Composition I
ENGL-1301

• Class Meetings:
  

  Type	Location	Days & Times
  Blended Lecture	North Lake Campus; K Building; ROOM K309	Tues/Thurs ; 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

• Withdraw Date : 10/01/2025
• Certification Date : 09/02/2025

Intensive study of and practice in writing processes, from invention and researching to drafting, revising, and editing, both individually and collaboratively. Emphasis on effective rhetorical choices, including audience, purpose, arrangement, and style. Focus on writing the academic essay as a vehicle for learning, communicating, and critical analysis.

Demonstrate knowledge of individual and collaborative writing processes. Develop ideas with appropriate support and attribution. Write in a style appropriate to audience and purpose. Read, reflect, and respond critically to a variety of texts. Use Edited American English in academic essays.

The College defines essential knowledge and skills that students need to develop during their college experience. These general education competencies parallel the Texas Core Objectives for Student Learning. In this course, the activities you engage in will give you the opportunity to practice two or more of the following core competencies:

1. Critical Thinking Skills: to include creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis, evaluation and synthesis of information;
2. Communication Skills: to include effective development, interpretation and expression of ideas through written, oral and visual communication;
3. Empirical and Quantitative Skills: to include the manipulation and analysis of numerical data or observable facts resulting in informed conclusions;
4. Teamwork: to include the ability to consider different points of view and to work effectively with others to support a shared purpose or goal;
5. Personal Responsibility: to include the ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to ethical decision-making;
6. Social Responsibility: to include intercultural competence, knowledge of civic responsibility, and the ability to engage effectively in regional, national, and global communities.

Lecture Materials Link

The "Criteria" table below is a summary of all the graded work in this course.

The "Breakdown" table explains the final letter grade.

This is a link to the table of course topics and due dates.

Your instructor will notify you of any changes to the schedule during the term.

AI Use in This Course

In this course, you are encouraged to explore and use generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Co-Pilot) as part of the writing process. These tools can support your learning when used responsibly, but they are not a replacement for your own critical thinking and writing.

Appropriate Uses of AI

• Brainstorming & Prewriting: Generate ideas, outlines, or possible approaches to a topic.

• Revision Support: Use AI to suggest sentence-level edits, improve clarity, or check grammar and style.

• Research Assistance: Use AI to locate potential sources or clarify background information (always verify credibility and cite actual sources used).

• Assignments with Explicit Permission: For some projects, you will be asked to document how AI assisted your work and reflect on its usefulness.

Expectations & Responsibilities

• Transparency: Whenever you use AI, you must acknowledge it. This can be done with a short note at the end of your assignment (e.g., “I used ChatGPT to help generate an outline for this essay and to suggest grammar edits.”).

• Accountability: You are responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of your work. AI output often contains errors or bias, so fact-checking is essential.

• Limits: AI may not be used to write entire essays for you. The purpose of this course is to strengthen your writing and critical thinking.

✅ Acceptable Uses of AI

• Brainstorming & Prewriting: Generating topic ideas, outlines, or brainstorming different approaches.

• Revision & Editing: Asking AI for help with grammar, clarity, tone, or conciseness in your own drafts.

• Practice & Feedback: Using AI to rephrase your writing for comparison or to check alternative sentence structures.

• Research Assistance: Asking AI to summarize background information, explain concepts, or point you toward potential sources (you must verify accuracy and cite real sources, not the AI).

• Documented Use in Assignments: When I specifically allow or encourage AI, you should note how you used it (e.g., “I used ChatGPT to suggest stronger transition phrases”).

❌ Unacceptable Uses of AI

• Full Draft Generation: Submitting an essay, paragraph, or discussion post written entirely by AI without your contribution.

• Fake or Fabricated Sources: Using AI-generated “sources” or citations that do not actually exist.

• Bypassing the Writing Process: Skipping brainstorming, drafting, and revising by relying on AI to do the majority of the work.

• Undisclosed Use: Using AI but not acknowledging it in your assignment.

• Misrepresentation: Presenting AI’s words or ideas as if they were fully your own original work.

