The HS4CC ASU UL Portal has a new English course option: ENG105 First-Year Advanced Composition! This is a unique course based on a new “classroom model” ASU is piloting. ASU provides the central curriculum for the course through videos,
readings, and assignments, and all grading is done by the ASU faculty, while optional discussions, collaborations, and peer review are handled in the classroom (not the online course site).
A Facilitator’s Guide is provided, which offers a homeschool parent, co-op English course teacher, or public/charter school teacher additional materials that can be used to augment the college course, as the teacher chooses.
The course is self-paced, open enrollment, and is offered coinciding with regular school year dates and will be available 8/16/22 – 6/30/23, but needs to be completed by 6/30/23. The goal is for high schools and homeschools to have a more flexible model that they can adapt to classroom schedules. The course utilizes different tools and projects than are found in the ASU UL ENG101 and ENG102 English Composition 1 and 2 courses, as detailed below.
The course documents – 4 in total – can be found in the Files section of the HS4CC with ASU Courses group on Facebook, along with the syllabi from all of the other ASU courses. Be sure to look for the Facilitator’s Guide for more details!
If a student needs additional help beyond the course resources and instructor feedback provided by ASU, and the course facilitator, ASU now provides tutoring access for Universal Learner programs at no additional charge via their online virtual tutoring portal.
Note: this course is only available in the HS4CC portal. Students will need to be able to log in to their student Dashboard with their ASURITE ID to enroll. This course will not show up on the “main” ASU UL portal page (ea.asu.edu), and is not open to the general public.
Overview
The class is built around three culturally-responsive projects that leverage the Adobe Suite to highlight 21st century skills within a composition course. End products include a cookbook based around the learner’s culture, a digital website telling the story of a place of meaning, and a podcast exploring persuasion in the context of positive community change. This course does require the use of Adobe Creative Cloud Apps, provided for learners in this course at no extra charge courtesy of Adobe.
What You’ll Learn
- Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing: Define an argumentative purpose that addresses an academic debate, pressing social issue, or relevant cultural phenomenon
- Rhetorical Knowledges: Identify rhetorical situations that frame a pressing social issue or relevant cultural phenomenon and learn discipline-specific methods of academic research and argumentation
- Composing Processes: Implement the fundamental components of embodied writing practices such as invention, drafting, collaboration, revision, and reflection; evaluate, incorporate, and document primary and secondary sources according to academic conventions
Course Format
Learners in this classroom model will watch video lectures, read ASU-curated resources, and complete formative knowledge checks and reflections in the ASU-designed course site. This is supplemented by live discussions, peer review, and
other locally-driven collaborations in the learner’s classroom to drive social learning, mentorship, and peer feedback. The experience culminates in projects submitted to ASU experts for evaluation and feedback.
Earning College Credit
This course appears on your transcript identically to how it appears on the transcript of an enrolled ASU student.
This course satisfies 3 credit hours toward the First-year Composition requirement at Arizona State University. At ASU, the course will count for both of the composition credits (replacing ENG 101 and 102). It is strongly encouraged that you consult with your institution of choice to determine how these credits will be applied.
In order to receive academic credit for this course, you must earn a grade of “C” or better. You have one year to add the course to your transcript.
How to Succeed
To be successful in this course, we recommend English language fluency and computer literacy. We also encourage you to make sure your laptop or desktop computer meets the technical requirements.
Final Notes on this Unique Course
There have been discussions in the Facebook group about the number of credits granted, how one might utilize this course, and how it fulfills requirements in a typical degree plan. We encourage you to join the Facebook group to join those discussions. Here is a brief summary from those discussions:
Q: Why only 3 college credits when the course is ENG101/102 combined?
A: We can’t say why ASU chose to do it this way, but they are using the course in their own programs to give ENG101/102 credit. Some other schools *might* do the same, potentially leaving an extra 3 credits for electives or other degree or minor requirements.
Q: How can we utilize this course in our homeschool or co-op?
A: We can see this course utilized in a few different ways, beyond the obvious:
Scenario 1: We have MANY requests for an extra English credit for high school AND MANY requests for someone else teach and to do the grading. This course could be used to fulfill some of those high school English credits, but with the added benefit of college professors providing feedback and a fully prepared curriculum at an inexpensive price. At the end, if the student earns a grade that satisfies their goals, they have up to a year to optionally pay the $400 to have it placed on an official ASU transcript. I challenge you to find a high quality high school English course, with curriculum, instructor feedback, for just $25! Add the option to upgrade for credit if you like that grade, and I can assure you, you will not find it. 😉
Despite the “advanced” in the name, and given the scope encompasses both ENG101/102, this course could be used as a pre-cursor to taking ENG101/102 to prepare for ENG101 and/or ENG102 in subsequent semesters, which might provide better transfer applications. See the “How will this Transfer Q&A” below. Students following this path would almost certainly have improved their writing skills and increased their chances of earning top marks in the ENG101/102 sequence that might follow.
Scenario 2: Use this course as an inexpensive co-op dual credit course. At our local co-ops, dual credit courses tend to be very expensive. The course is already laid out for the teacher, and ready to implement! It has the flexibility of matching up to co-op schedules, Spring/Fall Break, holidays, etc.
