ENGL/WR 403 Fall 2003 Course Schedule

Weeks #1 & #2 - Orientation: Preliminary meetings with instructor: topic, research, selection and project development; &
Schedule weekly check-in time with your instructor, one-on-one, in person and via email

Weeks #3 - #5: Weekly meetings and/or email conferences with instructor to discuss Senior Project topics, plans for project design, work in progress, troubleshooting.
Prepare Working Bibliography, with (informal) Annotations (source content & evaluation).
Format sources in correct academic documentation style, a choice suited to your topic focus: e.g. MLA (language & literature topics) or APA (education topics). Consult with Cora on your choice of documentation style.

Week #6: Midterm Progress Report & Evaluation Conference with Cora: date & time TBA.
Be prepared with the following:

Senior Project Goals:

to pursue her/his academic/professional interests;
to build upon previous English Discourse Studies coursework and deepen/extend selected English/Writing knowledge and skills [see English-Writing Program Outcomes for a menu]; and
to develop and support her/his original, independent critical/creative perspectives.

Senior Project Expectations

Depth: Choose a focused topic (issue, problem, questions, hypothesis) within your area of concentration Discourse Studies (literature or writing) that you wish to pursue in depth through sustained research and study over two quarters.
Breadth: Identify and integrate interdisciplinary relationships and applications across the fields of literature and writing (and perhaps other relevant disciplines as well), which extend and enrich the dimensions of your focused topic and project design in demonstrable ways.
Capstone Experience: Your Senior Project is intended to be a “capstone” achievement, as well as a culminating learning experience. The project should, therefore, allow you to synthesize and apply, as well as build on and extend--in demonstrable ways--significant and relevant knowledge, skills, and experience gained from previous coursework completed toward the B.A. degree in English Discourse Studies (and, if applicable, Licensure in Secondary Education).
Pedagogical Component (for CUESTE students) must be integrated into the Senior Project to address the topic’s practical future application(s) to the classroom, informed by interdisciplinary relationships across the fields of literature and writing relevant to students' focused topic. Typically, CUESTE students' Senior Project includes designing a lesson for practical classroom application. CUESTE students enrolled in ED 309 are encouraged to use this and other relevant practical teaching experiences to help them identify an appropriate pedagogical problem or issue relevant to their areas of concentration and their Senior Project topic; and to discuss the pedagogical content with the student's CUESTE advisor.

Senior Project Upper-division competencies:

independent topic selection, project design, and in-depth study and research;
critical and creative thinking and problem-solving;
synthesis and application of concepts and resources from other Discourse Studies courses appropriate to a "capstone" Senior Project
senior college-level research and study, including identification and sophisticated integration of theoretical and applied resources, primary and secondary sources, major journals in the field, and interdisciplinary relationships relevant to their Senior Project topic;
senior college-level writing, emphasizing the genres of the academic research proposal and working/annotated bibliography;
documentation of sources conforming to MLA (Modern Language Association) style [or APA if best for your topic choice), and adherence to the academic conventions of standard written English.