ENG 300 Advanced Composition

By
Robert G. Turner, Jr., Ph.D.
About the Author
Robert G. Turner, Jr., holds a B.S. in business and an M.S. and
a Ph.D. in sociology. He has more than 20 years of teaching
experience, mainly at the college level, and is currently serving
as an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg. Dr. Turner
is primarily employed as a professional freelance writer. His literary
credits include two stage plays, two novels, and two nonfiction
works, along with an array of publications in academic and
educational venues.
INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS 1
LESSON ASSIGNMENTS 7
LESSON 1: PLANNING A PAPER WITH SOURCES 9
EXAMINATION—LESSON 1 27
LESSON 2: FINDING SOURCES AND TAKING NOTES 31
EXAMINATION—LESSON 2 49
LESSON 3: WRITING A PAPER USING SOURCES 53
EXAMINATION—LESSON 3 75
LESSON 4: REVIEWING WRITING BASICS
AND ANALYZING POETRY 79
EXAMINATION 99
LESSON 5: USING DEFINITION WITH
CLASSIFICATION 103
EXAMINATION 111
LESSON 6: USING COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 113
EXAMINATION 125
LESSON 7: WRITING AN ARGUMENT 129
EXAMINATION—COURSE FINAL 139
SELF-CHECK ANSWERS 141
APPENDIX 173
iii
C o n t e n t s C o n t e n t s
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to your course on advanced composition. This
course continues where English Composition left off and will
help you build your writing skills further. In this course,
you’ll practice research and writing skills by developing
papers that require you to use sources and correctly cite
them using MLA formatting. You’ll learn to look at writing
with a critical eye—a skill you can apply to your own work,
as well as to the reading you do for research or in your daily
activities. You’ll apply these skills to your own writing through
editing and revising.
COURSE SYLLABUS
Course name: Advanced Composition
Course number: ENG 300
Instructors: Multiple—see faculty listing in the
Student Handbook
Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 A.M. to 7 P.M. Eastern
Standard Time
Contact information: After logging into your homepage at the
student Web site, click Contact us. If you call the telephone
number, choose the menu options for speaking to an instructor
and request extension 8564. For e-mail, choose Contact
Education. You must type your e-mail address correctly
to ensure a reply to your question and include your
student number in the message. You also must add
edserv@pennfoster.com to the list of approved or
accepted senders in your e-mail browser.
For the best instructional assistance, ask specific questions,
explaining what you don’t understand and the particular
page in the study materials or exam requirement that it
relates to.
Text: Kathleen T. McWhorter, Successful College Writing:
Brief Third Edition.
1
I n s t r u c t i o n s I n s t r u c t i o n s
2 Instructions to Students
COURSE OBJECTIVES
Primary objective: You’ll use research to plan, organize,
develop, and edit a variety of papers with clarity and precision
using standard MLA formatting.
When you complete this course, you’ll be able to
■ Properly narrow a thesis statement
■ Apply an appropriate writing style to a particular
audience and purpose
■ Use researched evidence and suitable patterns of
development to develop your thesis
■ Implement critical-reading strategies to analyze writing
in sources and while revising your own work
■ Properly paraphrase, summarize, and quote sources
■ Correctly apply the MLA format
■ Analyze literary elements and use correct terminology to
describe them
■ Build effective paragraphs, including powerful
introductions and effective conclusions
■ Apply conventions of standard written American English
to editing your work
A STUDY PLAN
This study guide contains your lesson assignments and the
exams for the seven lessons you’ll complete for this course.
The self-checks at the end of each assignment will help you
assess your understanding of the material so you’ll know
whether you should move on to the next assignment or do
further review to master the material before continuing.
Note: For Lesson 6, you’re required to read one novel that has been
turned into a movie and to watch that movie. The list of movies
made from books is extensive and includes To Kill a Mockingbird,
The Princess Bride, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and the Harry
Potter series. (A short story or children’s book isn’t an appropriate
selection. You must read a full-length novel.)
Instructions to Students 3
Study pace. Students have a study time limit for the semester but not one specific to Advanced Composition. You must
pace yourself wisely through the semester’s courses to meet
the expiration date, allowing sufficient time for reading,
prewriting, drafting, revising, and grading. Generally, you
should allot at least two weeks for each English lesson, with
