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Need to be in touch with me?
LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 [email protected] www.leetorda.com |
Spring 2019 Office Hours:
W 3:30-4:30 R 11:00-12:00 F 11:00-12:00 And by appointment. Want to make an appointment? Click here. Online Office Hours for Durfee Students: T/Th 6:00 PM-7:00PM |
DURFEE Engl 101 Writing Rhetorically Policies & Tentative Syllabus
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This Course is designed to help you become a better reader and writer both in real life as well as in college life.
To begin, the way you write for your college teachers is different than you’ve been asked to write before. There are, as with most things, rules to be followed. I will try to help you understand not only what those rules are but the more important reasons for why we—and by we I mean your professors at college—ask you to follow them as well.
But just teaching you to write for school, or to be optimistic, to get a good grade is something of a waste of my time and yours since you’ll only be writing for a grade for a relatively short time in your life. So it is important that we look at other reasons to write—and read. Reading and writing can, and I really believe this, make us better, more thoughtful people. This is because reading and writing are both ways of making sense of the world around us. They are processes that require us to use our brains. So reading and writing in this class is like running short training runs in preparation for a much longer race—the critical work that I will ask you to try to do as we read and write this semester is practice for the critical thinking and writing you will need to do in real life.
The primary texts you will be writing and reading this semester is the essay. The word “essay” comes from the French essayer, which means “to try.” I love this. I love it so much I’m going to use an exclamation point to prove my love (I never use exclamation points): I love this! I think it is comforting to know that you don’t have to have everything right—that you can be figuring stuff out while you write. This very idea has gotten me through all of school and my entire career.
Writers are always only trying to figure out what things mean. For this reason, writing essays is a good introduction to the kind of writing and thinking you’ll do in college: critical reading and writing and thinking are all about a process of discovering what we think about something and, in addition, why we think what we think.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this class, you will be able to demonstrate:
- Develop rhetorical awareness by understanding how to analyze the purpose and audience for specific writing situations and use this analysis to guide your writing and reading.
- Formulate a focused, arguable thesis and support this thesis in an effectively organized essay with evidence drawn from class readings, class discussions, and your own knowledge and experience.
- Approach writing as a recursive process which involves inventing, composing, revising and editing.
- Compose in a voice appropriate for the genre, goals, and target audience.
- Critically read and respond to a variety of texts, including published texts, your classmates’ texts, and your own texts.
- Use technology to write, revise, and deliver documents.
- Demonstrate facility in using the conventions of Standardized Written English, including the conventions of sentence structure, usage, and punctuation.
TEXTS
Available either in print or electronically from me.
REQUIREMENTS
Attendance and Preparedness for Class. What happens day-to-day in this class only works if we are all here and ready to work as much as possible; therefore, attendance is mandatory. Here is my policy on how absence will affect your evaluation in this class:
- You are allowed three absences in ENGL101, free and clear, no excuses necessary.
- After your three absences in 101, any and all absences, regardless of the reason, will adversely affect your final grade in the course you miss them in. There is no such thing as an excused or unexcused absence.
- After six absences in you will fail the course.
Furthermore, keep in mind:
- Excessive late arrivals, more than five minutes, more than three times per semester, will accumulate to equal one absence.
- Absence is not an excuse for late work: assignments will not be accepted after the class period they are due.
- In-class work cannot be made up.
Informal Writing. While in class, we will read short essays (really short). I’ll ask you to respond to or write in the spirit of these essays. This will make up the bulk of your informal writing for the class. It should serve as a kind of loose, easy, starting place for your more formal essays. I will collect and read them but with minimal and usually complimentary and enthusiastic feedback. They serve as evidence of your attendance and will sometimes give you ideas for your more formal pieces of writing.
Reading Responses. You will be responsible for three 750 word, double-spaced and typed, reading notes for two major readings this semester. These reading responses will be on longer essays that you can expect to see in a college classroom. You will need to read the essay at home and complete the reading response on your own. We’ll “train” to write these responses during most class periods by reading the shorter essays described above in “informal writing.”
