Department of English/Foreign Languages/Journalism

Spring 2001 Syllabus

Time: 11:00 – 11:50 MWF

Place: MC 211

Office: JGM 207-O After the first week in February: SSC 215 A

Office Hours: 12:00 – 4:00 noon on MW or by appointment

E-mail: sawin@griffon.mwsc.edu

Phone: 271-4274

When leaving voice mail, please identify yourself by name and give the date you are calling.

Give your telephone number s-l-o-w-l-y IF, but only if, I need to return your call.

For example: "Dr. Sawin, This is Joe Kirsch from your English 108 class. It’s 2 p.m. on January 23.

My car was totaled in the parking lot at work this morning, and I may not be in class tomorrow unless

I can get a ride from Kansas City. Just wanted to let you know."

GENERAL STUDIES OBJECTIVES: English 108 is designed to help you

Think critically and reason analytically

Write and speak clearly and effectively

Function as an enlightened citizen in our society

In this course you will learn to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the thinking of others in order to

discover, develop, and test your own points of view. More specifically, you will:

RESEARCH: find sources on the topic you are researching, using print and electronic media

evaluate the credibility of your sources,

summarize, analyze, and evaluate the message of each source,

respond to the content of each source

connecting its ideas to your past experiences or belief system,

rebutting its ideas when necessary,

revising your own beliefs by its findings when warranted,

laying it aside when irrelevant to your purpose,

comparing it to other sources,

synthesize sources in order to arrive at your own point of view

construct and defend an argument with a carefully qualified claim,

develop your argument with convincing warrants

base your argument on sufficient, typical, accurate, and relevant evidence.

identify the purpose of your writing,

analyze the knowledge level and values of the audience you are trying to reach,

plan your paper, organizing ideas, reasons, and evidence into a coherent framework

integrate sources appropriately into your work,

cite sources appropriately within your paper and in the bibliography,

collaborate to form consensus on meaning,

collaborate to draft and revise,

reread and rewrite in the light of other people’s reactions to your work,

revise sentences to achieve stylistic fluency and variety,

edit to achieve acceptable grammar & accuracy in spelling & punctuation,

evaluate your own and your classmates’ work.

For the detailed listing of departmental objectives for English 108, please refer to:

Hult, Christine and Thomas Huckin. The New Century Handbook. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999.

A collegiate-level dictionary.

2-3 high density 3.5 inch computer disks (specifically for this course).

BUY a disk-carrying case. Protect your work from dirt, heat, moisture, and unexpected bumps and drops.

PORTFOLIO:

Standard white, lined, hole-punched notebook paper. No paper torn from a spiral will be accepted.

A 3-ring binder to maintain a COMPLETE RECORD of everything you do in 108 (one-inch or 1.5 inch).

Insert a pocket folder for papers that aren’t hole punched.

Buy 3 plain (inexpensive) light-colored pocket folders for research assignments. You will submit all drafts, copies of all sources used, the final paper, and your cover letter. More on this later.

4 Summaries 60 points

2 in-class Essays 60 points

Grades will be assigned with the following percentages based on total points awarded in the course:

*N.B. No one will pass this course without receiving a passing grade on at least 2 of the 3 research papers.

A. Three absences in the course of a semester are reasonable. You do not need to explain the first three absences. With the 4^th absence (more than 15 minutes of any class session), you will receive a 5% reduction in grade from your semester total (25 points). All absences beyond your 4^th will also result in an additional 5% reduction. IF you believe that you truly have extenuating circumstances and want the penalty waived, you will have to demonstrate additional writing competence by explaining to me in a clear, coherent, detailed, organized, and edited business LETTER what happened. In this letter, you must be persuasive.

"I was sick." Explain what symptoms you were having, and what treatment you sought.

"I had car problems." Explain what, where, when, and how they occurred. Put me there.

"Someone I know died." Establish your connection to that person. Describe the funeral.

"I was playing a baseball game." Describe the game in detail and the role you played in it.

IF you are on an athletic team or are already scheduled to represent MWSC in some official capacity in the course of the semester, plan to use those three allowed absences to cover these situations. With six or more absences (whether excused or unexcused), you stand a good chance of failing this course.

