Department of English/Foreign Languages/Journalism

Summer 2001 Syllabus

Time: 7:30 – 10:20 May 30, May 31, AND FRIDAY June 1

7:30 – 10:20 MTWTH June 4 –7; June 11 – 14; June 18 - 21

Place: JGM 106

Office: SSC 215 Office Hours: 10:30 – 11:30 MTWTH

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.

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:

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 high density 3.5 inch computer diskettes AND a diskette carrying case (which will protect your work from dirt, heat, moisture, and unexpected bumps and drops).

DISKETTE #1: Label this one: "ENG 108 WORKING" Put your NAME on the disk. If you are working at a computer at school, make sure that you are saving your material to your own disk and not to the machine. Save work frequently. ALWAYS print a hard copy of the most recent version. When your work session is at an end, also save your work to your back-up disk.

DISKETTE #2: Label this one: "ENG 108 BACK-UP." When you are finished writing, PRINT out a copy of the most recent version and COPY it to your back-up. Keep this one in a safe place. If your working disk becomes damaged, lost, or stolen, you will not lose work you have done. You can’t afford to lose any time reconstructing work you have done this summer.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS:

ONE PAD of standard white, lined, hole-punched notebook paper. No paper ripped from spiral notebooks, please.

AN INEXPENSIVE, light-colored POCKET FOLDER for your long research paper. You will submit copies of all sources and all drafts with your final paper. More on this later.

KEEP a COMPLETE RECORD of everything you do in 108.

Date and identify each assignment.

Number and/or date each draft of the research papers so that you can see the progress you make.

May 30 In-class Essay #1 Literacy Autobiography 40 points 10%

May 31 In-class Essay #2 Formative Experience on One’s Beliefs 40 points 10%

June 4 *Research Paper #1 Synthesizing Sources 80 points 20%

June 7 *Research Paper #2 Analyzing Opposing Points of View 80 points 20%

June 18 *Research Paper #3 Taking a Stand on a Controversial Issue 100 points 25%

Quizzes, Participation, and Final Reflection 60 points 15%

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.

Three absences in the course of a regular semester is reasonable. That amounts to ONE CLASS PERIOD of this 4 week course. We will be moving at a VERY RAPID PACE, so it is extremely important that you attend class every day. It is your responsibility and not mine to find out what we did if a serious emergency arises for you.

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.

We will take a short break half way through the three-hour class period.

We will spend several hours in the library doing research for your last paper.

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 and will be docked 10% for each day up to two days.

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:

Identify yourself in the upper right hand corner:

Mary Smith

English 108

A Formative Experience

May 31, 2001

FIRST WEEK’S Out-of-Class Assignments:

May 30 Read chapters 1 & 2 in Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing 2-53.

How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words by Paul Roberts 122-132

The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts by Donald Murray 113-116

Writing with a Word Processor by William Zinsser 117-122

In an essay due on Monday June 4, you will write an essay in which you the points about writing that each author

Continued Schedule of Readings and Activities to be distributed in class.