English 1101 teaches students written communication skills that will prepare them to succeed academically at Georgia Tech and professionally in the work place. This course provides opportunities for you to become a more effective communicator as you refine your thinking, writing, speaking, designing, collaborating, and reflecting. As part of the WOVEN (written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal communication) curriculum, ENGL 1101 emphasizes developing your strategic processes in written communication, including issues of rhetoric, argumentation, critical thinking, process, and writing genres.
Rhetorical Knowledge
Rhetorical knowledge focuses on the available means of persuasion, considering factors such as context, audience, purpose, genre, medium, and conventions. To achieve this outcome, students will
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. To achieve this outcome, students will
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. Students will
- 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 readers’ and writers’ perceptions of correctness or appropriateness. Students will
Develop knowledge of linguistic structures, including grammar, punctuation, and spelling, through practice in composing and revising
Learn common formats and/or design features for different kinds of written texts
Explore the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and copyright) that motivate documentation conventions
Required Textbooks
- The Everyday Writer, eighth edition, by Angela A. Lunsford. Available from Macmillan VitalSource 2021. .
- 50 Essays, seventh edition, edited by Samuel Cohen. Available from Macmillan VitalSource.
- The WOVENText Open Educational Resources, available at woventext.lmc.gatech.edu.
- The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself by Robin Reames, ISBN: 9781541603974, available through the GT Barnes and Noble bookstore.
Grading
Each of the three major projects will be graded in terms of the student's Active participation towards completion, the final submission, and reflective writing and activities. Successful completion of all three major projects with a passing grade (each a D or better) is required to pass the course.
Graded Work Deadline Percentages
Project 0: Common First Week Letter August 28 10%
Project 1: Narrative Essay September 18 20%
Project 2: Productive Counterargument Essay October 30 20%
Project 3: Social Media Disproof November 25 20%
Process Work continuous 15%
Final Exam: Multimodal Reflection Portfolio December 8 15%
All course projects will be graded using the specific grading criteria established in the attached assignment sheets
Major Projects Grading Scheme
All major projects (1-3) have three major components to their assessment. These are as follows:
Final Draft: 50%
Active Participation: 25%
Reflection Essay: 25%
This scheme reflects the course’s investment in the development of our writing processes, individually and collectively. This is not a course in which you primarily show up to receive instruction that you use later to complete assignments on your own. The work we do in class is the assignment. That work includes activities, group workshops, and discussions of the reading. The depth of your engagement, the quality of your contributions, the degree of your preparation for class, and the timeliness of your process work will all factor into the assessment for Active Participation. Similarly, the Reflection Essay that accompanies each major project is not an afterthought. As an invitation to study your own writing process, Reflection Essays are very important in our course. They will prompt you to rationalize your writing choices, analyze your rhetorical situations, and evaluate the effectiveness of your process.
Grading Standards
These standards establish major criteria for each grade category. Every project will not
fit neatly into one category; a project might, for instance, have some characteristics of
“B” and some of “C.”
The A Project: Excellent
- Project matches the assignment and reflects the learning outcomes.
- Content is significant, thorough, and well-suited for the audience, purpose, and context.
- Arguments and information are well organized—from the whole project to its individual elements—and well designed for the genre and medium.
- Reasoning is convincing and logical; claims are supported with compelling evidence.
- Style is effective for the reading situation.
Mechanics, grammar, and formatting are correct and even rhetorically sensitive.
The B Project: Good
- Project matches the assignment and reflects the learning outcomes.
- Content is suited for the audience, purpose, and context.
- Arguments and information are organized appropriately at the macro and micro
- level for the genre and medium, but there are missed opportunities to use design
- for rhetorical purposes.
- Reasoning is logical; evidence supports claims in an adequate manner.
- Style is appropriate for the reading situation.
Mechanics, grammar, and formatting are mostly correct.
The C Project: Competent
- Project matches the assignment and reflects the learning outcomes.
- Content is adequate for the audience, purpose, and context.
- Arguments and information are organized in a discernible pattern but may not be
- particularly effective at the macro or micro level for the genre and medium, and
- the design provides minimal support for reading.
- Reasoning is plausible, and evidence provides support for claims.
- Style is serviceable for the reading context.
Mechanics and grammar may be correct.
The D Project: Marginally Acceptable
- Project attempts to match the assignment, but the topic or rhetorical audience is too broad, too narrow, or inappropriate.
- Content shows a poor sense of audience, purpose, and context. It may correctly assess the situation but add little substance.
- Arguments and information may be significantly flawed, including organization, at the macro and micro level.
- Reasoning is flawed on some level, resting on insufficient understanding of the situation or rhetorical audience.
- Project may rely too heavily on evidence from published sources without developing an authorial voice.
- Evidence may be missing, irrelevant, or misinterpreted.
- Style may be serviceable but inconsequential to the success of the project.
Problems with mechanics, grammar, and formatting create distractions or confusion.
The F Project: Unacceptable
- Project does not match the assignment or its requirements, even if well written, or relates to the assignment but has no clear purpose, rhetorical audience, or focus.
- Project is missing content or essential elements of the genre or medium.
- Arguments and information have significant organizational problems.
Reasoning is flawed, or evidence is used unsuccessfully if at all.
Note #1: To earn an A, B, or C on a project, students must complete all process work in
an acceptable fashion.
Note #2: Projects with academic integrity violations will receive a failing grade.
Attendance
Attendance and participation are essential to success in courses in the Writing and Communication Program. Because of this, you are expected to attend class in person. Not attending a scheduled class session in-person results in an absence.
There may be times when you cannot or should not attend class, such as if you are not feeling well, have an interview, or have family responsibilities. Therefore, this course allows a specified number of absences without penalty, regardless of reason. After that, penalties accrue. Exceptions are allowed for Institute-approved absences (for example, those documented by the Registrar) and situations such as hospitalization or family emergencies (documented by the Office of the Dean of Students).
If you communicate proactively with me, I can suggest how to access materials or make up work you may have missed during your absence or suggest ways to participate in class remotely and/or asynchronously. You are still responsible to submit all assigned work and to fulfill any alternative arrangements we make for in-class activities. If those requirements are met, you may miss a total of four (4) classes without penalty. Each additional absence after the allotted number deducts 2% from a student’s final grade. Excessive absences may result in failure of the class, as determined by the instructor of the course in consultation with the Director of the Writing and Communication Program.
The course schedule details the readings and required preparation for every class session. All such assignments are due before class begins.
Students are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. All work submitted must be original and properly cited. Plagiarism, cheating, or any form of academic dishonesty will result in immediate consequences as outlined in the university's academic integrity policy.
Core IMPACTS Statement
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