English 102 Course Description and
Required Elements: Spring 2010
The following statement lays out the basic goals and required elements for all sections of English
102 for Spring 2010. Please ensure that your syllabus incorporates all these goals and elements.
Thanks!
Course Description
English 102 is designed to build on English 101 to help prepare you for the writing you will do in
future college courses and beyond. While English 101 honed your ability to critically read and
closely analyze a text, English 102 emphasizes helping you to write well-reasoned argumentative
papers that draw on multiple sources and viewpoints. During the semester, you will learn to
identify the elements of an effective argument, and then you’ll apply those principles in
composing researched essays about academic and public issues. This course will also strengthen
your information literacy skills by teaching you strategies for finding, assessing, using, citing, and
documenting source materials.
You’ll learn these skills not by listening to your instructor lecture about them, but through
frequent and intensive practice. The sequence of carefully planned activities will challenge you to
improve your abilities with every new task, and to engage in substantive, constructive exchanges
with your classmates and instructor about your work. By the end of the term, you should feel
more confident about your ability to write about academic and public topics rigorously,
responsibly, and articulately.
Learning Outcomes
While individual instructors’ syllabi will vary somewhat, all sections of 102 share some common
goals. In English 102, students should
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Learn rhetorical concepts and terms that will enable them to identify and analyze the
elements of an effective argument.
Write papers on a variety of academic and/or public topics, each tailored appropriately
to its audience and purpose.
Craft responsible arguments that articulate a central claim (thesis), draw on credible
supporting evidence, and effectively address opposing viewpoints.
Do research to find, assess, and use appropriate supporting materials from the university
libraries, the Internet, and other sources.
Effectively integrate material from research into their papers via summary, paraphrase,
and quotation.
Document source materials correctly using MLA style and understand basic principles
of academic integrity.
Work through a full range of writing processes—including invention, planning,
drafting, revision, and editing—in order to produce effective college-level essays;
Work with classmates to share ideas and critique each other’s work in progress.
Develop a clean, effective writing style, free of major errors, and adapt it to a variety of
rhetorical situations.
Required Elements
Assignments and texts for English 102 will vary somewhat from instructor to instructor.
However, the First-Year English Program requires that all sections adhere to the course goals
above and incorporate the following:
I. Focus on Argument and Persuasive Writing
Most of the writing students do in college (and beyond), regardless of their major, will ask them
to organize information from sources in support of central thesis or claim—in other words, to
craft a well-supported argument. English 102 helps to prepare students for future writing by
giving them a general understanding of how effective arguments work, so that they can recognize
irresponsible versus sound arguments when they encounter them in their reading and research and
so that they can apply these principles to their own writing. In your 102 class, therefore, be sure
to do the following:
 Introduce students to specific rhetorical concepts and terms that will help them to
understand how arguments work (for example, Toulmin’s model and/or models from
classical rhetoric). Reinforce these concepts and terms by using them to analyze course
readings, integrating them into writing exercises and class discussions, and using them in
your responses to student work. Note: The argument textbook you choose will be your
primary resource for argument concepts and terminology; be sure to make good use of it.
(See page X for a list of approved choices.)
 Choose some course readings to reinforce students’ understanding of argument and
persuasion. For example, some readings might serve as models of effective, well-written
argumentative prose. Other readings might be chosen to offer students opportunities to
critique less successful arguments. Still others might raise issues or questions about which
students can research and develop their own arguments.
II. Emphasis on Research
Research skills and information literacy are primary emphases in English 102. Students should
leave the course with a good working knowledge of how to use the university libraries and
Internet as sources of information for their writing. They should have frequent opportunities to
practice assessing sources and information, selecting and integrating source materials into their
writing, and citing and documenting sources appropriately. Finally, they should be able to use
MLA style accurately. To that end, please
 Incorporate a research component into at least 3 of the major paper assignments in
your course. At least two papers should require students to do substantial research (finding
five or more sources relevant to their topic.)
 Incorporate at least one library session into your syllabus. Even better—incorporate
two if you can! See the “Using Library Resources in English 102” guidelines on page XXX
for more details.
 Regularly spend time discussing research strategies with students as they prepare for
each of the major papers. Be sure to cover basic information about search strategies, source
evaluation, summary, paraphrase, quotation, citation, documentation, and academic honesty
during the semester.
