English 1130: Course Outline
Course Overview
English 1130 is the first part of UW-Platteville’s first-year writing sequence. The purpose of this course is to
help students understand the rhetorical situation and how their role as a writer is influenced by audience,
purpose, and context. English 1130 offers the rhetorical and formal background necessary to the more focused
critical and analytical reading and thinking processes required in English 1230.
Pre-reqs/Co-reqs
P: English 0010 or a score above the 10th percentile, according to state norms, on the UW-System English
Placement Test.
Course Objectives
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To help students understand composition’s rhetorical aspects, e.g., the writer’s perspective in relation to
audience expectations and context.
To learn to relate ideas to an audience in socially and contextually relevant ways.
To comprehend the concept that writing is a means to discovery as much as it is a way to communicate
ideas to a specific audience.
To convey to students that a written work evolves within its own process rather than as a one-time
product.
To instill in our students the value of deep revision and editorial responsibility.
To help students achieve a proficiency in standard written English, genre-specific style, and traditional
prose structures so that the writer’s important ideas will be more readily accepted and understood by a
“real world” audience that has come to expect the standards and conventions of contemporary prose.
Explanation of Instruction
Students will develop critical reading, analytical thinking, and effective rhetorical skills through lectures,
directed readings, discussion, and relevant, well-designed writing activities.
All writing serves a purpose. A text’s success is relative to the active participation of both the writer and her or
his audience. It is our goal as writing teachers to help our students realize the purpose of written communication
and how they can achieve their own goals as writers in an audience-based situation. Writing assignments should
address tasks (purpose) and genre-specific concerns rather than the simple application of traditional modes (e.g.,
exposition, narrative, persuasion, description, etc.) as a means to sound writing skills.
Student Writing
English 1130 instructors will require a minimum of four writing assignments (with consequent subassignments). English 1130 students will generate approximately 40 double-spaced pages (one single-spaced
page will equal two pages) of writing over the course of a semester. These pages may include free-writing,
drafts, rewrites/revisions, peer-or self-evaluations, and the reading journal.
Short Source-Supported Text (required)
Although teachers will design their personal curricula based upon the WPA and UWP general education Student
Learning Outcomes and 1130 course objectives, integrating source material is crucial to bridging 1130 to 1230.
The short source-supported work should bring a writer’s personal voice, persuasive tactics, and creative/critical
thinking into play by using reference materials designed to support rather than control the writer’s agenda.
Journal Writing (optional)
It is important for English 1130 students to practice and maintain their writing skills beyond classroom
exercises. Thus, in addition to formal assignments, the students might keep an informal reading journal
designed to augment critical thinking and social/cultural perspectives and to maintain an active writing-asdiscovery experience outside the classroom. Types of journals might include a current affairs journal, a critical
television viewing journal, a critical advertising journal, and a course-related response journal. It is strongly
encouraged that writing prompts require students, as much as possible, to write to different audiences, for
different purposes, in different contexts, and in different mediums.
WPA Student Learning Outcomes for English 1130
The English Program strongly encourages faculty to design assignments that meet the following WPA
outcomes. Note: rarely does one assignment meet all of these outcomes, nor is it necessary for it to do so.
Through a combination of major papers and smaller deliverables, however, instructors should be able to meet
each outcome (some perhaps multiple times or in multiple ways).
Rhetorical Knowledge
Upon completing English 1130, students should understand the value of, and be able to
 Focus on a purpose
 Respond to the needs of different audiences
 Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical situations
 Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation
 Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
 Understand how genres shape reading and writing
 Sufficiently support all assertions with relevant and adequate evidence
 Offer the reader clear and logical organization and clear points/purposes (sometimes expressed in a
thesis statement)
Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing
Upon completing English 1130, students should understand the value of, and be able to:
 Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
 Integrate their own ideas with those of others
Process Orientations
Upon completing English 1130, students should understand the value of, and be able to:
 Be aware that it usually takes multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text
 Develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, proofreading, and editing
 Understand writing as an open process that permits writers to re-think and revise their work
 Understand the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
 Learn to critique their own and others’ works
Knowledge of Conventions
Upon completing English 1130, students should understand the value of, and be able to:
 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
Revised 4/13/2010