English 10600-XXX-XXXXX

First-Year Composition (12:30-1:20)

Writing about Writing
M.B. Harris
Email: harri239@purdue.edu
Office Hours:
(or by appointment)
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Conference Classroom Conference Computer Lab Classroom
HEAV HEAV 109 HEAV BRNG HEAV
ENGL 106 ENGL 106 ENGL 106 ENGL 106 ENGL 106
CRN CRN CRN CRN CRN

Course Description
English 106 (General)
English 106 is the standard 4-credit hour composition course for students at Purdue. The course provides
students with the opportunity to interpret and compose in both digital and print media across a variety of
forms. Students engage in active learning, which includes class discussion, learning in small groups,
problem solving, peer review, and digital interaction. English 106 is grounded in the idea that writing
provides an outlet for sharing and developing ideas; facilitates understanding across different
conventions, genres, groups, societies, and cultures; and allows for expression in multiple academic,
civic, and non-academic situations. In short, writing is a way of learning that spans all fields and
disciplines.

By the end of the course, students will:

Demonstrate rhetorical awareness of diverse audiences, situations, and contexts

Compose a variety of texts in a range of forms, equaling at least 7,500-11,500 words of polished
writing (or 15,000-22,000 words, including drafts)
Think critically about writing and rhetoric through reading, analysis, and reflection
Provide constructive feedback to others and incorporate feedback into their own writing
Perform research and evaluate sources to support claims
Engage multiple digital technologies to compose for different purposes

Writing About Writing: Approach

The title of this section, Writing about Writing, is pretty self-explanatory; the focus of this course will
be to think about how writing, in a variety of different contexts, shapes individuals and communities in
the contexts of education and society more broadly. What distinguishes Writing about Writing is that its
subject matter derives from writing and literacy theory. Students engage with writing as their topic; they
execute it in their work; and then they use writing as a tool for their reflection to examine their own work,
their peers, and the goals of the class as a whole. This approach takes as its premise the concept that texts
are constructed and that students can best gain useful and transferable writing skills by understanding this
concept. Writing about Writing incorporates contemporary research on writing practices. Another
motivating force of Writing about Writings approach is empowering students to recognize their own
multifaceted literacies, both academic and non-academic. By linking their own personal experience with
these scholarly conversations about writing, Writing about Writing hopes to empower students, many of
whom come into the classroom lacking confidence in their writing abilities, to take ownership of their
writing and to see writing as a multifaceted contextual process with a set of skills they can transfer
beyond the classroom, rather than a system of absolute rights and wrongs.

Required Texts
---Writing Today **ISBN 9780133884401
---Other readings available on Blackboard

Course Requirements
Unit 1: Personal Literacy
Major Project-Literacy Narrative: September 18, 2015
Key Texts: Deborah Brandt Sponsors of Literacy; Sherman Alexie The Joy of Reading:
Superman and Me; Malcolm X Learning to Read; Norton Field Guide Writing a Literacy
Narrative; Writing Today Writing and Genres, Memoirs; Alice Walker Everyday Use

Unit 2: Academic Literacy

Micro Project-Close Reading: September 23, 2015
Major ProjectAnnotated Bibliography and Literature Review: October 20, 2015
Key Texts: Ann M. Penrose & Cheryl Geisler Reading and Writing with Academic Authority;
John Swales Create a Research Space: CARS Model of Research Introductions; They Say/ I Say
Entering the Conversation; Writing Today a variety of chapters on evaluating secondary
sources, citation, drafting, quoting, and paragraph structure, and annotated bibliographies

Unit 3: Community Literacy

Micro-Mini-Ethnography: November 3, 2015
Micro-Rhetorical Analysis: November 15, 2015
Micro-P.E. Outline: November 19, 2015
Major Project 3.1 Discourse Community Research Paper: November 24, 2015
Major Project 3.2 Research Remediation (Paper-Website) December 11, 2015
Key Texts: John Swales The Concept of Discourse Community; Tony Mirabelli Learning to Serve:
The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers; Horace Miner Body Ritual among the
Nacirema; Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing Jesus Camp (2006); Morgan Spurlock 30 Days Life on an
Indian Reservation (2008); Writing Today a variety of chapters on research papers, finding and
evaluating primary sources, and rhetorical analysis.