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ENGL 1112 - Writing and Composition

North Terrace Campus - Semester 2 - 2022

This course provides comprehensive instruction in the fundamentals of academic writing, with particular attention to grammar and syntax, argumentative structure, scholarly norms and expectations, voice and diction, and the elements of style. Drawing on a wealth of literary illustrations, and developing a student-centered practical learning methodology, the course fits out a transferable writing tool-box for students expecting to write essays, prepare reports, sit examinations, and progressively build a persuasive critical 'persona' in their written compositions. It serves as a foundation in the art of written expression and argumentation and extensively develops high-level communication skills for all who expect to reflect, impress, and be persuasive in their future written work.

  • General Course Information
    Course Details
    Course Code ENGL 1112
    Course Writing and Composition
    Coordinating Unit English, Creative Writing, and Film
    Term Semester 2
    Level Undergraduate
    Location/s North Terrace Campus
    Units 3
    Contact Up to 3 hours per week
    Available for Study Abroad and Exchange Y
    Assessment Online Quizzes, Writing Portfolio (1200 words), Short Essays (1200 words)
    Course Staff

    Course Coordinator: Dr Benjamin Madden

    Course Timetable

    The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from .

  • Learning Outcomes
    Course Learning Outcomes
    1. Develop a foundational understanding of English grammar, syntax, rhetoric and style as they pertain to both academic and non-academic modes of formal writing.
    2. Develop the ability to shape information into persuasive, elegant, and disciplinarily appropriate arguments using up-to-date digital tools of research and composition.
    3. Build an historically-informed understanding of English prose style, with the ability to identify salient characteristics of different historical periods, and their implications for contemporary best practice.
    4. Learn to reflect critically one芒聙聶s own writing and that of others, and to give effective criticism that will improve the standard of written communication, while understanding the diversity of linguistic practices in contemporary, global English.
    5. Understand the vital role of clear and effective writing and communication in our social and political, as well as our professional, lives.
    6. Demonstrate communication skills appropriate to career readiness, including use of online learning technologies, skills of collaboration, and sensitivity to the intercultural and ethical contexts of a diverse learning environment.
    University Graduate Attributes

    This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attribute(s) specified below:

    University Graduate Attribute Course Learning Outcome(s)

    Attribute 1: Deep discipline knowledge and intellectual breadth

    Graduates have comprehensive knowledge and understanding of their subject area, the ability to engage with different traditions of thought, and the ability to apply their knowledge in practice including in multi-disciplinary or multi-professional contexts.

    1, 3, 4

    Attribute 2: Creative and critical thinking, and problem solving

    Graduates are effective problems-solvers, able to apply critical, creative and evidence-based thinking to conceive innovative responses to future challenges.

    1, 2, 3, 4

    Attribute 3: Teamwork and communication skills

    Graduates convey ideas and information effectively to a range of audiences for a variety of purposes and contribute in a positive and collaborative manner to achieving common goals.

    2, 4, 6

    Attribute 4: Professionalism and leadership readiness

    Graduates engage in professional behaviour and have the potential to be entrepreneurial and take leadership roles in their chosen occupations or careers and communities.

    2, 4, 5, 6

    Attribute 5: Intercultural and ethical competency

    Graduates are responsible and effective global citizens whose personal values and practices are consistent with their roles as responsible members of society.

    4, 5, 6

    Attribute 6: Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural competency

    Graduates have an understanding of, and respect for, Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values, culture and knowledge.

    5, 6

    Attribute 7: Digital capabilities

    Graduates are well prepared for living, learning and working in a digital society.

    2, 6

    Attribute 8: Self-awareness and emotional intelligence

    Graduates are self-aware and reflective; they are flexible and resilient and have the capacity to accept and give constructive feedback; they act with integrity and take responsibility for their actions.

    4, 5, 6
  • Learning Resources
    Required Resources

    All required readings will be supplied by the Barr Smith Library and available through MyUni.


    Most readings for this course are brief, and chosen to exemplify one or another facet of form, style, genre or rhetoric. They are exemplars for you to bounce your own writing off of, not just objects for literary analysis.

    Online Learning
    Supplementary materials such as instructional and interactive videos, as well as links to important external resources, will be available through MyUni.
  • Learning & Teaching Activities
    Learning & Teaching Modes
    The main venue for teaching in this course is a weekly two-hour lecture. I rush to emphasise that this will, under no circumstances, involve the lecturer talking about grammar or the like for two hours straight. Lectures will be highly interactive, involving discussion, writing exercises, (formative) in-lecture quizzes, and other activities to break up the session. Lectures will also be recorded.

