Catalog Description

Variable theme composition course focused on academic discourse, research, and argumentation. Instruction and practice in developing reading, writing, and research skills introduced in ENG 100 and employed across the curriculum. Emphasis is on rhetorical analysis and a process approach to writing effective academic arguments. Students must pass the course with a grade of “C-“ or higher to satisfy the University requirement in general reading and writing competencies. 

Focus

ENG 200, the second-year writing seminar, is designed for students who completed ENG 100 in their first year at UD. This course is a variable theme composition course focused on academic reading and writing as well as research and argumentation. In this course, students should further develop their reading, writing, research, and critical thinking abilities as they come into contact with the ways that at least three disciplines engage a particular theme. In addition, by studying scholarship across disciplines students should develop rhetorical awareness about the arguments, approaches, and other conventions of these disciplines. Students should also develop a process approach to writing such that by the end of the course it has become the process that they use for all of their writing at the University. 

ENG 200 Student Learning Outcomes

Although ENG 200 is a course within the Common Academic Program, it is not a course within the Humanities Commons. That is because ENG 200 is taught only to second-year students. As a result it includes most but not all of the outcomes included in ENG 200H.

Upon completion of ENG 200, students should be able to:

• Write about primary and secondary texts on the course theme in a manner that reflects the ability to read critically;
• Engage in a process approach to writing college-level prose;
• Produce rhetorically effective college-level expository prose;
• Produce well researched academic arguments and appeals that are documented in accordance with the MLA style manual;
• Examine one topic from at least three disciplinary perspectives;
• Examine one topic with attention to differences such as race, class, gender, and/or sexuality.

Reading and Textbooks

All sections of ENG 200 are required to use the following handbook: Lunsford, Andrea. The Everyday Writer. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. Print.

Writing Requirements

Informal Writing Assignments

A Diagnostic Essay: All students are required to write a brief (1-2 page) diagnostic essay in response to a prompt of the instructor’s choosing. The diagnostic essay may be written inside or outside of class but should be collected by the instructor no later than the second class meeting.

The primary purpose of the diagnostic essay is to give the instructor a sense of students’ writing abilities early in the course so that the instructor can teach as effectively as possible to each class. If a student’s diagnostic essay suggests strongly that they have been placed in the wrong composition course, contact Susan Trollinger. Individual placement issues should not be discussed with students.

Formal Writing Assignments

Information Literacy

To enable students to achieve the outcome related to research and documentation, ENG 200 requires that all students produce at least one formal essay that depends upon significant library research, which is to be conducted through Roesch Library. That being the case, all sections of ENG 200 are required to visit Roesch during the course of the semester for instruction provided by one of the Roesch Library instructional faculty. To set up this instructional session, contact the LTC at 229-4259.

ENG 200 Information Literacy Outcomes

Upon completion of a library session for ENG 200, students should be able to:

• Locate popular and scholarly sources through online catalogs (UD, OhioLINK);
• Use appropriate limiters within these resources;
• Interpret results correctly in the online catalogs;
• Recognize online databases and understand their usefulness;
• Locate popular and scholarly sources through online databases.

Syllabus Template

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