Course Description
Emphasizes writing as a tool of discovery and analysis; practice in active, critical reading; and attention to rhetorical situations and choices. It also introduces students to various discourse communities, modes, and conventions; research and information literacy skills; and the revision process. A grade of C- or better is required. LANG 120 must be completed within the first two semesters of enrollment at UNC Asheville. Fall and Spring.
Student Learning Outcomes:
At the completion of LANG 120, students will have developed writing processes to:
- Engage in critical inquiry and reflection: Discover and refine critical questions and problems and investigate them from multiple perspectives.
- Develop information literacy: Access, evaluate, and integrate relevant information from a variety of sources in an ethical manner.
- Communicate in rhetorically effective ways: Craft and revise compositions marked by choices in focus, structure, and style appropriate for rhetorical purposes, audience expectations, and disciplinary conventions.
Common Practices
While UNCA’s Writing Program values professional autonomy, honoring our instructors’ prerogative to craft curricula based on classroom contexts, we share the following common practices in an effort to address our student learning outcomes:
- Providing opportunities for students to practice:
- reflective writing
- personal writing
- writing that puts sources in conversation with each other
- analysis
- summary
- multimodality/digital rhetoric
- writing to learn
- Fostering awareness of context, audience, purpose, and a range of disciplinary or genre conventions
- Building confidence with academic writing so that students see themselves as writers
- Cultivating reading as a resource for learning to write: examining the moves writers make as examples of rhetorical decision making
- Providing feedback through individual and group conferencing as well as peer review
- Crafting curricula to reflect a range of voices and experiences based upon race, gender, sexuality, abilities, socioeconomics, ideologies, and epistemologies and to reflect diverse modalities–including but not limited to materials (readings, podcasts, videos, etc.), guest speakers, research methodology, and field experience
- Assessing student work in a way that facilitates engagement and learning, promotes student agency and responsibility, aligns with our commitment to equity, and supports students’ use of their own languages. Conceiving of assessment in terms of collective commitment as opposed to hierarchical judgment
- Providing opportunities to practice writing as an iterative process in ways that encourage creativity, risk-taking, and intrinsic motivation
- Connecting students with university resources (library, writing center, media design lab, advising, etc.)
- Promoting information literacy through thorough and ethical integration of relevant and varied information
- Practicing community established assessment
UNCA’s Writing Program also offers a companion course for students wanting additional support with their writing in LANG 120. Click the link to learn more about LANG 110: LANG 120 Support Lab.