First-Year Writing @ Clayton State University

Welcome! We hope that your first-year writing courses plant seeds for your growth as writers and awaken you to the possibilities of writing.  In our courses, you’ll practice an array of writing processes and strategies, read and write a variety of genres, analyze and use various argumentative strategies, and develop effective rhetorical skills.

The first course, ENGL 1101 English Composition I, is designed to increase your ability to construct academic written essays. In this course you’ll learn writing processes, collaborative writing strategies, methods of organization, research skills, discourse conventions of Standard Written English, rhetorical strategies, computer-based writing, and the production of expository academic essays. Readings consider issues of contemporary and cultural concern. In addition, some sections are part of the freshman experience.

Your second course, ENGL 1102 English Composition II, develops your writing skills beyond the levels of proficiency required in English 1101. This course emphasizes argumentative writing and writing with sources.  You’ll learn a variety of argument types and styles, research methods, and techniques for writing with sources. To this end, English 1102 also focuses on critical reading, interpretation, and evaluation of texts drawn from a wide variety of sources.  In this course, you’ll learn how to summarize, paraphrase, evaluate, and synthesize sources for argumentative papers.  Both courses will develop your ability to use MLA format for documentation and introduce you to at least one other documentation style for papers.

Your instructors in all of these first-year-writing courses are knowledgeable teachers who have taken graduate coursework in English, and many have years of teaching experience.  You will find your particular instructor’s course policies in the course syllabus, available on your instructor’s webpage, on the Department of English website under “Faculty.”  If you have questions or concerns about your ENGL 1101 or 1102 class, please see your instructor during office hours (or e-mail to make an appointment). 

You may also contact Dr. Mary R. Lamb, Director of First-Year Writing, in G-110E Arts and Sciences Bldg., or via e-mail to marylamb@clayton.edu   or by phone, (678) 466-4706.