Missouri Western State College

School of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Department of English, Foreign Languages, and Journalism

English 300: Literature for Children

Fall, 2003

Dr. Mike Cadden

Section 01: 9:30 am – 11:00 am, T/Th in 210 Eder Hall (SS/C)

Section 02: 2:00 pm – 3:20 pm, T/Th in 210 Eder Hall (SS/C)

Dr. Cadden’s Office: 222-F Eder Hall (SS/C)

Office Hours: Office Hours: 8:30-9:30 am, 12:30-1:30 pm T/Th; 9 am-12 pm W; and by appointment.

Office Phone: 271-4576

E-mail: cadden@missouriwestern.edu

Web Page: http://www.missouriwestern.edu/eflj/faculty/cadden.asp(A copy of this syllabus can be found here.)

Course Description:

What makes a good teacher? Richard Ishler writes in "The Preparation of Elementary School Teachers: A University-Wide Responsibility":

Persons who will spend their professional lives as elementary school teachers must be liberally and broadly educated, more so than individuals with other careers, because of their positions as role models for our children--positions that are crucial not only to the students whose lives are directly affected, but to the general society as well. Other than a student's parents, no other person has such an opportunity to influence, to motivate, and to inspire a child to value the intellectual life. In fact, acting as an intellectual role model may well be the single most significant aspect of the teaching profession.

English 300 is our opportunity for you to learn about children’s literature as an art form, which will have implications for your teaching, ultimately; but the point of the course isn’t to teach you how to teach children; the point of the course is to teach you about children’s fiction. The two things aren’t at all mutually exclusive, but they also aren’t necessarily the same.

The course is an introduction to the genre of literature for children. There is so much more out there. The course can’t be an exhaustive look at the whole field. We’ll focus on an introduction to the nature of children’s books. Through critical examinations of folk tales, novels, poems, and picture books, we will attempt to understand how children's literature distinguishes itself from "adult literature”--and when it doesn’t.

Consider this course the content course companion to your education methods courses: EED 320 (Language Arts Methods), EED 360 (Assessing and Individualizing Reading), EED 380-385 (Reading Approaches), EED 440 (Curriculum Methods and Materials in Early Childhood Education), and EED 483-4 (Practica in Reading).

Let’s learn together as much as we can about what makes children’s literature tick. It is my goal that you’ll leave the course more thoughtful about what makes children’s literature the interesting and enjoyable genre that it is--for adults as well as for children.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of ENG 108 or 112. ENG 300 is required in the Elementary Education program. This class does not count as an English literature elective for English majors.

Required Texts:

Babbitt, Natalie. Tuck Everlasting.

Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars.

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Shiloh.

Paulsen, Gary. Woodsong.

Russell, David. Literature for Children: A Short Introduction. 4^th ed.

Ryan, Pam Muñoz. Esperanza Rising.

Evaluation:

Participation: 10%

Midterm Exam (folktales and novels): 20%

Final Exam (poetry and picture books): 20%

Reviews (1 book, 1 journal, 1 website, 1 picture book, 1 chapter book): 25%

Bibliographic Essay: 25%

Attendance:

The MWSC Policy Guide states that “each instructor will determine and make known to the class the requirement for attendance” (45). If you don’t come to class you will obviously jeopardize your class participation grade. I will not quantify how much presence equals what grade. I will be judging your total participation performance, not just presence. I can also tell you that the exams draw heavily from class work. Also, since you are responsible for all announcements in class, you run the risk of missing important information regarding papers; I will not accept absence as an excuse for ignorance. In short, if you’re not here, you’re going to suffer through other assignments directly and indirectly. I will not formally assign a number of absences to failure; I’ll allow those things will be related naturally.

Be on time, please.

Academic Dishonesty: All cases in which students pass off others’ work as their own will be referred to the Dean of Student Affairs. Students also run the risk of failing the assignment as well as the course, depending on the magnitude and nature of the offense. If you are unsure about how you are using sources, please check with me.

