FIRST-YEAR RESOURCES
Both English 1001 and English 1002 focus on critical literacies central to college writing success. Writers practice critical literacy when they bring curiosity, openness, engagement, and creativity to bear on a project, whether they work alone or in cooperation with others. Writers also demonstrate critical literacy through persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition or critical reflection on their own actions.
English 1001: Academic Literacies invites students to explore critical literacies specific to writing for academic purposes. Distinct from upper-division courses where students may focus on writing conventions specific to a single discipline or subject area, English 1001 asks students to read scholarly writing from across the curriculum, conduct research with a variety of scholarly resources, and write for general academic audiences.
Course materials for English 1001 sample academic writing, including published peer-reviewed scholarship from different disciplines. For major assignments, students have the opportunity to choose their subject area of focus, while honing their ability to write as critical readers capable of explaining to others how academic conversations work. Students also write regular installments of a student learning outcomes (SLO) journal in order to reflect on their engagement with university- and course-specific learning outcomes as well as personal goals, which they set together with their instructors at the start of the semester.
Course Overview:
- Unit 1: Developing Academic Literacies, I
Major assignments: Rhetorical analysis of a scholarly article and SLO journal
- Unit 2: Developing Academic Literacies, II
Major assignments: Rhetorical analysis of a non-written audio, visual, or audiovisual text and SLO journal
- Unit 3: Locating Academic Conversations
Major assignments: Rhetorical analysis of a scholarly conversation and SLO journal
- Unit 4: Extending Academic Conversations
Major assignment: Expanded analysis of a scholarly conversation
- Unit 5: Revising for Academic Audiences
Major assignments: Combined revision of scholarly conversation analyses from Units 3 and 4 and final SLO journal
Student Learning Outcomes
In English 1001 students work to become proficient at the following activities, which concentrate transferable skills and habits of mind:
- Critically engaging scholarly communication by identifying and analyzing the main rhetorical features of variously mediated texts used by scholars to express ideas in academic settings;
- Pursuing inquiry with rigor and responsibility by formulating feasible and meaningful research questions and revising them while conducting thorough, ethical inquiries using appropriate available resources;
- Understanding writing as a purpose-driven, audience-oriented, multimodal activity that involves writers in making continuous ethical and informed choices;
- Developing writing by engaging in overlapping phases of invention, synthesis of ideas and information, and revision undertaken in response to others' feedback and self-critique;
- Delivering writing by making full use of appropriate available media, genres, formats and styles;
- Writing with exigence by addressing issues of importance with the goal of increasing one's own and others' understanding as a foundation for future action of various kinds;
- Develop an appropriate ethos by meeting academic audiences' expectations for credibility, consistency, and integrity.
- For additional details, including unit-by-unit syllabi, contact the FYE Director.
English Department
