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MinotStateUniversity Division of Humanities
English 110 Freshman Composition
Monday-Wednesday-Friday,1-1:50 303E Hartnett Hall
instructor: Robert E. Kibler, Ph.D.
office: 229 Hartnett Hall West
office hours: M-W-F 1-1:50
telephone: w) 858 3876; c): 720 2716 (no calls before 6 am, nor after 10 pm)
e-mail:
Required Texts:
Alduous Huxley, Brave New World
George Orwell, 1984
Ray Bradbury, Farenheight 451
Philip Dick, Ubik
Section from Asking the Right Questions (E-RES)
Overview:
As part of the MinotStateUniversity’s General Education curriculum, English 110 is designed to help you acquire and practice an identifiable and purposeful set of formal skills: reading, thinking, organizing, and writing. Upon completion of the course, you will have gained experience reading and responding critically to what you read, as well as in organizing your critical responses in written and oral form to good effect, given a particular audience and purpose. All such skills have as their foundation the ability to ask the right questions of what is read or in some way observed, and we shall work on asking and clarifying such questions throughout the term. In English 110 we will also develop an understanding of how effective communication both depends upon and shapes culture through time—why, for example, we do not use phrases such as the “warp and the woof” or “in high feather” nowadays. English 110 also formally evaluates your use of the mechanics of Standard English, and introduces you to the formatting guidelines required for research projects. Expect to undertake a moderate level of reading, thinking, revising, and speaking, and to regularly defend your observations to others in written and spoken form.
Specifics:
There will be several in-class writing assignments, reading quizzes, and writing and editing workshops. The reading quizzes will account for 10% of the grade, and participation in writing and editing workshops will account for another 10%. In addition, four assignments will be formally evaluated. Each of these is worth 20% of the overall grade, and so the evaluative components of the course are as follows:
- Simple reading quizzes (10%)
- Writing and Editing workshops (10%)
- Formal Summary (Huxley) (20%)
- Evaluative Comparison and Contrast letter (451 Book and Film) (20%)
- Synthesis of three (3) readings (1984 and two other works) (20%)
- Creative (Ubik) (20%)
Peer-edits
Most of our formal written work has a peer-edit component to it. For these peer-edits, each of you brings three copies of your finished essay to class, and we mix them up and pass them out so that everyone in class reads and evaluates the work of three others from the class. Studies show that these peer-edits are very effective in helping you develop both a sense of what works in written communication and of what does not. Peer-edits are so important that participation in them is an essential part of each formal essay grade. If you miss a peer-edit session, or if you show up to class unprepared for peer-edit, please expect to lose one letter-grade for the essay to which the peer-edit pertains.
Attendance:
While we spend much of our class time identifying and discussing the critical issues and conclusions found in our readings, much of class time serves as a writing workshop wherein we roll up our sleeves and go about the task of organizing and clarifying our thoughts on paper. A large part of my job is to help you do that, while you are in the process of doing it. Hands-on learning. As a result, it is essential that you come to class. I reserve the right to lower your term grade by one letter for every ‘third’ absence. It does not matter whether or not those absences are excused. That said, if some unusual circumstance arises, please see me and we can work something out to keep you on track for the term.
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism means using the words or phrases or ideas of others as if they were your own. Please do not plagiarize. It is the high crime of academia, and in professional circles, getting caught plagiarizing is often as deleterious to the plagiarist’s career as is getting caught burglarizing the office. If you are unsure about whether or not you are ‘crossing the line’ in your writing, please see me and I can help you recognize what is acceptable usage and what is not. In any case, as a general rule, when in doubt, cite the originator of the words, phrases, or ideas in your own writing. Enough said.
Extra Credit
I will pass out to each of you what I call ‘culture coupons.’ There are many literary, cultural, and intellectual events occurring on campus. I think these events are so important to your university experience that I give you credit for attending them. If you attend 10 such events on campus—getting me to sign these coupons--then I will bump your entire grade upwards by one letter.