B. Every day that you come to class, you will sign the attendance roster with a legible signature.

No one else may sign for you.

If you forget to sign, you will have a recorded absence.

If you come late or leave early, I will note that fact on the roster.

I will appreciate your help in keeping us on time. Don’t let me start class too soon;

alert me when it is time to leave.

C. Every day I will ask 2 students to take brief but accurate notes about what we do in class.

This will give everyone a chance to write for an audience who needs to know what they are to do.

I will attach those reports to the attendance roster.

Should you miss class, you can find out what we did by coming to my office during my regularly scheduled office hours and reading the reports. If student reporters disagree on what was done or is due, it is your responsibility then to ask me questions.

D. Cost: Although tuition represents only part of the total cost of delivering this college course, it is still a substantial investment. At $121/hour, this three-hour course costs you $363. English 108 meets 3 times/week for a total of 44 sessions. The tuition cost of each class is $8.25.

While it is reasonable to assume that students who attend class will know what is expected and will take the opportunity to ask questions about anything they don’t understand, some students think that just showing up guarantees them a passing grade. Not true. You must pay attention to the assignment and meet its requirements. Likewise, I am in no position to reward effort. I can’t reward students for overcoming difficulties or penalize students who don’t experience them. I hope that every assignment I give you in English 108 will help you to strengthen or to expand your skills. Overcoming difficulties related to writing are part of the course. But while I can sympathize with other life circumstances you might have (demanding boss, illness, lack of transportation, etc.), I cannot give you credit for writing under those circumstances. You will have to do the best you can.

There will be no make-up opportunities for any of the in-class activities whether your absence is excused or not. I can’t recreate a class discussion. I can’t give you the chance to peer review other people’s work once we are finished doing so. Imagine showing up at a field house after the game is over or at work once the store is closed. You are now ready to play or to work, but everyone else has gone home. The coach can’t call the teams back to give you a chance to play. The boss can’t make customers return.

All drafts and final papers are to be submitted ON the DATE they are DUE and in the CLASSROOM where we meet. I will not accept assignments by mail, email, slipped under the door, put in my mailbox or handed to me while walking. I will place all papers in an envelope on which I have the assignment and the grading criteria.

If your paper is not IN the envelope when I close it, your paper is LATE. Late papers pose a problem for the entire class because they delay my assessment of student work. I will ask this class for suggestions about what we should do about late papers. The policy needs to be reasonable for everyone concerned.

One of the major objectives of this course is to teach you the difference between the legitimate and the illegitimate use of other people’s work. Plagiarism is the theft of other people’s actual words or their ideas as if they were your own. There are techniques you will learn this semester to keep you from doing this. You will learn how to summarize articles in your own words; use direct quotation marks; correctly place internal citations; introduce quoted material. Since you will be submitting all of your sources to me, I will be in a position to judge whether you make appropriate or inappropriate use of them.

You are expected to do your own reading and writing in this course. Any student who submits someone else's work as his or her own will receive no credit (0 points) for that assignment. If a student is dishonest a second time, he or she will receive an F in the course and be reported to the Department Chair, the Academic Dean, and the Dean of Student Affairs for appropriate disciplinary action.

Anyone who has a disability that prevents the fullest expression of her or his potential to succeed in this course must notify me in writing during the first or second week of classes so that we can discuss course requirements and accommodations. Students who do not make known the disability cannot (by law) then ask for special consideration for assignments already completed.

REQUIRED FORMATTING for FINAL out-of-class copy:

Use regular white paper in a printer that provides a clear, dark black copy.

Use Times New Roman or a comparable font.

Type size: 10 or 12 pt.

Margins: 1 inch

Paragraph Indent: ½ inch

Center the title.

Number each page on the bottom right.

Double-space working drafts BUT for final copies:

Single-space within paragraphs.

Double-space between paragraphs.

Identify yourself in the upper right hand corner:

Elizabeth Sawin

English 108

Response/Summary

January 19, 2001

Welcome to English 108.

We are going to have a good semester.