Late and Missing Work: I reserve the right to refuse any late work.

Revision Policy: All written work may be revised any time up until the revision due date (please see calendar). I require that all revisions be accompanied by the original graded paper that contains my comments.

Policy on Students with Disabilities: Any student in this course who has a disability which requires different contexts for either evaluation or expression should contact me in the first few weeks of the course so that those needs can be considered.

Calendar (Subject to Constant and Inexplicable Change):

Novels are to be finished by the first day of the week on which discussion begins.

8/26: Introduction to course, critical approaches, and folktale types.

8/28: Critical approaches and folktales continued;

9/2: “Red Riding Hood”—tale types and versions; Russell Ch. 8.

9/4: Fable as children’s literature, children’s literature as fable.

9/9: Lowry; folktale meets historical fiction; Russell Chapter 11.

9/11: Lowry; Review #1 Due.

9/16: Ryan; contemporary realism and multicultural literature; Russell Ch. 3.

9/18: Ryan.

9/23: Censorship; Russell Ch. 1, pp. 89-91.

9/25: Censorship; Review # 2 Due; Banned Book Reading, MC 214, 7-8 pm

9/30: Babbitt—cultural crossover and censorship; Russell Ch 10.

10/2: Babbitt; Bibliog. Essay book lists due.

10/7: Naylor.

10/9: Naylor; Review #3 Due.

10/14: Mode in Literature (handout).

10/16: Paulsen—nonfiction for children; Russell Ch. 12.

10/21: Paulsen

10/23: Exam I.

10/24: Last Day to Drop Classes.

10/28: Poetry: issues of interpretation; Russell Ch. 9.

10/30: Poetry: voice and age; Review #4 Due.

11/4: Nonsense poetry.

11/6: Poetry collections reviewed.

11/11: Picture Book—Art work and influence; Russell pp. 136-41; Review #5 Due.

11/13: Picture Book—Art work and influence.

11/18: Picture Books: the third & fourth dimensions; Russell pp. 122-36; Bibliographic Essay Due.

11/20: Picture Books: the placement of words and pictures and their shared narrative meaning

11/25: Picture book issues above continued.

Thanksgiving Break

12/2: Picture Books: Peter Rabbit Case Study.

12/4: Picture book Group Work; Course Evaluations; all Revisions Due for both sections.

Exam II: The Final Exam will be held in our regular classroom.

Section 01: Thursday, December 11, 8:30 am – 10:20 am

Section 02: Tuesday, December 9, 2:00 pm – 3:50 pm

ENG 300: Literature for Children

Review Assignments

Worth: 25%

Length: Approximately one single-spaced page each.

I would like for you to review a web site, a scholarly journal, a book (handbook, theory, criticism, or collection of essays), a children’s chapter book, and a picture book this term. I want you to write a report for me, yourself, and for your peers about each of those five resources. Review sources that are only children’s book-related.

Format for reviewing a journal, book, and website:

(a list of books on children’s literature available in the MWSC library can be found on my webpage and in the library section marked PN 1009; a list of links to other children’s literature websites is also to be found on my webpage. I provide you with a list of appropriate journals below. These are all safe bets. When you review a journal, review the entire journal as a whole rather than a single article. I suggest that you look at a number of issues so that you don’t mistakenly generalize about the journal based on one issue of the journal)

1. Provide complete citation information for the video, research source, or web site in question in MLA style.

Book or Journal

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book: Including Subtitle. Edition. Place of (indent five spaces after first line) Publication: Publisher, Year.

Website

1. Name of author (if given)

2. Title of page accessed (in quotation marks)

3. Date when the material was posted (if given)

4. Title of the database (underlined) (e.g.. New York Times Online or ERIC)

5. Publication medium (Online)

6. Name of the computer service (e.g. Netscape Navigator or Lexis or CompuServe)

7. Date of your access of the material

8. URL (not in MLA handbook, but something useful for us):

Vandergrift, Kay. "Author Biography and Autobiography Page." Created January 31, 1996, Last Updated February 8, 1997. Online. Netscape Navigator. July 9, 1997. http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/authorbios.html

For more specific detail on some of the subtleties of citation:

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999.

