Composition II - Course Descriptions
ENGL 1140: Writing the Community
This class investigates the ways communities are mandated, preserved, developed, disrupted, explored and theorized through writing practices and the written word. The common goal is to figure out how humans write about their lived experiences by taking the topic of community as a theme. Instructors will bring their own particular scholarly expertise to shaping each class, so assignments and focus will vary class to class, but assignments are likely to include examinations of historical communities organized around a particular ethnicity or cultural system, contemporary communities organized around shared work or social experiences, as well as examinations of what makes a group of people a community rather than a collection of individuals.
While community is our topic of discussion, our primary purpose in this course is to explore how and why we write for an audience. Though not every assignment will ask you to write a traditional academic essay, the skills you will be refining in your writing can be applied to such a task. To that end, you will be expanding on the things you worked on in Composition I (focus, rhetorical sensitivity, essay development, argumentation, research, citation, and revision) expanding your capabilities in academic writing. Significant time will also be d evoted to the research process, including discussions on finding, evaluating, and incorporating research into texts, reviewing at least two documentation practices, and establishing ethical practices when researching human participants.
Most ENGL 1140 courses are web-enhanced with Blackboard sites. Expect to post responses to discussion boards, submit papers online, and engage in chatroom discussions and live collaborative sessions as well as meeting in a traditional classroom. Critical reading and a research paper are required.
For more information concerning Composition II courses, please see our Common Syllabi page: http://www.utoledo.edu/al/english/programs/composition/geninfo/program_goals.html