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Flagler College
ENG 171A
Fall Semester 2009
“I work at my writing as an athlete does at . . . training, taking it very seriously. What is important is the truth in it and the way that truth is expressed.”—Edna O’Brien
Name and Title: Judith Burdan, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Credit Hours: 3 Location: Kenan 416 Meeting Time: MWF 1-1:50pm
Office Location/Hours: Kenan 340 MF 3-4pm
TR 10-12:30pm and 2-3pm
W 10-11:00am
(additional hours by appointment)
Office Telephone: 819-6385 E-mail:
Required Text and Supplemental Readings:
Ruszkiewicz, John. J. How to Write Anything: A Guide and Reference. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
2009.
Various materials on reserve
Your writing
Course Pre-requisite:
Placement or consent of the instructor.
Course Co-requisites:
This course is one component of the Learning Community with the theme “The Good Life.” Students in this course must also be registered for the other courses in that Learning Community: ECO 201 (Principles of Macroeconomics) and POS 201 (Introduction to Political Theory).
Course Description:
As the Flagler catalog describes it, this course is “an honors program in persuasive and argumentative writing for students who demonstrate considerable skill in English grammar and the fundamentals of essay organization and development; collaborative and peer-teaching techniques are discussed and practiced. Students write while observing students enrolled in ENG 010, 101 and ENG 102. Satisfies ENG 101 requirement.” Students who earn a grade of D, F, WF or WP in ENG 171 must retake the course until they achieve a grade of C or higher. Any student withdrawn from this course as a result of excessive absences will receive a ‘WF’ and must retake the course.
Methods of Instruction:
This class will be organized as a student-centered writing workshop, which means that we will all work together to develop and organize your ideas and then generate and refine your papers. Any lectures on such things as rhetorical strategies and grammar rules, or class discussions about assigned readings, will occur only in the context of your writing. This is a skills course. I cannot simply tell you how to write or revise better; you must learn through a combination of my guidance, input from your classmates, and practice, practice, practice. You will be expected to play an active role in class, consistently taking part in class discussions, small group activities, and peer revision workshops. To do these things well, you need to come prepared with all the necessary materials (books, pens, paper, etc.) and with all the assigned work (readings, short written assignments, drafts of essays, etc.) completed. I reserve the right to dismiss any student who comes to class unprepared or unwilling to do that day’s work.
Expected Student Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this term, students should
§ See writing as an open, recursive process, with revision at its core.
§ Be able to explain and enact flexible strategies for generating, drafting, revising and editing prose.
§ Have developed a willingness to adapt writing to audience and purpose.
§ Have learned that effective writing requires a thesis.
§ Have developed a sense of text for constructing meaning through analysis and expression; that is, each student should come to understand that text is both a psychosocial construct and a physical entity.
§ Have cultivated self-directed inquiry and “authority of knowledge” as a basis of engaging an academic community.
§ Understand some of the appropriate techniques of research (usage of databases, interviews, field research, and observation).
§ Be able to control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
§ Be able to critique their own and others’ work.
§ Have written and correctly formatted a minimum of 4,000 words.
§ Exhibited confidence in written and spoken communication.
§ Have cultivated an interest in interacting with their intellectual communities.
Course Requirements and Methods of Assessment:
You will have three sorts of writing assignments and one short presentation. Each type of assignment will help you develop your communication skills in different, but equally important, ways. You will be expected to maintain a portfolio of your assignments.
1. You will complete a series of short, informal assignments of various types: short writing assignments, responses to readings, grammar exercises or quizzes, etc. All of these assignments—whether they are designed to generate class discussion, review grammar rules, or practice a rhetorical skill—are part of the writing process and will feed into your longer, more formal papers. As such, they should be taken seriously.
These assignments cannot be made up or turned in late except in circumstances that we mutually agree are emergencies. If you know that you will absent when a homework assignment is due, you may turn it in early. Also, if you are absent, you may e-mail me your assignment; as long as I receive it on the same day that it is due, I will not consider it late. You may exercise this option only when you are going to be absent and you may exercise it only twice. All writing assignments done outside of class must be word processed.
In addition, you will shadow a tutor for a total of 5 hours, in the Writing Center, during the semester to become familiar with how to tutor and with how the Writing Center works. Each student will submit a short reflection letter late in the semester that will include impressions and experience.
2. You will write two individual formal papers (approximately 4 pages each): a personal reflection essay and a comparative analysis essay. These papers must be typed, double-spaced, and formatted with standard 1-inch margins, 12-point type, numbered pages, and so on. I will give more specific instructions about these formatting issues when I assign individual papers. You will be expected to turn in all rough drafts, workshop suggestions, and notes with your final drafts. I will collect papers at the beginning of class on the day that they are due. I will accept late papers only in circumstances we mutually agree are emergencies, and I will not accept any final drafts via e-mail.
