Scott DeShong

Quinebaug Valley Community College

Spring 2008

English 101: Composition—3 credits

Sec.2 CRN 1118, MW 10:30-11:55 in W102

Sec.5 CRN 1121. MW 12:30-1:55 in W201

sdeshong@qvcc.commnet.edu

(860) 412-7252

Office E234-C

Office hours (also by appointment):

MW 4-4:30 in E234-C

MW 3-4 in W107 (Career/Advising Center)

Required text and materials, available in the campus bookstore (bring the book to every class):

George Miller, ed. The Prentice Hall Reader. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.

A notebook for keeping a journal, with standard 8-1/2 by 11-inch pages (see page 6 below).

Pocket folders for keeping papers, drafts, articles, and other materials.

Catalog description: Students develop competence in writing academic essays that are clear, logical, and fully developed, employing rhetorical modes such as summary, comparison, analysis, and argument. Research and bibliography skills are involved, as well as reading, critical thinking, multiple revisions, interaction with other students’ work, and an understanding of writing as a process.

Almost all students find this to be a difficult and time-consuming course. Expect your work to take about 6 hours per week in addition to class time. Note that this is an average: some weeks, you will spend more time than you do during others.

The semester schedule and other information below provide further details on course objectives and format. Among other things, the course involves independent thinking and writing, critical reading (in the required text and on your own), keeping a journal, research, open discussions (both with the class at large and in smaller groups), critiques of others’ writing, individual discussions with the instructor, solid attendance, word processing, photocopying, and tutoring appointments (electronic or face-to-face). You will learn to follow the ideas of others to come to an understanding of a topic, and from that understanding you will form your position on the topic, supporting it with the others’ material.

Attendance is required. Absences will affect your grade through reduced class participation; I keep track of participation daily. Do the reading listed on the schedule and prepare your written work on time. You are responsible for keeping engaged in class during the period. You may lose participation credit for missing class even if you have a good reason for not attending, because it is rarely possible to make up in-class work.

Grading components: The three major components of the course will have roughly equal weight in the overall grade calculation. Note that papers scheduled on the syllabus will not be handed back with letter grades, but rather with a plus-check-minus mark that indicates how much more work the paper needs. You will rewrite papers for midterm and final portfolio grading.

1) The journal will be evaluated both for quality and quantity of work. The grade will reflect how regularly you bring the journal, completed, to each class and how fully you participate in the discussion and activities that revolve around the reading and writing. The grade will be lowered for various aspects of poor participation, including the failure to turn in papers on time and the failure to schedule and keep Learning Center appointments when I require them.

2) The midterm portfolio will include revised versions of papers submitted during the first half of the semester.

3) The final portfolio will usually involve revised papers from the second half of the semester, although other arrangements for revision can be made (that is, negotiated with me).

Note on the mechanics of writing: Roughly 25-33% of each part of the grade will reflect basic writing matters, mainly at the level of the sentence: grammar, punctuation, spelling, and the like. Students beginning this course are expected to have these matters already under control. I may include exercises when I return papers, but keep in mind that improving your writing skills is a job you must take full responsibility for. I may require Learning Center attendance for this. Remember, also, that poor proofreading is equivalent to poor mechanics: an error is an error.

Grading evaluation: A student’s work earns a grade; it is a mistake to think an instructor “gives” grades. Grading in this course will not follow a class curve, but established standards, the center of which tends to be about C+. Here are some descriptions of standard grade categories:

A   Work that is outstanding and fully polished, in every way head and shoulders above most work at the course’s level.

B   Solid, competent work, better than most at the course’s level; perhaps work that is outstanding in some respects, but only adequate in others; work that could use more revision.

C   Adequate work, meeting the assignment’s basic requirements, perhaps strong in some respects but weaker in others than most work at the course’s level; typically, work in need of more drafting.

D   Work that is weaker than most at the course’s level, or a partially fulfilled, short, or flawed assignment, perhaps exhibiting basic difficulties with language.

F   Very weak work or a largely unfulfilled assignment.

