English Composition 101
Syllabus
Course Description:
English Composition 101 is a writing intensive course that prepares students for all levels of academic discourse. Emphasis is placed on the art
of persuasion, on the development of students’ critical thinking skills, and on key rhetorical concepts such as audience, purpose and voice.
Students learn the various steps to the writing process, from brainstorming to final revision, and learn the importance of writing coherent,
unified organized essays that are fundamentally and mechanically sound. Though primarily a writing course, English Composition 101 also
helps students see the connection between reading and writing. In addition, students learn the art of academic research and documentation.
Course Objectives:
 To teach students various writing formats
 To teach students the art of persuasion
 To teach students how to form and develop a thesis
 To teach students the various steps in the writing process, from brainstorming to final revision
 To teach students to think critically
 To teach students key rhetorical concepts, including voice, audience, and purpose
 To teach students to collaborate and to review the work of peers
 To teach students to see the connection between reading and writing
 To teach students research and documentation skills
 To teach students to write essays that are fundamentally and mechanically sound
 To prepare students for most types of academic writing
Minimum Requirements:
 6-8 compositions
 Research paper
 Close reading of at least 15 essays or short works of literature
Text: The Norton Reader, Twelfth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
Syllabus Structure:
Great Ideas and Enduring Questions
Each of the six units below introduces a question central to human experience that has provoked response from writers and thinkers over many centuries. Each unit is designed to
last two weeks. The first week concentrates on readings that can serve to sharpen critical thinking skills through discussion and response. The second week allows time for
conducting workshops on the students’ essays and discussing additional essays that further reflect on the central question of the unit. To supplement the content of any unit, I may
invite students to bring in newspaper or magazine articles or other readings that put the central question in a contemporary light.
Weeks 1-2
Wk
1
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2
Topics
Personal Identity
Gender
Race
Culture
Life & Death
Introduction to
Rhetoric
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Identity: What Does It Mean to Be Human?
Readings
Paul Theroux, “Being a Man” (223-6)
Scott Russell Sanders, “Looking at Women” (226-36)
Anna Quindlen. “Between the Sexes, A Great Divide” (241-3))
Amy Cunningham. “Why Women Smile” (262-7)
Thomas Lynch, “The Bang and Whimper and the Boom” (317-23)
Sonia Shah. “Tight Jeans and Chania Chorris” (335-9)
Adam Goodheart. “9.11.01: The Skyscraper and the Airplane” (303-9)
Brent Staples. “Black Men and Public Space” (396-8)
Marjorie Agosín, “Always Living in Spanish” (532-4)
John Donne, “No Man is an Island” (596)
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, “On the Fear of Death”
Assessments
Essay one
Weeks 3-4
3
4

