Composition Course Content Descriptions for Fall 2008

        The course descriptions below are preliminary and may be altered at the instructor's discretion.  If no brief description is available, the section number sometimes has been hyperlinked to take you to a prior year's syllabus.  If the section you want is not listed here, please see the instructor of record for the course you are interested in taking. 

        English 103 and 104 courses often assign linked series of readings and other materials to stimulate students' thesis development.  Their focus remains on teaching reading and writing skills, but their range of reading topics can dramatically affect students' success and happiness in the course.  Rather than registering for courses solely on the basis of the time and day, students also should look carefully at the kind of content in each course.  If students pick courses with reading topics they do not find interesting, they will find it harder to learn to write--topic choice is an author's first creative decision. 

          Students who demonstrate that they can meet the College Writing Proficiency criteria in their work for English 104 can submit a portfolio of three papers in December to demonstrate they have met this graduation requirement.  Click on College Writing Proficiency Criteria to learn what features instructors are looking for in proficient writing.  Students who do not achieve CWP by portfolio should register for English 105 in Spring Semester.  If they do not manage to achieve that level of writing performance in English 105, they should look to their English 105 writing instructors for advice about whether they are close enough to CWP in order to take a Writing Across the Curriculum Course.  If they need more intensive work on their writing skills, they should enroll in English 201.  When in doubt, they should send a sample of their second-semester writing to the Writing Program with a note explaining the situation.  Click here for Frequently Asked Questions About College Writing Proficiency.

English 103.01  The College Essay  MWF 10:30-11:20--Jennifer Bess: under development.

English 103.02  The College Essay  MWF 1:30-2:20--Mina Brunyate: The Structure of Thought  In this section of The College Essay, you will study ways in which the writing process can clarify your thinking. The course will involve reading of various genres, class discussion, and intensive writing. The readings will include discussions of contemporary issues as well as creative and nonfiction works that remain timeless. Our class sessions will demand everyone's engaged participation, as we explore the ways in which the writers built their ideas. But at the core of this class will be writing. You will review grammar and punctuation, the role of the thesis, and sentence and paragraph structures, and you will apply these skills as you compose papers that address the reading assignments. As the semester progresses, you will learn to communicate more clearly what you want to say, and the writing process itself will unfold fresh thought.

English 103.03  The College Essay  MWF 2:30-3:20--Laura Orem: Learning to write well is inextricably linked to learning to think well. This course will focus on honing analytical writing and critical thinking skills, with emphasis on learning the requirements and conventions of the academic essay, through discussion of readings, peer-review sessions, in-class exercises, and instructor lectures.

English 103.04  The College Essay  TTh 8:30-9:45--Susan Garrett: In this section of English 103, we’ll focus on the skills needed for college writing: critical reading and thinking, analysis, argument, editing, and revising. We’ll practice these skills by doing the kinds of writing that are useful in and out of the classroom: assignments may include editorials, film reviews, proposals, etc. We’ll also spend time a lot of time examining our own writing and working on grammar, peer review, and other skills we identify as needing work. Finally, to keep our brains limber, we’ll begin some days with a quick puzzle or brainteaser.

English 104.01  Academic Writing I  MWF 8:30-9:20--Jeffrey Myers:  under development.   Click here for a sample syllabus from a previous semester.

English 104.02 Academic Writing I MWF 9:30-10:20--Mina Brunyate:  Revealing a Voice English 104 asks that you learn to examine – and even to revel in – your choices as a writer in the academic context. In our class, reading and discussion will provide an increasingly rich context out of which your papers will emerge and take shape. The writing process will involve two stages. In the first, you will analyze various texts (nonfiction, fiction, and poetry) through classroom discussion and informal exploratory papers. The second stage will be both more challenging and more satisfying, as, in writing formally about some of those texts that you found particularly meaningful, you shape your own discourse. During the semester, your voice will gain clarity as you compare your ideas with those of your classmates. This interweaving of reading, talking, and writing will reveal the pleasures of creating an intellectual community. Click on the listing for a sample syllabus.

English 104.03  Academic Writing I  MWF 9:30-10:20--Jessica Bowers: Please see or email the instructor for information about this section.

