Southern Utah University

Course Syllabus

Back to Syllabus Search | Browse by Department
Southern Utah University
Southern Utah University
Spring Semester 2026

ENGL 2010 - IW: Writing about Service

ENGL 2010-10

Course: ENGL 2010-10
Credits: 3
Term: Spring Semester 2026
Department: ENGL
CRN: 12078

Course Description

The second of the GE writing courses emphasizes the development of an effective academic style in argumentative essays that makes use of traditional rhetorical patterns, culminating in a major research paper. Subtopics will vary. Students with ACT English scores below 29 must take ENGL 1010 or ENGL 1010E before enrolling in 2010. (Fall, Spring, Summer) [Graded (Standard Letter)] Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1010 or ENGL 1010E or ACT English Subscore - Prerequisite Min. Grade: D- Prerequisite Test (Min. Score): ACT English Subscore (29) General Education Category: Written Communication

Service as Homework

The theme of this section of ENGL 2010 is Writing about Service. As part of your homework for the course, you will be required to do about 1 hour of service per week for the first 10 weeks of the semester. These hours are included in the expected 6 hours of homework per week for the class during the semester (not in addition to the expected homework).

Required Texts

There is no required textbook for this course. You will complete reading assignments that are available for free or through subscriptions provided by the library.

Students read sources of their own choosing for all of their papers. During their Student Choice Essay and Research Paper projects, students select one topic related to our course theme and select readings (background reading and high quality, academic sources) to develop their writing from.

For class discussions towards the beginning of the semester, students will choose together (as a whole class) readings on topics related to our course theme. These sources may be used for the last essay of the semester, the Service Reflection Essay, or students may choose a new source to use in that essay (the decision will be individual at that point).

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

1. Sources and Evidence: Locate, evaluate, and integrate credible and relevant sources to achieve various writing purposes.
  • Course Assignments to Accomplish these Outcomes: Pre-writing, Synthesis Matrix, Research Sources Folder 

2. Genre Awareness: Demonstrate critical and conceptual awareness of genre in reading and writing—including organization, content, presentation, formatting, and stylistic choices. 
  • Course Assignments to Accomplish these Outcomes: Readings, All major writing assignments 

3. Context and Purpose: Analyze rhetorical situations and adapt to the audience, purpose, modalities, and the circumstances surrounding a range of reading and writing tasks.
  • Course Assignments to Accomplish these Outcomes: Readings, All major writing assignments


4. Language Awareness and Usage: Recognize and make intentional, critical, and contextually-informed language choices across a range of rhetorical contexts/situations.
  • Course Assignments to Accomplish these Outcomes: Pre-writing, Peer Reviews, Revision Plans, All major writing assignments 


5. Recursive Writing Processes: Develop flexible, iterative, and reflective processes for invention, drafting, workshopping, and revision.
  • Course Assignments to Accomplish these Outcomes: All major writing assignments 

Attendance Policy

You receive a small grade for attendance in this class. Regular participation and activity in this class is essential for you to learn writing skills, understand the requirements of the assignments, and be part of our community of learners/writers. **If you are not in class 2 weeks in a row, I will stop grading your assignments until you meet with me to talk about your class participation.**

Course Requirements

Assignment Outline

Writing Conferences, In-Class Work, Attendance (10% of grade)
You'll do various writing conferences throughout the semester to help you improve your writing on early drafts. This will be with your peers and me. In addition, you'll received points for attendance and in-class work (reading quizzes, in-class writing, etc.).
Works Cited and In-text Citations Quizzes (10% of grade)
These quizzes on Canvas will teach you and help you practice to use MLA formatting in your Works Cited page and in-text citations.
Service Reflection Essay (20% of grade, includes prewriting)
 You'll complete 10 hours of service as homework in this class, through the Community Engagement Center. Part of this portion of your grade is for completing the service hours and turning in your Service Log. The other part is writing a reflection about the service that you completed during the semester. You'll need to reference material from at least one source about service that we discussed earlier in the semester. 3-5 pages of writing, at least 1 source, MLA formatted.
Student Choice Paper (20% of grade, includes prewriting)
 You'll have 2 options to choose from when deciding what type of document you'll write for our first project. The choices are
(1) a topic proposal (if you want help narrowing a general topic you like down to a potential thesis statement for your research paper);
or (2) an annotated bibliography (if you are ready to start finding the sources that will be required for the research paper).
Each of these writing projects will have individual requirements and directions that you will follow, but there are some common requirements: 5-6 pages, Minimum of 4 sources, MLA formatted. 

Research Progress Report (10% of grade)
 Present to the class what you have completed on your research project, what you have left to do, and what challenges you've encountered or changes you've had to make to your research project since you started it. Should include reporting on the minimum of 6-7 high-quality academic sources you've found for your project so far and how you plan to find the remaining required sources (you'll need 8 for your Research Paper Draft 1). This presentation will be in class, completely verbal (no visual presentation) and should be 4-6 minutes long. 
Research Paper (30% of grade, includes prewriting)
A research paper making an argument about a topic related to our theme of Service. 10-12 pages of writing with at least 8 high-quality academic sources. MLA formatted.
Grade Scheme
The following grading scheme will be used in this class:

Grade Range
| A  | 100 % to 94.0%
| A-  | < 94.0 % to 90.0%
| B+  | < 90.0 % to 87.0%
| B  | < 87.0 % to 84.0%
| B-  | < 84.0 % to 80.0%
| C+  | < 80.0 % to 77.0%
| C  | < 77.0 % to 74.0%
| C-  | < 74.0 % to 70.0%
| D+  | < 70.0 % to 67.0%
| D  | < 67.0 % to 64.0%
| D-  | < 64.0 % to 61.0%
| F  | < 61.0 % to 0.0%
Final Exam: You will not have an in-person final exam. Instead, you will turn in your last essay draft on Canvas during finals week.

Course Outline

Unit 1: Student Choice Paper
This unit will cover the following topics: writing process, topic selection, rhetoric and analyzing the rhetorical situation, rhetorical choices, critical reading, academic integrity, analysis, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, signal phrases, MLA formatting, MLA in-text citations, MLA Works Cited page,  generative AI and research, evaluating sources, background reading, library resources. 5-6 weeks.

Unit 2: Research Paper
This unit will cover the following topics: basic essay organization, academic essay organization, note-taking, quoting (review), paraphrasing (review), summarizing (review), argumentation, academic rhetorical choices, minimizing bias, MLA formatting (review), MLA in-text citations (review). 6-7 weeks.

Unit 3: Service Reflection Essay
This unit will cover the following topics: writing process, reflection, academic tone, balancing rhetorical choices, writing from personal experience. 10 hours of service over the first weeks of the semester, 3-4 weeks of writing the essay at the end of the semester.

Instructor's policies on late assignments and/or makeup work

Late Assignment Policy: In general, assignments lose 10% of their points each day they are late (starting at 12am the next day, because most assignments are due at midnight the day they are due). Assignments will be graded with a 0 after they are 10 days late. (Assignments that can be turned in late with no penalty will have a note of that on the assignment or be announced in class. You should plan on the 10% late penalty unless otherwise informed.) This policy can be set aside if you arrange for a delayed due date IN ADVANCE. As soon as you are aware that you won't meet a deadline, communicate with me to arrange a new due date. I will not be flexible with a new deadline if you request it after you've already missed the deadline.

Essays and other assignments must be turned in within 1 week of the due date to receive feedback, unless you cleared the late submission with me in advance (those turned in after a week but before 10 days can still receive a percentage of the points, but will not receive feedback/comments).

Makeup Work:  Makeup work (work that is turned in again but late because you are unsatisfied with your original grade) will be assessed the late penalty of 10% per day. It is up to you to decide if you can resubmit it fast enough to get better than the original grade you factor in the daily grade deduction.

Academic Integrity: Plagiarism, Fabricated Information, Artificial Intelligence Use, Learner Responsibility

Academic Integrity: You are responsible for your academic integrity in everything that you do, write, and submit to this class. This means that you should be aware of SUU's definitions of Academic Misconduct (and each type of academic misconduct that is possible). Work to avoid academic integrity violations of all kinds by putting sufficient time, energy, and attention into what you are researching, writing, and using in the completion of course assignments.

Plagiarism: Someone else’s words are not your own work. If you submit their words without proper attribution (quotation marks, in-text citations, and Works Cited page), that is plagiarism. Someone else’s idea is not your own work. If you submit their idea without proper attribution (in-text citations and Works Cited page), that is plagiarism. Do not use someone else’s words or ideas and present them as your own work. Additionally, you must accurately represent what the source conveys. Including misleading information about a source is plagiarism as well. Finally, submitting something you wrote for another class (making multiple submissions of the same work) is self-plagiarism if you haven't received permission from both instructors. Any form of plagiarism on an assignment for this course will result in a 0 for the assignment, and you will be required to resubmit it with the proper attribution/information before it can be regraded.

False or fabricated information: False or fabricated information in an essay assignment (including fake quotations, fake sources, or misrepresented information from a source) is an academic integrity violation. Including false or fabricated information in a course submission will result in a 0 for the assignment, and you will be required to resubmit it without the fabrication before it can be regraded.

Artificial Intelligence: Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) such as chatGPT is not recommended in this class. This is for several reasons:
1. Generative AI is a tool. You need to learn writing skills and work on improving your own writing in order to use that tool effectively.
2. Generative AI alone (copying and pasting directly from what a large language model has written) cannot pass this class. You will be required to work on your writing beyond generative AI’s capabilities.
3. Generative AI frequently makes mistakes, writes things that are not true, or fabricates information. It will require you to work hard to take these mistakes/false information out of what a large language model has written.
4. Finally, copying and pasting from generative AI prevents your voice from showing up in your writing.

On the other hand, use of generative AI can be helpful in building your writing skills during many parts of the writing process. If you are using it as a tool, avoiding copying/pasting from it, and using some of the time you saved with the tool in order to check what it has produced, then you may be able to use it skillfully to help you with your work in this class.  Your use of AI on assignments in this class should NOT include copying and pasting from generative AI without extensive critical thought and revision. For every draft assignment, I will require students to notify me if they have used generative AI and answer some questions about that use (again, using some of the time that you saved by using it to reflect on that use).

Learner Responsibility: Anything that you put in your writing should be what you really think and are able to critically engage with as a topic of writing. You are also responsible for everything that you put into your writing, including material that may have been generated by GenAI. GenAI cannot be held accountable for plagiarism, fabricated information, or any other academic integrity violation. So please recognize that you will be held accountable for these problems, whether they enter your writing through GenAI or not.

Regrading: Assignments resubmitted after revision for plagiarism, false or fabricated information, misrepresentation of a source, etc., receive an automatic 50% deduction once the academic integrity violation has been resolved. If this happens multiple times during the semester, you will fail the course.

Course Fees

There are no course fees associated with this course.

ADA Statement

Students with medical, psychological, learning, or other disabilities desiring academic adjustments, accommodations, or auxiliary aids will need to contact the Disability Resource Center, located in Room 206F of the Sharwan Smith Center or by phone at (435) 865-8042. The Disability Resource Center determines eligibility for and authorizes the provision of services.

If your instructor requires attendance, you may need to seek an ADA accommodation to request an exception to this attendance policy. Please contact the Disability Resource Center to determine what, if any, ADA accommodations are reasonable and appropriate.

Academic Credit

According to the federal definition of a Carnegie credit hour: A credit hour of work is the equivalent of approximately 60 minutes of class time or independent study work. A minimum of 45 hours of work by each student is required for each unit of credit. Credit is earned only when course requirements are met. One (1) credit hour is equivalent to 15 contact hours of lecture, discussion, testing, evaluation, or seminar, as well as 30 hours of student homework. An equivalent amount of work is expected for laboratory work, internships, practica, studio, and other academic work leading to the awarding of credit hours. Credit granted for individual courses, labs, or studio classes ranges from 0.5 to 15 credit hours per semester.

