Course Description

English 305w: Writing in Disciplinary Communities
MWF 9:10 a.m. to 10 a.m.
LA 342

Office Hours:
W 8:00 a.m. (LA 305)
F 8:00 a.m. (LA 305)
And By Appointment

Welcome to English 305w: Writing in Disciplinary Communities. The course prepares students to approach writing as a rhetorical context. Students learn and apply rhetorical theories that cut across various disciplines. The end goal is for students to control their choices with research, language choice, sentence structure, and document design and delivery. This course is designed for an on-campus, 15 week delivery, as well as a statewide, 10 week format. Both designs cover the same work except the face-to-face course includes student presentations, group work, films, and possible extra-credit that is best suited for off-line learning.

This course meets the Liberal Studies junior-level writing requirement at Northern Arizona University. It is designed to cover principles of writing, and not specific disciplinary conventions. Students will be exposed to several writing conventions grounded in rhetorical principles. These writing principles are found across the disciplines. Students are encouraged and expected to make connections to their disciplinary writing conventions. Students are also expected to participate with their learning by researching and inquiring about their discipline's specific writing expectations with their professors.

This course is a hybrid delivery. The class meets 3/4 of the time in a face-to-face setting. There are times, however, when students are expected to complete coursework online via the Engilsh 305w VISTA shell.

All writing assignments, module lectures, some exercises, and some discussions are located in the VISTA course shell. The Syllabus is online. There is a calendar with paper due dates in WebCT as well. If a student is unfamiliar with VISTA, then the student is expected to make an appointment with Dr. Barron during her office hours.

Tardiness and absences exceeding 3 class days (equivalent to 1.5 weeks) will lower the overall course grade significantly.