WSU Composition Program Orientation Overview*

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WSU Composition ProgramOrientationOverview

• Ellen Barton
• Director of Composition
• ellen.barton_at_wayne.edu
• (with thanks to Richard Marback)

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Central Questions

• Who are our WSU students, and what can we expect
  from them?
• How do our students take composition courses at
  WSU?
• What are the goals and objectives of composition
  courses at WSU?

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Who are WSU students?

• Demographics
• WSU enrollment 32,000
• Undergraduates 21,000
• Tri-country residents 87
• Work (PT or FT) 85
• Financial Aid 70
• Gender -- ? 42, ? 58
• Age (average) 25

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Who are WSU students?

• Undergraduates 21,000
• FT/PT FT 59, PT 41
• FT age 22, PT age 29
• Race/ethnicity
• Caucasian-American 48
• African-American 31
• Asian-American 6
• Hispanic-American 3
• Other/Unknown 12

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Who are WSU students?

• Trends in Composition Courses
• considerable diversity
• most students commute
• majority work, w/ financial aid
• majority FT, but PT as well
• gender ratio ?3/?2
• age FT younger (18-22), PT older (22)
• race/ethnicity fairly constant

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What can we expect?

• ACT scores
• WSU ACT composite 19.9
• national composite 21.7
• WSU ACT English 19.2
• national English 21.3
• WSU ACT Reading 20.4
• national Reading 22.5

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WSU Composition Courses

• General Education Program
• Gen Ed requirements contribute to the goal of
  ensuring that all students have the basic skills
  fundamental to success in college while
  simultaneously achieving the intellectual breadth
  necessary to place specialized and professional
  curricula in proper perspective.

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WSU Composition Courses

• General Education Program
• Competencies
• written communication, oral communication,
  mathematics, computer literacy,
  analytical/critical thinking
• Groups and Areas
• natural sciences, humanities, society and
  institutions cultural diversity, ethics/society,
  science/technology/ society

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WSU Composition Courses

• Gen Ed Composition Sequence
• Basic Composition -- 4 credits
• ENG 1020
• ENG 1010 remedial to 1020
• Intermediate Writing -- 3 credits
• ENG 3010, 3050, Lit Writing
• Writing Intensive 3 credits
• course in major
• Total 10 credit hours

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WSU Composition Courses

• Basic Placement
• based on a study correlating ACT scores to
  passing grades in 1020)
• ENG 1010 ACT English lt 20
• ENG 1020 ACT English gt 21
• ENG 1010 44
• ENG 1020 56

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What can we expect?

• ACT Reading
• texts literary and informational
• uncomplicated, more complicated, complex
• 13-19 draw simple generalizations and
  conclusions in uncomplicated passages
• 20-23 draw generalizations and conclusions from
  more challenging passages
• only 53 of students nationally meet reading
  readiness benchmark (ACT 21)

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What can we expect?

• ACT English
• purpose and organization
• 13-19 identify basic purposes and add/delete
  sentences
• 20-23 identify central ideas and determine
  placement and relevancy of material
• conventions of text
• 13-19 basic word choice, syntax, punctuation
• 20-23 consistent style, more complicated
  vocabulary, syntax, punctuation
• almost 70 of students nationally meet English
  readiness benchmark (ACT 18)

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What can we expect?

• ACT Writing (extrapolated)
• persuasion, position, development
• 3-6 taking a position, limited focus and
  development of position
• 7-9 taking a complex position
  (counterarguments), consistent focus and
  development of position
• organization, language
• 3-6 simple organization, simple word choice and
  syntax, multiple errors that impede meaning
• 7-9 logical organization, competent word choice
  and syntax, few errors

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What are the goals?

• ACT Reading
• understand complex texts
• materials w/ sizable amounts of data, difficult
  concepts embedded in text, advanced vocabulary
  determined in context, intricate explanations
• 1010-1020 -- move to analytic reading, reading
  for the argument of a text
• ACT English and Writing
• produce complex texts
• sophisticated rhetorical purpose, critical
  position, development w/ multiple perspectives
  and evaluations, correct conventions of text
• 1010-1020 -- move to argumentative writing

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What can we expect at WSU?