English 104.04  Academic Writing I  MWF  10:30-11:20--Bernadette Parrish: In this class, you will be encouraged to overcome problem areas in your writing.  You will be asked to master the rules of grammar so that you may feel a greater control over your writing.  In addition, we will read short pieces that will help you to learn how to structure various types of papers that might be required in your college classes.  These papers will include description, argument and cause and consequence analysis to name a few.  Overall, we hope that you will gain skills that will help you now and in the years to come.

English 104.05  Academic Writing I  MWF 10:30-11:20--TBA

English 104.06 AcademicWriting I MWF 10:30-11:20--Elizabeth Leik: Interpreting the world through reading, speaking, and writing, this course uses Convergences (Message, Method, Medium), ed. Robert Atwan, as its main text. Assignments range from writings by Dorthy Allison, David Sedaris, and Maya Lin to artwork by Jeff Koons, Michaelangelo, and Sally Mann. Documentaries include Super Size Me and Hands on a Hardbody. This course is designed to help you be aware of your surroundings and will hone your skills to express those views in writing. Two observations, three essays, and in-class writings will help you create a final portfolio based on the material covered in and out of class.

English 104.07 AcademicWriting I MWF 11:30-12:20--Elizabeth Leik: Interpreting the world through reading, speaking, and writing, this course uses Convergences (Message, Method, Medium), ed. Robert Atwan, as its main text. Assignments range from writings by Dorthy Allison, David Sedaris, and Maya Lin to artwork by Jeff Koons, Michaelangelo, and Sally Mann. Documentaries include Super Size Me and Hands on a Hardbody. This course is designed to help you be aware of your surroundings and will hone your skills to express those views in writing. Two observations, three essays, and in-class writings will help you create a final portfolio based on the material covered in and out of class.

English 104.08  Academic Writing I  MWF 11:30-12:20--TBA

English 104.09  Academic Writing I  MWF 12:30-1:20--Jennifer Bess:  under development.

English 104.10  Academic Writing I  MWF 12:30-1:20--Laura Orem: To write well, one must reconcile two different aspects of the process: tapping into creative wildness, and analyzing and honing the work. We will explore these seemingly contradictory aspects of the writing process and learn how to utilize both through readings, journal responses, class discussions, library instruction sessions, and drafting and polishing essays.  Click on the listing for a prior year's course syllabus.

English 104.11  Academic Writing I  MWF 1:30-2:20--TBA

English 104.012  Academic Writing I MWF 12:30-1:20--TBA

English 104.13  Academic Writing I  MWF 1:30-2:20--Jessica Bowers: Please see or email the instructor for information about this section.      

English 104.14  Academic Writing I  MWF 2:30-3:20--TBA

English 104.15  Academic Writing I  TTh 10:00-1:15--TBA

English 104.16  Academic Writing I  TTh 10:00-11:15--Carol Pippen: “Learning To Love the Questions”--One student said just a few years ago, “I never have trouble writing until I try to put words on paper!”  Robert Frost said, “To learn to write is to learn to have ideas.” Both learning to have ideas and learning to put words on paper begin with learning to ask questions. During the fall semester, we will “learn to love the questions” as we read a variety of material and use our responses as springboards to our writing.

English 104.17  Academic Writing I  TTh 8:30-9:45--Ailish Meisner:  under development.

English 104.18  Academic Writing I  TTh 12:00-1:15--Carol Pippen: “Learning To Love the Questions”--One student said just a few years ago, “I never have trouble writing until I try to put words on paper!”  Robert Frost said, “To learn to write is to learn to have ideas.” Both learning to have ideas and learning to put words on paper begin with learning to ask questions. During the fall semester, we will “learn to love the questions” as we read a variety of material and use our responses as springboards to our writing.

English 104.19  Academic Writing I  TTh 12:00-1:15--

English 104.20  Academic Writing I  TTh 12:00-1:15--Barbara Roswell: How do people, both those who do and do not identify themselves as writers, think and talk about writing? What are the varied ways they use writing in their work and everyday lives to evoke emotions, convey information, describe, define, interpret, argue and persuade? We will use these questions to consider the writing practices of poets and novelists, professors and plumbers, children and adolescents.  Projects will include reflections on your own experiences as a writer, summaries and analyses of scholarly studies, investigations of a potential major, and interviews with professionals in a field of interest to you. By the end of the course, you can expect to have mastered most of the conventions of standard written English; to have developed a repertoire of strategies for planning, organizing and developing your ideas; to be familiar with different ways to cite and respond to published texts; and to have a clearer sense of your own academic interests and voice.