This text is available in the library and in my office.

2. Summarize what the source offers the viewer/reader as thoroughly as you can in about a third of a page, single-spaced. What is provided? How is it arranged or organized? Remember, you are providing yourself (and possibly your classmates) a review that will enable the reader to visualize the source as well as possible in print. This is to be useful to someone who has not seen the text.

3. Explain for whom this site/source might be of most use and why. If you think that more than one audience is implied, identify them and why you think so. Why might it be better for childcare workers or parents or teachers or siblings or the child him or herself? You need to make a case for a particular implied audience—don’t generalize. Please don’t simply assume that the source is for teachers just because most of you in the class are education majors.

4. Provide a critique of the site/source. Given the information you've provided in # 2 & 3 above, how successful is this resource? How well does it do what it seems to want to do? Is it something you think you'd return to? Could you improve it somehow? Would you only use part of it? Give us a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of this resource so that when you look back on it later you can remember what you thought of it. Try to give a thoughtful response to this resource beyond "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." Start with those reactions as you review and ask yourself "why?" and move on to details.

Format for reviewing a picture book and a chapter book:

You may not review a book we have featured in class, nor may you use a reviewed book in your bibliographic essay.

1. Provide complete citation information in MLA style (see above).

2. Summarize the story as briefly as you can. Remember: you are providing yourself a review that will enable you to have a complete sense of the story later when you refer to this. Don’t hold back on the ending; it’s not a TV Guide listing or something for the back of the book! Provide roughly one-third of a single-spaced page.

3. Focus on one (two tops) textual feature that the book employs. Focus on one thing to do with the use of character, plot, setting, narrative perspective, language, arrangement of chapters, pictures (be specific about some aspect of the pictures if you go this route) or anything structural. What do you notice that is interesting and why is it significant? Don’t choose something that you don’t have a comment about.

4. Focus on one subtextual issue in the book. What idea, message, issue, or concept does the book contain? Don’t feel the need to comment on the “moral” here; don’t reduce it to fable, in other words. It’s necessarily the case that the story will have multiple subtexts; don’t, however, feel the need to touch on them all.

5. Focus on a single context in which this book might prove useful or interesting (reader); or consider the implications for the context of the writing (something about the author, the place and era in which it was written, etc.)

6. Provide a critique of the site/source. Given the information you've provided in # 3-5 above, how successful is this book? Is it something you think you'd return to? Could you improve it somehow? Would you only use part of it? Give us a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of this resource so that when you look back on it later you can remember what you thought of it. Try to give a thoughtful response to this resource beyond "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." Start with those reactions as you review and ask yourself "why?" and move on to details.

All reviews should be about one side of one page, single-spaced. A bit more or less is not a problem, though much less is likely going to be indicative of incomplete development.

Please proof-read the page before submitting it. I will want it to be as professional-looking as it can be in case we should decide to distribute these to each other. Language is important. I expect that your work will be carefully proof-read and edited before you give it to me.

A Note on Revision: If you are submitting a revised copy of your review, please resubmit the original copy that has my written comments (staple or paper-clip the old to the new).

The act of revision does not guarantee an improved grade. Editing isn’t the same thing as revision. If you would like feedback beyond that which I have written on the original, you may visit me to discuss revision strategies at any time prior to submitting a revision.

Journals that publish articles on children’s literature theory and criticism

--Compiled by Wally Hastings; enhanced and annotated by Michael Scott Joseph 1/20/98

(*Those to be found at MWSC library are preceded by an asterisk)

African Journal of Children's and Youth Lit

*ALAN Review. Athens, Ga.: Assembly on Literature for Adolescents, National Council of Teachers of English, 1979-

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 6- (1979- ), BOUND.

Ariel: A Review of International English Literature. Calgary: University of Calgary, 1970-.

