Spring 2026
Composition I
ENGL 1301 2A2 CREDIT 3 Semester Credit Hours (3 hours lecture, 0 hours lab) MODE OF INSTRUCTION Online PREREQUISITE/CO-REQUISITE: TSI Complete in Reading and Writing. COURSE DESCRIPTION Intensive study of and practice in writing processes, from invention and researching to drafting, revising, and editing, both individually and collaboratively. Emphasis on effective rhetorical choices, including audience, purpose, arrangement, and style. Focus on writing the academic essay as a vehicle for learning, communicating, and critical analysis. COURSE OBJECTIVES Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to 1. Demonstrate knowledge of individual and collaborative writing processes. 2. Develop ideas with appropriate support and attribution. 3. Write in a style appropriate to audience and purpose. 4. Read, reflect, and respond critically to a variety of texts. 5. Use Edited American English in academic essays. INSTRUCTOR CONTACT INFORMATION Instructor: Sarah Culver Email: sculver@lit.edu Office Phone: 4092475273 Office Location: TC224 Office Hours: Monday: 8:10 AM-9:00 AM; 10:00 AM-12:40 PM Wednesday: 8:10 AM- 9:00 AM; 11:05 AM-12:40 PM; 2:10 PM-4:20 PM Thursday: 2:10 PM-4:20 PM Friday: 8:30 AM-9:00 AM; 12:30 PM-1:45 PM *arrangements can be made to meet outside of my office hours upon request Core Objectives 1. Critical Thinking Skills: To include creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of information. 2. Communication Skills: To include effective development, interpretation and expression of ideas through written, oral and visual communication. 3. Personal Responsibility: To include the ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to ethical decision-making. REQUIRED TEXTBOOK AND MATERIALS An electronic device with access to the Internet. Readings will be available on Blackboard through a free link ATTENDANCE POLICY This is an asynchronous online course where students are required to regularly participate with their peers and actively engage with the course material in class. Additionally, students are expected to check BlackBoard and their LIT e-mail daily. Students who do not engage with the class daily will fall behind. DROP POLICY If you wish to drop a course, you are responsible for initiating and completing the drop process by the specified drop date as listed on the Academic Calendar. If you stop coming to class and fail to drop the course, you will earn an “F” in the course. STUDENT EXPECTED TIME REQUIREMENT For every hour in class (or unit of credit), students should expect to spend at least two to three hours per week studying and completing assignments. For a 3-credit-hour class, students should prepare to allocate approximately six to nine hours per week outside of class in a 16- week session OR approximately twelve to eighteen hours in an 8-week session. Online/Hybrid students should expect to spend at least as much time in this course as in the traditional, face-to-face class. COURSE CALENDAR DATE TOPIC READINGS (Due on this Date) ASSIGNMENTS (Due on this Date at 11:59 PM) Week One: January 19- 23 Essay One: Syllabus Overview and Course Introduction Read: syllabus and intro material Syllabus Quiz Due 1-23 Two Truths and a Lie Discussion Board due 1-23 Martin Luther King Day; No Class: January 19 First Class Day: January 20 Expository Writing Thesis Writing The Writing Process Read: Writing Skills: Definition, Types and How to Improve Them | Indeed.com Singapore Read: Expository Essays - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University Topic/Thesis Assignment and Prewriting assignment due 1-23 Week Two: January 26-30 Last Day for Students for Drop with Refund: January 27 Last day to pay tuition to avoid drop for non-payment: January 27 Essay One: Introductions Conclusions Rough Drafts Parts of Speech Transition sentences and Phrases Peer Review Organization Editing Revision Read: Why peer review is important in science? - California Learning Resource Network (optional) Read: Understanding Peer Review in Science January Free Writes due 1-30 Rough Draft of Essay 1 due 2-6 Peer Review due 1-30 Revision Plan due 1-30 Parts of Speech Quiz due 1-30 Editing/Revising Quiz due 1-30 Week Three: February 2- 6 Last day to drop without academic penalty: February 3 Essay Two: Introduction to Research Argumentative Essays Library Instruction Vetting an Article Subjects, Verbs, and Complements Verbals Read: Argumentative Essays - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University Final Draft of Essay 1 due 2-6 Library Instruction Check In due 2-6 Topic/Thesis Assignment and Prewriting assignment due 2-6 Week Four: Essay Two: February 9- 13 MLA Citations Evaluating a Source Dependent Clauses Independent Clauses MLA Tense, Voice, and Mood Peer Review due 2-13 Revision Plan due 2-13 Topic/Thesis Assignment and Prewriting assignment due 2-13 Tense, Voice, and Mood Quiz due 2-13 Week Five: February 16-20 Last Day to Drop WITH Academic Penalty: February 20 Essay Two: Counterclaims Rebuttals Supporting a Claim Summary and Paraphrase Subject Verb Agreement Rhetorical Writing Quiz due 2-20 Rough Draft of Essay 2 due 2-20 Peer Review due 2-20 Revision Plan due 2-20 Week Six: February 23-27 Essay Three: Research Essays Portfolio Building Misused Words Annotations Annotated Bibliographies Punctuation Mechanics Read: Genre and the Research Paper - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University Read: Annotated Bibliographies - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University (optional) Final Draft of Essay 2 due 2-27 Topic/Thesis Assignment and Prewriting assignment due 2-27 February Free Writes due 2-27 Misused Words Quiz due 2-27 Week Seven: March 2-6 Essay Three: Rhetorical Writing Read: Avoiding Fallacies.pdf Rough Draft of Essay 3 due 