Meetings with Me (Walking Conferences): Once at midterm and once at the end of the semester, we will meet to talk about the progress of your portfolio revisions. The meetings will be about twenty minutes long, and, yes, we are going to do it walking. Studies show that a physically active body makes for a mentally active brain. We are going to test that theory this semester. Oh stop. You'll live. I will tell you very specifically what you should bring to the meeting at the time we schedule it. Failure to come to these conferences with me and/or failure to come to these conferences prepared with a draft to work on will count as an absence—it will also engender my ill will for frittering way my time. In addition to these conferences you are more than welcome to come see me during my office hours or an arranged appointment to talk about your work.
Formal Writing. In addition to the informal writing you do, you will also complete for other formal writing projects:
- The One Thing That Tells You Everything You Need To Know About Me
- The Top Five Memoir
- Group Research Project: If We Ruled The World
Portfolios. Twice this semester, once at midterm and once at the end of the semester, you will be responsible for collecting and revising the work you’ve done in class. You will turn in both formal and informal writing, some of it revised, some of it not. You will also include an introductory essay that discusses what you’ve learned and provides a self-evaluation of your writing. These portfolios will be returned with a formal letter grade attached that evaluates the work in the portfolio as well as your work in the class.
EVALUATION
There are two forms of evaluation that I will use to determine your final grade. As mentioned abov,e I will use portfolios to assess your progress and evaluate your participation and commitment to the work of the class.
The second way I will evaluate you is called “spec” grading. That means that I will specify all the things that you have to do in order to earn a certain grade—an A, or a B, or C, etc. You will always know what you have to do to earn that grade ahead of time, and you will always have the chance to revise and improve your grade.
This means, however, that you will not receive letter grades for formal writing assignments the first time you turn them in. You will receive extensive written feedback on all formal writing assignments in the form of a letter. We will talk about what these letters say and how you should read them in class. I’ll give you sample letters so you can see how they work. These letters will help you understand what is working well in your writing and what needs more work still.
Comments on informal writing are meant to encourage you, to point out stuff you might develop in your more formal pieces of writing.
Comments on reading responses—either formal or informal--is meant to help you read more thoughtfully and write better about the reading. In order to earn a strong grade for your work on Reader's Notes, you will need to meet certain standards on a certain number of reader's notes. The details about your evaluation is available here, along with all of the details on my expectations for Reader's Notes.
At midterm and at the end of the semester you will receive a “grade-so-far” and a “final grade” letter respectively. They will be come attached to your midterm and final portfolio returns. In these letters you will receive a letter grade and an overview of your performance in the class up to that point:
- In-class performance, including in-class writing;
- Reading Responses;
- Drafts of formal writing, with revision;
- And a portfolio cover letter discussing your own progress and revision work.
I have never encountered a student who didn’t have a clear sense of how they were doing in my class based on this system of evaluation, but if you should feel that you don’t know how you are doing, come see me. We’ll figure it out.
Different requirements require different kinds and amounts of effort; therefore, different assignments have different weight in terms of evaluation.
Here is a rough breakdown of how things are weighted this semester:
First Assignment: “One Thing” 15%
Reading Response 20%
Top Five Memoir 20%
The Big Idea Research Project 20%
Final Portfolio 25%
Ultimately, your success in this class depends on the following:
- Fulfilling all of the requirements listed above,
- The quality of your written and oral work,
- Your efforts to try new things and think in new ways.
This form of evaluation is a combination of something called "spec" grading and portfolio assessment. I use these kinds of assessment because I want to be able to consider all the parts of your performance in our class, not just how good your final drafts of your papers are. I want to consider where you started and how much you improved. I want to consider how hard you tried (or didn’t try) in class. I want to consider how you contribute to class on a daily basis--not by being the one who always talks, but by paying attention, contributing when you have something thoughtful to say, helping to make your group work go smoothly, really giving your all to our short in-class writings. I have found that this kind of grading rewards hard-working students as well as students that are just naturally good at writing. And, for that reason, I think it is the most fair way to run a writing classroom. I hope you’ll come to agree.
OTHER THINGS
Plagiarism. Plagiarism is when you deliberately use someone else’s writing and passing it off as your own. How you could plagiarize in a class like this, I don’t know, but don’t try. If you are caught cheating you will fail the paper without the opportunity to make it up. The matter will be sent to the disciplinary board on campus, and you could fail the entire course
Students with disabilities. Students who need special accommodations due to a documented disability should come to see me with written documentation of the specific disability and suggested accommodations before the end of the first week of classes. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time. It’s no big deal if you need accommodations, so just come see me—don’t put it off until midterm.