Bookbird: Dortmund : One Man Edition, 1982-

Book Links

Booklist. Chicago : The Association, Sept. 1969.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (BCCB): Chicago: University of Chicago Press for

Homepage: http://edfu.lis.uiuc.edu/puboff/bccb/

Canadian Children's Literature (CCL): Guelph, Ont.: Canadian Children's Press, 1975-

Homepage: http://www.uoguelph.ca/englit/ccl/

*Children's Literature (CL): New Haven [etc.] Yale University Press, 1972-

STACKS PN1009 .A1 C536 1972 v. 1- (1972- )

*Children's Literature Abstracts (CLA): [Birmingham, Eng.]: Sub-section on Library Work with Children of the International Federation of Library Associations, 1973-

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 64- (1989- ), BOUND.

*Children's Literature Association Quarterly (ChLAQ). Winnipeg, Man.: The Association, 1988- MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 7- (1982- ), BOUND.

*Children's Literature in Education (CLE). New York, etc., Agathon Press, etc., 1971.

MWSC HOLDINGS: no. 1-23 (March 1970-Winter 1976), v. 8-12 (Spring

1977-Winter 1981) MICROFILM; v. 13- (Spring 1982-) BOUND.

Children's Literature Review (CLR). Detroit, Gale Research, 1976-

*Elementary English.

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 24-45 (1947-1968), MICROFILM;

v. 46-52 (1969-May 1975), BOUND.

*Elementary English Review.

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 1-23 (March 1924-1946), MICROFILM.

SEE ALSO: Horn book magazine.

*Horn Book Guide to Children's and Young Adult Books.

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 1- (July-December 1989- ), BOUND.

*Horn Book Magazine (HB). [Boston, Horn Book, inc., etc.], 1924-

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 2-20 (June 1926-March/April 1944), v. 53- (1977- ),

BOUND.

Journal of Children's Literature (JCL): University Park, Penn.: Children's Literature Assembly, 1994- (Continues: CLA bulletin (Children's Literature Assembly))

Journal of Youth Services in Libraries (JOYS). Chicago, IL : American Library Association, c1987-

Library Trends (LT). Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Library School, 1952-

Access from campus or login via Rutgers account. http://www.umi.com/pqdauto

*Lion and Unicorn (L&U): Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987-

Homepage: http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/lion_and_the_unicorn/

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 21- (1997- ), BOUND.

Magpies (Australia)

Marvels and Tales : Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies. (MT): Detroit, MI : Wayne State University Press, 1997-

Homepage: http://www.langlab.wayne.edu/MarvelsHome/Marvels_Tales.html

Multicultural Review. (MR): Westport, CT : Greenwood Pub. Group, c1992-

*New Advocate

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 5- (1992- ) BOUND

New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship. (NRCLL) : London: Taylor Graham, c1995-

Orana (Australia) . [S.l.] : Library Association of Australia. School & Children's Libraries Sections, 1977?

Papers (Australia)

Para*doxa : Studies in World Literary Genres. (Para) : Vashon Island, WA : Delta Productions, 1995-

*School Library Journal (SLJ). New York, Bowker, 1975-

MWSC HOLDINGS: v. 22- (September 1975- ), BOUND.

*Signal: Approaches to Children’s Books. New York, N.Y.: Brownstone Press, 1963.

MWSC HOLDINGS: nos. 49-79 (1986-January 1996), BOUND.

TALL (Teaching and Learning Literature with Children and Young Adults)

Viewpoints (Australia)

VOYA: Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA). New Brunswick, NJ, etc., D. M. Broderick and M.K. Chelton], 1978-

English 300: Children’s Literature Dr. Cadden

Bibliographic Essay

Worth: 25%

Length: ~10-15 pages.

The Task

You will choose a particular author, theme, or genre in children’s literature in order to investigate it further. You will choose a number of representative works by that person, relevant to the idea/theme, or in the genre in question. The number of books will vary according to your project, but seven to ten is the usual range depending on the availability of books. The goal here is to become well acquainted with one small piece of the big picture of children’s literature.