0   A missed assignment or any assignment that contains willful plagiarism.

Remember that plagiarism is a serious offense, in which you cheat by presenting something you did not do while claiming it is your work. Plagiarism takes several forms: borrowing the words of others—even just a phrase—without identifying those words with quotation marks (usually, this means copying words from sources), using words or ideas from sources without clearly identifying the sources in your paper (even paraphrasing without citing a source is plagiarism, not just copying), or turning in an assignment that has been written by someone else (even part of it). Getting advice from a tutor or another student is not plagiarism as long as you do not take more or less exact sentences or in another way fail to write the assignment yourself. We will discuss this in class, and we will go into detail about citing sources. But as a rule, ask me if you are uncertain about how to use borrowed material. If you plagiarize—and it is entirely up to me to judge whether you have—I am obliged to fail the assignment and perhaps fail you for the entire course, and for serious cases of plagiarism students can be expelled from college.

Late papers: Papers are due at the beginning of the class for which they are listed on the syllabus (unless a schedule change is announced in class). For lateness, I will reduce your class participation grade. I only make exceptions in rare cases, usually when I get advance notice.

Notes on preparing assignments: Never try to type up any assignment just before class. I expect you to begin your reading and writing assignments early and to plan your time. Assume that any assignment will run into difficulties. If you do not know how to use a word processor, you can get help in the Learning Center, and you may use the computer labs do your work. Always keep a copy (electronic or otherwise) of any work you hand in. See below for information about access to the various campus computer resources.

Criteria for evaluating writing: Refer to this paragraph when you prepare each paper; thus, as we go through the semester, you’ll be learning the grading standards for writing. Put simply, the most important aspect of your performance in this course will be your ability to write well, according to basic standards of good English prose. This is simple to say, and basic in concept, but often very difficult to achieve. You need to write paragraphs that are coherent, each one having a clear purpose or topic that it develops with clear supporting details. Each paper needs to have a logical organization overall, with clear transitions that develop a line of thinking from paragraph to paragraph. Within each paragraph, every sentence must be clear and must follow logically from the one before it. In each sentence, every word and every piece of punctuation should be carefully checked, so there are no errors. And you must make the overall point of the paper clear and stick to that point throughout the paper, covering the topic as fully as the topic requires and not wandering away from it. Also, be sure to use the correct format for setting up a paper, including the proper format for citing sources (see pages 604-13 and the handout from the library).

Extra help: Students who need extra help in English skills (or other skills) may get it at the Learning Center at the Danielson campus or from tutors in Willimantic. I urge anyone who needs these facilities to use them, and I may refer you for tutoring during the semester. Also, you will have the opportunity to use e-tutoring and will have an in-class demonstration of this service. Everyone is required to use some form of tutoring support while preparing papers for the midterm portfolio.

If you are a student with a disability and you believe you will need accommodations for this class, it is your responsibility to contact either Jim Grimord, Director of Learning Services, or Chris Scarborough, Learning Disabilities Specialist, and complete a self-disclosure form. To avoid any delay in the receipt of accommodations, you should contact either Mr. Grimord or Mr. Scarborough as soon as possible. Please note that I cannot provide accommodations based upon a disability until I have received an accommodations letter from either of these individuals.

Tentative schedule of assignments: Full instructions for journal and paper assignments are given separately below and will be discussed in class, and there may be adjustments to the schedule of reading and writing, which also will be given in class. You do not need to respond to questions given in the book, except when they are assigned, but do look over the end matter for writing suggestions and for connections to other pieces in the book.

Final exam period: TBA, in the regular room. Portfolios returned and grades distributed.

Keeping the Journal

•Assigned reading. When a piece of writing is listed on the syllabus, read it in preparation for the date it is listed for. Read it carefully, more than once if necessary, taking notes and marking key ideas. Then make a journal entry in the following form. Leave the pages, in order, in the notebook. If you choose to type the journal, print the pages and keep them in order in a folder.

1) List the due date, the author, and the title.

2) Respond to the following in full sentences, not just a couple of words (see page 4 of the book for more about the following points):

a) Tell what the subject of the piece is.

b) Tell the article’s thesis, or main point.

c) Explain who the audience appears to be, and say why you think so.

d) Explain the author’s apparent purpose in writing the piece.

3) In at least half a page, respond to the piece with your ideas about it or its subject.

