Tentative
English 102: College Writing & Research Course Policies
Joel Seeger [email protected] Office: 296 Curtin Hall Office Hours by appointment
Course Purpose and Assumptions The following description of this course is taken from the required texts for the course, A Student Guide to the First-Year Writing Program at UWM, 2010-2011.
English 102 introduces students to college research writing through an assignment sequence that builds on and complicates students’ understandings of the purposes and practices of such writing and that asks students to investigate and engage in academic inquiry. The course asks students to consider academic research as a process of positioning one’s self and ideas in relation to the ideas and concerns of others. The course asks students to examine critically their experiences with both the process and the products of academic inquiry.
The heart of the description, it seems to me, is the concept of “academic inquiry.” Asking questions, or inquiring, in the academy, or university, is the main task of the course. What kinds of questions do students and scholars ask? How do they come up with these questions? How do they try to answer them? I have designed the course to allow us to collectively explore what it means to use writing to produce new knowledge, new insights, or new understanding by asking questions and endeavoring to answer them. To me, academic inquiry means that we take responsibility for being producers of knowledge rather than merely passive consumers of it.
Part of this ‘production of knowledge’ includes the way the class itself unfolds. With this in mind, I want to stress the collaborative nature of this course. While I have prepared an assignment sequence and chosen a number of readings for the course I am more than willing to consider adding or substituting texts (and I mean this broadly, not just written essays, but images, websites, youTube videos, television programs, etc.) that you want the class as a whole to consider as well as collaboratively designing and writing assignments.
Required Texts:
A Student’s Guide to the First Year Writing Program at UWM, 2009-10 edition. (available at UWM Bookstore)
Other Required Materials: You will need three folders, a notebook, and some sort of writing instrument. Bring these materials to class everyday as we will be doing a great Tentative deal of writing in and out of class. Additionally, you will need paper for printing, a stapler and a dictionary, as well as access to a computer & printer, food & water, and a photocopier.
None of these items are optional, if you do not have them, or access to them you will not be able to complete this course.
Prerequisites (from the Student Guide):
An EPT score of 3 or above, a grade of C or better in English 101 or a comparable course elsewhere, or by permission of the Coordinator of Composition.
Grading:
Your final grade will be determined by the following criteria:
50% Final Portfolio 25% Class Participation 25% Writing Assignments
Final Portfolio:
In order to have your portfolio considered all assignments must be turned in.
Final Portfolio Assessment will take place on Friday, May 14th. The process works like this: At the end of the semester (May 10th), you will each turn in a final portfolio consisting of two essays (a research essay and a research analysis essay). I will read every portfolio and determine which I see as Passing, Failing, and Borderline. All borderline and failing portfolios will go to final assessment where outside readers will read them and determine the final grading decision, then a few of the passing portfolios will be randomly selected to go to portfolio review.
Participation:
To receive full credit for class participation you will need to be in class, prepared, and engaged in classroom activities. Informed participation is vital not only to your grade, but more importantly to creating a strong learning environment in our classroom.
We will be doing a significant amount of peer reading (reading the work of other student’s). Informed, constructive feedback for your fellow classmates will not only significantly help them, but will also be a significant factor in determining your participation grade.
Assignments: Tentative
You will not receive a grade on individual assignments. Part of your grade, however, will be determined by successful completion of all assignments. Assignments will not be accepted via email. Occasionally, I will request that assignments be turned in via D2L dropbox. If you are going to miss class on the day an assignment is due, you may submit it via the D2L dropbox before class time. The D2L dropbox is not an acceptable way to turn in assignments if you are in class.
Late assignments will negatively affect your final grade. Feedback will not be given on late assignments. In order to be allowed to turn in your final portfolio ALL assignments must be turned in.
Feedback on Assignments:
Comments made on all assignments are necessarily selective. They are meant to help improve and develop your writing and not to present a definitive answer on “how to fix” any given essay. Approach them as the start of a discussion and do not hesitate to come to office hours or make an appointment to further that discussion.