Academic Freedom

SUU is operated for the common good of the greater community it serves. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition. Academic Freedom is the right of faculty to study, discuss, investigate, teach, and publish. Academic Freedom is essential to these purposes and applies to both teaching and research.

Academic Freedom in the realm of teaching is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the faculty member and of you, the student, with respect to the free pursuit of learning and discovery. Faculty members possess the right to full freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects. They may present any controversial material relevant to their courses and their intended learning outcomes, but they shall take care not to introduce into their teaching controversial materials which have no relation to the subject being taught or the intended learning outcomes for the course.

As such, students enrolled in any course at SUU may encounter topics, perspectives, and ideas that are unfamiliar or controversial, with the educational intent of providing a meaningful learning environment that fosters your growth and development. These parameters related to Academic Freedom are included in SUU Policy 6.6.

Academic Misconduct

Scholastic honesty is expected of all students. Dishonesty will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent (see SUU Policy 6.33). You are expected to have read and understood the current SUU student conduct code (SUU Policy 11.2) regarding student responsibilities and rights, the intellectual property policy (SUU Policy 5.52), information about procedures, and what constitutes acceptable behavior.

Please Note: The use of websites or services that sell essays is a violation of these policies; likewise, the use of websites or services that provide answers to assignments, quizzes, or tests is also a violation of these policies. Regarding the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), you should check with your individual course instructor.

Emergency Management Statement

In case of an emergency, the University's Emergency Notification System (ENS) will be activated. Students are encouraged to maintain updated contact information using the link on the homepage of the mySUU portal. In addition, students are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Emergency Response Protocols posted in each classroom. Detailed information about the University's emergency management plan can be found at https://www.suu.edu/emergency.

HEOA Compliance Statement

For a full set of Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) compliance statements, please visit https://www.suu.edu/heoa. The sharing of copyrighted material through peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, except as provided under U.S. copyright law, is prohibited by law; additional information can be found at https://my.suu.edu/help/article/1096/heoa-compliance-plan.

You are also expected to comply with policies regarding intellectual property (SUU Policy 5.52) and copyright (SUU Policy 5.54).

Mandatory Reporting

University policy (SUU Policy 5.60) requires instructors to report disclosures received from students that indicate they have been subjected to sexual misconduct/harassment. The University defines sexual harassment consistent with Federal Regulations (34 C.F.R. Part 106, Subpart D) to include quid pro quo, hostile environment harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking. When students communicate this information to an instructor in-person, by email, or within writing assignments, the instructor will report that to the Title IX Coordinator to ensure students receive support from the Title IX Office. A reporting form is available at https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?SouthernUtahUniv

Non-Discrimination Statement

SUU is committed to fostering an inclusive community of lifelong learners and believes our university's encompassing of different views, beliefs, and identities makes us stronger, more innovative, and better prepared for the global society.

SUU does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, citizenship, sex (including sex discrimination and sexual harassment), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ancestry, disability status, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, genetic information, military status, veteran status, or other bases protected by applicable law in employment, treatment, admission, access to educational programs and activities, or other University benefits or services.

SUU strives to cultivate a campus environment that encourages freedom of expression from diverse viewpoints. We encourage all to dialogue within a spirit of respect, civility, and decency.

For additional information on non-discrimination, please see SUU Policy 5.27 and/or visit https://www.suu.edu/nondiscrimination.

Pregnancy

Students who are or become pregnant during this course may receive reasonable modifications to facilitate continued access and participation in the course. Pregnancy and related conditions are broadly defined to include pregnancy, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, lactation, related medical conditions, and recovery. To obtain reasonable modifications, please make a request to title9@suu.edu. To learn more visit: https://www.suu.edu/titleix/pregnancy.html.

Disclaimer Statement

Information contained in this syllabus, other than the grading, late assignments, makeup work, and attendance policies, may be subject to change with advance notice, as deemed appropriate by the instructor.