Writing Program Course Information

ENG W129 Principles of Composition

Faculty Point of Contact: Sara Webb-Sunderhaus

This course is designed for first year students who may be uncomfortable with writing and unfamiliar with writing for an academic audience. These students need two semesters to complete the course outcomes described below, culminating in W131. The course is built around a common theme related to a common set of course readings which students will engage with through their formal papers. A typical trajectory for the course moves students from a memoir-like narrative related to the course theme, to a textual analysis of part of the common reading, to a self-designed, non-academic research project related to the course theme. The course typically concludes with a reflective essay where the students describe how far they have progressed towards meeting the outcomes of the two-semester course sequence (W129 & W131). 

The materials below are specifically geared toward the W129 classroom. Each link will open a Word document.

• Fact Sheet—detailed W129 fact sheet
• Syllabus—an example of a standard W129 syllabus
• Assignments
  • Assignment One—narrative reaction paper
  • Assignment Two—comparative summary/analysis
  • Assignment Three—research project

ENG W131 Elementary Composition

Faculty Point of Contact: Debrah Huffman

This course is designed for first year students who have had regular practice reading and writing various kinds of texts (e.g., journals, letters, essays, stories, poems) for both familiar and public audiences. ENG-W131 fulfills the university’s Area 1, General Education writing requirement. The course attempts to bridge high school and college contexts by beginning with a focus on a familiar genre with a twist (for example an autobiographical narrative with multi-media elements added), moving to a close reading and analysis of a non-academic text (rhetorical analysis of a non-academic genre), to an argumentative paper supported with evidence and sources, and finally a reflective essay on the course outcomes. Whenever possible, students determine their own topics, purposes, and audiences. 

The materials below are specifically geared toward the W131 classroom and assembled by Sarah Sandman and Mark Sidey. Each link will open a Word document. Instructors at IPFW are welcome to use and modify the materials as needed. The materials include syllabi, calendars, and assignments.

• Fact Sheet—detailed W131 fact sheet
• Syllabus and calendar—Each syllabus deals with issues such as preparation, submission directions, and plagiarisim in unique ways. It's worth your time to look at all three.
  • Cooper's syllabus built around The Backpack Writing
  • Sidey's syllabus and calendar with rationale, built around the use of The Norton Field Guide to Writing.
  • Sandman's syllabus and calendar with rationale, built around the use of The Norton Field Guide to Writing
• Assignments—The list below is arranged in the most likely order in which projects may be assigned. That is, most instructors assign a literacy narrative or profile before they assign a research paper. Note: Sandman and Sidey handle research reports in very different ways. You might want to compare them.
  • The Literacy Narrative (Sandman)
  • The Profile (Sidey)
  • The Commentary Essay (Sandman)
  • The Annotated Biliography (Sidey)
  • The Research Report (Sidey). The Research Report is a kind of Progress Report that students write at some point during the Research Paper project.
  • The Research Paper (Sidey).
  • The Multi-Genre Research Project (Sandman)
  • The Evaluation (Sidey)

ENG W233 Intermediate Expository Writing

Faculty Point of Contact: Jennifer Stewart 

This course assumes students have acquired the basic skills necessary to write an academic paper, but need practice and instruction in both library and field research methods which are central to both public and academic research. It is based upon a three-step movement  typical of academic inquiry: (1) development of research questions or a research proposal, (2) a review of existing research which leads to identification of a gap, (3) conducting research which may lead to answers to the research question. This three-step movement should be taught as recursive—a general research question may be refined to answer a specific gap in knowledge identified during the review of research. A typical course trajectory might start with a formal research proposal, followed by a literature review or an evaluative annotated bibliography, an academic research paper based on primary and/or secondary research with emphasis on MLA or APA formatting, and concluding with a reflective essay where the students argue their case for having completed the course outcomes. 

The materials below are specifically geared toward the W129 classroom. Each link will open a Word document.

• Fact Sheet—detailed W233 fact sheet
• Syllabus and assignments forth coming