Learning and Language: What is the Purpose of Education?
Topics
Readings
Literacy and Education Literacy
 Frederick Douglass. “Learning to Read” (428-32)
 Eudora Welty. “Clamorous to Learn” (432-7)
 Richard Rodriguez. “Aria” (517-22)
 Adrienne Rich, “Taking Women Students Seriously” (487-93)
 Benjamin Barber, “America Skips School” (457-67)
Education
 John Holt. How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading (449-57)
 Caroline Bird, “College is a Waste of Time and Money” (467-75)
 William Zinsser, “College Pressures” (481-7)
 Maxine Hong Kingston, “Tongue-Tied” (513-17)
 Plato. “The Allegory of the Cave” (1128-31)
Assessments
Essay two
Weeks 5-6
5
6
7
8
Activities
Life and Sensation
Memory, Imagination, and Expression: Why and How Do We Interpret Experience?
Readings
Personal Experience
 N. Scott Momaday. “The Way to Rainy Mountain” (182-8))
 George Orwell. “Shooting an Elephant” (852-7))
 E. B. White. “Once More to the Lake” (93-8))
 Alice Walker, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” (69-75)
 Nicholas Kristoff, “Saudis in Bikinis” (340-1)
Literature, Art, and Film
 Terry Teachout, “The Beatles Now” (popular music) (1115-20)
 John Updike. “Little Lightnings” and “Moving Along” (painting) (108590)
 Scott McCloud, “Understanding Comics” (1091-7)
 Aaron Copland. “How We Listen” (music) (1121-5)
 Katha Pollitt, “Does a Literary Canon Matter?” (1046-1053)
Man and His Relation to
Nature
Weeks 7-8
Nature and Technology: How Should We Live in Our Environment?
Nature and Environment
 Chief Seattle. “Letter to President Pierce” (642)
 Aldo Leopold. “Marshland Elegy” (643-7); “The Land Ethic” (733-40)
 Mary Oliver, “Waste Land: An Elegy” (648-50)
 Edward Abbey, “The Serpents of Paradise” (623-9)
 Margaret Atwood. “True North” (199-209)
 Dorothy Wordsworth. “The Alfoxden Journal 1798” (352)
 William Cronon, “The Trouble With Wilderness” (651-4)
 Allison Wallace, “The Work of Honeybees” (629-36)
Assessments
Essay three
Midterm Exam
Weeks 9-10
Freedom, Power, and Justice: What Is the Individual’s Relationship to Government?
9 Man and Government
Classic Essays and Speeches
 Machiavelli. “The Morals of the Prince” (865-71)
 Stanton. “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” (879-81)
 Swift. “A Modest Proposal” (858-64)
 Twain. “A War Prayer” (1135-38)
10
Essays that reflect on or challenge existing forms of government
Essay 6 on any of the
readings; consult Norton
 White. “Democracy” (891)
Reader Online for ideas on
 Lincoln. “Second Inaugural Address” (881-3)
Swift and King (due 11/14)
 Whitman. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln” (803-10)
 King. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (892-905)
11 Life and Values
12

Writing Workshops
and Peer Review
Weeks 11-12
Truth and Belief: How Do We Know Right from Wrong?
Essays on ethics
 Plato. “Allegory of the Cave” (1126-31)
 Mark Twain. “Advice for Youth” (677-9)
 Levin. “The Case for Torture” (689-91)
 Rauch. “In Defense of Prejudice” (680-8)
 Bai. “He Said No to Internment.” (831-3)
Seeking a larger vision
 Tisdale. “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story” (747-57)
 Gordon. “A Moral Choice” (740-7)
 Arendt. “Deportations from Western Europe” (826-30)
 Paul Fussell. “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” (763-75)
 Gourevitch. “After the Genocide” (839-45)
Weeks 13-14
11/17: Plato
11/18: Twain
11/19: Levin
11/21: Rauch
11/24: Bai
11/25: Tisdale
Essay 7: 11/25 on any of the
readings.
13 The Spiritual Life
14

Writing Workshops
and Peer Review
The Varieties of Religious Experience: Aspirations Toward the Divine
 Langston Hughes. “Salvation” (1139-41)
 Jean-Paul Sartre. “Existentialism” (1209-18)
 Annie Dillard. “Sight into Insight” (1190-1201)
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Henry Thoreau. “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” (1164-73)
Martha Nussbaum. “The Idea of World Citizenship in Greek and
Roman Antiquity” (1174-88)
Gilbert Highet. “The Mystery of Zen” (1201-9)
12/1: Hughes & Sartre
12/3: Dillard & Thoreau
12/5: Nussbaum
12/8: Highet
12/12: Essay due on any
readings in this unit.
Research Weeks: Dec 1-Jan 9
Assignment: research and analyze a current issue. Take a position on the issue and present your argument. Your paper will be
evaluated based upon the form, style and quality of your argument. You are asked to artfully weigh and consider the sides of an
argument and come to your own conclusion(s). To this end, you are asked to convincingly persuade a reader and/or analyze an
argument.
Due Date: January 9, 2009
Paper length: 2000 words.
Documentation: MLA style
Sources: 10 minimum
Format: Buzzword document
Suggestions:
 Use the readings and the issues explored in The Norton Reader and The Norton Reader Online as your sourcebook for ideas and
writing strategy. Any of them can be inspiration for further study and writing.
 Use Norton/Write from The Norton Reader Online as your research and documentation guide.
 Use the Toulmin Method or the Rogers Method of argument as a model for your argument and analysis.
Due Dates (on a single Buzzword document, labeled “Research Paper”):
 Topic: 12/1
 Thesis Question: 12/1
 Preliminary bibliography: 12/1
 First Draft:12/23
 Final Draft: 1/9