English 101 Syllabus

Meet Your Instructor:

• Brandon Rocke
  • Full-time Faculty Member
  • Office is D-409 in Dunlap Hall
  • Master of Arts, English from Chapman University
  • Bachelor of Arts, English Education with Emphasis in Creative Writing, CSULB
  • Research Interests: Pop Culture, Nature, Leisure, and Critical Theory

Course Syllabus: Syllabus in DOC  or Syllabus in PDF 

Course Description: 

• English 101 is an intensive writing course that is a requirement for admittance into a four-year program. In this particular section, you will be tasked with writing several essays and reading a novel. Therefore, it is imperative your manage your time in order to complete these assignments and utilize the templates and examples posted here on Canvas to help you be successful.

Textbook Information:

•  Everyone's An Author with MLA Update - This book will need to be purchased as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can download a digital copy of this text to your smartphone or tablet.
• The Book of Unknown Americans - This novel will need to be purchased by Week 5. If you wish to have this as a digital copy as well, you may do so.

Additional Course Information:

• I would suggest purchasing a small dictionary in preparation for our the essays; however, this is not required.

Course Learning Objectives:

• The goal of English 101 is to help you write effective essays based on readings and critical thought. With reading, writing, and critical thinking being interconnected, the essays will require you to respond to the texts in an insightful way that goes beyond the words on the page and to contribute to class discussions about the topic in ways that expand on the analysis done by your peers. The assignments and exercises completed in class will emphasize the skills and concepts at the core of expository writing such as analysis, rhetoric, and critique, among others. Additionally, this course will develop your ability to generate strong pre-writing, revision, and proofreading skills, which will be practiced in-group workshops.

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.