MISSOURI WESTERN STATE
COLLEGE
School of Liberal Arts and
Sciences
Department of English,
Foreign Languages, and Journalism
Professor:
Dr. Elizabeth Latosi Sawin
Office: SSC
215
Phone: 271-4274 (If you leave a
message, identify which class you are in, and IF you are
asking me to return your call, give the phone numbers slowly.)
Office
hrs: 10-10:50 MW; 11-11:50
TTH & by appt.
Email: sawin@missouriwestern.edu
DEPARTMENTAL
COURSE OBECTIVES:
Honors composition
classes address the Objectives and Means for ENG 104 and for ENG 108. Upon
successful completion of ENG 112, students fulfill the college's General
Studies composition requirement. Students will complete five writing
assignments in Honors Composition. At least one of these assignments will be a
research paper involving library and on-line research. Final drafts of papers
will be word processed. Students will keep complete portfolios of all writing
done in the course. Before any grade appeal will be processed for a student in
ENG 100, 104, 108, or 112, the complete portfolio of writings will have to be
submitted to the Departmental Review Committee.
SKILL AREAS
I. Communicating
To develop students’ effective use of the English language
and quantitative and other symbolic systems essential to their success in
school and in the world. Students should be able to read and listen critically
and to write and speak with thoughtfulness, clarity, coherence, and
persuasiveness.
A.
Analyze and evaluate their own and others’ speaking and writing.
B. Conceive of writing
as a recursive process that involves many strategies, including generating
material, evaluating sources when used, drafting, revising, and editing.
C. Make formal written
and oral presentations employing correct diction, syntax, usage, grammar, and
mechanics.
D. Focus on a purpose
(e.g., explaining, problem solving, argument) and vary approaches to writing
and speaking based on that purpose.
E.
Respond to the needs of different audiences and choose words for
appropriateness and effect.
II. Higher-Order
Thinking
To develop students’ ability to distinguish among opinions,
facts, and inferences; to identify underlying or implicit assumptions; to make
informed judgments; and to solve problems by applying evaluative standards.
A.
Recognize the problematic elements of presentations of information and
argument.
B.
Formulate questions for clarifying issues and solving problems.
C. Use linguistic,
mathematical or other symbolic approaches to describe problems, identify
alternative solutions, and make reasoned choices among those solutions.
D. Analyze and
synthesize information from a variety of relevant sources and use the results
to address complex situations and problems.
E.
Defend conclusions using relevant evidence and reasoned argument.
F.
Reflect on and evaluate their critical-thinking processes.
III. Managing
Information
To develop students’ abilities to locate, organize, store,
retrieve, evaluate, synthesize, and annotate information from print,
electronic, and other sources in preparation for solving problems and making
informed decisions.
REQUIRED
TEXTS:
THE
FOURTH GENRE: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (3rd ed)
Robert L. Root, Jr and Michael Steinberg
THE
CRAFT OF RESEARCH (2nd ed) Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and
Joseph M. Williams
A
WRITER’S REFERENCE (4th ed) Diane Hacker
REQUIRED
ASSIGNMENTS:
The
specific assignments will unfold as the course proceeds AND after I have a
chance to read your literacy autobiography. But you can expect the
following with each worth approximately 20% of the final grade.
A Reading Journal Personal essay Segmented essay
Critical essay Research
essay
A B C D
100-90% 89-80% 79-70% 69-60%
N.B. I reserve the right to
make changes in the nature of the work we if need be.
ACADEMIC
HONESTY:
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 be reported to the Dean of Students and receive an “F”
for that assignment. Taking ideas from articles published on the web without
citation or copying work from other students is NOT acceptable.
ATTENDANCE POLICY and other matters:
Films,
in-class writings, and our workshopping of papers can’t be “made-up.” Once
these activities occur, they are permanently lost to you. Likewise, your
contributions are lost to us when you are not here. More than 2 absences of a TTH class will
probably start to affect your grade. / Please TURN OFF CELL PHONES. / Do not
chew gum or eat food during class. Bottled water is allowed. / Please come to
class ON TIME and let me know that the end of the hour has come.
DISABLED
STUDENT POLICY:
If
you have a recognized disability that requires special consideration, please
make an appointment to see me during the first week of classes so that we can
discuss privately how I might help you to succeed.
REQUIRED
FORMATTING: Identify yourself in the
upper, right-hand corner:
Name
English 112
Nature of the Assignment
Date
Aug.
31 Introduction to Course. In-class writing: A
Literacy Autobiography in letter form to Dr. Sawin
Sept.
2 READING: Patricia Hampl “Parish
Streets” (94-101) and “Memory and Imagination” (306-315)
WRITING A CAPTION: Select a photo or snapshot that
is special to you, one that most powerfully comes to mind, one that you carry
in your wallet, one that you have framed, or one that you have put on your
bulletin board. Then write a caption so
that we understand what is going on in that photo and what it means to you.
Help us to understand the setting, the context, the people, that moment in your
life. Students will show their photo and read their captions in class. (This
idea comes from Robert Root, the editor of Fourth Genre):
This caption (perhaps one paragraph or two), but
will help us to get to know one another, get us used to sharing our writing,
and start to prepare us for the first major piece of writing in the course a
personal essay / memoir.
Joyce Carol Oates writes: “Memory is our domestic
form of time travel. The invention of photography—in particular, the
‘snapshot’- revolutionized human consciousness, for when we claim to ‘remember’
our pasts, we are surely remembering our favorite snapshots, in which the
long-faded past is given a distinct visual mortality.” [from “Caption,” in Civilization
(February/March 1997: 96]