Scenario 3: Your student is trying to bypass the ACCUPLACER/TSI(A) tests – this is a VERY common request across all of our state groups, and a common use of the English and Math courses! Often the school only needs 1 English course in transfer to satisfy the placement exam requirements, but occasionally 2 are required. Ask the receiving school if ENG105 will satisfy their requirements, since it’s a combination of both ENG101/102. Currently only ENG101 is offered in a self-paced format. ENG102 is on a scheduled rotation and is only offered as teacher-paced. People often want to rapidly finish both courses to bypass the placement exams and get started with other college courses, but ENG102’s schedule/pacing often slows them down. A student who just needs to tick the box on these two courses could move through ENG105 at a faster pace, and it only costs them $425 for 1 course, versus $850 for the ENG101/102 courses.
Scenario 4: Your state needs a transcript as proof of a homeschool high school English course was completed. This ties in with Scenario 1. Some states have highly restrictive rules around homeschooling – so this might be a life saver for some!
Scenario 5: It could also be used as an elective, to expand the student’s knowledge of different software tools – the podcast and cookbook, in particular, look appealing and useful! I love it when my kids learn skills that could be used in real life to make money! The course uses the Adobe suite of tools and and projects that differ from ENG101/102.
Q: How will this course transfer to another college?
A: We can’t answer that for any course or college. It’s up to each individual college to determine how transfer credit is accepted and applied to a degree plan. You can search for the “school name transfer tool”, or a tool like Transferology and often colleges will list courses they’ve already evaluated for transfer from other institutions, and how it transfers. This course is not new to ASU, only the Universal Learner platform, therefore some colleges may have evaluated it already. ASU’s courses, in general, should be highly transferrable to other colleges. It’s regionally accredited credit from a 4 year Tier 1 research institution.
The second part of your research should include looking at the English/Communication courses the receiving school will accept for their core curriculum. Look to see if the course equivalency number provided in the transfer tool matches the core curriculum list for the receiving institution.
This particular class *could* replace both ENG101/102 at the receiving school, as it does at ASU, or it might fulfill only one (some colleges only require 1 composition course). A plan for those who wish to utilize ENG105 without having 3 semesters of college English courses, *might* be to do ENG105 + either ENG101 or 102 for a more in depth experience, and still have 2 courses to transfer for freshman English, if needed. Obviously, the last option would be to omit ENG105 entirely and stick with ENG101/102. There are many options!
Here are some transfer examples from a random selection of colleges we checked:
| College | ASU Course | Transfers in as: | Satisfies a Core? |
| Clemson | ENG102, ENG105 | ENG103 | Y* |
| Univ of Michigan | ENG102, ENG105 | ENGLISH125 | Y |
| ENG101 | ENG Dept credit | Maybe-ask | |
| Texas A&M | ENG102, ENG105 | ENGL104 | Y |
| ENG101 | ENGL103 | Y | |
| Kent State | ENG101, ENG105 | ENG11011 | Y |
| ENG102 | ENG21011 | Y | |
| Loyola | ENG102, ENG105 | UCWR110 | Y* |
| ENG101 | Gen Ed Elective | ||
| Indiana State U | ENG102, ENG105 | ENG105 | Y |
| ENG101 | ENG101 | Y | |
| U of Oklahoma | ENG102, ENG105 | ENGL1213 | Y |
| ENG101 | ENGL1113 | Y | |
| U of Colorado-Boulder | ENG102, ENG105 | WRTG1250 | Y |
| ENG101 | WRTG1150 | Y | |
| U of Alabama | ENG101, ENG105 | ENG101 | Y? |
| ENG102 | ENG102 | Y? | |
| Illinois State U | ENG101 | ENG101 | Y* |
| ENG102 | ENG145 | n/a | |
| ENG105 | ENG145 or ENGMJEL | n/a | |
| U of Nevada-LV | ENG102, 105 | ENG102 | Y |
| ENG101 | ENG101 | Y |
I highlighted the few that granted the same credit for ENG101 and ENG105. Of course, this is a very small sample from the thousands of regionally accredited colleges in the U.S., so the data is subject to skewing – this is why we encourage you to do your own research to see how these courses might transfer into the colleges of interest.
Note: I didn’t include colleges that hadn’t evaluated ENG105 for transfer (no entry in their database or Transferology yet).
What is the UL program?
ASU’s Universal Learner program, formerly known as the Earned Admissions program, is a unicorn in the college world. Students of any age in any part of the world can sign up for regionally accredited (the gold standard) college courses with no hassles, no need to send your transcripts, no red tape, no placement tests, and no risk to a student’s GPA. If the student doesn’t get the grade they want, simply do not pay the $400 at the end of the course and there is no record of the course. Retake the courses as many times as is needed for just a minimal $25 sign-up fee. Find out the full scope of the program.
How to Sign Up as a New Student:
For more detailed information about how to sign up for to take courses in the Universal Learner program, formerly known as the Earned Admissions program, please visit our post “How to Sign up for ASU Earned Admissions Courses”. Again, please note that students in the HS4CC portal have access to ALL of the courses in the regular Universal Learner portal, but we have EXTRA course offerings, such as Poetry in America courses, the pilot of ENG105 Advanced English Comp, and occasionally we have additional pacing options (ie self-paced vs teacher-paced), etc. The list of courses on the sign-up page is just a sample of what’s available and is not the full list available to HS4CC students in their dashboard. We do not make any money from this program or ASU in any way. The HS4CC portal was created to facilitate special offerings from ASU to the homeschool community.
Join our ASU Course group for Homeschoolers community on Facebook for help selecting courses, course reviews and discussions, and much more!
