English 105: Honors Composition

English 105 is an honors course that satisfies both the English 101 and English 102 requirements. To enroll in the course, incoming first-year students must have an ACT composite score of 28 or higher or the equivalent SAT score of 1240 (composite math and verbal scores) and a high school grade point average (GPA) of 3.5. Because English 105 is the only first-year writing course honors students are required to take, it needs to cover the rhetorical and writing process concerns of English 101 as well as the writing with research concerns of English 102. Instructors teaching English 105 should also review the Student Learning Outcomes for English 101 and English 102. A student in English 105 should expect to write and revise essays in multiple genres, each with a clear purpose and sense of the writer’s presence and position. The student should also expect to create and answer questions through research and writing that draws upon written texts and other sources. A student in English 105 can expect to write four to six papers during the term, including at least one extended research essay, totaling about 20 to 25 pages of text.

Student Learning Outcomes for English 105:

The Student Outcomes Statement for English 105 is intended to provide instructors and students with a sense of what kinds of knowledge students should be expected to acquire and demonstrate by the end of this course. The student learning outcomes are intended to create a sense of common purpose for the courses and clear expectations for the students. At the same time, the student learning outcomes have been written to maintain the flexibility in the program that allows individual instructors to continue the tradition of innovation and creativity in the classroom that is one of the great strengths of the University of Louisville Composition Program.

Rhetorical Knowledge

Students will produce writing that responds appropriately to a variety of rhetorical situations. Their writing should:

  • Focuses on a clear and consistent purpose
  • Analyzes and responds to the needs of different audiences
  • Employs a tone consistent with purpose and audience
  • Uses a variety of genres or adapts genres to suit different audiences and purposes, including writing with research sources
  • Chooses detail and evidence, including evidence from research sources, consistent with purpose and audience

Critical Reading and Thinking

Students will produce writing that abstracts, synthesizes, and represents the ideas of others fairly. Their writing should:

  • Demonstrates awareness of the role of genre in making meaning from a given text
  • Demonstrates understanding of knowledge and information, including information from research sources, as existing within a broader context
  • Represents and responds to multiple points of view, including the positioning of research sources

Processes

Students will produce writing reflective of a multi-stage composing and revising process. Their writing should:

  • Identifies a research question and develops a research strategy
  • Identifies, evaluates, and uses research sources to discover and focus a thesis
  • Demonstrates through reflection awareness of their own writing processes across multiple drafts
  • Demonstrates strategies of invention, drafting, and revision
  • Demonstrates ability to critique own work and work of peers

Conventions

Students will produce writing that strategically employs appropriate conventions in different writing situations. Their writing should:

  • Demonstrates control over conventions of format and presentation for different purposes and different audiences
  • Demonstrates control of such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling
  • Uses conventions of structure and format appropriate to the rhetorical situation, including purposes and conventions of documentation and multiple methods of citation