English 0701

Contacts

Introduction to Academic Discourse

English 0701 focuses on writing within a single theme and disciplinary approach. Students' final portfolios include four sequenced assignments, journal entries, and peer critiques. One typical syllabus guides students through a semester-long series of readings and writing assignments about gender. Revision is emphasized. English 0701 is, in principle, a course which requires multiple drafts of papers from students, and works on building critical reading and writing skills. The focus of the course is to prepare students for success in the kinds of academic reading and writing they will be asked to do in the University.

We wish to invite students to become members of the academic community (rather than its audience or object).  Developing critical reading and writing skills, as well as showing students the importance of accuracy and context when using textual evidence in their own papers, are the key aims of the course.

By the end of the semester, English 0701 students must demonstrate ability to: organize ideas in a coherent manner; connect multiple texts through an issue or an idea; draw points out of a text; and write a reasonably error-free paper.  That is, error should not intrude upon the intended meaning or fall outside the parameters of acceptable first-year writing.

In English 0701 students:

• learn to process college-level texts, including the development of contextual understanding
• read, discuss, and sometimes cite the work of their fellow students
• become familiar with academic genres
• learn to write papers that are reasonably error-free by concentrating on problems in grammar, mechanics, and usage
• do multiple revisions of their papers
• incorporate previous work into new assignments

Here is the suggested rubric of the essay sequence:

1. Summary for a purpose – this assignment should have a key question at the core of it, something to focus the purpose of the assignment.  The task is for students to summarize long, involved, and evolved essays accurately (this may be one essay with multiple approaches and points in it, or a multiplicity of essays that address the same topic), and then decide which viewpoint/position best addresses the question at hand.  They need to explain why they have come to that conclusion.  For example, if the essays are based on issues of nature and nurture in gender, the key question could be: “Summarize and examine the definition of gender roles and how they are formed within this/these essay(s), and decide which one best reflects your perception of American culture.  Explain why you made this decision.”

2. Summary plus comparison and rudimentary thematic synthesis of materials – summarize multiple essays and then compare and contrast the major points within those essays.  Create a conversation between the writers of the set essays to show how the student writer reads, interprets and connects the points being made.  This begins the move towards synthesis, evaluation, and thematic analysis.

3. Directed close reading – Using a key essay from the reader as the cornerstone for this assignment, writers will be asked to conduct a close reading of a long and complex essay.  Students will be expected to use at least two other course texts to evaluate the essay they are addressing.  This task draws on the skills of summarizing, evaluating, and synthesis, and develops the ability to evaluate points of view accurately.

4. For the final assignment, a second text should be introduced.  We recommend that students read and study a work of fiction, drama or cinema that is based on the theme of the course. 

Our gender reader is Composing Gender, edited by Rachael Groner and John O'Hara . You can see a Table of Contents for this reader by clicking here. You can see a sample syllabus by clicking here.

Staff

Eli Goldblatt,
Director
(215) 204-1820

Rachael Groner,
Associate Director

(215) 204-2212

J. Derrick Johnson,
Secretary
(215) 204-7565

Leslie Allison,
Composition Assistant
(215) 204-1566

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