Content area
Full text
Course Description
According to the Michigan State University (MSU) course catalog, WRA 125 - Writing: The Ethnic and Racial Experience is a themed-based Tier I (first-year) writing course that focuses on "drafting, revising, and editing compositions derived from readings on the experience of American ethnic and racial groups to develop skills in narration, persuasion, analysis, and documentation." WRA 125 is one of many courses offered in the Tier I Writing Program. For course content, most instructors who teach sections of this course select one specific racial or ethnic group on which to focus, and self-design course readings and other materials corresponding to these groups accordingly. Therefore, most instructors find it useful to add more specific versions of the course in addition to the one identified in the course catalog. My specific description reads as follows:
As we use an Afrocentric lens, we'll study more specifically, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), African American Language (AAL)/Ebonics, and African American Rhetoric (AAR). As students, you will be introduced to Ebonics/ AAL and AAR as systems of speaking and writing, equally legitimate to Standard Academic English (SAE), the writing that you typically do in school. In this class, each of you will have the opportunity to write in SAE, AAL/Ebonics, or other language varieties and languages. While many of you may or may not be familiar with AAL/Ebonics, it is my hope that you all will have a clearer grasp on the language usage of African Americans, and how this language fits in college composition classrooms.
Institutional Context
MSU is a large, Midwestern, Land-Grant University. There are approximately 46,045 students total: 36,072 undergraduate and 9,973 graduate and professional. 54 percent of its students are women, and 46 percent are men. There are approximately 4,800 faculty and staff. The average high school GPA for incoming freshmen (middle 50 percent of class) is between 3.4 and 3.8. The average SAT combined score is between 1020 and 1240, and the average ACT composite score is between 23 and 27 (http:// www. msu.edu/thisismsu/facts.html).
WRA 125 is a first-year writing course that is housed in the Tier I Writing Program at MSU. Our Tier I Writing Program is unique because while it is a writing program, it is not housed in the English...