How to Prepare for Class
Classes at the University are dramatically different in both scope and character than ones you have taken in High School. In short, they require much more work from you. There is a formula to determine how much work you should expect to do. Full time student status requires that you take at minimum 12 credit hours per semester. This number is not arbitrary. Rather, it assumes that for every hour that you spend in class, you will need to spend a minimum of two hours outside of class studying in order to pass the course. Two hours per credit out of class, plus 12 hours of work in class equates to a 36 hour work week. This is why 12 credits constitutes a full time workload. Many professors suggest that you really need to spend 3 hours out of class in order to do well in any university class. So please consider the amount of time you devote to working at other jobs and that you devote to other activities beyond the University, because those hours work against your energy, your time, and your overall academic and professional success. Your future is happening NOW, here at the University. Those who work outside jobs have a very difficult time competing with those who devote themselves exclusively to their studies.
In any case, here are some tips for doing well in English 110:
1. Pre-read material. That is, go through the chapters reading only the opening paragraph, then the topic sentences of each paragraph, followed by the conclusion. Do this, and you will find that your ability to retain the information when you return and read the entire chapter increases dramatically.
2. Put all key terms and concepts on index cards to memorize them. Pull those cards out at lunch, or whenever you have free time. Go through them until you know the information. Memorize information in small bits, and as those bits add up, you will find that you have acquired all of the facts and bits required for the course. In my experience, students who get the best grades are those who start this process in the beginning, and those students who do not do as well start doing so later--but often not soon enough to strengthen their grade. There is not a lot of terminology for English 110, but knowing it helps you understand discussions and group activities.
3. Work with a friend or two when thinking through problems, organizing and planning your responses, and when drafting essays. Many minds make small work.
4. Come see me with any questions. Call me if you do not know how to organize or jump-start an essay. I cannot anticipate all of your problems, so you have to figure out at least how to ask for help. In my experience, however, students who interact with their professors get markedly better grades than those who do not.
5. Never miss class. Come in late, perhaps, or leave early, but get the middle jist. Learning does not really occur in 90 minute chunks each day, but consistently coming to class keeps your head in the game, and in my experience, this too results in a significant improvement in how you may do overall in any university course.
6. Sometimes it is easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of work required of you at the University—especially if you are new to it, or just returning to it after many years absence. Just remember, getting a degree is in many ways just a matter of endurance. Don’t give up, and when the going gets tough, always stumble forward, worrying more about what you understand in your reading and assignments, and less about what you do not. There will always be more of that in life, so don’t be intimidated by it.
Syllabus
This is a rough map of our work this term. We will make changes when practical or necessary
Week 1
Course Intr0
Facts and Inferences
Connotative and Denotative values
Week 2
Hogarth’s “Beer Street” and “Gin Lane”
Asking the Right Questions (E-Res)
The organization of an essay
In-class exercise
Week 3
Exercises on Formal Summaries
Week 4
Assignment #1: The Formal Summary
Brave New World
Discussion and summaries
Week 5
Brave New World
Discussion and summaries
Week 6
Assignment #1 Peer Edit (bring three (3) typed and complete copies of your summary to class).
Assignment #2 Evaluative Comparison and Contrast: Farenheit 451
Discuss 451, and Assignment #1 due.
Week 7
Farenheit 451 discussion
Farenheit 451 film
Week 8
Writing workshops
Week 9
Writing Workshops
Peer Edit Assignment #3
Week 10
Assignment #2 due
Assignment #3: The Synthesis (1984 and two articles
Library Day
Week 12
Writing workshops
Week 13
Writing Workshops
Week 14
Assignment #3 Peer Edit (bring three (3) typed and complete copies of your summary to class).
Assignment #3 Due
Assignment #4: Informed Creative Essay (Dick)
Week 15
Writing and Editing workshops
Final Paper due the day of the final.
Notes
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