Electronics Policy. I'm not against technology at all, but there is a time and place for it. I don't like competing with your phone for your attention. If we are using our computers--and you are welcome to use them to type your in-class writing--please use them for what we are supposed to be using them for. You don't need to turn your phone off, but, should you get a call, be thoughtful about whether or not you should really answer it. Also, no texting in class. The first time I catch you using technology inappropriately, I will make fun of you. The second time I catch you, I'll count it as an absence. That is how deadly serious I am about wanting your attention.
The Writing Studio. You will meet your writing fellow in the Writing Studio in the Academic Achievement Center every week. Located in the Academic Achievement Center, on the bottom floor of the Library, the Writing Studio is available to any and all students at whatever level of expertise you might be at. In your first semester, you might not use the writing studio as often as you would in other semesters because, as I said, you will be meeting with your writing fellow weekly (how much peer consultation can one person take), but keep this space in mind this semester, and definitely remember it for future semesters.
Other Resources on Campus. There are a wide variety of services available on our campus that you might want to know about but also might just be too inundated with information to remember you have access to, so I'm including links to a variety of places on campus that I think you might want to know about. First and foremost is probably the counseling center and the wellness center. Other places you can go if you want to connect with folks: the Center for Multicultural Affairs, the Pride Center, the campus food bank, and Commuter Services. Making a connection to this campus is the number one way you'll get from day one to graduation.
While this class will present you with many challenges, I believe it has its share of pleasures and rewards. What matters most to me is that you try to be the best student you are capable of being—that you try to improve as a writer and thinker. No good teacher wants to give a student a bad grade. Good standing in this class is yours to lose.
TENTATIVE SYLLABUS (second half of semester)
22 APRIL 2019
M IN-CLASS: What does it actually mean to write a research paper?
W HAVE READ BY CLASS TIME: Chimera by Gerald Callahan (handout). IN-CLASS: What does a good reading response look like and how can you learn how to write one?
F IN-CLASS: By the end of the hour, post 300-500 words on our class blog about your topic. Answer the following questions in your 300-500 words
- Why do you care about it?
- Why should other people care about it?
- What experiences have you had that make you qualified to write about it?
29 APRIL 2019
M HAVE READ BY CLASS TIME: Offensive Play by Malcom Gladwell (handout). DUE AT CLASS TIME: Reading Response. In-class work on your own thesis.
W IN-CLASS: Locating sources using a database (we need to make sure that everyone has a computer to work on and a working BSU user ID and password)
6 MAY 2019
M IN-CLASS: Using sources to help you support your argument, part I (the easy part)
W READ: Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston (handout). DUE: Reading Response posted to our class blog by the end of the hour.
(You’ll have time in class to work on this—so you need to have the essay read, but you don’t have to have the reading response ready for the start of class. See the class blog for more details. I will be away in Pine Ridge, SD on this day).
WHAT TO POST TO THE CLASS BLOG ON WEDNESDAY
You should come to class on Wednesday having already read the essay “Demon in the Freezer.” You will have some time in your groups to talk about the essay. You must each post (not as a group, but individually) between 300 and 500 words by the end of class on the questions below.
1.Get into your small groups in class. Have the essay and any notes you have from reading the essay ready to work with.
2.In your small groups, locate the following sources of information in the essay:
- Locate a place in the essay where the author is using historical information to help make his argument
- Locate a place in the essay where the author is using scientific research to help make his argument
- Locate a place in the essay where the author is using an expert to help make his argument
3.As a group, discuss what you find and try to answer this question for each of the three kinds of information: How does this particular kind of information (source) help this writer make his argument, and how would the argument be weaker if that information wasn’t there?
4. Now that you’ve completed the group work, write and post your 300 to 500 words on our class blog. Using the discussion you’ve had with your groupmates, write about the following:
- What is the thesis of this essay?
- Where and how does the writer use logos (information) to prove that thesis?
- Where and how does the writer use ethos (credibility or expertise) to prove that thesis?
- Where and how does the writer use pathos (emotion) to prove that thesis?
You have the full hour to complete this work. Folks who don’t post will not be allowed to make up this reading response. That will make it numerically impossible to earn a grade of “B” for the reading response assignment.