• Composition classes
• diversity in the social context
• variation in reading and writing backgrounds
• high school strategies
• reading comprehension
• writing process (multiple drafts)
• argument writing
• research skills
• technology skills

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Objectives of ENG 1010

• Catalog description
• Extensive practice in fundamentals of college
  writing and reading in preparation for ENG 1020
• Course description
• Use students diverse skills to integrate reading
  and writing and become familiar w/ conventions of
  college-level writing teach students to read
  closely and analytically, write reasoned texts in
  response to a variety of texts, edit surface
  errors

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Objectives of ENG 1010

• Writing Requirements
• 5,000 7,000 words (20 pgs minimum)
• Learning Objectives
• develop higher level of reading comprehension
• use writing to analyze thoughts and express ideas
• use writing to respond critically to other texts
  or a prompt
• plan outline, and draft a piece of writing that
  develops a specific thesis
• revise a text, adjusting style and content for
  specific purposes and audiences
• proofread for surface errors and correct a
  majority of these errors

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Objectives of ENG 1020

• Catalog description
• A course in writing and critical reading,
  including at least one appropriately documented
  paper based upon outside sources
• Course description
• Prepare students for academic writing, teach
  strategies for written arguments designed for
  specific audiences and purposes, develop research
  and writing/ revising processes emphasize
  complex relationships between writing and
  reading, including readers expectations about
  structure, writers reliance on texts to produce
  texts, and the processes of collecting,
  analyzing, interpreting, and disseminating
  information in texts

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Objectives of ENG 1020

• Writing Requirements
• 8,000 words (32 pgs minimum), minimum of 3 major
  assignments in a combination of media,
  purposes/audiences, and genres/rhetorical
  strategies
• Learning Objectives
• Media understanding and making productive use
  of the affordances and constraints of several
  media
• Genre understanding and making productive use
  of key recurring document types
• Domain Knowledge synthesizing and constructing
  knowledge of a specific discourse community

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Objectives of ENG 1020

• Learning Objectives (cont.)
• Idea generation understanding the form and
  content of other works and appropriately
  utilizing that form and content in
  writing/production activities
• Structure/organization knowing and applying
  basic organizational structures commonly used in
  writing and communication
• Rhetoric/Writing understanding and applying
  strategies of generating, drafting, revising, and
  editing documents for such qualities as
  persuasiveness, thoroughness, and accuracy
• Digital Literacy Initiative embedded into
  multiple learning objectives, including writing
  requirements

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Objectives of ENG 3010

• Catalog description
• Intermediate course in writing and critical
  reading, building upon skills taught in ENG 1020
  
• Course description
• Prepare students to organize and sustain
  extensive college writing assignments, to read
  and analyze a variety of source materials, to
  collaborate in producing texts in a variety of
  genres and media, and to conduct research in
  areas of interest encourage student
  understanding of how language practices relate to
  knowledge and cultural identity
• themed classes

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Objectives of ENG 3010

• Writing Requirements
• 8,000 words (minimum 32 pages)
• Learning Objectives
• understand writing as a creative and intellectual
  activity, taking many forms, both academic and
  non-academic, and shaping culture, institutions,
  and knowledge in academic and professional fields
• develop strategies for accessing and critically
  evaluating various forms of writing
• understand how sources can be integrated into
  written texts, awareness of reciprocity

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Objectives of ENG 3010

• Learning Objectives (cont.)
• achieve a level of writing appropriate to
  advanced undergraduate disciplinary standards,
  incorporating an understanding of argument as the
  discovery and communication of judgment through
  broad-based appeals, rather than through strictly
  pro or con analysis
• learn to critique ones own writing and
  internalize and use the purposes of revision to
  explore ways of restructuring texts
• WAC -- understand writing across disciplines and
  professions within the university
• preparation for writing intensive in major

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Administrative Matters

• Syllabus checklist/English
• Common Syllabus (1010, 1020, 3010)
• Sample 1010, 1020, 3010 syllabi and assignments
• Syllabus review by Composition Committee
• Computer classrooms
• Writing Center
• Grading papers and final grade
• grade w/ respect to sequence of courses
• Plagiarism Policy/English
• Grade challenges/English
• Contact info -- ellen.barton_at_wayne.edu, 7-7647
  office hours drop in (most afternoons) and
  appointments