Hawaii Pacific University
WRI 1100: Analyzing and Writing Arguments Section _____
Semester and meeeting times
Instructor: Name, contact information and other relevant information about the instructor.
Course description: WRI 1100 provides instruction and practice in college-level writing tasks, emphasizing
the writing of arguments and the awareness that argument is the cornerstone of academic writing.
Students will develop critical thinking skills and academic writing skills by reading, analyzing and
understanding complex texts from different cultures and communities. In order to learn how to write
college level arguments, students will refine their writing process, develop an awareness of their audience
and rhetorical context, learn to use source material effectively and properly, and expand their repertoires of
rhetorical strategies and organizational techniques.
Course prerequisites: An appropriate score on a placement test
General Education Requirement: This course is classified under the Communication Skills theme and
meets the requirement for a course in Communication Skills A: Writing and Critical Thinking. The
course must be passed with a grade of C- or better to meet the prerequiste for the second required
writing course in Research and Epistemology A.
General Education Student Learning Outcomes and the Five Themes: HPU’s general education
curriculum is focused around five themes. This course emphasizes the Communication Skills theme and
provides students with opportunities to achieve the following related general education student
learning outcomes:
Students will demonstrate critical reasoning in organizing thoughts, feelings, concepts, and information
for effective, clear, and accurate written communication.
This is one of the two main outcomes of the course. You will write four formal essays in which
you will demonstrate your ability to think critically and communicate your thoughts in writing,
along with four rhetorical analyses of the arguments of others.
Students will develop the information literacy needed to determine the validity of information sources
and apply these skills in communication environments.
Information literacy involves advanced skills that you will continue to develop throughout your
college careers and which will be a main focus in WRI 1200. This course provides an introduction
to these essential skills which are addressed in both the four Rhetorical Analyses and the formal
essays which require students to critically consider and synthesize a number of essays. In all
these assignments, you will need to analyze and compare two or more sources, selecting
appropriate evidence from those texts to illustrate a general claim. You will need to choose
appropriate information from the selected sources to persuade readers of their claims. About
30% of class time is spent working on research skills, analyzing, summarizing research sources,
and citing sources properly.
Students will analyze the way we construct meaning and communicate it to others
Understanding how people construct and communicate meaning is a cornerstone of this course,
which focuses on both the analysis and the production of written arguments. The four
rhetorical analyses are devoted to analyzing how meaning is constructed and communicated.
The four formal essays, along with the final portfolio, also ask you to consider how meaning is
constructed and communicated.
Optional: Originally WRI 1100 was required to also meet the following outcome. If it fits well into your
course and you have a writing assignment that allows you to evaluate it, you can still choose to include it
at the end of the list of communication skills outcomes. However it is not required that you cover it.
The example is shown in green so it will be easy to see where the optional part ends.
Students will analyze the way people communicate within and across cultures, genders, generations, and
organizations and develop skills in communicating across these domains. (Focus is on written texts).
Students will encounter essays produced by writers from different cultures, genders, and time
periods. Class readings will also depict instances of communication across these domains.
Furthermore, students will read and analyze both civic and academic arguments. These
different kinds of written discourse follow different conventions, and academic writing can be
viewed as another kind of culture within which students will learn to communicate. Through
both class discussion and in written arguments, students will develop their skills in
communicating across and within various domains. Readings selected for the writing assignment
“Communicating Across Cultures,” specifically feature instances where characters struggle to
communicate across various cultural and/or ideological domains. Students will write an essay
on this topic.
Note that the following is a new required outcome effective Fall 2009 to replace the above outcome
that is now optional. This outcome expands on the critical reasoning part of the first outcome.
The course also addresses the Research and Epistemology Theme by providing students with
opportunities to achieve the following related general education student learning outcome:
Students will use reasoning skills, such as identifying assumptions, considering multiple perspectives and
positions including one’s own, making inferences, and drawing conclusions, to advance an argument
supported by reasons and evidence.
This is an essential outcome of this course. Students will need to demonstrate these skills as
they construct their own arguments in each of the formal essays and in the four rhetorical
analyses.
Note: Purple text shows places where specific course information must be filled in. Red text contains
explanatory notes to the instructor which should be deleted before using the syllabus. Blue
explanations above should be rephrased by the individual instructor to reflect the specific approach in
that section of the course. You can add additional course specific learning outcomes or rephrase those
listed.
Course-Specific Student Learning Outcomes for WRI 1100 Analyzing and Writing Arguments
Students who successfully complete WRI 1100 will be able to:
• Analyze, summarize and evaluate texts in terms of their arguments, supporting evidence and
stylistic techniques.
• Reflect on their own writing process and understand that the steps to writing an argument
can involve freewriting, brainstorming, drafting, getting feedback, outlining, revising and
polishing.
• Write essays that have a clear purpose, engage a specific audience, and avoid significant
errors in standard written English.
• Recognize and employ a repertoire of models, patterns and techniques for organizing
arguments.
Note to instructors: Make sure that your syllabus calls for at least 3500 words of formal graded writing
and that you construct your syllabus so that a student cannot pass the course without performing
adequately on the writing assignments. This can be achieved by making the writing assignments (or the
individual assignments plus a final portfolio) account for 70% or more of the final grade, or by requiring
a passing grade on a final portfolio (that includes three or more revised essays plus a reflective piece) in
order to pass the course.
For the rest of these required syllabus items see the details in the faculty handbook. Delete this note
once the syllabus is complete. For online courses there are some additional requirements given at this
link.
Texts List textbooks with ISBN’s and include this language as well
All textbook information (pricing, ISBN #, and e-books) for this course can be found on the HPU
Bookstore website: hpu.edu/bookstore.
If you have any questions regarding textbooks, please contact the HPU Bookstore at:
Phone:
808-544-9347
Or e-mail:
jyokota@hpu.edu
mmiyahira@hpu.edu
Assignments and mode of evaluation
Summary of important dates and deadlines (if the schedule is a separate document and due dates are
not given with the description of the assignments).
Class rules and policies (including regarding attendance, late work and academic dishonesty)
Schedule of events (may be attached separately)