English 104.21  Academic Writing I  TTh 1:30-2:45--Susan Garrett:  In this section of English 104, we’ll focus on the skills needed for college writing: critical reading and thinking, analysis, argument, editing, and revising. We’ll practice these skills by doing the kinds of writing that are useful in and out of the classroom: assignments may include editorials, film reviews, proposals, trend analyses of pop culture and the world, etc. We’ll also spend time a lot of time examining our own writing and working on grammar, peer review, and other skills we identify as needing work. Finally, to keep our brains limber, we’ll begin some days with a quick puzzle or brainteaser.

English 104.22 Academic Writing I  TTh  3:00-4:15--TBA

Note: The following sections of English 105 are advanced placement, reserved for new freshmen based on their Writing Placement Essay results.  Returning students ordinarily should take Writing Across the Curriculum courses or English 201. 

English 105.01  Academic Writing II  MWF 9:30-10:20--Laura Orem:  (All sections of English 105 - Academic Writing II focus on scholarly research, critical thinking, and academic writing with the goal of students achieving College Writing Proficiency. CWP establishes that a student will be able to meet the challenges of writing and research at the 200-level course and beyond.) This particular course looks at the role of art in social activism. We will explore, within their historical contexts, examples of literature, film, and music that offer social or political critiques and calls to action. In the final project, students will create their own work of  “altered text” art in response to a current social or political issue, and write an artist’s statement describing both the issue and the artistic process involved in creating their own artwork.

English 105.02  Academic Writing II  MWF  11:30-12:20--Mina Brunyate: Religion and Audience in America: Conscience and Community--The advanced study and practice of analysis and argument, using a variety of academic and non-academic models. The course will teach independent research and the use of scholarly sources and consistency with standard grammar, diction and MLA style. May confer college writing proficiency.  The research process involves gathering and evaluating information, information that was at some time compiled for a particular audience. We must remain detached from the information in order to evaluate it; but there comes a time when we either become skeptics or believers. We abandon the information as false or biased, or we experience a leap of faith and embrace it as probably true.  Religion provides an interesting forum in which to explore the interweaving of audience and information. Today, this forum is increasingly relevant, as the moral and political ramifications of various religious groups explode beyond national borders. While we shall focus on religion in the United States, the issues raised in these readings exist worldwide, as the tensions between faith and fact, religious and secular, conservative and liberal pull at the fabrics of governments and societies. The assigned readings establish religion as a source of power, a power that both confirms and defies community. Indeed, religion is enmeshed with culture, race, and politics. It is linked both to destruction and redemption.  Click on the course listing to see a sample syllabus.

English 105.03 Academic Writing I  TTh  3:00-4:15--Antje Rauwerda: Our Neighbors to the North--What about Canada? Its literature? Its politics? Its interaction with the United States? This course will teach writing and research skills, using diverse Canadiana (short stories, episodes of The Simpsons, articles from The Globe and Mail) as its subject matter. Enjoy discovering that there is more to the North than snow, while also developing writing skills required for (and applicable to) any course of study at Goucher College.

English 105.04  Academic Writing II  TTh  12:00-1:15--Susan Garrett: This section of ENG 105 aims to give students the skills they will need for college-level writing that they may not have had much practice with before. We focus on analyzing sources and data of various kinds, developing original analyses, and writing about our findings in a convincing, clear, and well-organized fashion. The skills involved in analyzing data and developing hypotheses that students will learn in this class can then be applied to many different fields: art, literature, economics, sociology, biology, psychology, etc. To practice these skills, students will write short papers on topics such as language/communication, popular culture, and/or education. Students will have a fair amount of freedom in choosing topics for papers so that they can learn more about the subjects that interest them most. The course will also focus as needed on grammar, organization, editing, revising, peer editing, and finding, evaluating, and working with sources. Finally, to keep our brains limber, we’ll often begin class with a quick puzzle or brainteaser.