Course credit
3 credit hours
Course description
Emphasis on critical reading and the writing of a variety of texts with attention to audience, purpose, and rhetorical strategies. Attention to integrating research materials with students' critical and personal insights.
Delivery
This course is available in an online format using eLearning, a Blackboard learning management system requiring Internet access and a web browser. While most students encounter very few technical difficulties, our team of support specialists is available to assist you as needed.
Prerequisites
UNI students: UNI's high school English admissions requirement.
No credit if prior credit in ENGLISH 2015 (620:015) or ENGLISH 2120 (620:034).
Liberal Arts Core
LAC Students who plan to graduate from UNI must complete the Liberal Arts Core (LAC). This Guided Independent Study course is applicable to LAC Category 1. Core Competencies - A. Reading and Writing. For details about your LAC, please discuss with your advisor and/or visit www.uni.edu/lac.
Instructor
Bill Koch, Instructor
Evaluation
14 assignments
Overview
College Writing and Research develops a student’s writing skills by emphasizing the development of ideas, optimal arrangement of supporting detail, fluency and critical thinking. In addition, the student will be introduced to the basics of research techniques. Writing is explained as a developmental process involving prewriting strategies, drafting, revising and editing. The course helps the student define a sense of audience and purpose in one’s writing. This is not a creative writing course in fiction and poetry, although these assignments require the use of your imagination.
Course Organization
This course has 14 assignments. Within these assignments you will find tasks ranging from short answer essays to major papers. Four major papers are assigned: remembered person, profile, researched explanatory paper and a research argumentative paper. You will find in the textbooks the assertion that reading is critical to successful writing, so several exercises will deal with reading. First drafts will be submitted and graded on a pass/fail basis and a final draft cannot be submitted unless the first draft passes.
A total of 460 points are distributed in the following manner:
You must have access to college level sources to conduct college level research. You may use the Rod Library at UNI as well as your local public library. Most libraries now have access to databases that can provide you with substantial sources. And don’t hesitate to ask a librarian to help you find databases, or to help you find research keywords and strategies. You can reach the UNI library through the 800 number for Guided Independent Study, and your call will be transferred.
Grading
The breakdown of points to grade assignment:
Note: the final grade is not necessarily determined by the point total. I do award improvement shown during the course; in fact, I expect each student to have improved his or her writing abilities by the end of the course.
Textbook(s)
Bauman, M. Garrett. Ideas and Details: A Guide to College Writing. 6th edition. Boston: Thomson-Wadsworth, 2007.
One 70-page spiral notebook for keeping a journal
A good college dictionary
Texts are available from www.bookfinder.com
University Book and Supply carries most books used in guided independent study.
To search for textbooks by course, click on "Select a Campus Term" and select Univ.Northern Iowa - Guided Independent Study
Visit the store at 1009 West 23rd Street, Cedar Falls, IA 50613
Phone: 319-266-7581 or 800-728-7581
Fax: 319-277-1266
E-mail: bookstore@panthersupply.com
To enroll
ONLINE
GIS enrollment information
IN PERSON
UNI Continuing and Distance Education
2637 Hudson Road (corner of 27th St. and Hudson Rd.)
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0223
Campus map (Look for Building 31)
For more information
Diane Tournier
Guided Independent Study
UNI Continuing and Distance Education
319-273-2123 or 800-772-1746
gis-program@uni.edu