Overview of the Composition Program at Tennessee Technological University

Composition is a two-course sequence offered in the Department of English and Communications (English 1010 and 1020: Writing I and II). The sequence, which comprises the General Education writing requirement for students at TTU and all Tennessee Board of Regents schools, must be taken in the first year of a students enrollment, regardless of major. Both courses foreground writing processes (invention, planning, drafting, revising, editing, copyediting) and employ formal and informal writing projects (in-class writing, journals, successive drafting and revision). 1010 assignment sequences move students from writing about knowledge gained from personal experience to writing about knowledge gained from research (observation, interviews, surveys, and text sources), from expressive writing to expository and persuasive writing. [3 credits] 1020 assignment sequences emphasize writing from and about texts and readings. Although the course uses a variety of challenging written texts and other media to foster critical reading and critical thinking, its primary focus is critical writing. [3 credits] While the course sequence is designed as an introduction to academic writing, it is also designed to teach writing as a way of knowing, as a way of discovering and exploring ideas. All composition sections meet either twice or three times each week. Sections meet once a week in one of the two computer lab classrooms in Henderson Hall. Computer lab activities and applications vary among instructors; examples: students respond to each others papers, students search for research online, students use bulletin boards and guided chat activities, students post their responses to assignment prompts, instructors project a text for close and common scrutiny of stylistic or rhetorical or organizational elements. Maximum enrollment in composition courses is 25 students; the average class size is 24 students. TTU offers an average of 60 sections of 1010 and 1020 (combined) each semester; over 1,200 students every semester are enrolled in one or the other. A grade of C is required in both 1010 and 1020 before a student may enroll in one of the required general-education literature courses. Students may earn exemption and credit from one or both composition courses by scoring well on the ACT English Subtest, the Advanced Placement (AP) English Language test, or the CLEP test. Additionally, students with low scores on standardized tests may be required to pass one or more courses in Developmental Studies Program Writing before enrolling in ENGL 1010; developmental courses are offered through the states community college system. Instructors: In an average semester (based on 2000-2005 staffing statistics), 58% of 1010 and 1020 sections are taught by visiting full-time faculty and part-time instructors, 17% are taught by graduate teaching assistants (in the 2nd year of their MA degree in English), and 26% are taught by full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty. While the Composition Program has particular goals and objectives, how these goals are met varies among instructors. In fact, one strength of the Composition Program is the rich autonomy and ownership that instructors exercise in their respective sections. Instructors choose their textbooks from lists approved by a composition committee. Instructors design their own syllabi and assessment policies and systems; some use grading contracts, some use portfolio systems, some use points systems. Instructors design their own writing projects and assignments. Some instructors employ a service-learning component or a topical theme in their courses, and some sections are part of the universitys residential Learning Village initiative. Through professional development workshops and other activities each semester, instructors are encouraged to consider their colleagues as resources and to develop a diversity of approaches to writing instruction so that they can address the needs of the wide variety of learners in their composition classrooms.
2011, Dr. Tony Baker, Professor and Director of Composition, Dept. of English & Communications (abaker@tntech.edu)