In addition to my feedback on some of your assignments, you will also give and receive significant amounts of peer reviewing & editing. This will be done either in-class, via D2L discussion boards, or in group conferences. Informed participation in these activities will count for a significant portion of your participation grade.
Writing Center:
Take advantage of this free resource for writers on campus. The Writing Center (main location 382 Curtin Hall, with a satellite location in the East wing of the library, phone 414-229-4339, www.writingcenter.uwm.edu) is staffed by knowledgeable tutors who are familiar with the demands of English 102. Students from previous semesters have found the one-on-one work with a tutor to be helpful at all stages in the writing process, so don’t wait until the end of the semester to make an appointment or stop in. In-person and online appointments are available.
Student Accessibility Center (SAC):
If you will need accommodations in order to meet any of the requirements of this course, please contact me as soon as possible. Any student working with an SAC advisor should give me their VISA form during the first week of class
Desire2Learn (D2L) Course Website
Many materials for this course are available on a Desire2Learn (D2L) course website. You can find our D2L page by going to http://www.uwm.edu and selecting D2L on the “Quicklinks” menu at the top of the page. Tentative
All readings (except for the student guide) for the course will be available in the “Contents” section of the course D2L page. All assignments will be posted on the website, so if you miss class it is your responsibility to find out what you missed. All course documents (including these course policies) will be available on D2L Relevant links to our subject matter (or related material) will be posted to the “Links” tab.
Academic Honesty/Plagiarism:
See the section on pages 11-13 in the Student Guide for these policies.
Cell Phones, Food, Etc:
Turn off your cell phone before you come into class. Setting it to vibrate or silent mode is not sufficient. If you forget and your phone goes off (I understand we can occasionally forget) turn off the phone quickly without disturbing other students. If you are seen sending/reading text messages during class you will be asked to leave class and marked absent for that day. Additionally, I find the practice of trying to sneakily text during class personally insulting. The conclusions I draw from seeing someone texting during class are 1) that for every one time I see someone texting there are likely 5 times I don’t see that student texting and 2) that a student focusing on texting while in class (much like people texting while in a car) are not paying much attention to what’s going on around them, therefore, your participation grade will suffer. Just don’t do it, please.
You can eat/drink in class, but please be courteous of others.
Class Schedule NOTE: This schedule is tentative and may be changed at any time at the instructor’s discretion.
This class schedule is rigorous with approximately 15 assignments due through 22 class periods. Assignments build off each other and will be most rewarding if completed in order and on time.
M 1/26 Introductions, Discuss Course Policies Homework: News Source Assignment
W 1/28 Re-Introductions, Discuss News Source Assignment
M 2/1 Homework: Preliminary Trajectory Assignment
W 2/3 Library Orientation Day #1 (Meet in Library Instruction Room A)
(2/5 – Last Day to add classes/switch sections)
M 2/8 { Tentative
{ “Building A Mystery” W 2/10 {
Due: Central Research Question Due At Conference 1 M 2/15 CONFERENCE 1 W 2/17 CONFERENCE 1
(2/19 – Last day to DROP a course without “W” (transcript notation)
M 2/22 { W 2/24 { Writing/Exploring Questions M 3/1 {
W 3/3 Working Pages Due (Min. 5 pages)
M 3/8 CONFERENCE 2 W 3/10 CONFERENCE 2 M 3/15 W 3/17 Library Follow-Up Session (Meet in Library Instruction Room A)
(3/19 – Last day to Drop a class)
Spring Recess – March 20-27
M 3/29 { W 3/31 { Organizing/Reviewing Sources M 4/5 {
W 4/7 Review of Literature Due M 4/12 W 4/14 Full Rough Draft Due
M 4/19 GROUP CONFERENCE MEETINGS W 4/21 GROUP CONFERENCE MEETINGS
M 4/26 Draft of Research Analysis Essay Due W 4/28 M 5/3 Final Rough Drafts Due (Bring 4 Copies of both your essays to Class to distribute to working groups)
W 5/5 Final Working Group Meeting – Workshop Each Paper
M 5/10 HAND IN PORTFOLIOS – During class time (3:30-4:45) in my Office, Curtin 296