[Webinar] New Course Launch: Research & Composition

by | Jul 13, 2021 | News

The marketplace of ideas has gotten noisy in the last few decades. While blogs, social media, and podcasts have given rise to many voices that wouldn’t otherwise have a platform, it does make it difficult to differentiate fact from opinion.

This summer, TEL is launching a new course to help students identify quality sources and how to use research to construct a well-organized argument. Research & Composition is the latest in TEL’s English catalog, joining Language & Composition, Literature & Composition, and Introductory Reading and Writing.

In a recent webinar, Senior Curriculum Specialist Levi Lloyd and Research & Composition Instructor Nam Pham discussed what this course adds to the TEL course catalog.

Why Research & Composition?

Despite having three English courses already in the TEL catalog, we knew we had a gap. Our Language & Composition course focuses on college-level writing, especially around essays. Our Literature & Composition course encourages students to read literary works from different time periods and examine different forms. And our Introductory Reading and Writing provides students a basic foundation in the writing process. But we heard from many schools that they needed a more traditional English Composition II course, one that centered on building a thesis and supporting an argument using research.

In addition to demand from schools, a Research & Composition course provided more options for our partner schools building out a full associate degree program using the TEL curriculum. Depending on the type of associate degree the institution wanted to put together, we could support their students as they honed their writing and thesis-building skills.

Building Transferable Skills

It’s easy for students to get into a box-checking mode in a college course. Discussion post? Check. Five-hundred-word essay on specialization in economics? Check. Rarely are students encouraged to look at their learning journey holistically to see how the skills they learn overlap across courses and with their professional goals.

With Research & Composition, students will develop skills that they can use across disciplines and careers. We built it that way.

Students will make progress on several learning badges in the Research & Composition course, including writing, reading, and critical thinking. The key objectives for the course include using research to support an argument and utilize composition skills in an academic essay. Students will also be asked to use scholarly resources to support the analysis and the claims they make in their thesis.

Add Research & Composition to Your Catalog Today

The Research & Composition course is available to our partner schools today. Reach out to your Account Manager to see how you can add this course to your dual-credit or general education catalog.

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