ENGL 101 Syllabus

Course Description:

ENGL 101 is meant to be your introduction to college writing.  This will include lessons on how to write an essay, form an argument, and do research all at the college level.  This will focus on more rigorous forms and ideas on these topics than you have probably learned in the past.  Throughout this course you will learn the different ideas, forms, and strategies that all go into reading, thinking, and writing about different ideas, forms of media, and topics.

Textbook Information: 

- Critical Thinking, Reading & Writing (2016; 9th Ed.), Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau*

          ISBN: 9781319035457 

- They Say/I Say with Readings (2^nd Ed.), Gerald Graff*

          ISBN: 9780393912753 

- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

          ISBN: 9780451528957

*: Copies available in reserve in the library.

Additional Course Information: 

Please take a look around the Canvas site and especially see about familiarizing yourself with the different modules on the left side of the screen.

Look over the syllabus (linked below) and be aware of when things are due.  You will need to complete the first week's assignments in order to remain in the class.

Course Learning Objectives: 

English 101 is designed to help introduce you to the skills you will need for writing college-level papers. Throughout the course you will learn to write effectively and to read and think critically. It will focus on the development of writing skills, essay construction, and the means of augmenting and researching ideas. Because this course is based on the premise that reading, writing, and thinking are inseparable activities, the assignments will require that you respond to a variety of texts and to class discussion of these texts. This class will be both an introduction to reading and writing critical texts as well as an introduction to reading and writing about literature.  This will emphasize summarization, argumentation, critical reading, and the analysis of how the piece is written.

Student Learning Objectives:  

Students will be able to read critically for literal and implied meaning, identify main ideas, organizational strategies and authors’ writing strategies as well as summarize, paraphrase, and analyze written works.

Students will use the writing process to write, in proper MLA format, academic essays, including a documented research paper, using appropriately chosen details, organizational strategies, more complex sentence variety, and sufficiently correct grammar, punctuation, effective word choice, and style.

Students will evaluate and ethically use primary and secondary sources to avoid plagiarism and will use the library’s resources, including online databases, to locate appropriate academic source material.

Meet Your Instructor: 

I graduated from CSUF with both my BA and MA in English Literature.  I have taught around Southern California for a while and have been at SAC for about three years.  I am active in campus clubs and activities surrounding the English department and Learning Center.  I am an advisor for two clubs - Aplha Gamma Sigma Honors Society and the SAC Literary Journal Club.  If ou are interested in either, please contact me.