ENG 2150/T Course Description, Learning Goals, and Tips on Preparing to Teach It

ENG 2150: WRITING II

4.0 Hours; 3.0 Credits

Writing II builds on the learning goals of Writing I, encouraging students to read, reflect on, write about, and synthesize ideas from a range of texts across a variety of genres. Students examine and learn how to employ different styles, various appropriate uses of evidence and counter-evidence, multiple methods of interpretations, and close readings of texts. Students further develop competency in the use and evaluation of multiple external sources as they research ideas related to the course theme, shape and express their ideas, and cast them into well organized, thoughtful, and persuasive argumentative essays. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of composing in multiple discursive modes and media beyond the academic essay.

This course is required for all undergraduate degrees granted by Baruch College. It is required within the Baruch Common Core Curriculum (for students who entered Baruch prior to Fall 2013). For students who entered Baruch Fall 2013 or later under the PATHWAYS General Education requirements (or who “opt-in” to CUNY Pathways), ENG 2150 or ENG 2150T satisfies half of the “English Composition” requirement of the Required Core.

Prerequisite: ENG 2100 or equivalent.

ENG 2150T: WRITING II

6.0 Hours, 3.0 Credits

This course is intended for multilingual/ multidialectal speakers of English who have met the University requirements for freshman composition but are in need of additional support in language development. English 2150T is equivalent to English 2150, the second course in Baruch College’s composition sequence. Students enrolled in the course complete the writing and composition work required in English 2150 as well as intensive instruction in language features such as sentence structure, usage, and vocabulary. Students are placed in the course on the basis of teacher recommendation, usually the recommendation of their English 2100 or 2100T instructor. The course meets for 6 class hours and receives 3 credits.

Prerequisite: ENG 2100, ENG 2100T, or equivalent.

LEARNING OUTCOMES (FOR BOTH ENG 2150 AND 2150T)

After completing ENG 2150 you should be able to:

  • Critically analyze texts in a variety of genres: Analyze and interpret key ideas in various discursive genres (e.g. essays, news articles, speeches, documentaries, plays, poems, short stories), with careful attention to the role of rhetorical conventions such as style, tropes, genre, audience and purpose.
  • Use a variety of media to compose in multiple rhetorical situations: Apply rhetorical knowledge in your own composing using the means of persuasion appropriate for each rhetorical context (alphabetic text, still and moving images, and sound), including academic writing and composing for a broader, public audience using digital platforms.
  • Identify and engage with credible sources and multiple perspectives in your writing: Identify sources of information and evidence credible to your audience; incorporate multiple perspectives in your writing by summarizing, interpreting, critiquing, and synthesizing the arguments of others; and avoid plagiarism by ethically acknowledging the work of others when used in your own writing, using a citation style appropriate to your audience and purpose.
  • Compose as a process: Experience writing as a creative way of thinking and generating knowledge and as a process involving multiple drafts, review of your work by members of your discourse community (e.g. instructor and peers), revision, and editing, reinforced by reflecting on your writing process in metacognitive ways.
  • Use conventions appropriate to audience, genre, and purpose: Adapt writing and composing conventions (including your style, content, organization, document design, word choice, syntax, citation style, sentence structure, and grammar) to your rhetorical context.

English 2150/T Course Description and Learning Goals

These learning goals map onto the CUNY Pathways learning goals for English composition; more information on this learning goal mapping is found here.

Similarities between ENG 2100/T (Writing I) and ENG 2150/T (Writing II)

First off, it is good to recognize that ENG 2150/T has a lot of similarities with ENG 2100/T, which you are teaching this fall. Both courses continue to focus on writing practices related to analyzing multiple genres of texts, finding and evaluating different kinds of sources, writing that follows conventions of academic genres, attention to sentence-level stylistic work, and to think deeply about one’s own writing process and working with multiple drafts.

Differences between ENG 2100/T (Writing I) and ENG 2150/T (Writing II)

Many instructors use similar assignments they use in ENG 2100 for an analysis paper and research paper, but these should be thought of as extending that work in a more advanced way. 

Many instructors center things around a theme and connect the assignments together. For example, I have my students analyze podcast episodes as a genre and then write a research paper that extends a conversation from one of the podcast episodes. After that, we create a class podcast together, often stemming from the knowledge gained by analyzing podcasts and researching a topic that they can use for developing their own podcast episode. This third podcast assignment is something about ENG 2150 that I’d like to mention in more detail below.

The biggest difference between ENG 2100/T and ENG 2150/T is the following learning goal:

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Use a variety of media to compose in multiple rhetorical situations: Apply rhetorical knowledge in your own composing using the means of persuasion appropriate for each rhetorical context (alphabetic text, still and moving images, and sound), including academic writing and composing for a broader, public audience using digital platforms.

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To address this learning goal, instructors in our program do a lot of different things. Some instructors have students create a website, others create short documentary videos, others do audio essays or podcast episodes, others do visual art of some kind. Still others might incorporate multimodal elements to every assignment they do rather than locate one multimodal assignment. Even a focus on document design (which takes a lot of focus on visual rhetoric) can be a way to think about addressing this learning goa. 

Ultimately, the goal is to get students to practice working with non-alphanumeric modes of expression to get students thinking about rhetorical possibilities beyond conventional academic essays to make them more flexible writers and thinkers. In ENG 2100, we focused on moving students from the personal to the academic. In ENG 2150, we focus on moving students from the academic to the public. And contemporary public writing incorporates lots of modes of expression.

Strategies for Technical Aspects

You don’t need much or even any technical knowledge to do assignments like these with your students! If you have some technology anxiety, fear not. As long as you give students time in class to do their own work in learning more about how to do something technical, they can pick it up on their own and learn from each other. Some strategies include:

-giving students a “learning day” around some software or technical aspect needed for a project where you offer some tutorials you found and you ask them to find others. By the end of class, you can assemble an archive of different resources that can help.

-assigning students in groups so they can lean on each other with technical questions

-creating a forum on Blackboard (via a discussion board thread) for any technical questions to crowdsource solutions together

-offering extra credit to students to create a handout. Gives them practice in technical writing to offer a “how to” for a given program or method. You can also give extra credit for them to do a “demo” or presentation.

You absolutely do not need to know how to create a website or use Photoshop or create a podcast or whatever. Instead, as the competent writers and analysts we all are, you just need to think carefully about how to read these assignments to offer feedback.

Support by FYW Writing Program

The Director of First-Year Writing, the Associate Director, the English Language Learning Director, or the Program Manager of First-Year Writing and Great Works are happy to meet with you or answer questions by email at any point as you prepare for teaching ENG 2150. You also have a lot of resources on the Teacher’s Guide, posted below.

Teacher’s Guide Resources

Finally, here are some resources from our Teacher’s Guide with more information about learning goals, sample syllabi, sample assignments, and a Pedagogy in Praxis piece about teaching ENG 2150: