MISSOURI WESTERN STATE COLLEGE
Division
of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Department
of English/Foreign Languages/Journalism
Spring
2002 Syllabus
ENGLISH 108-12: COLLEGE WRITING AND RESEARCH
MWF 12:00-12:50 p.m. JGM 105
Instructor: Mark B. Hamilton
Office: SSC 222-S; 271-4169
Office Hours: MWF 1:30-2:30, TTh
2-3:00, and by appointment
E-mail: hamilmb@missouriwestern.edu
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 and
creative citizen in our society
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
In this course you will learn to
analyze, synthesize, and evaluate your own beliefs and the thinking of others
in order to
discover, develop, and test those
points of view. More specifically, you will:
1. Thoughtfully Consider and
Creatively Ponder:
assigned readings, group tasks,
class discussions, lectures, and student presentations,
delving into extensive prewrites to
clarify, explore and thoroughly specify your own best thoughts and feelings.
2. Research and Respond:
to answer questions by finding
appropriate sources on topics of concern
using the MWSC Library, electronic
media, art, archives, and/or personal interviews
learning how to locate and evaluate
the credibility of these sources,
how to summarize, analyze, and
evaluate the content & message of each source,
how to respond to that content &
message connecting its ideas to your past experiences and/or belief system
and refuting or disagreeing with
those ideas or specifics when necessary.
3. Revise & Write:
to reconsider your
works-in-progress, your writings and your beliefs, as warranted by additional
findings:
laying aside irrelevancies to better
focus upon your purpose,
comparing research material to other
sources and your own opinions, analyzing them for reliability,
synthesizing them in order to arrive
at your own best point of view,
and thereby constructing and
defending these beliefs with well supported statements
based upon sufficient, relevant,
reliable and representational evidence
developing convincing essays with
well specified Thesis Statements
and finally formal arguments with
carefully qualified Claims.
4. Write & Revise:
Using Creative Thinking
to identify the audience and the
purpose of your writing,
to plan your paper, organizing
ideas, reasons, and evidence into a coherent, effective framework
integrating researched sources
appropriately into your work,
citing sources appropriately within
your paper and in the bibliography,
and to form consensus on meaning and
confidence in your findings,
evaluating your own work as well as
that of your classmates’.
Using Creative Expression
to review and discuss on-going
drafts and the necessary revisions of works-in-progress,
to reread and rewrite in light of
other people’s reactions to your work,
revising main ideas, paragraphs and
sentences to achieve stylistic fluency and variety,
and then editing for clarity &
correctness of grammar,
and proofreading for accuracy in spelling & punctuation,
COMPUTER/WORD PROCESSING:
All of your Final Drafts and Final
Revisions of Researched Essays must be word-processed. You will need to plan
for this at campus computer labs. Check on Computer Lab schedules and realize
that at times the Labs will be crowded.
Label your 2-3 high-density 3.5-inch
computer disks:
DISK #1:
Label this one: "English 108 Works in Progress." Put your NAME and
CONTACT ADDRESS on the disk. If you are working on campus, make sure that you
save your material to your own disk on Drive A and not just to the computer’s
Drive C. Save work to your disk frequently—every ten minutes. When your work
session is at an end, save to Drive C, and then SAVE TO YOUR TRAVELING BACK-UP
DISK. Then remember to delete your work from Drive C.
DISK #2:
Label this one: "English 108 Traveling Back-up." Put your NAME and
CONTACT ADDRESS on the disk. Sometimes you can lose work electronically by
accident. To insure that you have a safety copy, SAVE the most recent version
of your Works in Progress to this second disk. Remember to bring it with you
when you leave.
DISK #3:
Label this one: "English 108 Safety Back-Up." Some people always keep
this one at home. Save material to this third disk, so that if your Working and
Traveling disks become damaged, lost, misplaced or stolen, you will not lose
all the work you have done.
A disk-carrying case will protect
your work from dirt, heat, moisture, magnetic sources, and unexpected bumps and
drops.
REQUIRED TEXTS and
MATERIALS:
Chaffee, John. Critical Thinking,
Thoughtful Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
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)
Notebooks, Non-spiral bound paper,
pocket folders, blue or black ink pens, and Xeroxed copies as needed.
COURSE ASSIGNMENTS &
PERCENTAGES:
Primarily, this course is based upon
three (3) thoughtful, well expressed, formally presented research supported,
cross-disciplinary writing projects. You will be graded for the Assignments
leading up to these three Essays, the final Revised Essays themselves, plus a
Midterm and a Final Exam. Portfolios are required for the semester’s work.
Project #1:
Assignments,
including quizzes 10%
Revised Essay
"Native America" 10%
Project #2:
Assignments,
including quizzes 10%
Revised
Essay "Industrial America" 20%
Project #3:
Assignments,
including quizzes 10%
Revised Essay "Contemporary
America" 20%
Midterm (textbook readings) 10%
Final Exam (TBA)
10%
Essay grades will be indicated by
traditional letter designations with plus & minus’s. The various other
Assignment grades will be indicated by a combination of numerical scores and a
system of “ ‘s” with plus &
minus’s.
You are required to save all your
work for this course from doodles to drafts. That includes quizzes, pre-writes,
brainstorming sessions, notes on group tasks and responses to research, class
notes, summaries, and revisions, final essays, etc. etc. This is easily done by
keeping a separate Portfolio for each Project. It need not be fancy, but
it will need to be complete and neat.
