CSI Writing Program Mission Statement
In the College of Staten Island Writing Program, we promote writing as a rhetorical and collaborative process through which the individual writer interacts with a variety of public and personal worlds. To facilitate this understanding of writing, the CSI Writing Program encourages close reading, drafting and revision in response to feedback, inquiry-based explorations, and student self-reflection. As students progress through the Writing Program, they gain experience making critical choices regarding audience and purpose as well as composing in digital and non-digital spaces. As a result, student writers at CSI are prepared to enter various contexts and disciplines, recognizing themselves as active producers of discourse capable of engaging in the worlds around them.
Course Description
ENG 111 is an introductory course designed to help you transition to college-level writing. Throughout the semester, you will engage in writing that is both personal and social. You will be given opportunities to express your own ideas and then to put these perspectives in conversation with others’ ideas. Additionally, this course presents a process-based approach to writing. This means that each assignment will go through multiple drafts, each draft being revised and refined in response to your changing ideas and peer and instructor feedback. As a result of participating in the drafting process along with being an active contributor to class discussions and activities, you will become stronger, more critical writers, readers, and thinkers.
Section Overview
In this section of English 111, we will be taking on the theme of “Causes.” As you begin your college journey, it is important to discover what is important to you. Everyone has some cause that they are passionate about, even if they do not know it. Whether it is fighting racism, advocating for increased gun control, spreading awareness about global warming, or advocating for the rights of animals, there is some issue that speaks to us all. Over the course of this semester, we will explore a variety of different causes, both as a class (through our readings and discussions) and as individuals (through our essays and projects). By the end of the semester, it is my hope that we will all walk away learning more about what we are each passionate about.
Student Learning Outcomes (SLO)
As a student in this class, you will learn to
- Read and listen critically and analytically, including identifying an argument’s major assumptions and assertions and evaluating its supporting evidence.
- Write clearly and coherently in varied, academic formats (such as formal essays, research papers, and reports) using standard English and appropriate technology to critique and improve one’s own and others’ texts.
- Demonstrate research skills using appropriate technology, including gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing primary and secondary sources.
- Support a thesis with well-reasoned arguments, and communicate persuasively across a variety of contexts, purposes, audiences, and media.
- Formulate original ideas and relate them to the ideas of others by employing the conventions of ethical attribution and citation.
- Understand and experience writing as a process by engaging in low-stakes informal writing-to-learn activities, drafting, reviewing, revising, etc.
- Incorporate knowledge of Standard Written English within the writing process.
- Read critically a variety of primarily non-fiction academic texts.
- Demonstrate comprehension and interpretation of course texts in writing.
- Identify strengths and weaknesses in your own writing and articulate strategies for improvement.