3-6 Rhetorical Elements Building Vocabulary Bias, Logical Fallacies, and Other Pitfalls Diction Peer Review due 3-6 Revision Plan due 3-6 Week Eight: March 9-13 Spring Break—No classes Spring Break—No classes Spring Break—No classes Week Nine: March 16-20 Last Day of Classes: March 20 Final Exams: March 16-20 Grades due: March 24 Essay Three: Wrap ups and General Housekeeping Final Draft of Essay 3 due 3-20 Final Exam due 3-20 March Free Writes due 3-20 COURSE EVALUATION Final grades will be calculated according to the following criteria: ● Participation 10% ● Short Writing Assignments 15% ● Daily Assignments 15% ● Essay One 10% ● Essay Two 15% ● Essay Three- Common Core Research Project 20% ● Final Exam 15% ● Total 100% GRADING SCALE 90-100 A 80-89 B 70-79 C 60-69 D 0 – 59 F LIT does not use +/- grading scales TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS The latest technical requirements, including hardware, compatible browsers, operating systems, etc. can be online at https://lit.edu/online-learning/online-learning-minimum-computer-requirements. A functional broadband internet connection, such as DSL, cable, or WiFi is necessary to maximize the use of online technology and resources. DISABILITIES STATEMENT The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 are federal anti-discrimination statutes that provide comprehensive civil rights for persons with disabilities. LIT provides reasonable accommodations as defined in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, to students with a diagnosed disability. The Special Populations Office is located in the Eagles’ Nest Room 129 and helps foster a supportive and inclusive educational environment by maintaining partnerships with faculty and staff, as well as promoting awareness among all members of the Lamar Institute of Technology community. If you believe you have a disability requiring an accommodation, please contact the Special Populations Coordinator at (409)-951-5708 or email specialpopulations@lit.edu. You may also visit the online resource at Special Populations - Lamar Institute of Technology (lit.edu). STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT STATEMENT It is the responsibility of all registered Lamar Institute of Technology students to access, read, understand and abide by all published policies, regulations, and procedures listed in the LIT Catalog and Student Handbook. The LIT Catalog and Student Handbook may be accessed at www.lit.edu. Please note that the online version of the LIT Catalog and Student Handbook supersedes all other versions of the same document. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE STATEMENT Lamar Institute of Technology (LIT) recognizes the recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, have changed the landscape of many career disciplines and will impact many students in and out of the classroom. To prepare students for their selected careers, LIT desires to guide students in the ethical use of these technologies and incorporate AI into classroom instruction and assignments appropriately. Appropriate use of these technologies is at the discretion of the instructor. Students are reminded that all submitted work must be their own original work unless otherwise specified. Students should contact their instructor with any questions as to the acceptable use of AI/ChatGPT in their courses STARFISH LIT utilizes an early alert system called Starfish. Throughout the semester, you may receive emails from Starfish regarding your course grades, attendance, or academic performance. Faculty members record student attendance, raise flags and kudos to express concern or give praise, and you can make an appointment with faculty and staff all through the Starfish home page. You can also login to Blackboard or MyLIT and click on the Starfish link to view academic alerts and detailed information. It is the responsibility of the student to pay attention to these emails and information in Starfish and consider taking the recommended actions. Starfish is used to help you be a successful student at LIT ADDITIONAL COURSE POLICIES/INFORMATION Personal Responsibility ▪ One of our core objectives for this course is personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is outlined and evaluated in this course as “the ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to ethical decision making.” It is my responsibility to deliver the information to you in a clear and concise way that aligns with our course objectives. It is your responsibility to interact with all of the material, ask questions as they arise, and turn in assignments in a timely manner. It is your responsibility to reach out via email or Blackboard message if you find that you are • Struggling with the material • Having difficulty with accessing your assignments, Blackboard, the LU Library, course materials, etc. • Having complications (personal, with peers, with technology), concerns, or other unanticipated setbacks • Unable to complete work for any reason (including any kind of travel) ▪ In the event that you need academic accommodations, it is your responsibility to visit Special Populations and complete the required steps. Please see the disabilities statement earlier in this syllabus for more information o Please let me know by Week Three if you’re not sure if you should visit Special Populations or if you have any other accommodation questions. This will help me set you up for success ▪ Dual Credit: It is important to advocate for yourself and your academic needs. If you find yourself on the preceding lists, you (not mom/dad/facilitator/counselor) will need to contact me, via email or Blackboard message • Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism o Academic Dishonesty is a crime that LIT and I take seriously. Please