ENGL 101: College Writing
Skills
Fall 2007
Instructor Information
Dr.
Wendy Warren Austin Centennial Hall 234
wendywarrenaustin@hotmail.com
or warren@edinboro.edu 814-732-2257
http://users.edinboro.edu/warren AIM: yrunotwriting
Office
Hours: M and W 3:30- 5:30 and F 3-4
Course Description
This course is an introduction to academic writing and
college-level critical thinking skills. You will learn how to adapt and
organize your writing according to audience, purpose, and situation, apply
evidence to support an assertion, adhere to the conventions of Standard Edited
American English, and improve your overall reading, writing, and analytic
skills.
Course Goals
Successful
completion of this course means that your writing:
·
Uses
effective organization at the sentence, paragraph, and whole-essay levels;
·
Is
focused well and conveys insight;
·
Employs
appropriate and substantial evidence in support of clear assertions, and uses
concrete and specific details that enliven your writing;
·
Demonstrates
an awareness of purpose and context of, and audience for, particular pieces of
writing;
·
Has
an intelligent, easy-to-read style; and
·
Demonstrates
a reliable command of the usage standards and conventions of Standard Written American English
Expectations and Course Requirements
While
these are the general goals of this class, specific learning outcomes based on
these goals include:
·
Writing
four 4-5-page papers;
·
Doing
10 (1-2 pg.) in-class writings;
·
Completing
an essay exam at the middle and end of the course;
·
Keeping
a Reading Log or blog to stay engaged in reading and discussions;
·
Participating
actively and intelligently in peer reviews of others’ work and in classroom
discussions;
·
Submitting
a portfolio of nine items at midterm and 15 items by the end of the semester.
Its primary purpose will be to showcase your best work; its secondary purpose
to illustrate your writing improvement.
Nearly
every Friday, we will do some writing in class to be handed in that day. I will
return it to you with comments on the following Wednesday after which you may
choose to revise or not revise it for inclusion in your midterm and/or final
portfolio. However, all of these
writings, along with the ones written out of class, must be completed to
fulfill the requirements of the course.
Required
Texts
·
The Norton Field Guide to
Writing with
·
My Freshman Year: What a
Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, Rebekah Nathan. NY: Penguin, 2005.
·
The Elephants of Style, Bill Walsh. NY:
McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Recommended
·
The
Elements of Style, Illustrated
edition,
William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White, illustrated by Maira Kalman. NY: Penguin, 2005.
Assignments, Exams, Due Dates, and Grading
Every
week you will have either an in-class writing assignment or be working on an
out-of-class writing assignment. Halfway through the term, you will submit and
receive a grade on a portfolio and commentary about your best writings, and
again at the end of the term. Only the four out-of-class writings will receive
tentative grades, but these are not recorded, and are given only as an estimate
so you have some idea of how your writing might be assessed later on. This system may be hard for some of you to
get used to at first, but the main ideas behind the portfolio grading system
are to encourage:
¹
revision of your work,
¹
reflection on your process, and
¹
responsibility for your own progress.
Your
grade breakdown will come from the following sources: When
Midterm Exam 100 points Oct. 15
Midterm Portfolio Evaluation 200 points Oct. 17
Participation/Preparation—1st
8 weeks only 100 points Aug.
27- Oct. 19
Final Exam 100 points Dec. 10-14
Final Portfolio Evaluation 400 points Dec. 3
Participation/Preparation—2nd
8 weeks only 100 points Oct. 22- Dec. 14
TOTAL
POINTS 1000 points
Although
a more detailed handout regarding the midterm and final portfolios will be
distributed closer to their due dates,
you can expect your midterm portfolio to contain the following items:
Midterm Portfolio
1.
Writing
Sample from 1st day
2.
Literacy Narrative
Assignment
(4-5 pg. out-of-class assignment)
3.
Textual Analysis
Assignment (4-5
pg. out-of-class assignment)
4.
Profile
of a Person or Place (in-class assignment)
5.
Memoir
of an Event (in-class assignment)
6.
Essay
about Style (in-class assignment)
7.
Summary
of an Article (in-class assignment)
8.
Essay
about Topic from My Freshman Year (in-class assignment)
9.
Reflective
Paper about Best 3 Writings (1-2 pg. out-of-class assignment)
You
will be given 2-3 weeks to write, revise, and polish each out-of-class
assignment before they must be turned in to me,
while the in-class writings will be started by hand in class (or on a
laptop if you wish to bring one to class), but may be finished and revised as
much or as little as you like. However, all of the in-class writings
must be included in the portfolios to receive credit for the course. When you submit the out-of-class assignments
(shown in boldface), I will read them, make some suggestions for revision and
overall writing improvement, and include a tentative letter grade for the
assignment. I will NOT record the estimated paper grade which will be a simple
letter grade. You may revise the paper as much as you wish until the portfolio
is due, at which time I will grade your entire body of work. When you do in-class writings, I will usually
only write comments toward revision on them, not the tentative grade, so as to
get these back to you more rapidly, and with the clear goal of revision, even
if you choose not to finish them. Since
out-of-class assignments take a little longer for me to comment on (and grade,)
those will be returned to you no later than a week and a half after you submit
them.
If you miss a day when we have an in-class writing,
you must arrange to come to my office to make it up as soon as you are
able. Generally, you’ll have about 20-30
minutes of writing time for starting these drafts in class.