GRADING:
Standard percentages are: 100-90=A;
89-80=B; 79-70=C; 69-60=D; 59-0=F.
Plus and minus designations on your
works-in-progress will be used: A+=100; A=95; A-=92; B+=88; B=85; B-=82; C+=78;
C=75; C-=72; D+=68; D=65; D-=62; F+=58; F=55; F-=52; and 0=0.
Assignments, quizzes, discussions,
group tasks, and other required work may be graded or non-graded, or checked
for competency, acceptability, and thoroughness: “ +”=100 “
“=80 “ -“=60 “ --“=40 …0=0
All students will need a semester's
grade average of "C" or higher to pass the course. All students will
need to receive a passing grade on at least 2 of the 3 Revised Essays to pass
the course.
ATTENDANCE POLICY
You are responsible for the
semester's work. Since we will be working together, and in synch with on-going
projects, attendance is important. Your thoughts, observations, and questions are
as important to others as they are to the development of your own
works-in-progress.
Three absences in the course of a
semester are reasonable, but still you are responsible for any and all missed
work. Missed work, or late work, is given a zero. There are no exceptions to
this policy except when previous arrangements have been made. You do not
need to explain the first three absences. However, more than three
absences (defined as more than 15 minutes of any class session) probably will
adversely affect your grade. IF you believe that you truly have extenuating
circumstances and want any penalties waived, the only way is to explain 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 a member of a college
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. I will mark students absent for disruptive behavior.
With excessive absences, failing any college course is possible.
LATE POLICY:
No late work will be accepted.
Without prior approval, all late or missed work will be given a zero.
Assignments should be handed in on time--at the beginning of class on the due
date assigned. Make-up opportunities for any in-class activities must remain
extremely limited, but if you miss a class see me for any missed handouts. Feel
welcomed to make an appointment with me at any time. Keep up with assignments!
Missed class notes, assignments,
questions about quizzes, etc. should obtained whenever possible from
classmates.
EXCEPTION: If late, the three major
Revised Essays will be given grade reductions: one grade level per class
period.
I will accommodate those who may
have inordinate problems or circumstances, but I cannot accept excuses as
adequate reasons for absences, lateness, or for late work. Penalties incurred
can adversely affect your final course grade.
FORMAL DRAFTS & ESSAYS:
These should be word processed and
neatly presented on the date they are due and in the classroom where we meet at
the beginning of the hour. I will not accept assignments by mail, email, slipped
under the door, put in my mailbox or handed to me while walking. If you help me
to make my job easier, I will have more time to make your efforts successful.
REQUIRED FORMATTING: for out-of-class hard copy of Formal Drafts
& Essays
Use regular white paper in a printer
that provides a clear, dark black copy.
Use Times New Roman or a comparable
font.
Type size: 12 pt. and use standard
upper and lower case
Do not Bold Face the type. Do not
use all capitals.
Side Margins: 1 inch
Top and Bottom Margins: 1.5 inch
Paragraph Indent: ½ inch
Number each page after the first on
the upper right: Jones 2
Identify yourself and the paper on
the first page in the upper left hand corner with:
Name
Eng. 108-section #
Assignment
Date
Then,
center the title and double space throughout.
SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENT POLICY:
Anyone who has a special need that
prevents the fullest expression of her or his potential to succeed in this
course should notify me the first week of class. We can discuss course
requirements and appropriate accommodations. Students who do not make known the
special need cannot (by law) then ask for special consideration for assignments
already completed. This is as true for temporary disabilities, such as a broken
arm (which might prevent you from taking class notes), as to longer lasting or
permanent disabilities, which may benefit from assigned assistance throughout
your career here at MWSC.
You should also visit with Ms. Lois
Fox at the Special Needs Office, MWSC campus. They are here to help in any way
possible. Email: fox@missouriwestern.edu, or telephone 271-4330, SS/C 202.
ACADEMIC HONESTY:
All work for this course is expected
to be new and original. College Student policies for academic honesty are
always in effect.
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 words, thoughts, creative perceptions, and/or their ideas as
if they were your own. Documentation of sources prevents plagiarism. You
will learn how to do this accurately.
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 and may
receive an F for the course, be reported to the Department Chair, the Academic
Dean, and the Dean of Student Affairs for appropriate disciplinary action.
IN CLASS PREPARATION AND
PARTICIPATION:
Writing, reading, and research are
best done incrementally—a little at a time.
You will be working with and relying
upon one another this semester. Work well, keep up with assignments, and share
your writings and thoughts. Try not to be overly critical of your own work or
that of others. Tomorrow is another day. Today is always a work-in-progress.
Courtesy and respect go a long way
toward success. Taking a new look at things as they develop, improve, and
clarify does wonders. This is as true with your own work as it is within the
classroom or in the library.
The contractual nature of the
Syllabus will require your participation. I do reserve the right to make
adjustments to it as will best support the on-going efforts of the class.
FOR NEXT TIME: January 16 (W)
1. Obtain textbooks and materials.
2. Bring to class paper and pens, always, for
notes and for in class writing assignments. Bring texts in on Wednesday. Bring
this Syllabus, also, with any questions you might have.
3. Go to the EFLJ Web Site: www.missouriwestern.edu/eflj
and find your way to the General Studies Course Descriptions and the specific
information for English 108. Read these and this Syllabus. Be prepared for a
possible little quiz.
4. We'll go over a first weekly schedule of
activities/assignments then.
I hope you’ll have an excellent
semester.