The primary goal of this class is to grant you an understanding of what composition is, breakdown its components and varieties, practice execution of the craft, and ultimately discover how writing can help you on your way forward through school and life. By making the choice to pursue higher education you have started a new and exciting journey. A big part of this journey—maybe the biggest part— is locating and articulating your goals, expressing yourself to others, engaging with new ideas, and working to hone your identity and place in the world. Science, engineering, art, mathematics…all of these pursuits will demand, at some point and likely often, that you explain yourself—not only your ideas and the work you are doing, but that you explain your self.

Some of you will want to go to grad school, some of you will want to jump right into high salary jobs at cool offices with scooters in the halls and Nintendo in the break room, or maybe you want to start your own business, write a book, compose a symphony, or be on television. All of that is great, and all of that is doable. CCNY is a place where you will strive towards the best version of yourself. Writing well will help you do this.

In this class you will be composing different forms of writing for different audiences and purposes, developing substantive research questions, and navigating CCNY databases and fair use articles that will inform and expand your own thoughts and words. In this class we are going to see that academic writing has many different forms and applications, thereby filling up your toolbox with tools that will allow you access to more and bigger.

It’s no longer simply your task to be an absorber of and harbor for knowledge, but to be a maker of knowledge, to unearth it and extend it, as completely and directly as you can, to others.

While there will be required reading and writing exercises throughout the semester, the bulk of your work will consist of four main assignments (details under “assignment description”):

Source-Based Essay in which students locate and research articles and analyze them using our discussion of rhetorical elements.

Inquiry-Based Research Essay in which students develop a question to be used as the cornerstone of their research. The question will act as your guide, and your piece will consist of your efforts to answer that question, following where your research leads as you seek an answer.

• This assignment will include a graded Research Topic Reflection, Research Proposal, a Report on Research in Progress, and a Post-Essay Reflection.

Composition in Two Genres in which students use two different approaches to communicate with audiences based on prior research of a single topic. This assignment urges you to be creative, to experiment with and explore the different uses and effects of composition in differing rhetorical situations And finally…

Theory of Writing and Portfolio. Utilizing your work over the course of the semester you will identify and articulate your own theory of writing. This is an opportunity for you to fully explore your increased knowledge of writing practices and rhetorical situations and to reflect on your experience as a writer and maker of knowledge. Each of these assignments, and the reflections made upon them, will help you to see how writing, research, and a deeper understanding of rhetorical engagement can be useful in innumerable contexts, throughout the course of your studies and in the world at large.

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