Breaking Barriers in Teaching and Learning - Constructing an Honors Composition Course to Support a Research-Based Honors Curriculum

As the research focus of post-secondary honors education intensifies, the honors composition course can be designed to support this mission by introducing students to discipline-specific research tools and argumentation styles while building an interdisciplinary community of scholars who can debate issues both within and outside their fields. Not only do students develop skills in selecting, reading, and writing researched academic arguments, but they also gain insight into the publication and presentation processes as related to professional development in a given discipline. Students learn how publishers and editors serve as gatekeepers of what is considered knowledge in a field, how researchers debate issues with each other in print, how publication timelines for various types of books and journals differ, and why publication in scholarly and professional venues is important to one’s career