•Additional reading. For some class periods, besides what is assigned from the book, find an additional piece of writing on your own, of two pages or more. Use research methods (as discussed in class) to find an article on a topic related either to the day’s assigned reading or to one of your previous journal entries. Make a photocopy or printout of the additional piece. Read the article and make a journal entry, following the guidelines under 1-3 above.

•Longer response. Also—for each class period when an additional reading is due—once you have written the entries for the piece from the book and the additional article, write a longer response to one of them or about another piece you have already responded to, perhaps linking various pieces. The response must be one and a half to two pages long, at the minimum. Try to take a position on some aspect of a piece or its subject, perhaps stating a thesis of your own. Ideally, this writing will form the basis of a paper.

The journal is due at the beginning of class, and you must attend class to get full credit for it. Never drop off the journal; it will only earn credit when you are present. If you miss class, just bring the journal to the next class meeting. Even if you have a good reason for missing class, you will receive partial credit. A few instances of lateness will not be a problem; only chronic absences or incomplete work will have a serious impact on your overall grade.

Preparing Papers (also see page 3 above)

Due date: Each paper is due in 2 copies on its preparation day, as listed on the syllabus. Then it will be edited for final submission, one copy, due the following class period.

Format

Follow the model on pages 604-13: type papers and use a 12-point standard font with black print, set all margins to one inch, double space the entire paper, center the title, put your last name and the page number in the header (upper right corner), list all works cited on a new page at the end, cite all works in your text with parenthetical documentation (whether or not you use exact quotations), and staple the paper in the upper left corner. Use quotation marks around the titles of articles and underline (or italicize) the titles of books and periodicals. When you quote others, do not leave the quoted remarks standing in their own sentences; use attributive wording (such as “According to so-and-so”). When you paraphrase, change the wording entirely. See pages 612-13, and the additional handout from the QVCC library, for the works cited format.

Length

All papers must reach page three, at the minimum, not counting the works cited page. It is your responsibility to write enough to cover the topic well, while not including unnecessary material.

Topics

You have a range of options in choosing paper topics. But all papers must address issues raised in your reading. The first two papers may address only one or two texts; the last two must engage texts with each other, with at least one paper relating at least three texts with each other. This will involve research, which we will discuss further in class (emphasizing pages 579-603).

Approach

You choose how to approach each topic by referring to the various kinds of writing our textbook’s chapters focus on: division and classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, definition, argument and persuasion, and so on. In all cases, you must have a thesis—a statement that the entire paper works to support. Your goal is always to support the thesis by helping the audience think through the subject matter, which you will do by developing a clear line of reasoning and adequate supporting evidence.

Steps in writing papers

We will discuss the writing process in class, referring to pages 13-43 (and noting 44-60, also). In the final stages of writing, you must print out multiple versions of your papers and read them, marking changes by hand before typing the changes into the computer file. As you do this, read the paper aloud more than once.

Supplemental material

Submit each paper in a folder. Include all the preliminary material, particularly the late-stage printouts with your handwriting on them. When the paper refers to material not in the course text, provide a copy of the article(s). Stack everything from bottom to top so that the earliest stages of the writing are on the bottom and the final version, stapled by itself, is on the top. If you use any article(s) not in the book, put the copies under the bottom of the stack.

On the very top, include a typed cover sheet that lists the subject, thesis, audience, and purpose of the paper, as noted under requirement 2 for the journal. Express each of these four matters in one or more full sentences: do not just type a couple of words. Remember that a thesis must be a statement—a sentence with noun and a verb—that takes a position: it must not be a question, a fragment, or a simple reiteration of the paper’s subject. See page 22 and following for more on how to develop an effective thesis.

Preparing Portfolios

Each portfolio will include revised versions of the two previous papers: the midterm portfolio will contain new versions of papers 1 and 2 and the final portfolio will contain new versions of papers 3 and 4.

When you revise each paper for a portfolio, include all the first version’s materials, in order, with all the new stages on top of that; the very final version goes on top, with a new cover sheet. Make sure to follow the model on page 604-13 in preparing the paper, to staple the paper, and so on: review the requirements listed above for preparing papers. If there are any new additional articles, put copies of them under the very bottom of the stack.

Use a pocket folder for the portfolio, putting each paper in a separate pocket.

Be sure to keep all your papers and related materials throughout the semester, in case we need to refer to them.