Who or What?

Author: It would be wise of you to choose someone who is a good fit for the readers you’ll encounter in the grades you want to teach. I also encourage you to start early looking for a writer you think you’d like to learn more about. I would like for you to investigate as many different writers and illustrators as you can. If I think your choice is either inappropriate or if I just don’t know the name, I’ll likely talk to you about it.

An alternative to picking one author is to choose another context of origin to examine. You might look at books written by people from a particular place (region, country), ethnicity, tradition, or belief system. Books by Japanese-American writers (as opposed to simply being about Japanese-Americans, which might be written by a non-member of that ethnic group).

Theme/idea: You might decide that you want to look at older and recent books about orphans, poverty, AIDS, divorce, death, circuses, animal characters, environmentalism, Christianity, gay-lesbian issues, talented/challenged characters, immigration, dance, homelessness, birthdays, dragons, etc.

Genre/mode: Adventure stories, folktale sub-genres (creation myths, Marchen tales, trickster tales, etc.), picture books (though this would have to be paired with another genre or theme or author/illustrator), comedy, tragedy, irony/satire, parody, coming-of-age stories, mysteries, travel, historical fiction, dream stories, poetry (of various sorts), science fiction, diaries/journal-forms, utopia/dystopia, etc.

Where?

Where to find names or ideas from which to choose? Other than your own or your child’s reading histories, I suggest that you pore over the bibliography information that I handed you, the websites listed on my links page (http://www.missouriwestern.edu/~cadden/), the list of resources on children’s and young adult literature at our library (link on my web page; see Jim Mulder or any other reference librarian at the MWSC library), the local library’s children’s section, local bookstores. I’ll be very glad and interested in talking about possible choices for you depending on interests you might have. Start looking at options right away so that you can begin reading and taking notes. I may have some ideas about books that fit your interests as well and may be able to steer you toward a more manageable focus within your chosen area, so please don’t hesitate to employ me as a bibliographic resource!

How?

I don’t give models. Why? Well, because I find that people tend to take the model and push the content into that container whether it fits or not. Rather, I’ll describe what I want and you try to provide that making whatever organizational decisions you need to make to accomplish the task.

Let’s consider a sense of format that also deals with matters of focus. I won’t give you a page limit here, but you might consider that in terms of double-spaced pages, you could devote a page or two to introductory materials (see below), a couple of pages for each book, a couple of pages of conclusions, and a works cited page. This might mean that you have ten to twenty pages.

The introductory material: briefly tell us a bit about the author/theme/genre that you’ve chosen. What interests you in the subject and what exactly will we be discussing? What have you ruled out in the course of defining this focus? Then tell us a bit about the main connections you’ll be covering across the books--the “thread(s)” that ties them together. If I’ve chosen Gary Paulsen, for instance, I’ll probably note that he tends to write about boys in adventurous outdoor circumstances. There are other links, too. Give us a sense of focus that you’ll be pursuing throughout the paper.

The body of the essay is devoted to discussing each book in turn, focusing on the thread(s) that connect(s) each to the others, but also explaining other observations about the book that might not have anything to do with the other books. Begin your discussion of each book as you do a review: summarize the book for us as briefly as you can (brevity here is tough!) What makes a bibliographic essay distinctive from other essays is that the writer assumes that the reader isn’t familiar with the books. Be mindful of proportion—the summary shouldn’t be most of your discussion, and you should be careful to include commentary on the idea that links the books as well as on other noteworthy things you’ve discovered that are contextual, textual, and/or subtextual. If most of what you have is summary and you don’t have much commentary, there will be problems.

Be style-conscious: if your transitions suffer from a formulaic approach for discussing each book, play around with each mini-discussion. Don’t feel the need to make each book one paragraph of discussion; it may take a couple of paragraphs to discuss each book.

The conclusion of the essay is very important, and is not simply a formality in which you sum up what you’ve said. The conclusion should be where you share, in more detail, what you think makes this study interesting, significant, and useful, and where it might be taken from here. Dwell further on the threads that unite them. Feel free to point out shortcomings or problems. What, after having looked at these books in comparison, is your thoughts about trends, limitations, successes in the area of study? Draw thoughtful conclusions about all of these books, their relationships to each other, and the implications they have for young readers.

You should include a bibliography that cites the primary and any secondary materials used. You aren’t required to use a certain number of (or any) secondary materials, just what suits your task. You may have consulted a website, biography, journal article . . . cite those. Please use MLA style (available on line--http://www.mla.org or in the MLA Handbook available in my office or the library). Be sure to cite any material quoted or paraphrased from another source.

There are several sources which will give bibliographies of books published by an author including: Something About the Author (Ref. PN 451 .S696), Contemporary Authors (Ready Ref. Z 1224 .C761 .A1), and the Dictionary of Literary Biography (Ref. PS 221 .D554). There also were several other biographical sources mentioned on the MWSC bibliography linked to my web page, but some of them are getting quite old. For additional sources of biographical information you may want to consult the following index: Biography and Genealogy Master Index (Available on the computers, and on Index Table 5).

A word of caution. No published list of an author’s work is completely current. You need to check the date of publication of the volume which contains the bibliography they find. Often the bibliography will not include the author's works published during the previous year or two.

For more recent information on new books published, you should consult the various periodicals mentioned on the bibliography and more general periodicals such as Publisher's Weekly. Many of these periodicals are indexed through the Reader's Guide Abstracts, Humanities Index, or Masterfile Elite on the library computers.

Another source of more recent information is the Baker & Taylor CD-ROM, available on most of the computers in the Reference room. It lists books that are being published, as well as many which have gone out of print. You can search by author, therefore this would be a good place to look for updating most of the printed bibliographies. This is not a reviewing source as it gives only citations.

You’ll find lots to comment on as you read. I suggest that you read each book with a pen and paper handy, and even plan on returning to books as you read the others (Reread?! Heavens!) I think that with the pieces of this assignment, the number of books, and the many links, you’ll be able to generate a lot of interesting material.

Before you submit this assignment be sure that you have done some careful proof-reading and editing. Good language use isn’t “extra”—it’s inseparable from what you are saying.

I hope that you will share these final copies with each other when you’re done! Good luck!

Grading Criteria for Writing in Dr. Cadden’s English Courses:

“A”:

General Qualitative Description: Excellent, Superior, Outstanding.

Conception: Your idea should contain some new, perhaps surprising, element, some angle that is uncommonly thoughtful and insightful. You are not rehearsing other people's ideas, and you are going beyond an average reading. You expose and challenge the explicit and implicit assumptions of the text. If you are incorporating research, you will have WORKED your sources--using what supports your argument, and acknowledging and dealing with what challenges it.

Organization: Your organization should be flawless and should match your content. You should anticipate, address, and work through opposition to your argument and build a strong case for your own. You should employ evidence with regularity and in appropriate circumstances. If you are incorporating research, you will spend some time positioning your argument in the context of the larger conversation.

Style: Your presentation should be artful. You have obviously paid attention to the way your language sounds as well as what it says. You have found a way to make your presentation style match the content of your paper (other than a groovy font style!), perhaps through a sustained metaphor, or a particularly apt example that you carry through and refer to in the entire paper.

Grammar and Mechanics: Your paper should be absolutely clean and free of grammatical and mechanical errors of a rudimentary nature, though you may have a few problems with complex functions of grammar. You should never avoid complex language in order to avoid errors, in other words.

“B”:

General Qualitative Description: Above average, Good, Commendable.

Conception: Your idea will be better than average, but you may have overlooked or not

acknowledged or interrogated the assumptions that inform it. The claim/idea is ambitious and, for that reason, may have gotten away from you. You will be rewarded for being ambitious even if you fall a bit short.

