Syllabus
ENG 101, section L, Rhetoric and Writing, 3 credit hours
Spring 2006,
MWF 10 am, Evans 220
Professor=s Name: Dr.
Telephone Number: 706-368-5638 Email: ejohnson@berry.edu
Office
Hours: MWF 11-1, TH 9-11 or other times
by appointment
Website:
http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/ejohnson
Course Description: First-Year Seminar in
Rhetoric and Writing, 3 semester hours. Emphasis on development of analytical
and rhetorical thinking and writing skills appropriate for civic, academic and
professional audiences. Recognition and manipulation of the basic parts of the
expository essay (i.e. theses, topic ideas; transitions; paragraph structure
and development; introductions and conclusions). Introduction to elements of
process writing, including pre-writing, drafting, and revision strategies and
rudiments of citation and documentation.
Prerequisites: Satisfactory score on college aptitude
test. A grade of C- or better is
required to pass out of thiis course.
Matriculated Berry students may not transfer in credit from another
institution for this course.
Textbooks:
They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
Science and Religion edited by Paul Kurtz
Why Christianity Must Change or Die by John Shelby Spong
Any
usage handbook: Come by the Writing
Center to see samples
Any
college dictionary: American Heritage and Oxford
American for example
A
Berry College theme folder (light blue)
Purpose of the Course,
Assessment Measures, and Student Learning Outcomes: This course fulfills the general-education
competencies of Clear and Analytical
Reasoning and Effective Communication.
ENG 101 is devoted to moving students from merely
topical to analytical and rhetorical thinking and writing. By the end of the
course, students will be able to recognize and manipulate the basic parts of
the expository essay (i.e. theses, topic ideas; transitions; paragraph
structure and development; introductions and conclusions) in order to develop
more complex and critical ideas suited to general, academic and/or
assignment-specific audiences as evidenced in their production of expository
essays. To this end, students will be introduced to pre-writing, drafting, and revision
strategies. Students will also learn to evaluate and revise their writing at
the sentence level in terms of syntax, grammatical correctness, and style.
Finally, the course will introduce students to effective citation and
integration of secondary sources into their own arguments.
By the conclusion of the term, students will
·
have developed
writing-to-thinking and prewriting strategies for generating writing topics and
theses;
·
have developed
strategies for “writerly” revision focusing on essay organization, paragraph
coherence and thesis development; as well as “readerly” revision strategies for
editing at the sentence level and for style;
·
be able to
develop and support an analytical thesis/ focusing idea throughout an
expository essay;
·
be able to write
developed and coherent paragraphs that support a thesis/focusing idea;
·
be able to
integrate and cite source material appropriately;
·
be able to
evaluate course readings, peer essays, and their own writing for rhetorical
effectiveness.
Students will demonstrate their success at achieving these goals by
receiving a minimum course grade of 70%. Because ENG 101 is based on a
thinking-into-writing model where much of the writing is preliminary to the
production of finished work, pre-writing, drafting and writing to revise
represent a good deal of the work of the class and could include exercises,
invention notes, group work, peer reviewing, in-class writing, essay drafting
and so forth. By the end of the term, however, students should have completed
at least 20 pages of finished work in the form of at least 4 expository essays
and one revision or portfolio essay.
Special
Requirements:
You will be required to
write five essays this semester. One of
these will be a revision of a previous essay.
Essays must be typed, double-spaced.
Essays are due at the beginning of class on the due date. If you turn the essay in late, it will drop
one letter grade, losing one additional letter grade every week that it is
late. Avoid printer and diskette mishaps
by completing the assignment the day before. You will receive separate
assignment sheets detailing the requirements and due dates for writing
assignments.
Rough drafts and invention notes must be turned in along
with each essay. These notes and drafts,
along with other short writing assignments, must be brought to class when
assigned as homework. You are expected
to do class readings and homework before you come to class. I will give quizzes over the reading
assignments. Participation in
collaborative writing exercises is essential.
