English Placement & First-Year Composition FAQs

DSP is one of Plattsburgh’s two English placement options, the other of which is high school GPA. With GPA placement, students with a high school GPA of 85% or higher may register for ENG101, and students with an 84.9% or lower may register for ENG100. With DSP placement, students choose the coursework they believe suits them best, regardless of high school GPA.

Yes. You can change your English placement by completing the DSP questionnaire.

The questionnaire is an online application. To access it, you must log in using your Plattsburgh ID by visiting this site: http://brightspace.plattsburgh.edu

The questionnaire will ask you to complete a reading and writing activity, take an inventory of questions about your literacy history and watch a video on FYC. You will complete the questionnaire by selecting the FYC path you intend to take after the video is over.

Yes, the choice is ultimately up to you. You can also wait until the end of the first week of classes to change courses; however, please be advised that you may not get into another FYC class during that semester, and you may have to wait until the spring.

If you are attending orientation, you should complete the questionnaire before it begins. At orientation, you will have an opportunity to speak with a FYC faculty member about your choice of path during advisement. At registration, you may ask FYC faculty members to read the essay you wrote for the DSP questionnaire; you may or may not change your choice of path based on this voluntary meeting.

Yes. The only difference is that if you want to communicate with a FYC faculty member, you must do so by email, writing Dr. Tom Friedrich at [email protected].

Yes, until the end of the drop-add period. You must contact the FYC program by calling 518-564-2134 or writing Dr. Tom Friedrich at [email protected]. Your instructor will assess your writing in the first week of classes, and you may be advised to change paths as a result; you may not be able to find a seat in another ENG100 or ENG101 section at that time. If you remain in ENG100 after the first week of classes is over, you must successfully complete ENG100 (grade > C) and ENG101 (grade > C).

You will not hear back about your essay unless you request it. If you are attending a summer orientation session, you will be able to request oral feedback on your essay at registration; if you are not attending a summer orientation session, you can request written feedback by email. The purpose of the writing portion of DSP is for you to reflect on your writing skills in order to make an educated decision about what FYC coursework is ideal for you.

Your First Year Composition instructor will have access to your DSP essay. Your FYC instructor may choose to incorporate your DSP essay into their course or use it as preliminary sample of your writing. This is one reason you should put a genuine effort into your essay.

Our courses offer you an important chance to develop some of the most important and complex skills you need to acquire to succeed academically and professionally: the ability to think critically and communicate effectively. These courses will help you succeed in your other courses in other disciplines.

English 100 is a four credit course that provides extensive practice in reading and writing in both traditional formats and new media. If you take English 100, you will get frequent feedback and have ample opportunities to work individually with your instructor and collaboratively with your peers. You can expect to write 300 to 500 words per week and 5000 words for the course. In English 101, you can expect intensive reading and writing assignments in which they work through multiple drafts of papers on different topics. You will write a minimum of five assignments totaling at least 20 to 25 pages of coherent college-level prose that reflects critical thinking and research skills.

No. English 100 is designed to give you practice needed to become a more effective and persuasive writer. Writing skills and language development do not stop in childhood or adolescence, but continue through most of adulthood. English 100 enables you to get the practice that most accentuates that development.

No. In fact, taking English 100 will give you four elective credits that count toward graduation.

Good writing and communication skills are important in the sciences and technology as well. In fact, many senior engineers and scientists will tell you that communication skills and the ability to write well become more vital the higher up you go in those fields. Making complex scientific ideas understandable to a wide audience is important in myriad ways, from writing grants to fund research to being an effective leader and collaborator.

If the English class that you took is equivalent to ENG101, you do not need to complete the questionnaire. You will need to have your transcripts sent to the Registrar’s office proving that you have received credit for ENG101 or its equivalent. 

You need a 4 or 5 on this AP exam to receive credit for ENG101. If you are unsure of your score, the safest course of action is to register for a FYC course, which can be difficult to do as all students need English 101 credit to graduate. If you ultimately receive a 4 or 5, you can drop your composition course for another.

Yes.

You are advised to register for FYC coursework because you may drop it later; you should also contact the registrar's office regarding the high school course of concern.