some taking longer than that, and you must complete each
exam in the correct order. Since the course goal is to help
you grow as a writer by deliberately using your strengths and
improving weaknesses with each assignment, you shouldn’t
submit the essays for Lessons 4, 5, and 6 until you receive
the previous lesson’s evaluation. You should, however, move
ahead to work on the next lessons while waiting for an exam
evaluation. (If you have other courses available for study, you
may work on those materials while taking this English course
and submit any completed exams.)
Exam submissions. Use the following guidelines when submitting your exams:
■ For multiple-choice examinations (Lessons 1, 2, and 3),
you may submit your exam online, by phone using
TelTest, or by mail using Exam Express. (See the
Student Handbook for instructions.)
■ For written examinations (Lessons 4, 5, 6, and 7), unless
the individual exam instructions specify otherwise, papers
must be typed double-spaced using a standard, 12-point
font and left justification. Use 1-inch margins at the top
and bottom and 1.25-inch margins for the left and right
sides of the document. Each page must have a header in
the proper format, containing student name, student
number with exam number, page number, mailing
address, and e-mail address.
Jane Doe 23456789—50080300 5
987 Nice Street
My Town, AZ 34567
janedoe@yahoo.com
Name each document using your student number first,
then the six-digit lesson number, and finally your name
(e.g., 23456789_500803 Jane Doe). Save each as “File Type:
Rich Text Format” regardless of the word processing program
you use. Follow the instructions in the text on pages 712–715.
Use “Instructor,” rather than an instructor’s name. The course
is Advanced Composition ENG 300. Don’t use headings in the
body of your paper.
4 Instructions to Students
Exams can be submitted online from the student homepage
using the Take Exam button next to the lesson number on
the “My Courses” page. After keying in the full exam number,
you’ll complete the uploading process for submission. Check
to be sure that the document you’ve uploaded is the one containing your final work for evaluation. When your paper is
received into the exam system, it’s coded as RCD with the
date received.
To receive e-mailed evaluations for electronic submissions,
you must type your e-mail address accurately and add
edserv@pennfoster.com to the accepted senders list in
your e-mail browser.
Evaluation. Evaluation usually occurs within seven business
days of receipt (from the RCD date code). Exams are scored
according to the parameters of the exam assignment using
the Advance Composition Course Rubric, which is located in
the Appendix of this study guide with a complete explanation
of evaluation criteria and skill levels. Instructors may write
feedback on both the essay and the evaluation chart.
Retakes. Students are required to complete all assigned
work, including a retake for any first-time failing attempt on
an exam. The evaluation of any first-time failing exam will
include a Required Retake form. That form must then be
included with your retake exam submission to ensure proper
handling. If the assigned work isn’t provided, submissions
will be evaluated according to the criteria but additional
points will be deducted for not following the instructions. In
addition, please review school policy about retakes in the
Student Handbook (available online).
Plagiarism policy. Carefully review the plagiarism policy in
the Student Handbook (available online). The first submission
that departs from this policy earns a grade of 1 percent. If it’s
a first-time submission, you may retake the exam (per retake
procedures). A second such submission on any subsequent
exam means failure of the Advanced Composition course.
Organization. To keep your work for this course organized,
create clearly labeled files in your word processing program. We
recommend you create a primary file folder named “Advanced
Composition.” Within that folder, create separate files,
Instructions to Students 5
such as “Self-Checks” and “Course Notes.” Also create a
folder for each written exam (Lessons 4, 5, 6, and 7), where
you’ll keep files of your research notes, rough drafts, and
final draft. Establish a clear naming system for each file
so you don’t confuse early drafts with your final version of
an essay. When you reopen a rough draft, immediately use
“Save as” and add the date before further revision. That way
you won’t lose anything you may delete but then wish you
had kept.
6 Instructions to Students
NOTES
7
Lesson 1: Planning a Paper with Sources

Examination 50080000
Lesson 2: Finding Sources and Taking Notes

Examination 50080100
Lesson 3: Writing a Paper Using Sources

Examination 50080200
A s s i g n m e n t s A s s i g n m e n t s
8 Advanced Composition
Lesson 4: Reviewing Writing Basics and Analyzing Poetry