policies ENGL101 Writing Rhetorically
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 [email protected] www.leetorda.com On Zoom: https://bridgew.zoom.us/j/3806648927 |
Fall 2021 Open Hours for students (office hours):
MW (in-person or Zoom) 1:30 to 2:30 T (Zoom only) 10:00 to 11:00 R 1:45 to 2:45 (in-person or Zoom) And by appointment Make an appointment, either face to face or on zoom, during office hours or at another time: Let me know you want to meet by adding yourself to my google.doc appointment calendar here: https://goo.gl/3CqLf. If you are meeting me on zoom, I will send you a zoom link for the time you sign up for. |
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 any way you’ve been asked to write before. The way you read and wrote in high school will not cut it here. 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 from this point on. 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.
You will be responsible for reading and writing all kinds of texts, both informal and formal. You will do this work individually and as part of groups of varying sizes. The subjects we will write on will be inspired by interactions with the people, places, and things around us this semester.
The primary text 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. But we aren't only going to be reading essays--which are something I love to read. We are going to watch videos, and listen to stories. Because we "read" everything we take in. And we need to read carefully all the information we've got coming at us these days and make decisions about its value and its honesty. And a huge part of what we will read is your own writing and the writing of your classmates.
But whatever we read or listen to or watch, they were all written by someone. 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.
A Note About This Enhanced Section: You are all in this section of ENGL101 because BSU wants you to succeed in this your first and all subsequent semesters at Bridgewater. I can understand, though, how you might see it as a sort of punishment to have to participate in all of the extras connected to this course. Keep in mind that you are getting an extra one credit for your extra work through your enrollment in ENGL144—take two more gym classes and you’ve got yourself the equivalent of a three credit class. That’s not a bad deal. In addition, all the various supports and extras are genuinely meant to help you have the best first semester you could have. And that’s important: it is easier to start strong than it is to try to make up for a few bad semesters early on in your career.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this class, you will be able to demonstrate:
TEXTS
Available on the syllabus page on this website for this class.
And one of the following for ENGL 144 Book Club (you’ll pick on the first or second day of class):
There, There, by Tommy Orange ISBN-13: 978-0525436140 Paperback
The Other Americans, by Leila Lalami ISBN-13: 978-0525436034 Paperback
Build Your House Around My Body, by Violet Kupersmith. ISBN-13:978-0861542147 Paperback
Riot Baby, by Tochi Onyebuchi. ISBN-13: 978-1250214751 Hardcover
The Seed Keeper: A Novel, by Diane Wilson. ISBN-13: 978-1571311375 Paperback
REQUIREMENTS
Attendance and Preparedness for Class and ENGL144. 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:
Covid-19 and attendance. We are all tired of hearing how these are unprecedented times--but they are. Attendance matters a lot to me. And I think you will quickly figure out that if you miss class you miss a lot. And this isn't high school. I will not, and am not required to, re-teach the class or classes you missed. So, I want to say that: come to class. It's the most important thing you can do to insure your success in this class. But if you test positive for Covid, you need to stay away from class for the required number of quarantine days and/or until you test negative. I would very much like for us to not be a super spreader event on campus. If you need to be absent due to Covid or a family member's Covid, let me know and we will work out how you will stay a part of a class. I seriously don't know how that will work, but we will figure it out--as we would for any illness that kept you out of class for an extended period of time.
In-Class Mask Mandate. When we are inside together, we are required to wear a mask and to wear it correctly: snug and over the nose and under the chin. I will inform this mandate in our class. For the safety of everyone in our class and for myself, I am authorized by the administration to do so. Here are the guidelines I have been given: "If a student, who does not have a mask exemption, refuses to wear a mask, a faculty member should inform the student that they are required to do so. If the student continues to refuse to wear the mask, the unit member can dismiss the student from class and instruct the student to leave the immediate area. If the student continually refuses to leave the teaching area while still refusing to wear a mask, the unit member shall have the right to dismiss the class and shall report the incident to the university’s student conduct officer. Student refusals to wear a mask shall be treated as a student conduct violation and addressed through the code of conduct mechanisms at the university."