The
final portfolio is likely to contain the following items:
Your Final Portfolio (boldface
indicates assignments begun out of
class)
- Reflective Paper about Best 3 Writings
Overall
- Profile of a Person
or Place
- Literacy Narrative Assignment
- Memoir
- Essay about Style
- Textual Analysis Assignment
- Summary of an Article
- Essay on a Topic from
My Freshman Year
- Report Assignment
- Essay about
- Essay about Revision
- Argument Assignment
- Evaluation
- Proposal
- Reading Responses/Discussion Journal
Reading Log
The
last item in the final portfolio list--a “Reading Responses/Discussion Journal”—is
a running log that I would like you to keep as you read your homework
assignments and prepare for classes. For example, for Wednesday’s homework on
Aug. 29, the schedule tells you to read nine pages about a certain type of
writing strategy—describing—and to read two essays. Your Reading Log entry for
this homework might consist of a paragraph (see example on handout for this) that
you would write immediately after doing the assignment, recording your thoughts
about the readings.
You could keep this
Reading Log on a single file on your computer or flash drive, and simply add to
it whenever you make a new entry, dating each one, or you could make a new
entry each time. Another idea that might be even easier is starting a blog for these entries. It is easy and
free to create one on Blogger.com, and you don’t have to worry about losing or
corrupting your files. If you handwrite these entries, make certain they are
submitted in typed format with the final portfolio. You must NOT do these all
at once; it defeats the purpose of the reading log. Keeping current with your
entries and writing thoughtful responses will reflect well on your
participation grade.
Late Work
I do not want any of your papers or homework assignments
to be late, but I realize that technical problems sometimes mess up our
best-laid plans. I do not want you to miss class because you aren’t completely
finished with a paper that’s due. Doing so causes you to miss the guidelines
for the NEXT assignment. So, to alleviate this problem, I have a 24-hour
grace period ONLY for graded papers
whereby no points are deducted from a paper if it is turned in within 24 hours
of the class period it is due. You may drop it off in my office door Plexiglas
holder or send it by email attachment. If you go past the 24-hour limit, I will
deduct 10 points for every class period it is late beyond the due date. As for late homework, I will only accept it
late under one of two conditions: 1) if you have been ill or had an excused
absence (then I will accept it on the class period immediately following your
return to class) or 2) if it is not absolutely needed for class activities that
day and if I get it by 7 p.m. by email attachment.
Attendance and Tardiness Policy
When/if you are absent for
a legitimate reason, you must provide me with a “note,” usually in the form of an email message
that you send to me. I don’t accept
little tiny notes or Ghering Health Center excuse slips as excuses, but if you
write me a note (on 8 ½ x 11” paper, with the reason, date(s) you were absent,
and your name) or send an email, and the excuse seems reasonable, I am likely
to consider it excused. If I am in doubt about whether it should be excused,
I’ll ask you for further documentation and/or revert to the University catalog policy
on absences.
If you find yourself with a succession of absences
that may not end up being excused, first talk to me about if whether it is
possible to make up the work, and if not, consider dropping the course to save
your GPA.
Being late to class is another matter entirely. If
you are more than 10 minutes late to class, your absence will be unexcused,
just as students do with professors. The same principle applies to wanting to
“leave class early.” I will consider your absence unexcused if you leave more
than 10 minutes before the end of class. I don’t “give permission” to leave class
early; you either decide to take the unexcused absence or you don’t.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is representing someone else’s work as
your own. You may not cut-and-paste material from the Internet and use it in
your own work. You may refer to ideas from other places, but you should always
attribute them to their source, and paraphrase the material (that means putting
it into your own words AND sentence structures) or quote it using proper
attribution.
Students
who are stressed out or desperate sometimes resort to deliberate plagiarism,
but just as many commit unintentional. However, it is up to you to be diligent
about acknowledging your sources. If you are not sure how, please ask. I will
give you some guidance in these matters during class, and you will learn more
about this in English 102, but meanwhile, a web site that might help is
http://users. edinboro.edu/warren/antiplagiarismhandbook.htm. Be sure to attend
the Common Hour Common Text Activity on Tuesday, Sept. 18 between 12:30-1:45
when I will be giving a presentation on plagiarism.
What you do need to know is that anyone who
intentionally plagiarizes material gets an automatic F in the class, and the
action is reported to the Judicial Affairs Office. Even those who unintentionally plagiarize may
face a failing grade and other serious consequences. The important thing to
remember is to do your own work and give due credit when referring to others’
ideas.
Accommodations for Disabilities
If you need any accommodations made
because of a disability, please let me know. This is particularly important if
you have a learning disability. However, I must request that with all
disabilities, you provide me with an official form from OSD designating what
kind of help you need within enough time for me to be able to arrange that
extra help. While it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to provide forms and documentation
to me, I will do my best to make arrangements to make this a good learning
experience for you.
We have a
Office Hours and Online Availability
I have 5 hours a week set aside
specifically for meeting with students and advisees—my office hours are listed
on the front of this syllabus—and, if those don’t mesh with your schedule, am
willing to arrange other meeting times when mutually convenient. My office is
on the 2nd floor of Centennial Hall, which is on the corner of
Weekly Schedule and
Significant Due Dates