3. For your shared assignment in our Learning Community, you will work together in groups to create an oral history (10-12 pages total for each group) that explores the notion of “the good life” through the experiences, perceptions, and values of a single individual. In your project, you will interview an individual and use their experiences and/or perspective to make an argument about a larger historical or social context. This project is intended to give you an opportunity to draw together the concepts, theories, and arguments, and to apply the rhetorical strategies, that you have explored in your three Learning Community classes over the course of the semester. You will also complete some background research for this project and include it in your paper.
4. As part of your shared LC assignment, you will participate in a group presentation. Specific instructions for this presentation will be included in the assignment sheet for that project.
5. You will write a final exam. This cannot be made up except in emergency circumstances.
Extra Credit:
You will have a number of opportunities to complete extra credit assignments over the course of the semester. Each of these assignments will be worth 1 point toward your final grade, and you will be permitted to complete a maximum of two of these assignments.
Grading Standards and Scale:
Participation (including the five WC hours) and short assignments 25%
Papers One and Two 35%
Shared LC Assignment 30%
Exam 10%
90-100% = A; 80-89% = B; 70-79% = C; 60-69% = D; 0-59% = F.
Class Attendance Policy:
Regular, on-time attendance is essential to doing well in this course. Expect that something will be due for or done in each class period. Students with more than three unexcused absences will lose five points (i.e. half a letter grade) from their final course grade for each subsequent unexcused absence. Further, as Flagler’s attendance policy states, any student who is absent, for any reason, (excused or unexcused), for more than 20% of the scheduled class meetings for the academic semester (which is nine absences for a MWF class) will not receive a passing grade for this course. Students must request all excused absences through the Office of the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and must provide appropriate documentation to obtain an excused absence. Excessive tardiness, either in frequency or duration, will be considered as absence.
You are responsible for getting missed assignments, either from me or your classmates, as soon as possible so that you will be prepared for the next class meeting.
Civility:
In a student-centered classroom, the students, as much as the teacher, are responsible for creating an effective learning environment for everyone. This means that we should all speak and listen to one another in a respectful way, make a serious effort to learn with and from one another, and avoid allowing non-class matters to distract from class matters. Please turn off your cell phones, iPods, mp3 players, and/or computers before coming into class and keep them out of sight during class. Please avoid scheduling appointments or other commitments so that they conflict with class.
Academic Honesty:
Cheating, plagiarism, violation of test conditions, complicity in dishonest behavior, or other falsification of academic work is a serious breach of College expectations and is subject to immediate disciplinary action.
Statement on Disabilities:
Flagler College offers special academic accommodations to students with documented disabilities. Services include alternative test administration and/or services of interpreters, note-takers, and readers. In order to receive special academic accommodations, a student must register with the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities (OSSD) and provide required documentation of disability. Students must contact Ms. Deborah Kamm-Larew at 819-6460, or, .
The Writing Center:
The Writing Center is located in the Learning Resource Center. The hours of operation are MW 9a.m.-5p.m. and TR 9:30a.m.-5p.m. The Writing Center is also open for athletes with coaches on Thursday evening, from 7-9 and Sunday evening from 5-7.The Writing Center is run by Flagler College students with the guidance of Visiting Instructor Kim Bradley. All tutors meet the qualifications needed to enroll in the class and elect to voluntarily. Tutors help students recognize and improve their writing skills. Students are not permitted to drop off a paper and leave. Tutors do not edit! Instead, they conduct one-on-one peer revision workshops, going over papers with students and encouraging them to make suggestions and ask questions. The Writing Center offers help during all stages of the writing process (from brainstorming for ideas to the finished paper). Students attending the Writing Center will find a nurturing environment that stimulates both creativity and intellect to help them successfully accomplish their academic endeavors.
Flagler College Core Competencies:
Flagler College has identified seven core competencies—reading, writing, speaking, mathematics, technology, research, and critical thinking as essential components of the academic program. All graduates, regardless of their major, must demonstrate that they are competent in all seven areas; therefore, each Flagler College course emphasizes at least two core competencies. The first competency, reading, is an underlying skill in all Flagler College courses; therefore, the reading competency is measured by general student success in the class. All courses address at least one core competency in addition to the reading. ENG 101 addresses the following core competencies, which are measured by the methods listed below the competency.
1st Core Competency: Reading (common to all Flagler College courses):
Reading assignments
2nd Core Competency: Writing:
Short writing assignments, papers, and exam
3rd Core Competency: Critical Thinking
Reading and writing assignments
4th Core Competency: Speaking
Class discussion and presentation
General Class Schedule:
(Please Note: You will receive a daily class schedule with due dates for individual exercises as part of each paper assignment.)
2 September Course Introduction
4 September In-class Diagnostic Essay
7 September-28 September Paper One
23 September Introduce Group Project (Paper Three)
30 September Paper One Due
2 October-30 October Paper Two
Continue work on Group Project (Paper Three)
2 November Paper Two Due
4 November-2 December Paper Three
4 December Paper Three Due
9 December Final Exam, 12-1:45pm