Composition Program | Humanities

As one of the earliest courses of study for most Huskies, UN 1015 Composition bridges students' reading, writing, and research skills developed prior to entering the University with those necessary for long-term success both in academia and beyond. This course provides students skills and knowledge that will help prepare them to develop academic literacy skills and aims to provide students with a rigorous introduction to the kinds of tasks they will do as a college student, to familiarize them with campus resources related to research and writing, and to help them develop portable critical reading, research, and writing processes that they will continue to develop in subsequent courses.

UN 1015 - Composition

Provides direct instruction in composition. Students examine and interpret communication practices and apply what they learn to their own written, aural, and visual compositions. Class projects ask students to communicate in a variety of modes and to attend to audience, purpose, and context.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Class(es): Freshman

In UN 1015, students learn to analyze and produce communicative texts for a variety of audiences, contexts, and purposes. As they examine the communicative practices at work all around them, students learn to employ those strategies appropriately in their own projects. In the process, they develop a beginning familiarity with rhetoric, genre, critical reading and writing, research, assessing information, using sources, and collaboration.

Faculty standing and talking to students in a group.

Student from the back of the classroom looking at instructor teaching.

While the written word remains the primary mode of communication for most academic work, UN 1015 recognizes multimodal composing—that is, communicating information not just through writing but also through visual, audio, and other modes of communication that are increasingly common in our digital and face-to-face environments.

Contact

Holly Hassel

Professor of Composition
Director, Composition Program

hjhassel@mtu.edu
Walker 310

Elizabeth Novotny

PhD Candidate

ecwahmho@mtu.edu
Walker 331

Jennifer Nish

Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition
Academy of Teaching Excellence

jmnish@mtu.edu
Walker 304

D-Jay Bidwell

PhD Student
Graduate Teaching Instructor
Assistant Director of Composition

djbidwel@mtu.edu
Walker 314

Course Objectives

Rhetorical and Genre Awareness: Student work demonstrates an understanding of textual features and the relationship to audience, purpose, genre, and situation.
Critical Reading and Research: The student work demonstrates the writer's effective, selective, and ethical use of sources; the writer uses critical reading strategies to integrate sources.
Writing and Research Process Knowledge: Student work demonstrates an awareness, understanding, and intentionality of the writer's research and writing choices.

University learning goals and assessment

UN 1015 Composition is designed to meet three of Michigan Technological University’s Essential Education Goals: Think Critically (Essential Ability: Evaluate Information), Communicate (Essential Ability: Communicate Contextually), and Adapt (Essential Ability: Reflect).

As they work through research-oriented projects, students learn how to assess sources and integrate those sources into their own work. In developing their skills of evaluating information, students craft research questions and complete other pre-writing work to determine the extent and kind of information needed to pursue their projects; explore academic databases and other sources of information; critically evaluate and synthesize these sources; and practice ethical use of the information they find.

UN 1015 asks students to communicate contextually and consider how purpose, audience, and context are at work in texts they produce and in those they encounter. By learning to recognize and adopt the communicative practices and genre conventions employed in various situations, students leave UN 1015 better prepared to successfully communicate in their classes, at work, and in other areas of their lives.

Throughout the course, students engage in reflective and metacognitive writing, where they reflect on their learning and/or development as readers and writers. Examples of reflective assignments during a course include introductory notes or literacy narratives, goal setting activities, author’s notes to introduce writing projects, informal in-class reflective writing activities, and midterm and final portfolio cover letters.

To support these learning goals, random and anonymized samples of the texts produced in each section of UN 1015 are submitted for assessment by a University-wide committee every other year.

Core Assignments

While individual sections throughout Michigan Tech’s composition program represent diverse teaching styles, all students must complete four common projects, or “Core Assignments.” There is some variation in how each section approaches these projects, but the basic requirements and learning objectives are standard for all sections. As such, in addition to various section-specific daily assignments, all students will complete the Comparative Source Analysis, the Annotated Bibliography or WorkNet, the Journal Article, and the Multimodal Project. In addition, two portfolios (a mid-term and final) will offer students opportunities to reflect and revise these Core Assignments.

Faculty kneeling down to work with students in a lecture hall in the MonsterComp class.

MonsterComp

MonsterComp is an unofficial name for a selection of uniquely designed and facilitated sections of UN 1015 Composition. In addition to introducing students to college writing, MonsterComp is designed to support the new Humanities Department’s Graduate Teaching Assistants. MonsterComp provides an environment where experienced and novice instructors, as well as the Director of Composition, collaboratively deliver course content.

Students in MonsterComp complete the same core assignments as students in other sections of UN 1015, but the instruction setting and structure differ. Early each week, MonsterComp meets in a lecture hall to explore concepts in college writing. Then, later in the week, each section meets independently with their secretion instructors to practice those concepts in a more traditional setting.

In MonsterComp, both students and teachers have the opportunity to learn from a wide range of writing and teaching styles.

Advanced Composition

In HU 3015 Advanced Composition, students build on their knowledge of writing researched arguments by exploring the process of conducting both primary and secondary research and compiling their findings into written form. Multidisciplinary inquiry-based projects ask students to write for both academic and lay audiences in print and digital forms. Specific research methods, writing technologies, and topics vary by section.

HU 3015 - Advanced Composition

Advanced instruction in composing substantive arguments based on primary and secondary research. Multidisciplinary inquiry-based projects ask students to write for both academic and lay audiences in print and digital forms. Specific research methods, writing technologies, and topics vary by section.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Pre-Requisite(s): UN 1015 and (UN 1025)

Course Objectives

Better understand how writing functions to accomplish work in disciplinary and practical contexts
Demonstrate critical and creative thinking by summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing evidence from primary and secondary readings to support your own ideas.
Interact respectfully and productively with, and respond to, the ideas of other scholars (both the authors of the texts we will read and your fellow students).