ENG 099: Introduction to Academic Writing

Content:

Course Overview ♦ Curriculum/Course Description

Resources:

ENG 099 Placement Characteristics and Outcomes

Course Overview

ENG 099 is a three-credit course that counts toward graduation credit but not towards completion of the Liberal Education Program (LEP) English writing requirement. Students will be placed in ENG 099 when their writing skills demonstrate that they are transitioning to college-level work, as determined by the placement methods and transitional outcomes and characteristics defined by the Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) English Department.  Students need to earn a grade of "C" or better to proceed to Academic Writing: English 151.

Curriculum/Course Description

The ENG 099 curriculum is an essay-based course, not a “building blocks” course. In other words, students will be developing their skills through the writing of full essays and working on issues with conventions in the context of their own writing. This is in contrast to an approach in which students first write sentences, then paragraphs, and finally essays. Convention concerns might be addressed with the entire class, but the focus is not on drilling on convention errors.

In order to assure that students are receiving relatively comparable instructions and reaching the same baseline competencies, the Writing Committee recommends the following:

• While there will be flexibility in the total number of assignments each instructor might give, there will be some common understandings of goals, and at least three papers must be graded if a portfolio method is not used.

2015 Composition Subcommittee
(Amanda Bemer, Mary Ellen Daniloff-Merrill, Teresa Henning, Lisa Lucas, Amy Berry, Eric Doise)