F IN-CLASS: Finish your annotated bibliographies (they are due on Monday). Post to our class blog the answer to the following two questions (200-300 words):
- What have you learned about your topic having done your research that you didn’t know before?
- How has it changed your thesis? As you answer this question, please re-write your thesis the way it will probably appear in your paper.
Using the BSU Maxwell Library Database, you a responsible for locating five sources that will help you write your Big Idea Essay. Three of those sources need to be documented using the annotated bibliography worksheets that I passed out in class on Monday (John has extras for those of you who weren’t there). YOUR ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES ARE DUE IN CLASS ON MONDAY, NO EXCEPTIONS. Please note the following parameters when searching for good sources:
- You may use Wikipedia or an online encyclopedia as a source to help orient you to your topic, but you cannot count it as one of your five sources and it can not be one of your annotated bibliography entries.
- You may use one website on your topic for general information purposes, and you can include it as one of your five sources in your bibliography, but it can not be one of your annotated bibliography entries.
- You can use popular newspapers and magazines that you locate through a database and access online for one of your five sources. These sources should be what you use to complete your three annotated bibliography entries.
- You have all of Friday’s class to work on this part of the project. You will have no other time in class to locate and annotate your sources. I expect you to be able to come to class Monday with your annotated bibliography complete and printed out ready to be used in class.
PLEASE NOTE: I am under no obligation to pass everyone who is enrolled in this class. Failure to complete work, failure to attend class, excessive late arrivals or early departures, will affect your final grade in this course.
13 MAY 2019
M IN-CLASS: Using sources to help you support your argument, part II (the important part). DUE: Annotated Bibliography.
W READ: An American Hunger by David Remnick (handout). DUE: Reading Response.
| american_hunger.pdf |
20 MAY 2019
M Catch up day: Any stuff you haven't yet turned in is due to me in class. No excuses. No more extensions. Also: in-class work on An American Hunger.
W READ: The Delicate Task of Memorializing the Boston Marathon Attacks (handout).Click on the link below to access the article.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-delicate-task-of-memorializing-the-boston-marathon-attacks DUE: Reading Response.
IN-CLASS: Drafting day. Make sure you have access to a computer on this day. Bring headphones and whatever else you need to get a lot of work done. Be sure to be ready to have a 4-minute conference with me or John in class.
F IN-CLASS: Drafting day. By the end of the hour, you should have enough of a rough draft for Wednesday.
27 MAY 2019
M CLASS CANCELED DUE TO MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY
W IN-CLASS: Workshop draft of your Big Idea Research Paper. Be sure to bring enough paper copies for everyone in your workshop group.
4 JUNE 2019
M IN-CLASS: Work on final portfolio, final portfolio cover letter, revisions to reading responses, revisions to Top Five, revisions to research paper (be ready to work on a computer; you get to decided what you work on during this last hour. Don’t waste this last bit of class time before everything is due).
W Last Day of Class. Celebration. Treats. Final Research Presentations. PORTFOLIOS DUE AT THE END OF CLASS
M Catch up day: Any stuff you haven't yet turned in is due to me in class. No excuses. No more extensions. Also: in-class work on An American Hunger.
W READ: The Delicate Task of Memorializing the Boston Marathon Attacks (handout).Click on the link below to access the article.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-delicate-task-of-memorializing-the-boston-marathon-attacks DUE: Reading Response.
IN-CLASS: Drafting day. Make sure you have access to a computer on this day. Bring headphones and whatever else you need to get a lot of work done. Be sure to be ready to have a 4-minute conference with me or John in class.
F IN-CLASS: Drafting day. By the end of the hour, you should have enough of a rough draft for Wednesday.
27 MAY 2019
M CLASS CANCELED DUE TO MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY
W IN-CLASS: Workshop draft of your Big Idea Research Paper. Be sure to bring enough paper copies for everyone in your workshop group.
4 JUNE 2019
M IN-CLASS: Work on final portfolio, final portfolio cover letter, revisions to reading responses, revisions to Top Five, revisions to research paper (be ready to work on a computer; you get to decided what you work on during this last hour. Don’t waste this last bit of class time before everything is due).
W Last Day of Class. Celebration. Treats. Final Research Presentations. PORTFOLIOS DUE AT THE END OF CLASS