FREN 2060: Intermediate Reading and Writing

1

Spring 2016

FREN 2060: Intermediate Reading and Writing

COURSE INFORMATION

Instructor: Joanna Gay LuksE-mail:

Office: K151 Klarman Hall

Class Hours & Location: M,W,F 10:10-11:00 GS (Goldwin Smith) 158

Office Hours: Monday Friday: 11:15 –12:15, and by appointment on M or F.

Course Description

This intermediate language course is designed for students who want to focus on their reading and writing skills. Following the notion of reading in order to write, particular attention is paid to the uses and meanings of grammar, vocabulary and writing strategies within a variety of genres, styles, and cultural contexts. Students write and edit a number of texts with peer and instructor feedback as well as self-edit via the use of specialized software.

Prerequisites: Fren 1230, or LPF score of 56-64, or SAT II score of 600-680, or CASE Q

Note: This course cannot be audited or taken S/U. It is Letter Grade only.

Required Texts

1. Contextualized French Grammar: A Handbook – Bourns (Heinle Cengage Learning)

Note: While there is an electronic version of this book, I ask that you purchase the hard copy for use during certain tests.

2. Le Chien jaune - Simenon (roman, édition "Pocket")

Optional resource

3. Antidote HD editing software

“Antidote is a complete set of software reference tools for writing French. Tools include an advanced grammar checker, which corrects the whole text at once, an important collection of ten dictionaries, and an interactive compendium of grammar rules. Seamlessly integrated with major word processors and email programs, Antidote's tools are available instantaneously right from your text.”

There is currently one copy of this software installed at the Cornell Language Resource Center for use by students in French 2060. If you think that you may continue with French after this course, either in your life or in your studies, I would recommend purchasing a copy now. Here is the link for the description in English:

Course Website

Most of the materials for this course will be available in electronic format on the course website. A weekly Guide de travail outlines the homework needed for class preparation. These plans will be posted on the website. Note, this is not a Blackboard site:

(The ID and Password are provided in class.)

Course Grade Distribution

Class Performance (homework prep + class participation) / 20%
Social Reading (3 assignments for collaborative reading + interpreting) / 15%
À vous (a student-selected reading + student-led discussion) / 5%
Contrôles (5 grammar tests, lowest grade dropped) / 15%
Écrits (3genre-specific writing assignments) / 20%
Essais (2, simple French essays on «Le Chien jaune», LCj) / 15%
Examen final: une composition(synthesizing content from LCj + written genres covered during the semester) / 10%

All grades follow the standard grading scale, and nothing is graded on a curve.

Conversion Chart for Grades:

A93-96

A-90-92

B+87-89

B83-86

B-80-82

C+77-79

C73-76

C-70-72

D+67-69

D63-66

D- 60-62

F< 60

Workload in Relationship to Course Credits

Fren 2060 is a 4-credit course. Each credit granted by Cornell requires up to three hours of student time, including class time, per credit. As this course meets 3 hours a week, you should anticipate an average of 9 hours of out-of-class work on a weekly basis.

Absences

Cornell's policy for officially excused absences includes religious observances and university athletic/extracurricular events. An excused absence must be arranged with me beforehand, and a letter of explanation plus a schedule of dates must be submitted as documentation.

If you are absent from class for any other reason, contact me as soon as possible. In order to keep up with the course content, it may be possible to submit the written work (class preparation) due for that day as partial credit for your absence.

Class Performance

Your class performance grade will be based on 5 criteria: attendance, completion of homework, in-class performance, self-correction, and attentiveness and focus. You will receive a performance rubric that outlines these criteria, along with a mid-term and final course grade for this dimension of your coursework.

While spoken French is not graded in this course, with the exception of pronunciation for the À vous assignment, your speaking skills should markedly improve.We will work with sound-spelling relationships for enhancing pronunciation, and class discussions will largely be carried out in French. A bilingual approach is applied otherwise for areas of analysis that are beyond the language level of this course.

