Composition 1 is a first-year required course. This course introduces students to the writing process and to the conventions of written English, teaches students to write grammatically accurate sentences, well-formed paragraphs with clear topic sentences and supporting details, and coherent short essays. Written assignments include journals, paragraphs, and short essays in one or more drafts. This course is taught in tandem with Oral Training 1.

In this course, students will move from writing at an informal sentence level to a formal text level by the end of the school year. The first semester of the course is focused on paragraph writing with a variety of methods of support. The second semester is focused on the five-paragraph essay (introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion) commonly used in academic writing. Students will do a lot of activities and exercises both in and out of class to help them recognize and execute the rhetorical and discourse structures commonly found in English composition. In order to pass this course, students must be able to exhibit their ability to demonstrate the course skills.

Smalley, G., Rutten, M., & Kozyrev, J. (2001). Refining composition skills, 5th edition. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle