Objectives At semester's end, English 50 students should demonstrate both fluency and competence with Standard English in their finished papers, and they should be able to recognize errors and logical contradictions they make in early drafts. Most importantly, the final papers in the course should show the writer's ability to take a position and order an argument to support that position. Reflective writing should indicate an understanding of writing as a rich process informed by analytic thinking and fueled by curiosity and discovery. The Composition Committee has developed guidelines for English 50 in an effort to shape a composition course that connects with the goals and objectives of English 40 and prepares students for both the Intellectual Heritage sequence and the writing intensive courses students will encounter later. We have focused on principles and have avoided prescribing content, texts, or assignments in order to give experienced teachers freedom to develop their syllabi, but we also wanted to be explicit about what all sections of English 50 will share.
Experienced instructors are free to choose their own theme and text for the course.
Ideally, the text for the course will contain a variety of academic and non-academic readings, reflecting the perspectives of a variety of disciplines. Students will work on 5 separate assignments and substantially revise 2 papers in response to written critiques from peers and the instructor. At least one assignment should involve library work, and students must learn to cite sources using a standard bibliographic form. Guidelines for English 50 research assignments are included in Appendix E of this handbook. The sequencing of assignments should help students understand how to define terms, how to summarize other writers positions, and how to take a position and order an argument to support that position.