Social Reading

Social reading is an Internet-based activity in which the class collaboratively reads, annotates and comments upon a shared text, using the Web application, eComma. There will be three such assignments given as out-of-class work, and students will be asked to apply designated interpretation strategies.

Grammar

Grammar is addressed in two ways:

• Sentencelevel– Forms, meanings and uses have been organized into a grammar syllabus that progresses throughout the semester. For assessing this level of proficiency, you will have grammar tests (contrôles),and preparation for these involves completion of homework:reading reference materials and applying the information in grammar exercises foundin thebook, Contextualized French Grammar: A Handbook (CFG). The book includes an answer key and you are asked to self-correct your work.

The grammar tests aretake-homeand you will need toconsultCFG and the grammar reference materials that I provide. The primary goal is to help you to consolidate your grammatical knowledge by learning to use these reference materials as fruitful resources. As such, keeping up with the grammar homework and knowing where to find needed informationwill greatly facilitate your work on these tests.

• Discourselevel –To help you to develop an increasingly nuanced understanding of how to address a given audience and respond to given genre conventionseffectively and creatively, the écrit descriptions include instructions for applying aspects of grammar that are integral to this objective. I will provide feedback in your assignments related to this level of grammar.

Course Organization

Because there will be a mix of electronic and print documents, to facilitate organization and retrieval of materials, I recommend creating a course folder in hard copy (a 3-ring binder with 5 tabs and a 3-ring hole-punch):

-Lecture (first half of the semester): texts, reading worksheets (Feuilles de lecture – Fdl), and supplemental handouts

-Lecture, «Le Chien jaune» (second half of the semester):Questions de compréhension (Qdc) and supplemental handouts

-Écriture: writing assignment descriptions, accompanying handouts, your peer-edited drafts, the final versions of your papers and the graded performance rubrics

-Grammaire: handouts, problems/questions noted from homework, and tests (contrôles)

-À vous: texts and glossaries (your own and the other groups’ selections), and the graded performance rubric

Student Learning Outcomes

Students who successfully complete French 2060 will be able to:

Reading / Effectively employ intermediate-level interpretation strategies
Get the gist and some details of authentic texts that are varied in format, genre, and topics
Recognize and reflect upon grey areas of meaning: cultural constructs anda writer’s construal
Recognize different registers of language: informal, standard, formal/academic
Writing / Effectively edit the structure and organization of texts in conjunction with the given genre conventions.
Narrate in all time frames with appropriate tense coherence and verb aspect
Play with language to generate new meanings
Express and defend opinions in different registers
Write organized and cohesive short analytical essays (2-3 pages)
Produce spontaneous, connected paragraph-based writing
Speaking / Communicate with confidence information, ideas and opinions in oral French.
Demonstrate understanding of sound-spelling relationships as a framework for improving French pronunciation

Code of Academic Integrity and Acknowledging the Work of Others

Each student in this course is expected to abide by the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity: Any written work submitted by a student in French 2060 for academic credit must be the student’s own. You will collaborate with classmates for peer-editing your texts based on given criteria and you will use technology for helping you to make decisions about the content and quality of your writing in French. However, you may not seek outside help for your writing from an individual or from translating your text via a software program or from plagiarism of another text.

Students with disabilities

At the outset of the semester, please make an appointment with me and bring a Faculty Notification Letter from the Student Disability Services Office.This will allow us to discuss accommodations that you may need for coursework or testing.

University Policies

Together with all the members of this Department, I respect and uphold University policies and regulations pertaining to racial or ethnic discrimination, sexual harassment, assistance available for students with disabilities, the observance of religious holidays, and plagiarism. All students are advised to become familiar with the respective University regulations and are encouraged to bring any questions or concerns to my attention.

For any questions that you may have about procedures and your progress in the course, or for any difficulties that you may be experiencing with the course content, plan to come to my office as soon as possible so that we may address your concerns in a timely fashion. If my office hours do not fit your schedule, I will be happy to arrange an appointment.

À vous!

Mme Luks