Syllabus Approach: Writing Your Way Into Purdue
English 106-08-02
Contact Information
• Instructor: Linda Haynes
• Office: Heavilon 303E
• Office Phone: 49-61643
• Office Hours: Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs 10:30am-11:30am
(and by appointment.)
• Email Address: lhaynes@purdue.edu
Monday Classroom: HEAV 106
Tuesday Conference HEAV 225
Wednesday Classroom: HEAV 106
Thursday Conference HEAV 225
Friday Computer Lab ENAD 130
Introduction
Welcome to this section of English 106: Writing Your Way Into Purdue.
The description of our syllabus approach from Introductory Composition at Purdue (ICaP) states:
By requiring students to identify and interact with other members of the Purdue community, each of the assignments in the Writing Your Way Into Purdue sequence enables student to become more integrally involved in social action that affects them on the Purdue campus while developing their college-level writing abilities and research skills. Assignments include a profile, a public document, an annotated bibliography, a report, and a proposal.
In this section of English 106 we will examine your life at Purdue beginning with who you are and how you got here (Literacy Narrative); then with looking closely at some organizations, departments, people, or opportunities at Purdue that could affect you while you are a student (Profile); and ending with either a solution to a problem at Purdue, or with an in-depth investigation of how your education and experiences in college will carry over into your life after your degree(s) (Research Project). In any case, you will have a lot more to write than just three items; you will write drafts, revise, write parts of your papers, revise them, write a research proposal, maintain an annotated bibliography, peer review each others’ work, write an explanatory report, analyze things visually, edit, write reflections, blog, revise, and revise some more.
What is Introductory Composition?
Students at Purdue have diverse academic interests and professional goals. And although not every student at Purdue is an English major or strives to become a career writer, the ability to communicate creatively and effectively is important to all of us for several reasons: 1) it provides us an outlet for sharing our ideas and an opportunity for making those ideas better; 2) it empowers us to understand different conventions, genres, groups, societies, and cultures; and 3) it allows us to have a voice in multiple academic, civic, and personal situations. In short, writing is a way of learning that spans all fields and disciplines; it is broadly defined to include many reasons for and methods of composing. Introductory Composition at Purdue is designed to help you:
• build confidence in your abilities to create, interpret, and evaluate texts in all types of media;
• develop knowledge and inspire new ideas through writing;
• understand, evaluate, and organize your ideas;
• understand what it means to write in different academic contexts;
• articulate, develop, and support a topic through first-hand and archival research;
• become an effective writer who can respond credibly and accurately to a variety of writing situations.