For help with editing errors I will refer you to a
writing handbook and/or the Writing Center. We will not spend class time on
grammar and punctuation. Berry assumes
you have mastered these already and that class time is best spent helping you
learn how to think and apply your thinking to essay writing. You must take control of this aspect of
writing, spending however many hours it takes outside of class to overcome your
difficulties. Mechanical errors in
grammar, punctuation, and spelling will affect your grade. Use your spell-checker!
Grading:
For
essays, A+ is 98, A is 95, A- is 92, B+ is 88, B is 85, B- is 82, etc.
For
final grades, A+ is 97-100, A is 93-96, A- is 90-92, B+ is 87-89, B is 83-86,
B- is 80-82, etc. Components of the grade are as follows:
10% Essay 1 5% Quizzes
15% Essay 2 5% Homework/ Classwork
15% Essay 3 10% Class Participation
20% Essay 4
20% Essay 5 (revision)
Schedule of Class
Sessions: See attached.
Bibliography: See textbook.
Methods of Instruction: This class will include lecture, discussion of
student writing (both full class and peer review), discussion of readings,
quizzes, writing exercises, and library workshops. If a cultural event that is relevant to the
course topics occurs during the semester, students will be able to earn extra
credit by attending and writing a summary of the event.
Attendance Policy: Attendance will count toward
your class participation grade. Homework
and quizzes may not be made up without a documented excuse. In addition, any student who misses more than
2 consecutive class meetings without contacting the professor will be dropped
from the class and reported to the financial aid office. Students who miss class are expected to keep
up with their work. You must get in
touch with a classmate to find out what was done in class and what
assignments are due. BE ON TIME. I will
spend the class time on several Fridays meeting with individual students to
work on Essay 2. Attendance at your
appointment time with a completed assignment is required.
Academic Integrity: In this
course, students are encouraged to
discuss their writing with others and to give one another advice for improving
their writing. Unless the instructor
specifically notes that an assignment will be private, all written work is
subject to review for the benefit of the entire class. Names will not appear on student work used
for class demonstrations.
Please consult the College Catalog for a statement
of the college’s policies on academic integrity. Sources
must be documented according to the instructions for each essay assignment.
Tutorial Availability: All
English 101 students are expected to make use of the Writing Center. Information on hours and procedures is
reprinted below from http://www.berry.edu/academics/humanities/english/writing/
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Writing Center: Evans 233 |
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Hours: Mon-Thurs 9-3, Friday 9-1: Call or stop by Evans 233 to make an
appointment. EVENING HOURS Sun-Thurs 7-9 in Memorial
Library. Writing consultants are located
on the second floor in the Seminar Room toward the middle of the building and are
available on a first come, first served basis.
What kind of help does the Writing
Center offer? As one of many free support services offered to
students, the Berry College Writing Center is available to help you with the
writing you do for any course. The Center is staffed by friendly,
experienced peer consultants who have taken a course in tutoring and have been
successful writers in their own classes. They can help you with any part
of the invention or drafting process: from brainstorming and organizing ideas,
to revising for complexity and quality of thought, to editing your paper for
format and grammar. In essence, they will help you to think through your
ideas and to see your paper from the perspective of a real yet sympathetic
reader.
What happens at the Writing Center? Typically, a
student will make an appointment with the Writing Center and meet with a
consultant for 30 minutes or so. The consultant will ask you about your
assignment, where you are in the drafting process, your sense of your paper,
any concerns that you would like to address, and where you would like them to
focus their reading and response. By the end of the session, you will
leave with several concrete suggestions for revision and a better understanding
of your paper’s structure and content. One thing consultants do not do,
however, is simply proofread papers; rather, their goal is to help you develop
the revision skills needed to do well on both current and future
assignments. It is therefore helpful if you visit the Writing Center
early in the drafting process and, perhaps, return again to work on final
editing and formatting concerns.
When is the Writing Center open? Writing
consultants are available in Evans 233 on Monday-Thursday from 9-3 and Friday
from 9-1. And we now have evening hours at a satellite station in the
Memorial Library: Monday-Thursday and
Sunday from 7-9 P.M. To find us in the library, look for the signs
directing you to the “seminar room” located on the second floor toward the
middle of the building. Consultants are available during these evening hours on
a first-come-first-served basis.