Objectives for English 110/College Writing

College Writing is a requirement for all students, and it is one of the four courses that comprise the First-Year Core.  Since it is a cornerstone and prerequisite for most courses at Elon, students take it either in the fall or spring semesters of their first year.

The course helps students develop as writers through extensive practice in prewriting, drafting, and revising and prepares them for writing across the disciplines and beyond the academy. It is also designed to help students develop and hone argumentative skills, as the majority of the writing is argumentative and/or persuasive.  Therefore, College Writing is taught with writing as content, not as a writing-intensive literature course or as a course that uses writing simply to learn some other content. Although there are no departmentalized syllabi for the multi-sections of College Writing, each class shares common objectives and all students gain common experiences. 

Objectives (All sections of College Writing aim to develop the following)

• A more sophisticated writing process including invention, peer responding, revising and editing that results in a clear, effective, well edited public piece.
• A more sophisticated understanding of the relationship of purpose, audience, and voice, and an awareness that writing expectations and conventions vary within the academy and in professional and public discourse.
• An appreciation for the capacity of writing to change oneself and the world.

In order to achieve the above objectives, English 110 will give students the following experiences:

• Writing to persuade by analyzing, interpreting, researching, synthesizing, and evaluating a wide variety of sources
• Writing to academic audiences, writing to non-academic audiences, and writing for one's own purposes
• Writing on the spot (determining the audience and purpose of given writing situations)
• Opportunities for oral presentation of their work/writing (i.e. in-class presentations)

Consistency in College Writing

• The majority of the writing in English 110 is argumentative/persuasive
• Credit for process is no more than one-third of a student's grade
• Courses addressing a single theme or topic are the exception, rather than the norm and (1) the professor should notify the chair and the College Writing coordinator when he/she is going to offer a special topics course and (2) notify students in advance of the special topic
• College Writing is taught with writing as content, not as a writing-intensive literature course or as a course that uses writing simply to learn some other content