As part of the Mason Core, the English 100/101 curriculum works to create engaged citizens who understand that writing is a social, rhetorical act and can effectively analyze and respond to the writing situations they encounter within and beyond the university walls.
These courses help student writers—who may be developing their confidence, critical thinking, flexibility, control of language, and sense of ownership—learn to analyze, research, and produce texts of varying genres that engage a range of audiences.
ENGH 100 helps multilingual writers understand the role of micro-linguistic awareness in the rhetorical act of writing. Instructors of ENGH 100 strive to build students' receptive and productive skills in English through a scaffolded curriculum that emphasizes the value of noticing linguistic and rhetorical moves across genres in order for students to then apply these moves in their own writing. To that end, the curriculum foregrounds rhetorical reading as a critical component in the writing process and in prompting authentic and sustained research projects.
The courses are offered in a variety of learning modalities, including face-to-face, hybrid, hybrid online, and asynchronous online. For a description of course modalities and to see how each type of modality appears on PatriotWeb, please visit our course modalities page.
ENGH 100/101 Learning Outcomes
1: Students are able to analyze and respond to a range of rhetorical situations with increased awareness of the purposes, audiences, and contexts of writing. They are able to identify appropriate rhetorical strategies and apply them in their own writing.
2: Students develop strategies for anticipating and using audience response as they engage in and reflect upon a recursive writing process that includes exploration, inquiry, and invention, as well as drafting, organizing, revising, peer-reviewing, and editing.
3: Students gain emerging college-level proficiency in critically reading and writing nonfiction genres to develop analysis, reflection, exposition, argumentation, and research skills.
4: Students are able to use research strategies for topic exploration and refining research questions; locate, select, evaluate, synthesize, and document sources; and incorporate outside facts, perspectives, and ideas in their writing to complicate and extend their own ideas. They are able to employ appropriate technologies and resources to support their reading, thinking, researching, and writing.
5: Students develop knowledge of linguistic structures and writing conventions through critical reading and practice (writing and revision). They understand why writing conventions vary based on genre and audience and apply this knowledge by composing different types of texts.
Updated May 2019
Requirements and Prerequisites
Students in ENGH 100/101 will produce at least 3500 words of formal graded prose and will engage in informal and reflective assignments, early drafts, and/or task-specific writing assignments (e.g. summaries or reading analyses). Students will be engaged in the writing and research process and regularly receive feedback and instruction. Students will also have the opportunity to revise at least one major project after receiving detailed instructor feedback prior to submitting for a grade.
Resources for Students
Catalog Course Description and Current Schedule