Your Responsibility

AI can be a helpful assistant, but you are the writer. Always double-check accuracy, maintain your own voice, and remember that the goal of this course is to strengthen your writing and critical thinking skills.

Why This Matters

AI is becoming part of academic and professional writing. By learning how to use these tools responsibly, you gain valuable experience in evaluating, revising, and integrating AI assistance without losing your own voice as a writer.

Everything you submit must be your own work, written specifically for this class. This means no recycled papers. You are not allowed to submit papers you have written for previous classes. Everything you write must be specifically for this class.

Student Responsibilities

1. Attend all classes.
2. Read the textbook selections that are assigned and be prepared to discuss them.
3. Hand assignments in on time and in the format designated by your professor.
4. Ask for help when needed.
5. Do not expect your professor to repeat a lecture given during an absence.
6. Visit the Writing Center in the library or meet with your professor when you need help or when you are directed to do so by your professor.

The Student Code of Conduct prohibits academic dishonesty and prescribes penalties for violations. According to this code, which is printed in the college catalog, "academic dishonesty “includes (but is not limited to) cheating, fabrication, facilitating academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and collusion".

Occurrences of Plagiarism in Dr. Forbess’ ENGL 1301 at North Lake College will be dealt with in the following manner:

First occurrence: Student will receive a ZERO on the assignment.

Student will receive a zero for the assignment, with no opportunity for a rewrite.

Second occurrence: Student will receive an “F” for the course and the appropriate college representative will be notified.

NOTE: At any time during the course, the instructor reserves the right to check a student’s assignment(s) against any available means if plagiarism is suspected. This includes assignments which have previously been submitted and/or graded.

Definition of Plagiarism: 

Using someone else's language and/or ideas without proper attribution is academically dishonest. As members of this class and the larger scholarly community, you are expected to abide by the norms of academic honesty. While a good deal of collaboartion is encouraged with your classmates, failing to acknowledge sources or willfully misrepresenting the work of others as your own will not be tolerated. 

This is a freshman level course, and during this course you will be instructed on the proper methods of documentation, whether the material be paraphrased, summarized, or directly quoted. If you are unsure, please visit me or visit the NLC Writing Center for further instruction.

Policy for Emergency Communications

In rare cases, I may need to cancel a class meeting due to an emergency or make other last-minute changes. In this event, I will post an announcement to our eCampus course and send a copy by email. Please regularly check your Dallas College email address to make sure you do not miss emergency updates or other course communications.

Students will also receive email notifications from Dallas College Emergency Alerts. This system will alert you when icy weather or utility outages cancel classes, or in the event of other types of emergencies. See Updating Your Emergency Alerts Information to learn how to update your email address for emergency alerts, choose to be alerted by text message or phone call, or opt out of emergency alerts.

Late submissions will be accepted up to ONE day past the due date with no late penalty (called a grace period); however, after the one-day grace period, late assignments will not be accepted.

No late assignments are accepted on the discussions or the last assignment. These assignments must be posted by the due date to be eligible for a grade.

When are Assignments Counted Late?

Assignments are late if they are not posted by midnight (in Central Standard Time zone) of the day they are due. Assignments that are more than 1 day late will not be accepted unless we have negotiated and mutually agreed upon an alternative submission date in advance. Unless an Incomplete grade has been granted, student assignments submitted after the last day of class will not be accepted.

Technology Connectivity Issues are NOT an Excuse

Please note that eCampus connection issues are NOT an excuse for late papers. If you are unable to connect to eCampus and upload an assignment, send me an email and a copy of the assignment to my email address: [email protected] as proof that you attempted to post the assignment on time.

In the email, you must tell me that you were unable to connect to the eCampus system and you MUST show verification that you contacted the eCampus Help Desk for assistance (eCampus Helpline: 972-669-6402 or 1-866-374-7169).

You must then upload the assignment as soon as the system is once again available.

NOTE: I will NOT grade an assignment that comes to my email. It must be posted in the appropriate program to count for grading purposes.

Request for Extensions on Missed Assignments

A request for an extension due to familly emergencies, or other extenuating circumstance, will not automatically be granted. If an emergency arises, take of the situation. If you miss an assignment in doing so, we will discuss the options for completing missed assignment. 

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