Organization: Your organization will be strong, but the signaling might still be a bit

Awkward; you may find yourself using a lot of directional phrases because your argument doesn't flow naturally. (Ex. "As I said earlier..." "Firstly, secondly, thirdly...") Here too the organization will match the content rather than being formulaic.

Style: It's clean, readable, there's a consistent sense of voice, and there aren't any places

where a reader has to go back and reread a sentence just to understand its structure.

Grammar/Mechanics: Very few (almost no) errors of a rudimentary nature.

“ C”:

General Qualitative Description: Competent, Average, Fine.

Conception: Your idea for your paper should reflect that you have read, thought about, and paid attention to the way we have talked in class about similar issues. Your main point should be clearly stated and defended with appropriate evidence. You should remain focused on your topic throughout your paper, and you should have thoroughly examined the aspects of your topic from your perspective. Your ideas should be internally consistent. There won’t be anything terribly surprising, daring, or unusual here.

Organization: Your paper should have a logical, clearly identifiable organization. Each

paragraph should address only one aspect of your topic, and when you change aspects, you start a new paragraph. Transitions between paragraphs should be competently handled. Your strategy, that is, how you manage the interweaving of your idea and your organization, should be standard and straightforward. For instance, if you follow a traditional pattern of an introduction that includes a flagged thesis statement ("in this paper I will..."), then proceed with evidence and close with a restatement of the initial problem. That's a standard, straightforward organization--a C strategy.

Style: Your style should be clear and readable.

Grammar and Mechanics: Your paper should not contain many distracting errors in grammar or mechanics. Minimally, you should have run a spell-check program, and you should know the difference between a complete sentence, a fragment, and a run-on.

“D”:

General Qualitative Description: Incompetent, Inadequate, Below Average.

Conception: Your idea will be immediately obvious to a casual reader--a no-brainer—yet it will be presented as news. It will likely also be not quite clear what it is that you are really saying. Split focus on more than one thesis or issue is likely.

Organization: Perhaps you split your focus (which means you start out talking about one thing and shift to another) which means that you are covering several or many issues in short paragraphs. You jump from one idea to the next with no logical strategy or transitions. If there is no plan, or if you don't stick to the plan, this is faulty organization. It may be evident that there wasn’t ever really a structural strategy at all.

Style: Unclear language, usually. This may also be a matter of using the wrong words for your ideas. Simply put, the language is in bad shape.

Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent problems in sentence structure with little sign of proof-reading.

“F”:

General Qualitative Description: Unacceptable.

(The most common cause of an F is a failure to adequately address the assignment. For instance, if I specify that this assignment is to be researched, or if it is to address a certain topic in a certain way, you have to at least complete the assignment.)

Conception: No clear idea governs the words on the page.

Organization: No plan is evident, much less achieved.

Style: Incomprehensible most or all of the time.

Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent problems with rudimentary mechanical matters.

*******************

The four major areas of concern discussed above (conception, organization, style, and mechanics) will be considered separately, when that is possible. I may find that it is difficult or even impossible to assess conception if the style and mechanics are at the “F” or “D” levels. It may well be the case that your organization is a real problem while conception, style, and mechanics are all quite good. The ultimate assessment, then, will be the combined consideration of all four areas. Any challenges to my assessments need to employ the above issues in those challenges.

I cannot assess effort. Note that I do not say that I will not assess effort; nobody can assess effort unless, perhaps, he or she is there watching you work. I assume that you all work very hard on your writing. I can only assess the final product.

I do not give grades based on your perceived needs. If you need a “B” in the course to keep your GPA up for a scholarship, loans, or admittance into a program, then be sure you perform at a “B” level.

I do not give grades on the basis of your sense of identity or personal academic history. I assess each piece of work on its own merits. Just because you consider yourself an “A” student does not mean that you will do “A” work each time; just because you consider yourself a “C” student doesn’t mean that you won’t do “A” work. Try to put some distance between your performance and your identity.