    The weekly tutorials will provide a space for reflection on the concepts introduced in the lecture, and more importantly, discussing and workshopping students' own writing. Online modes for participation will also be available.
    Workload

    The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.


    1 x 2-hour lecture per week 24 hours per semester
    1 x 1-hour seminar (or equivalent) per week 12 hours per semester
    6 hours reading per week 72 hours per semester
    2 hours research per week 24 hours per semester
    2 hours assignment preparation per week 24 hours per semester

    TOTAL WORKLOAD 156 hours per semester
    Learning Activities Summary
    Week One
    ‘What is an Essay?’
    The basics of essayistic writing in broad outline. What is an essay supposed to do; how does it work; whom is it for; why was it written? The enduring norms of scholarly expression. Formality, address, diction, thought, critique, exploration, the hazard of expression.

    Texts
    • Selections from Brian Dillon, Essayism (2017)
    • Theodor Adorno, ‘The Essay as Form’
    • Montaigne, ‘On Friendship’, ‘On Experience’

    Week Two
    ‘Nuts and bolts: working with sentences I’
    Grammar: the laws of our English parts of speech; words, phrases, clauses, and how they are built (phonemes; verbs, subjects, objects, modifiers, etc.). Sound and sense. Agreement. Pronouns and prepositions. Tense, mood, case. Punctuation.

    Texts
    • Gertrude Stein, ‘Poetry and Grammar’
    • Dorothy Richardson, ‘About Punctuation’
    • Richard Hudson, English Grammar (1998), excerpts (online through library)

    Week Three
    ‘Nuts and bolts: working with sentences II’
    Syntax: the advantages of changing the order of things; identifying repetitive periods and rhythms; creating unexpected breaks and divagations; in short, the sentence as a bearer of style. Dependency: parataxis and hypotaxis. Auxiliaries and modals; branching and binding.

    Texts
    • Selections from Brian Dillon, Suppose a Sentence (2020)
    • David Foster Wallace, ‘Tense Present : Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage’ (2001)
    • Henry James, Chapter One, The Golden Bowl (1904)

    Week Four
    ‘Argumetation I’
    Bold openings. Paragraphs. Organising your thoughts. Logical forms and fallacies. Knowing your audience.

    Texts
    • John Milton, from Aereopagitica
    • Virginia Woolf, ‘A Room of One’s Own,’ excerpts
    • Selections from John T. Gage, The Shape of Reason: Argumentative Writing in College.

    Week Five
    ‘Argumetation II’
    Structure. Claims. Evidence. Counterargument. Working towards a conclusion. The sense of an argument as an active intervention, seizing the moment, making a difference.

    Texts
    • Émile Zola, ‘J’Accuse’
    • Emma Goldman, ‘Marriage and Love’
    • Selections from John T. Gage, The Shape of Reason: Argumentative Writing in College.


    Week Six
    ‘Being a scholar’
    Writing to and from a community of peers. Against ‘expression’ and opinion. The norms of a discipline. Rules and regulations. Citation. Quotation. Paraphrase. What is plagiarism?

    Texts
    • Barbara Johnson, ‘Melville’s Fist’
    • Toni Morrison, ‘Whiteness and the Literary Imagination’
    • MLA Style Guide, excerpts


    Week Seven
    ‘Being a writer’
    Research. Note-taking. Organization of material.

    Text
    • C. L. R. James, ‘What Is Art?’
    • Patricia Lockwood, ‘Malfunctioning Sex Robot’
    • Lydia Davis, “Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits”

    Week Eight
    ‘Rhetoric I’
    What is it, over and above evidence and the logic of an argument, that moves an essay forward? How and why does an argument become personal? How do you engage ‘the enemy’, the people who feel differently and who present opposing kinds of evidence? What is the art of persuasion?

    • Frederick Douglass, ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’
    • Abraham Lincoln, ‘Second Inaugural Adrress’
    • William Wilberforce, ‘Abolition Speech to the House of Commons’
    • Sojourner Truth, ‘Ar’n’t I a Woman?’

    Week Nine
    ‘Rhetoric II’
    Figures of speech. Why use them? What purpose do they serve? Flowery expression? A bag of tricks…

    Text
    • Nietzsche, ‘On the Use and Abuse of History for Life’ (1873)
    • James Joyce, ‘Aeolus’, from Ulysses (1922)
    • Paul de Man, ‘Semiology and Rhetoric’


    Week Ten
    ‘Elements of a style I’
    Using grammar, syntax, argument, and rhetoric to forge a consistent, recognisable manner of expression. The return of expression; expression as a form of persuasion.

