English 111 Writing 1
Section 28, Mon/Wed 3:55- 5:10
Instructor: Todd Doehner Office:
B 336
Email: tdoehner@bhcc.mass.edu
Texts: Axelrod & Cooper’s Concise Guide to Writing, 6th edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s).
Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers, A Pocket Style Manual, 6th edition (Bedford/St.
Martin’s)
Also required: A notebook, a pen, and internet access
Welcome to College Writing I! This course information handout should provide all the specific
information you need about the course—what it is, what the requirements are, and so on. This is
an important document. Do not lose it! Keep it someplace where you can find it easily. Let’s
begin with the course description as found in the catalog.
CATALOG COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course emphasizes writing as a process, from
planning and drafting through revising and editing. Using personal experience, readings and
other sources, students will write unified, coherent, well-developed essays and practice
paraphrasing, summarizing and using sources responsibly. To be eligible to take College Writing
II, a student must pass the College Writing Exam and earn a grade of C or better for this course.
This course meets General Education Core Requirement 1. Prerequisite: Placement or grade of
C or better in (ENG095) Writing Skills II.
In addition to the catalog description, the English Department has this to say about College
Writing I:
College Writing I should give students the opportunity to integrate reading and writing and to
respond as critical thinkers. This means seeing beyond the literal and embracing the integration of
personal evaluation and response to another’s writing.
College Writing I should provide a series of structured reading and writing experiences that move
students through a process of self-discovery to the ability to reflect and evaluate the ideas of
others.
This leads us to the specific objectives established by the English Department:
COURSE OBJECTIVES: By the end of the course you should be able to
 Read and demonstrate comprehension of a text by annotating, paraphrasing, and
summarizing;
 Respond to a text by relating it to personal experience and insight;
 Analyze a text by determining fact from opinion and identifying the author’s point of view;
 Compare two texts that address a common issue but express opposing points of view;
 Employ the writing process to plan and develop a thoughtful essay of several paragraphs that
integrates your own ideas with the ideas of others;
 Incorporate a secondary source, by quotation or paraphrase, gracefully into your own writing;
 Work with various rhetorical modes (for example, description, narration, cause/effect,
comparison/contrast, definition) and weave them appropriately into an essay;
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Locate information in the library and on the Internet;
Revise writing for effective structure, support, and coherence;
Edit your writing for correct grammar, syntax, punctuation, and spelling.
How will you accomplish these objectives?
COURSE ASSIGNMENTS: You will write four papers over the course of the semester. You
can find them listed in the inside cover of Axelrod & Cooper’s Concise Guide to Writing. We will
work through the following writing activities:
 Remembering Events
 Explaining a Concept
 Arguing a Position
 Proposing a Solution
Each of these units requires a number of reading and writing activities as you move through the
process of discovery to planning and writing and revising. You will receive a class-by-class
assignment schedule for each of these units. Each essay will be worth 15 points toward your final
grade. Quizzes and homework will be worth 20 points total, and class participation, including
Peer Review, will be worth 20 points.
COLLEGE WRITING EXAM: In order to pass this course successfully you must pass the
English Department “exit exam” for College Writing I. (See catalog description above.) This
exam consists of writing an in-class essay in response to a topic provided at the time of the exam.
Two opportunities to take and pass the exam will be provided. In order to take the exam, all
assigned work must be completed to date.
FINAL GRADE: The final grade will be based upon completion of all assigned work and a final
portfolio. Each of the four full-length essays will be graded. Each paper will go through the
writing process—from planning to drafting to revising. A paper may require multiple drafts
before the instructor will consider it for a grade. Other assignments may be checked by the
instructor and marked as completed or not completed. These too can affect your overall grade.
Other things you need to know…
WORD PROCESSING REQUIREMENT: The four major essays for this course must be
“typed”—that is, they are to be written on a computer, double-spaced in 12 pt. Times New
Roman font, and submitted in HARD COPY. Handwritten essays will not be accepted. (This
requirement does not apply to informal writing assignments.) If you do not have access to a
computer, please let the instructor know.
ATTENDANCE: Class attendance is extremely important! The best policy is not to miss any
classes. You will be allowed up to 3 unexcused absences during the semester. After the 3
absences your final grade will be reduced by a minimum of one-half letter grade. A student who
has missed an excessive number of classes, 8 or more, will not receive a passing grade for the
course.
