ENGL 1102. English Composition II
A composition course that develops writing skills beyond the levels of proficiency required by ENGL 1101, that emphasizes interpretation and evaluation, and that incorporates a variety of more advanced research methods. Develops communication skills in networked electronic environments, emphasizes interpretation and evaluation of cultural texts, and incorporates research methods in print and on the Internet.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking involves understanding social and cultural texts and contexts in ways that support productive communication and interaction.
- Analyze arguments.
- Accommodate opposing points of view.
- Interpret inferences and develop subtleties of symbolic and indirect discourse.
- Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating.
- Integrate ideas with those of others.
- Understand relationships among language, knowledge, and power.
- Recognize the constructedness of language and social forms.
Rhetoric
Rhetoric focuses on available means of persuasion, considering the synergy of factors such as context, audience, purpose, role, argument, organization, design, visuals, and conventions of language.
- Adapt communication to circumstances and audience.
- Produce communication that is stylistically appropriate and mature.
- Communicate in standard English for academic and professional contexts.
- Sustain a consistent purpose and point of view.
- Use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences.
- Learn common formats for different kinds of texts.
- Develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics.
- Control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
- Create artifacts that demonstrate the synergy of rhetorical elements.
- Demonstrate adaptation of register, language, and conventions for specific contexts and audiences.
- Apply strategies for communication in and across both academic disciplines and cultural contexts in the community and the workplace.
Process
Processes for communication—for example, creating, planning, drafting, designing, rehearsing, revising, presenting, publishing—are recursive, not linear. Learning productive processes is as important as creating products.
- Find, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize appropriate primary and secondary sources.
- Develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proofreading.
- Understand collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.
- Critique their own and others’ works.
- Balance the advantages of relying on others with [personal] responsibility.
- Construct and select information based on interpretation and critique of the accuracy, bias, credibility, authority, and appropriateness of sources.
- Compose reflections that demonstrate understanding of the elements of iterative processes, both specific to and transferable across rhetorical situations.
Modes and Media
Activities and assignments should use a variety of modes and media—written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal (WOVEN)—singly and in combination. The context and culture of multimodality and multimedia are critical.
- Interpret content of written materials on related topics from various disciplines.
- Compose effective written materials for various academic and professional contexts.
- Assimilate, analyze, and present a body of information in oral and written forms.
- Communicate in various modes and media, using appropriate technology.
- Use digital environments for drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and sharing texts.
- Locate, evaluate, organize, and use research material collected from electronic sources, including scholarly library databases; other official (e.g., federal) databases; and informal electronic networks and internet sources.
- Exploit differences in rhetorical strategies and affordances available for both print and electronic composing processes and texts.
- Create WOVEN (written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal) artifacts that demonstrate interpretation, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and judgment.
- Demonstrate strategies for effective translation, transformation, and transference of communication across modes and media.
The Bedford Bookshelf (ISBN: 9781319530327)
WOVENText Open Educational Resource (https://woventext.lmc.gatech.edu)
The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition, Wayne C. Booth, et al., ISBN: 978-0226239736
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, ISBN: 978-0156628709
Participation (general engagement): Including: 35%
- Module Quizzes (10%)
- Discussion Posts (14%)
- Responses to Discussion Posts (7%)
- Writing Homework Assignments (4%)
Artifact 0: Common First Week Project 5%
Artifact 1: Critical Multimodal Essay 15%
Artifact 2: Book Cover Assignment 15%
Artifact 3: Group Podcast Assignment 20%
Final Portfolio 10%
Evaluation Equivalencies Table
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
Though this course is an asynchronous online course, it will be run in the spirit of a seminar and sometimes like a workshop, which means that success depends on the presence and active online participation of class members—that is, your active participation. Class activities may include:
- Weekly video lectures
- Discussion posts and responses to classmates about readings, assignments, and artifacts
- HW exercises and prompts
- Workshops, including professor conferences, collaborative planning, in-class designing/writing, peer reviewing, and/or peer editing
- Multimodal assignments, including written, visual, and oral individual and group projects
- Videos by guest speakers from campus academic resource centers
- Multimedia viewings (films, videos, etc.)
- Explanations of upcoming assignments
This is a class about writing and communication, so your participation – even from remotely – is essential. You need to be actively involved. Volunteer your thoughts. Question. Probe. Expect to engage regularly in a variety of class activities and exercises—oral, visual, and written; individual and collaborative. Share relevant ideas and observations. Refer to relevant articles, books, and websites. Offer your own experiences. Make connections between what we’re discussing in this class and what you hear or read elsewhere. Simply put, active, productive participation is worth a major percentage of your grade, but it will also make the class more interesting and more enjoyable, and, most important, you’ll learn more.
Participation (35%, 350 points)
By enrolling in this class, you will enter a dynamic community of composers and thinkers as important contributors to the overall learning experience of the semester. Thus, your ongoing participation in online class discussion posts, individual work, and group assignments will make up an crucial part of your grade for this course. Participation includes regularly attending class modules having completed the assigned readings; watching the accompanying lecture videos and reviewing all handouts and assignment instructions; contributing regularly and thoughtfully to class discussion posts with an open, attentive, and respectful attitude that offers original reflections and further builds on your fellow contributors’ comments; giving positive, thorough, and constructive feedback in peer review workshops; and completing all other assignments for the course, including group project assignments. It is also important that all of your work is completed in a timely fashion, to ensure your ongoing participation within the course’s collective timeframe.
Your participation grade will consist primarily of the following four types of regular assignments, below (as distinguished from your work on your major Artifact assignments): Module Quizzes (10%), Discussion Posts (14%), Responses to Discussion Posts (7%), Writing Homework Assignments (4%). Please make sure each of these assignments are completed on time and at a high quality, reflecting thoughtful, original engagement with the prompt questions, to ensure a maximum potential grade on your work.
Late Work & Participation Grade: Late work on any of these regular assignments (Discussion Posts, Responses to Discussion Posts, and Writing HW assignments) will result in points deducted from your submissions: one point deducted for every 24 hours late. (Please see below for further notes on our Late Assignment Policy for major assignments.) The instructor also reserves the right to deduct points from your overall participation grade at her discretion based on patterns of lateness, irregularity or lack of engagement, or any other issues pertaining to regular and thoughtful engagement in the course.
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.
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 Challenge — http://osi.gatech.edu/content/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