    Text
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Self-Reliance’, from Essays: First Series (1841)
    • James Joyce, ‘Oxen of the Sun’, from Ulysses (1922)
    • F. L. Lucas, ‘The Harmony of Prose’, from Style (1955)


    Week Eleven
    ‘Elements of a style II’
    Style as an ethical dimension of language: the place where the subject stands forth in the midst of convention, regulations, and norms. The place of the “I,” even without the I.

    Text
    • Joan Didion, ‘The White Album’, from The White Album (1979)
    • Susan Sontag, ‘On Style’, from Against Interpretation (1966)

    Week Twelve
    ‘Revision, revision, revision’
    Writing is rewriting. A first draft is a ladder to be kicked away. Style arrives as the ‘subsumption’ of the earlier draftwork in a crystallizing revision.

    Text
    • Hannah Sullivan, The Work of Revision (2013)
    • K. K. Ruthven, ‘Making,’ from Critical Assumptions (1979)

    (Subject to minor revision; where full texts are listed, specific excerpts will be supplied to students.)
  • Assessment

    The University's policy on Assessment for Coursework Programs is based on the following four principles:

    1. Assessment must encourage and reinforce learning.
    2. Assessment must enable robust and fair judgements about student performance.
    3. Assessment practices must be fair and equitable to students and give them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.
    4. Assessment must maintain academic standards.

    Assessment Summary

    A typical academic writing course might aim to train you in writing the kind of essay expected of you in other university courses. The aims of this course differ: we want to provide you with the fundamental tools for good prose such that, not only will your writing for other courses improve, but your writing in general will improve as well.

    As such, assessment in this course is highly directed towards skill acquisition, and will comprise of some quizzes on basic concepts of grammar and syntax, a portfolio of writing produced across the semester exemplifying your engagement with different writing techniques, and two short essays that put these techniques together.

    We wll offer promts for each of your written assignments, but these will be starting points only: what you write about will ultimately be up to you. Our aim is for you to get better at writing about the things you are passionate about, not just the things the university expects you to write about.

    Assessment Detail

    4 x Quizzes
    6 x Writing Exercies, i.e. fortnightly (~350 words each)
    2 x Essays (1200 words each)

    (Subject to minor change; a detailed breakdown of assessment tasks will be published on MyUni)
    Submission
    Submission of written work will be via MyUni, and using online tools to assist in giving iterative feedback and detailed advice on the grammar, syntax, style and rhetoric of students' prose.
    Course Grading

    Grades for your performance in this course will be awarded in accordance with the following scheme:

    M10 (Coursework Mark Scheme)
    Grade Mark Description
    FNS   Fail No Submission
    F 1-49 Fail
    P 50-64 Pass
    C 65-74 Credit
    D 75-84 Distinction
    HD 85-100 High Distinction
    CN   Continuing
    NFE   No Formal Examination
    RP   Result Pending

    Further details of the grades/results can be obtained from Examinations.

    Grade Descriptors are available which provide a general guide to the standard of work that is expected at each grade level. More information at Assessment for Coursework Programs.

    Final results for this course will be made available through .

  • Student Feedback

    The University places a high priority on approaches to learning and teaching that enhance the student experience. Feedback is sought from students in a variety of ways including on-going engagement with staff, the use of online discussion boards and the use of Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) surveys as well as GOS surveys and Program reviews.

    SELTs are an important source of information to inform individual teaching practice, decisions about teaching duties, and course and program curriculum design. They enable the University to assess how effectively its learning environments and teaching practices facilitate student engagement and learning outcomes. Under the current SELT Policy (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/policies/101/) course SELTs are mandated and must be conducted at the conclusion of each term/semester/trimester for every course offering. Feedback on issues raised through course SELT surveys is made available to enrolled students through various resources (e.g. MyUni). In addition aggregated course SELT data is available.

  • Student Support
  • Policies & Guidelines
  • Fraud Awareness

    Students are reminded that in order to maintain the academic integrity of all programs and courses, the university has a zero-tolerance approach to students offering money or significant value goods or services to any staff member who is involved in their teaching or assessment. Students offering lecturers or tutors or professional staff anything more than a small token of appreciation is totally unacceptable, in any circumstances. Staff members are obliged to report all such incidents to their supervisor/manager, who will refer them for action under the university's student鈥檚 disciplinary procedures.

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