UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

Composition II is an introductory course on writing theory and practice that reinforces and extends the foundational knowledge and practices introduced in Composition I. While students in Composition I focus primarily on writing to make meaning, students in Composition II learn how writing produces knowledge. Students come to understand writing as a knowledge-producing activity through carefully sequenced and scaffolded assignments that encourage them to develop, sustain, and reflect on their own academic inquiry and research processes. Assignments ask students to develop original research questions, locate and evaluate primary and secondary sources, select evidence from multiple complex texts, synthesize evidence-based arguments that use sources to address their inquiry, and reflect on their own learning and development. In conjunction with Composition I, students in Composition II continue to develop the ability to generate and articulate their own claims in dialogue with texts and to develop rhetorical awareness and knowledge of academic discourse conventions. The flexible, adaptable writing knowledge and practices developed across Composition I and Composition II are designed to facilitate students' ability to write self-reflectively in other contexts, which includes intermediate seminars, upperlevel courses, and the Writing Proficiency Requirement.