Composition Skills

Critical Reading Skills

Good writing-both the process and the product-depends on good reading. Only by becoming a critically-aware reader can one become a self-critical writer who continually revises and reconsiders one's own compositions. Only by extending one's reading experiences can one develop new ideas, approaches, and styles for writing.

Over our composition sequence, students encounter a variety of readings that introduce diverse perspectives and thereby encourage students to develop critical and creative thinking skills and critical reading skills.

Through repeated practice, students engage in two levels of critical reading and reflection. The first level, "reading with the grain," is reading for the literal meaning of the text and includes such things as discovering the thesis or central idea, defining the audience and purpose, and outlining the method of development. This level, the primary focus of the readings for ENC 1101, encourages students to read with the "writer's eye." The second level, "reading against the grain," is reading to understand how the writer makes meaning through language and how the reader interacts with the text in order to create meaning. The texts we assign for ENC 1102-perhaps centered on a common and interdisciplinary theme, problem, or multicultural issue challenge students to resist simple or reductive reading and to engage in reflective reading. In this practice, students engage in the self-conscious process of reading to reflect about their strategies for reading, their ways of interpreting texts. Ultimately, students develop their "critical literacy," the ability to perceive how they exist in the world, to see the world not as a static reality but rather as a dynamic process that they are actively, creatively engaged in.

Collaborative Learning

The central pedagogical strategy for ENC 1101 and 1102 is collaborative and active learning, that is, the active and interactive engagement of the students with the material and concepts presented in the class. Students regularly work in groups in order, for instance, to analyze essays that they have read or to evaluate each other's writing. Rather than lecturing about thesis, audience, purpose, introductions, or development, instructors should remember that the less they talk, the more students learn. Instructors expect students to engage and to question not only the material but also the ideas produced in the class.

Research

In ENC 1101 and ENC 1102, research demonstrates the student's immersion in the material, where the student becomes a participant in the critical discourse. The research should provide support for the researcher's hypothesis, improving the essay, not taking it over. Rather than having a traditional research essay due at the end of the semester, all essays emphasize various methods of development: traditional textual research, interviews, personal experience, literary and other works, and Internet resources. For ENC 1101, over the course of the semester, students must incorporate both traditional research and Internet resources into their essays using MLA documentation. For ENC 1102, over the course of the semester, students must incorporate references to traditional resources and to Internet resources into their essays using MLA documentation in some essays and APA documentation in others (or MLA throughout the course, and then asking the students to alter the documentation to APA in one essay). Students are graded on the correctness of the citation and documentation of their research, so they need to provide photocopies of their textual research (bibliographic information and any pages they refer to in their essay) and print outs of their Internet research, with all the citations highlighted.

Grammar, Mechanics, Punctuation, and Spelling

Because we presume that university-level students already have achieved a sufficient competency in basic writing skills, we do not systematically "teach" grammar, mechanics, punctuation, and spelling as discrete, isolated problems, unrelated to the entire writing process. *In the event that students demonstrate, in their assessment exam or first essay that they need extra work in any of these areas, they will be directed to outside resources for assistance: the Writing Center, handbooks, dictionaries, handouts, web sites, etc. Any area that a student needs to give attention to in grammar, mechanics, punctuation, and spelling should be consistently noted on the essays that the student submits.. Ultimately, our aim is to help students learn how to become independent (and sometimes collaborative) editors of their own work, able to detect and remedy major stylistic and mechanical weaknesses in their work. 

Technology

The use of technology is also emphasized in ENC 1101 and ENC 1102. Students are expected to communicate with their instructor using e-mail and will be expected to produce all of their out-of-class essays on the computer. Students also make use of electronic databases for their research, which will be a necessary part of their own library research. And for the English Composition Assessment, Goals, Outcomes Page: ENC 1101/1102 Composition Assessment, Goals, and Outcomes Because ENC 1101 and 1102 teach university-level writing skills (not Freshman Level skills), students need to work hard to make the adjustment from high school to the university. Because student success is the cornerstone of FGCU's philosophy and mission, instructors must remember to be encouraging and flexible in their teaching strategies in order to allow students to reach this high level of expectation. Regarding individual assignments, we expect that the student meets the deadlines and follows the restrictions, mandates, and instructions set by the teacher. If an essay fails to satisfy all the requirements of an assignment, the instructor may return the essay ungraded to the student, not accepting the essay until it fulfills those requirements. To satisfy the Gordon Rule requirements, a student must earn a grade of C or better in ENC 1101 and ENC 1102. ENC 1101: Writing Assignments In ENC 1101, students write four to six out-of-class essays and two in-class summary-response essays (at least one of which must be graded) comprising a total of 6,000 words of graded work. The emphasis in the out-of-class essays is on audience and purpose. While students may lean towards using one particular mode in an essay, more often they utilize a variety of modes in order to achieve their purpose. Students also share their writing in group and one-on-one workshops and in conferences with the instructor. Instructors may also require students to maintain journals for reading responses, drafting, exercises, and the like. Instructors may also require students to maintain their work in "portfolios." In addition, the course includes two timed summary-response essays that act as the midterm and the final for the course. The emphasis in these assignments is on the ability to read critically, to summarize the central idea and support of an essay, and to respond to this idea. Instructors look for the following components of a good Summary-Response essay: reference to the author and title of the work; clear summary of the thesis and main points of development of the essay; clear thesis in their response to the essay; strong development in their response (using personal experience, reference to others' experiences, and allusions to literary and other texts); and good organization and coherence.