ABOUT ENGL144 AS IT RELATES TO THE ATTENDANCE POLICY FOR 101: As mentioned earlier, you’ve been given placement in ENGL144, a one-credit support course for this and your other classes. ENGL144 consists of work done in a Book Club and a weekly meeting with a writing fellow attached to this course. Attendance at these weekly activities is mandatory for passing ENGL144 and failure to do so will adversely affect your success in ENGL101. I will receive weekly attendance and progress reports on your performance in ENGL 144. Thus:
Informal Writing. While in class, I 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.
Reader’s Notes You will be responsible for 500 word reading notes for each text you are assigned in class (that might be an essay or article, a podcast you have to listen to, or a video you have to watch). Anything identified with a “READ," "WATCH," OR "LISTEN" on the syllabus requires Reader's Notes and those notes are due on that date. All of this writing will serve as evidence that you are doing the work of the class. Expect that your Reader's Notes will be read by me as well as your classmates. More information about reader's notes, including how they will be evaluated and how they contribute to your final grade can be found here on this, our class website.
Book Club. A little known truth about college is that you have to read differently than you do, say a magazine or a trashy novel. And you certainly have to read differently than you did for high school. Reading for college is much more independent and requires a lot more thinking work on our part. And I know that some of you don’t read much at all. People also don’t realize that you can practice reading in order to become a better reader—it works like writing that way.
With all this in mind, you will practice reading for college as part of a book club, which is a central component of your ENGL 144 grade. You’ll read the book on your own, write an in-class journal in meetings scheduled directly after our class every Wednesday starting the week of 14 September 2020. You are responsible for keeping up with the reading between times. At the end of the club, you will collect all of your responses and write an introductory letter that talks about the experience.
You will be evaluated on your attendance and effort during book club meetings, the quality of your journals and final reflection, and your final presentations. On or about the first day of class I’ll ask you to pick what book you want (I use the term “pick” loosely) from a list of descriptions (of the titles I list under TEXTS above). You can read about this semester's options here. You’ll meet with your book club facilitator for the first time during the third of class and from then on out. Participation in book club is one of the ways you will earn your one credit in ENGL144. See the attendance policy outlined above for how failure to show for book club will affect your grade. Details for the book club, and how your journals will be evaluated as part of book club, is available here on the website for this course.
Conferences. You will have two kinds of conferences this semester. You will meet with your writing fellow once a week for the majority of the semester. You will meet with me twice a semester (unless you want to meet with me more). Participation in conferences is required to get complete credit for each of the formal writing assignments and for complete credit on the portfolios. Additionally, missing a conference counts as an absence.
Meetings with your Writing Fellow: These meetings will be scheduled during the first weeks of classes around your's and your writing fellow’s respective schedules. Like Book Club, Writing Fellow meetings start the third week of classes. You can read about the kinds of work you can do with your fellow here. Meeting with your fellow is part of how you will earn your one credit for ENGL144. See the attendance policy outlined above for how failing to meet with your fellow will affect your grade.
Meetings with Me: Once at midterm and once at the end of the semester, we will meet to talk about the progress of your portfolio revisions. I will tell you very specifically what you should bring to the meeting at the time we schedule it. We will most likely do that over zoom, unless things with the virus change so radically that face-to-face in my tiny office seems like a good idea. Another option: we could meet outside. We can talk more about it as we approach the dates. As I said, there will never be a week when you have to meet with both me and your writing fellow unless you want to. 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 wasting 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 four formal writing projects
More complete information on these and all of your assignments is available on the website for this course. You can click on the title of each paper to go directly to that assignment page. For more specific information about timelines and due dates see the syllabus for this class.
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. Details about your portfolio and how they fit into your evaluation in this class are available here on the website for this course.
EVALUATION
You will not receive letter grades for individual assignments in this class. 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; you can read sample draft letters written to real students from previous semesters--with names changed--here:
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 any way you’ve been asked to write before. The way you read and wrote in high school will not cut it here. 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 from this point on. 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.
You will be responsible for reading and writing all kinds of texts, both informal and formal. You will do this work individually and as part of groups of varying sizes. The subjects we will write on will be inspired by interactions with the people, places, and things around us this semester.
