About the Course

Course Design:  Welcome to Composing Nature: Freshman Composition for the Ag Cohort, ENG 101-064 and ENG 101-067.  Like other sections of composition, this course is dedicated to developing students' reading, thinking, researching, and writing abilities, especially as these skills lay the foundation for more advanced work in upper division courses. Please refer to your Sourcebook for a complete description of the course.

What distinguishes these two sections of freshman composition from others is the cohort. (A cohort is simply a group of students who are all enrolled in the same sections of required freshman courses-- so that the same 25 students see each other in several classes.) In an attempt to improve freshman retention, the University of Kentucky is piloting the cohort  program to determine whether students enrolled in cohort classes are more likely to stay enrolled since they have the social support of a well-known group of peers. The University hopes to find that students in the cohorts experience less alienation, homesickness, and loneliness. We hope the cohorts provide academic benefits, as well, by reducing freshman drop-out rates, providing a network of peers involved in the same coursework, and facillitating collaborative study and research.

Composing Nature: Freshman Composition for the Ag-Econ Cohort has been designed with an environmental theme to complement the Ag Cohort's interest in the natural world. Although  ENG 101 and GEN 101 are not academically linked courses, please feel free to use the readings, issues, and research in GEN 101 as sources for the arguments you will write in ENG 101.

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Course Requirements and Grading: Three short summaries and three long essays make up the six required assignments of this course. Students must submit each of these assignments to be considered for a passing grade.  Failure to submit even one of these assignments will result in failure for the course. Assuming that the six major assignments are turned in, your grade will be computed using the following percentages:
 

Summary
10%
Comparative Summary
10%
Analytical Summary
10%
Definition Argument
20%
Causal Argument
20%
Resemblance Argument
20%
Homework & Exercises
10%
 
 Homework, an annotated bibliography, and library exercises will be assigned on a day-to-day basis. Such daily work will be announced in class and posted to this web page on the Calendar of  Work.
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Paper Formats: All rough drafts and final papers must be typed or computer-generated, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins, and page numbers. As the semester progresses, I will be expecting more and more MLA formatting conventions from you (particularly in citing and documenting sources)  but these will be covered as part of the course material and clearly outlined in each unit.

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Required Texts: The following four texts are required for ENG 101-064 and ENG 101-067.

-  English 101-102/105 Sourcebook. Fall/Spring 1998-99.

-  Jenseth, Richard and Edward E. Lotto. Constructing Nature: Readings from the American Experience. Upper Saddle
      River, NJ: Blair Press of Prentice Hall, 1996.

-  Lunsford, Andrea and Robert Connors. The New St. Martin's Handbook. Boston and New York: Bedford / St. Martin's
        Press, 1999.

-  Ramage, John D. and John C. Bean. Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. Fourth Edition. Boston: Allyn &
      Bacon, 1998.*

* Note: Please make sure you buy the fourth edition of Ramage and Bean's Writing Arguments. Several third editions are floating around which aren't suitable for your sections of  ENG 101.