation: purpose, audience, context
- Genre
- Argumentation: controlling purpose, evidence
- Develop an understanding of the ways in which rhetorical concepts can be transferred to multimodal artifacts
- Gain experience reading and composing in several genres to understand how genre conventions shape and are shaped by readers’ and writers’ practices and purposes
- Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure
Critical Thinking, Writing, and Composing
Critical thinking is the ability to analyze, synthesize, interpret, and evaluate ideas, information, situations, and texts.
- Use composing and reading for inquiry, learning, critical thinking, and communicating in various rhetorical contexts
- Read a diverse range of written texts, attending especially to relationships between assertion and evidence, to patterns of organization, to the interplay between verbal and nonverbal elements, and to how these features function for different audiences and situations
- Use strategies—such as interpretation, synthesis, response, critique, and design/redesign—to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources
Processes
Writers use multiple strategies, or composing processes, to conceptualize, develop, finalize, and distribute projects. Composing processes are recursive and adaptable in relation to different rhetorical situations.
- Understand that writing is a process
- Develop a writing project through multiple stages
- Develop flexible strategies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising, rewriting, rereading, and editing
- Use composing processes and tools as a means to discover and reconsider ideas
- Experience the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
- Learn to give and to act on productive feedback to works in progress
- Reflect on the development of composing practices and how those practices influence their work
Knowledge of Conventions
Conventions are the formal rules and informal guidelines that define genres, and in so doing, shape
- Develop knowledge of linguistic structures, including grammar, punctuation, and spelling, through practice in composing and revising readers’ and writers’ perceptions of correctness or appropriateness
The Bedford Bookshelf (ISBN: 9781319530327)
WOVENText Open Educational Resource (https://woventext.lmc.gatech.edu)
Assignments
Common First Week Letter: 2.5% of final grade
Project 1: 15% of final grade
Project 1 Reflection: 5% of final grade
Project 2: 15% of final grade
Project 2 Reflection: 5% of final grade
Project 3: 20% of final grade
Project 3 Reflection: 7.5% of final grade
Final Portfolio: 15% of final grade
Participation: 15% of final grade
A: 90-100
Superior performance—rhetorically, aesthetically, and technically—demonstrating advanced understanding and use of the media in particular contexts. An inventive spark and exceptional execution.
B: 80-89
Above-average, high-quality performance—rhetorically, aesthetically, and technically.
C: 70-79
Average (not inferior) performance. Competent and acceptable—rhetorically, aesthetically, and technically.
D: 60-69
Below-average performance. Needs substantive work — rhetorically, aesthetically, and/or technically.
F: 0-59
Unacceptable performance. Failure to meet minimum criteria rhetorically, aesthetically, and/or technically.
Class will occur during live in-person sessions every Tuesday and Thursday unless otherwise noted or announced. Your attendance at these sessions is important, and your contributions to discussion are strongly encouraged; inquiry-driven learning works best when we learn from (and with) each other.
However, while I will be taking attendance for my own records, and engaging with each other during class meetings is crucial to your learning, our attendance policy is somewhat flexible. For each class, I will post a meeting agenda and note-taking document on Canvas, as well as any relevant slides and handouts. You may miss up to four class periods (i.e. miss the class meeting and not do any make-up work) without penalty (Exceptions are allowed for Institute-approved absences and situations such as hospitalization or family emergencies). You do not need to explain why you are missing class, but an email to let me know that you will be absent is appreciated. If you are substantially late to class (15 minutes or more) three times, that will count as one full absence from class.
If you miss entire classes more than four times, however, your final grade will begin to be impacted; you will lose 5% off of your final grade for each additional absence. If you need to be absent from more than four in-person meetings for any reason and you would like for your final course grade not to be impacted by those absences, you will need to review the notes and complete any exercises, reflections, or activities that we do in class as best you can on your own, as soon as possible after class and ideally before the next class; make up work submitted more than 2 weeks after the initial absence will not receive credit. If you need more time (like if you are sick or experiencing technology issues), please keep me in the loop so that I can help you keep up. You should then post the results of these activities to the open-ended “Makeup Work” assignment on Canvas; this “assignment” is ungraded but will be marked complete or incomplete. Missing more than 7 classes (for whatever reason) may result in failure of the class, as determined by the instructor in consultation with the Director of the Writing and Communication Program.
While I am always happy to provide clarification about course concepts or assignments, if you need to be absent, you should always begin by reviewing the notes and checking in with a classmate who can provide you with a summary of the day’s activities. I will also not remind you to complete the make-up work, as your course grade is your own responsibility.
One serious kind of academic misconduct is plagiarism, which occurs when a writer, speaker, or designer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, images, or other original material or code without fully acknowledging its source by quotation marks as appropriate, in footnotes or endnotes, in works cited, and in other ways as appropriate (modified from WPA Statement on “Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism”). If you engage in plagiarism or any other form of academic misconduct, you will fail the assignment in which you have engaged in academic misconduct and be referred to the Office of Student Integrity, as required by Georgia Tech policy. We strongly urge you to be familiar with these Georgia Tech sites:
- Honor Code —https://osi.gatech.edu/students/honor-code
- Office of Student Integrity — http://www.osi.gatech.edu/index.php/
This is a Core IMPACTS course that is part of the Writing area.
Core IMPACTS refers to the core curriculum, which provides students with essential knowledge in foundational academic areas. This course will help master course content, and support students’ broad academic and career goals.
This course should direct students toward a broad Orienting Question:
- How do I write effectively in different contexts?
Completion of this course should enable students to meet the following Learning Outcomes:
- Students will communicate effectively in writing, demonstrating clear organization and structure, using appropriate grammar and writing conventions.
- Students will appropriately acknowledge the use of materials from original sources.
- Students will adapt their written communications to purpose and audience.
- Students will analyze and draw informed inferences from written texts.
Course content, activities and exercises in this course should help students develop the following Career-Ready Competencies:
- Critical Thinking
- Information Literacy
- Persuasion