Composition@Tech
Composition is a two-course sequence that fulfills the general education writing requirement for students at Tennessee Tech. ENGL 1010 and 1020 (English Composition I and II) must be taken in the first year of a student's enrollment, regardless of major. Both three-credit courses foreground writing processes (invention, planning, drafting, revising, editing) and employ formal writing projects and informal writing activities.
- ENGL 1010 assignment sequences move students from writing about knowledge gained from personal experience to writing about knowledge gained from research (observation, interviews, surveys, and text sources), from expressive writing to expository and persuasive writing.
- ENGL 1020 assignment sequences emphasize writing from and about texts and readings. Although the course uses a variety of challenging written texts and other media to foster critical reading and critical thinking, its primary focus is critical writing.
Neither course focuses on literary study; these courses are prerequisites to the required, 3-credit, general education literature course (either ENGL 2130, 2235, or 2330: Topics in American, British, or World Literature). While the composition course sequence is designed as an introduction to academic writing, it also teaches writing as a way of knowing, as a way of discovering and exploring ideas.
All Tennessee Tech composition sections meet either twice (MW or TR) or three times each week (MWF), including once each week in a computer classroom. We aim for a course cap of 20 students per section; in some semesters, the absolute maximum enrollment is raised to 25. Students must earn a C or better in ENGL 1010 to progress to ENGL 1020 and a C or better in ENGL 1020 to progress to a required general education literature course. Students who enroll in ENGL 1010 at Tennessee Tech with an ACT score below 18 are required to enroll concurrently in READ 1100 (Learning Support Lab for English Comp I / Reading).