The primary text 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. But we aren't only going to be reading essays--which are something I love to read. We are going to watch videos, and listen to stories. Because we "read" everything we take in. And we need to read carefully all the information we've got coming at us these days and make decisions about its value and its honesty. And a huge part of what we will read is your own writing and the writing of your classmates.
But whatever we read or listen to or watch, they were all written by someone. 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.
A Note About This Enhanced Section: You are all in this section of ENGL101 because BSU wants you to succeed in this your first and all subsequent semesters at Bridgewater. I can understand, though, how you might see it as a sort of punishment to have to participate in all of the extras connected to this course. Keep in mind that you are getting an extra one credit for your extra work through your enrollment in ENGL144—take two more gym classes and you’ve got yourself the equivalent of a three credit class. That’s not a bad deal. In addition, all the various supports and extras are genuinely meant to help you have the best first semester you could have. And that’s important: it is easier to start strong than it is to try to make up for a few bad semesters early on in your career.
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 on the syllabus page on this website for this class.
And one of the following for ENGL 144 Book Club (you’ll pick on the first or second day of class):
There, There, by Tommy Orange ISBN-13: 978-0525436140 Paperback
The Other Americans, by Leila Lalami ISBN-13: 978-0525436034 Paperback
Build Your House Around My Body, by Violet Kupersmith. ISBN-13:978-0861542147 Paperback
Riot Baby, by Tochi Onyebuchi. ISBN-13: 978-1250214751 Hardcover
The Seed Keeper: A Novel, by Diane Wilson. ISBN-13: 978-1571311375 Paperback
REQUIREMENTS
Attendance and Preparedness for Class and ENGL144. 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.
- You are allowed three additional absences in ENGL 144. Again, free and clear, no excuses necessary.
- After your three absences in 101 and 144 (3 absences per class), 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 101 and 144 (6 absences per class), you risk failing the course you miss them in.
- 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.
Covid-19 and attendance. We are all tired of hearing how these are unprecedented times--but they are. Attendance matters a lot to me. And I think you will quickly figure out that if you miss class you miss a lot. And this isn't high school. I will not, and am not required to, re-teach the class or classes you missed. So, I want to say that: come to class. It's the most important thing you can do to insure your success in this class. But if you test positive for Covid, you need to stay away from class for the required number of quarantine days and/or until you test negative. I would very much like for us to not be a super spreader event on campus. If you need to be absent due to Covid or a family member's Covid, let me know and we will work out how you will stay a part of a class. I seriously don't know how that will work, but we will figure it out--as we would for any illness that kept you out of class for an extended period of time.
In-Class Mask Mandate. When we are inside together, we are required to wear a mask and to wear it correctly: snug and over the nose and under the chin. I will inform this mandate in our class. For the safety of everyone in our class and for myself, I am authorized by the administration to do so. Here are the guidelines I have been given: "If a student, who does not have a mask exemption, refuses to wear a mask, a faculty member should inform the student that they are required to do so. If the student continues to refuse to wear the mask, the unit member can dismiss the student from class and instruct the student to leave the immediate area. If the student continually refuses to leave the teaching area while still refusing to wear a mask, the unit member shall have the right to dismiss the class and shall report the incident to the university’s student conduct officer. Student refusals to wear a mask shall be treated as a student conduct violation and addressed through the code of conduct mechanisms at the university."
ABOUT ENGL144 AS IT RELATES TO THE ATTENDANCE POLICY FOR 101: As mentioned earlier, you’ve been given placement in ENGL144, a one-credit support course for this and your other classes. ENGL144 consists of work done in a Book Club and a weekly meeting with a writing fellow attached to this course. Attendance at these weekly activities is mandatory for passing ENGL144 and failure to do so will adversely affect your success in ENGL101. I will receive weekly attendance and progress reports on your performance in ENGL 144. Thus:
- The attendance policy described above applies to the writing conferences you will schedule with your Writing Fellow: missing a writing conference counts as missing a class.
- The attendance policy applies to the book club meetings scheduled directly after this class: missing book club counts as missing a class.
Informal Writing. While in class, I 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.
