English 108—Fall 2007
Kristine Johnson, Instructor

Welcome to English 108, Accelerated Introductory Composition. English 108 is not intended specifically for English majors; it is designed for every student at Purdue—students with diverse academic interests and professional goals. Because writing is a way of learning that spans all disciplines and careers, it gives us an outlet for sharing ideas and making ideas better, empowers us as readers and citizens, and allows us to have a voice in academic, civic, and personal situations. This course will help you accomplish several things:

• Build confidence in your ability to create, interpret, and evaluate texts in all media.
• Develop new knowledge and inspire new ideas through writing.
• Understand, evaluate, and organize your ideas.
• Understand what it means to write in different academic contexts.
• Articulate, develop, and support a topic through first-hand and archival research.
• Become an effective writer who can respond credibly and accurately to a variety of writing situations.

This course consists of three major units. First, we will learn and use basic rhetorical principles in order to analyze how texts and arguments work and are constructed. Second, we will use rhetoric and writing to produce material for a real, public audience: the Library of Congress archives. Finally, you will identify a particular rhetorical situation and respond to it in a composition.