III. Writing Assignments
During the semester, students should produce the equivalent of 20-30 double-spaced pages of
finished written work. (This page total includes major essays or annotated bibliographies, as well
as short writing assignments completed outside of class and submitted in a typed, relatively
polished form.) Students should write frequently in English 102, in response to the following
general kinds of assignments:
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Frequent short writing assignments: Students should compose frequent short pieces that
enable them to practice identifying and analyzing arguments and to explore and
thoughtfully develop ideas for their papers. Short assignments should give students a
range of opportunities to compose both informal and formal documents and to write
during class time and outside of class. Short assignments will ideally lead up to longer
essays. (Examples: summaries, rhetorical analysis exercises, invention exercises, topic
proposals, reports on their research, source evaluation exercises, responses to discussion
or reading questions, peer critiques, group exercises.)
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Longer essay assignments: Students should write 4-5 longer pieces. Major assignments
must include the following:
Required Major Assignments
1. Rhetorical Analysis (or Analyses): One essay-length or several brief rhetorical
analyses that discusses how argumentative and/or persuasive strategies work
within a text or texts.
2. Exploratory Assignment: A researched essay that identifies and assesses a
range of positions on an issue (for example, an exploratory essay, a bibliographic
essay identifying major positions in a controversy or major interpretations of a
phenomenon, a substantive annotated bibliography, a collaborative wiki page
presenting a researched overview of an issue, etc.)
3. Researched Argumentative Essay: A researched academic essay that articulates
and defends a claim/thesis about an issue.
4. Additional Rhetorical Analysis or Argument: A fourth major essay of your
choice: rhetorical analysis or argument
Additional notes:
 Essays assigned late in the semester may ask students to draw material from
previously completed essays. For example, Essay 3 could ask students to
articulate a proposal for solving a problem that they explored from several
vantage points in Essay 2.
 Major essays should use MLA style for citing and documenting sources.
 One of the major essays may be a collaborative document (for example of
students research a range of angles on a topic and combine them into a single
document.)
 One of the major essays may be a multimedia project or document directed to a
non-academic audience (for example, a Web page introducing the general public
to a campus issue.)
III. Composing Processes
Each major essay should guide students through a full range of composing processes, to
encourage them to fully develop their arguments and to work towards effective, polished final
drafts. For each major essay, students should
o Receive an assignment sheet detailing the rhetorical context, expectations, and major
deadlines.
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Have opportunities to submit and receive feedback on a topic proposal or other
prewriting materials early in the process of developing the essay.
Turn in and receive your feedback on at least one draft of the essay before revising it
to submit for a final grade.
Participate in a peer revision activity and incorporate peer feedback before submitting a
final version of the essay.
IV. Style, Grammar, Mechanical Conventions
During 102, students should receive instruction in and opportunities to practice the following:
o Using MLA conventions for formatting, citation, and documentation.
o Tailoring the organization of a paper to suit different academic genres and purposes (for
example, rhetorical analysis, researched argument, bibliographic essay)
o Composing paragraphs and sentences that are clear, readable, and logically organized.
o Using conventions of grammar, mechanics, and style typically expected in college
papers.
**Note: While it’s important that students learn to use these surface-level conventions, they
should not be the primary focus of your feedback on and grading of their work. See “evaluation
of student writing,” below.**
V. Evaluation of Student Writing
While we encourage you to develop routines and procedures that work best for you and your
individual class, all sections of English 102 should incorporate a few basic practices (consistent
with the goals articulated in the WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Writing Courses, see
Appendix 1.)
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Individual Feedback, addressing “Big Picture” Issues: Please provide students with
individualized feedback on their work in written comments and/or individual
conferences. Research suggests that students will benefit most if you foreground “big
picture” issues (such as focus, audience, logic, and organization) in your responses—
especially on early drafts. Therefore, sentence-level errors in grammar, mechanics, etc.,
should be primarily addressed within their larger rhetorical context. Please do not devise
grading systems that award automatic numerical deductions for particular errors (e.g.,
“minus seven points for each comma error” or “any paper with more than three
grammatical errors will automatically receive an F”).
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Final Portfolios: At the end of the semester, each of your students should turn in a final
portfolio containing all drafts and finished versions of his or her major essays. The
materials in this portfolio should count for the major portion of the course grade. As in
prior years, you must keep students’ portfolios on file for one calendar year after the end
of the semester.
Grading standards and the Academic Responsibility Statement for First-Year English are
posted on the program Website, at
<http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/fye/students/index.html>