see LIT’s student handbook for more information on academic honesty and the penalty for breaking academic honesty. o Academic Dishonesty can be defined as “a student’s use of unauthorized assistance with the intent to deceive an instructor or other such person who may be assigned to evaluate the student’s work in meeting course and degree requirement” (University of Colorado Denver.) o Plagiarism is included within academic dishonesty. In addition to disingenuously submitting work that did not come from your own brain, plagiarism includes (but is not limited to): ▪ Using your own work from a previous class to submit as “new material” ▪ Patchworking material together from the internet until it resembles a new piece ▪ Submitting someone else’s work, either published, bought, or borrowed, as your own ▪ Using AI (ChatGPT, any AI bot, or artificial learning tool that can mimic student-produced work) to write any part of the content of your essay ▪ Paraphrasing a source without citing the original source ▪ Directly copying a source into an essay without citing the original source ▪ Making minor changes to an original source while still retaining up to 75% of the structure of the sentence ▪ Taking a quiz or test with another student, giving the answers to a quiz or test to another student, Googling the answers to the quiz or test, etc. o Assignments that are pinged for plagiarism will be graded on the following scale: ▪ 1 st offense- 0 on the assignment ▪ 2 nd offense-0 on the assignment + you will be unable to turn in additional assignments until you meet with me via office hours • Artificial Intelligence (AI) o It is my responsibility to accurately grade your assignments in a way that reflects your writing process and your thought process. It is your responsibility, in the event that you are pinged for AI use, to prove otherwise. • I highly suggest to ▪ turn on your Version History ▪ save often ▪ create a logical paper trail • I do not suggest to ▪ Write in one document, copy-and-paste into a separate document, and submit the second document ▪ Rely on online generators ▪ not create any kind of paper trail on one singular document o I will be running all written assignments through several, online, AI generators, including ChatGPT Zero, Scribbr, and QuillBot. Assignments that receive a significant portion, defined as a third of your assignment or higher, of their assignment pinged for AI will receive a 0 unless proven otherwise. Please see the Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism section to determine the effect of continued AI use on your grades • Attendance and Participation o This course requires three (3) hours of active learning per week to be successful o You should be actively engaging with the material, logging into Blackboard, participating in discussion boards/journals/ class discussions for three (3) hours per week in addition to completing assignments. Your participation credit will depend on your course engagement, and I will be checking in regularly ▪ Face-to-Face students who miss more than a week’s worth of class will not be eligible for offered extra credit opportunities ▪ Online students who do not open lecture folders (or watch our video lectures in lieu of navigating our lecture folder) will not be eligible for offered extra credit opportunities • Technology o It is your responsibility to ensure that you have access to working technology o Please use Chrome or Firefox as your browser. Edge and Safari do not always work well with Blackboard and may cause some disruption to your work o If you are someone who only checks Blackboard on their phone, please check in on a desktop from time to time. Sometimes assignments/instructions/etc. are difficult to open/find/access/submit on cell phones o Not having the correct technology or internet is not a valid excuse for not doing assignments. Please let me know ASAP if you are someone who has difficulty obtaining these resources so we can figure out an alternative solution before assignments are due • Communication o The best way to reach me is by email (sculver@lit.edu) or by Messages on Blackboard; however, sometimes, Blackboard messages slip through the cracks, so please feel free to send me a follow up email if you don’t hear back by the next morning o I, typically, will respond to emails/messages during my office hours and within 24 hours on a weekday or 48 hours on a weekend. ▪ I do not respond to emails or messages when I am teaching or while I am in meetings. ▪ I do not respond to emails or messages on Saturdays, Sundays, or campus holidays ▪ Please see my office hours at the beginning of the syllabus to determine the best time to reach me o I send out Announcements frequently ▪ sometimes they are just me checking in ▪ sometimes they are about due dates, schedule changes, clarification on instruction, etc. ▪ It is your responsibility to stay current with these updates. You should check the announcements before emailing me a question to see if your question has already been answered there o You are free, and encouraged, to reach out via email (or come by my office) if you need clarification on an assignment, want to workshop, etc. o Not communicating with me because your LIT email is not working, or you don’t have access to your LIT email or messages, is not a valid reason for not responding to my emails or not reaching out for help. o If you are having difficulty accessing the LU Library, you need to let me know ASAP. Failure to complete assignments because of a login or access issue, for any of the online tools, resources, websites, or databases that we will use throughout the semester, will not excused unless you send me an email before the due date of the original assignment. o When you email me, please provide your full name, course number, section