NOTE: Students are responsible for all handouts that are distributed in class. These include
assignment directions, reading schedules, and supplementary readings.
A WORD ABOUT PLAGIARISM: An important part of this course (and almost every college
course) is reading and responding to written texts. Thus you will often need to incorporate the
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ideas of others into your own writing. If any part of your paper is based on another source, you
must acknowledge this source. If you don’t give proper credit, you have committed an act of
plagiarism. This is serious! To guard against plagiarism, you need to know what it is. There are
basically three kinds of plagiarism. The first, and most obvious, is copying word for word from
another source without using quotation marks. A second kind of plagiarism is summarizing or
paraphrasing the ideas of an author without giving credit to the author as a source. Additionally,
a third type of plagiarism that students must be aware of is using an editor—whether a friend,
family member, or tutor. While it is acceptable, even encouraged, to solicit input about one’s
writing from others, if a paper does not reflect the knowledge and/or style of the student author,
plagiarism may be the result. The bottom line is this: You must give credit where credit is due.
You must not take credit for work that is not your own. Improper or inadequate documentation
will often lower a paper’s score. In the case of plagiarism, however, no credit is given for a
paper.
College Writing and General Education
As a student at Bunker Hill Community College, you will need to earn 22 credits in
general education to earn your associate’s degree. Six of those credits comprise
“Requirement Area 1”—which requires that you take College Writing I and College
Writing II. Most students fulfill the other sixteen credits by selecting one course from
each of the five other general education menus. Each menu focuses on a single
requirement area. These requirement areas are Individual and Society, World View,
Quantitative Thought, Science and Technology, and Humanities. Each requirement area
has its own specific set of competencies that must be addressed. In addition, all courses,
regardless of requirement area, will address the core competencies of critical thinking and
writing.
What makes Requirement Area 1 unique is that its primary focus is the two core
competencies. Here is the requirement area description for the general education College
Writing requirement:
This requirement area emphasizes the two core competencies: critical thinking
and writing. Upon completing this requirement, a student will approach writing
as a process, from planning and drafting through revising and editing. A student
will write coherent, well-developed essays, research papers, argumentative essays
and critical analysis, while summarizing and using sources responsibly. Students
will use computers to write and revise their work and to conduct research.
Let’s look at the competencies established in each of these areas. These are the
competencies for critical thinking:
The ability to interpret, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information from multiple
sources in a logical and coherent manner.
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A student can interpret data logically by selecting and organizing relevant facts
and opinions and identifying the relationships among them.
A student can analyze an issue or problem by separating it into its component parts
and investigating the relationship of the parts to the whole.
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A student can synthesize data by combining ideas from multiple sources to come
to an independent conclusion.
A student can evaluate data by making informed judgments as to whether the data
are accurate, reliable or useful.
All of the writing assignments that you will work through over the course of the semester
are designed to address these critical thinking competencies.
These are the general education competencies for writing:
The ability to write an organized focused composition that demonstrates a clear
understanding of the subject matter.
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A student approaches writing as a process, which proceeds from determining
audience and purpose, through idea gathering, planning, writing and revising, to
editing a final draft.
A student can write a composition that is well focused, well organized and well
developed; uses language appropriate to audience and writing situation; and
demonstrates a clear understanding of the subject under discussion.
A student effectively incorporates information from other sources, using quotation
and paraphrase, and gives credit to such sources in an appropriate manner.
Each writing assignment of the semester is designed to promote the acquisition of these
competencies. Please review the parts of this syllabus that identify the kinds of writing
you will do and the number of writing assignments required. It should be clear that
critical thinking and writing are intertwined in this course; thus virtually your entire grade
will be based on your attainment of these skills. This means nearly 100% of your final
grade will in be based on how well you think and how well you write. Remember, too,
that you must pass the College Writing exam, which is tied directly to the core
competencies of critical thinking and writing.
There are two additional general education competencies specified for this requirement
area.
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A student can prepare a document using a word processing application.
A student can obtain, organize and evaluate information obtained via the Internet.
In order to address the word-processing competency, the English Department requires
that all formal essays be submitted as word-processed documents.
In addition, at least one of your assignments in College Writing I and at least two
assignments in College Writing II (including the research paper) will be based on
obtaining, organizing and evaluating information from the Internet.
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