number, and a subject line. This will allow me to pinpoint your direct issue quicker and will provide necessary clarification. ▪ Those who regularly email me but fail to provide the appropriate information or follow proper netiquette might fall outside of the response time outline o Please remember proper netiquette when sending emails, messages, or responding to others online. All online communication should be respectful, concise, and clear. • Grading o All work will be returned within two (2) weeks of the due date, not submission, with commentary and feedback on your document ▪ Late work will not have commentary or feedback o It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that their grades on their assignments match their grades in Blackboard. o If you have a question about your grade, your feedback, necessary revisions, ways to improve, etc., please send me an email so we can work that out in a workshop together. o Most assignments will receive commentary and/or feedback, but all assignments (beyond quizzes or tests) will be graded off of a rubric. ▪ I do not mark all errors, content or mechanical, on your document. Correcting one error might not comprehensively correct all of your same-type errors. ▪ All of your assignments, unless noted otherwise, should be formatted in MLA including, but not limited to, heading, citations, work cited pages, and formatting. Additionally, all of your assignments must include the correct academic style, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage. • I will provide the resources and documentation on how to properly adhere to these standards • Essays that are submitted adhering to other style formatting guides will have points deducted for not following directions. • On a case-by-case basis, I might consider allowing other style formatting guides; however, this is not approved without significant documentation (provided by the instructor and submitted by the student) that must be submitted before the rough draft of the essay is due on the syllabus calendar. o Assignments that require a works cited page and in-text citations but does not feature either or only one will receive a 0 for plagiarism o Online links in lieu of actual documents are not permitted unless noted otherwise. If I do not have full access to your document, I will consider it not turned in. If I don’t receive access within a week of the due date, then your assignment will receive a 0. Please submit major assignments (final drafts of essays) directly to Blackboard • Late Work o All of our assignments have specific due dates ▪ Unless noted otherwise, there is a one-week grace period to turn in an assignment after the due date (baring a verifiable circumstance) • Assignments turned in before the one-week mark will be docked ten points; assignments turned in after the one-week mark will receive a 0 • Assignments involving other students (like a discussion board) cannot be made up for any reason ▪ Extenuating circumstances should be communicated prior to the original due date. Extensions will not be approved after the due date passes • This includes, but is not limited to, going out of town/ out of the country, internet/technological issues that can be quickly solved by IT, time management issues, events that were planned in advance, foreseen, or anticipated, circumstances o Late work goes to the end of my grading stack, and, thus, might be graded later than my grading policy states. o Late work will not include feedback o Late work will not be permitted if the student not regularly been participating in the course (including, but not limited to, only submitting assignments and not opening lecture materials weekly, not looking at announcements, and/or not responding to your instructor reaching out) • Student Behavior Expectations o Be mindful that each student that enters our classroom space may come from a different background from you and may bring a different set of beliefs, values, or ideas into our conversations. As a result, students may agree or disagree on different topics to varying degrees. Disagreements can lead to critical thinking, scholarly debate, and active learning when all participants are respectful and mindful of the different opinions of others. o Disrespect, a disruptive unwillingness to listen to others, and/or harmful, hateful rhetoric will not be tolerated for any reason • Other o Due dates for Dual Credit students will adhere to the LIT academic calendar, including dates for breaks, holidays, etc. Assignments will still be due, and will follow the late work structure outlined previously, even if your individual campus is not in session. Assignments will not be due on LIT academic holidays o Emailed communication should come directly from your LIT email address and not a private, personal, secondary, or other email address. For Dual Credit, this includes any high school email address that you may use for your individual campuses ▪ In alignment with FERPA, I cannot, and will not, communicate about grades, grant extensions, or accept work from any email other than your LIT email. ▪ This includes emails sent from secondary email addresses or from a third party o Accommodations should be communicated as early in the semester as possible. Formal accommodations are not retroactive o I need to know at least 24 hours before a deadline if a student cannot complete an assignment, for any reason. o New deadlines can be considered on a case-by-case basis before the deadline, but cannot, for any reason, be considered after the due date. o o I reserve the right to modify our syllabus, including the calendar or course policies, at any point in the semester. These changes will be communicated clearly through an announcement (for a calendar change) or an announcement and an email (for policy changes)