Reader’s Notes You will be responsible for 500 word reading notes for each text you are assigned in class (that might be an essay or article, a podcast you have to listen to, or a video you have to watch). Anything identified with a “READ," "WATCH," OR "LISTEN" on the syllabus requires Reader's Notes and those notes are due on that date. All of this writing will serve as evidence that you are doing the work of the class. Expect that your Reader's Notes will be read by me as well as your classmates. More information about reader's notes, including how they will be evaluated and how they contribute to your final grade can be found here on this, our class website.
Book Club. A little known truth about college is that you have to read differently than you do, say a magazine or a trashy novel. And you certainly have to read differently than you did for high school. Reading for college is much more independent and requires a lot more thinking work on our part. And I know that some of you don’t read much at all. People also don’t realize that you can practice reading in order to become a better reader—it works like writing that way.
With all this in mind, you will practice reading for college as part of a book club, which is a central component of your ENGL 144 grade. You’ll read the book on your own, write an in-class journal in meetings scheduled directly after our class every Wednesday starting the week of 14 September 2020. You are responsible for keeping up with the reading between times. At the end of the club, you will collect all of your responses and write an introductory letter that talks about the experience.
You will be evaluated on your attendance and effort during book club meetings, the quality of your journals and final reflection, and your final presentations. On or about the first day of class I’ll ask you to pick what book you want (I use the term “pick” loosely) from a list of descriptions (of the titles I list under TEXTS above). You can read about this semester's options here. You’ll meet with your book club facilitator for the first time during the third of class and from then on out. Participation in book club is one of the ways you will earn your one credit in ENGL144. See the attendance policy outlined above for how failure to show for book club will affect your grade. Details for the book club, and how your journals will be evaluated as part of book club, is available here on the website for this course.
Conferences. You will have two kinds of conferences this semester. You will meet with your writing fellow once a week for the majority of the semester. You will meet with me twice a semester (unless you want to meet with me more). Participation in conferences is required to get complete credit for each of the formal writing assignments and for complete credit on the portfolios. Additionally, missing a conference counts as an absence.
Meetings with your Writing Fellow: These meetings will be scheduled during the first weeks of classes around your's and your writing fellow’s respective schedules. Like Book Club, Writing Fellow meetings start the third week of classes. You can read about the kinds of work you can do with your fellow here. Meeting with your fellow is part of how you will earn your one credit for ENGL144. See the attendance policy outlined above for how failing to meet with your fellow will affect your grade.
Meetings with Me: Once at midterm and once at the end of the semester, we will meet to talk about the progress of your portfolio revisions. I will tell you very specifically what you should bring to the meeting at the time we schedule it. We will most likely do that over zoom, unless things with the virus change so radically that face-to-face in my tiny office seems like a good idea. Another option: we could meet outside. We can talk more about it as we approach the dates. As I said, there will never be a week when you have to meet with both me and your writing fellow unless you want to. 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 wasting 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 four formal writing projects
- Partner Profile
- The Big Deal: Archival Ethnography of Bridgewater State
- The Big Talk: Alumni Interview Project
- The Big Idea: BSU, Me, & The World (Final Project & Midyear Symposium Presentation)
More complete information on these and all of your assignments is available on the website for this course. You can click on the title of each paper to go directly to that assignment page. For more specific information about timelines and due dates see the syllabus for this class.
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. Details about your portfolio and how they fit into your evaluation in this class are available here on the website for this course.
EVALUATION
You will not receive letter grades for individual assignments in this class. 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; you can read sample draft letters written to real students from previous semesters--with names changed--here:
| 101_sample_evals__1_.pdf |
In order to earn a strong grade on each of your pieces of formal writing, you are required to complete certain assignments that I will ask you to do as part of each paper. For complete details on what you need to do for each paper, see the assignment descriptions themselves on this website.
Comments on Reader's Notes are meant to help you read more thoughtfully and write better reader's notes. 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.
Comments on informal writing shouldn’t be treated like evaluation but rather like an ongoing conversation between you and me: think of it as a talk between us, only in written form. If I’m not commenting, it means I’m bored.
WEEKLY UPDATE: As a way to help us make connections across conversations we have in class and in your reading journal posts, I will post an update each week that brings together your ideas in one place. Sometimes this will be a letter or a video. In any case, I will highlight really excellent points that you make in class.
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; Reader's Notes; Book Club Journals; Drafts of formal writing, with revision; portfolio cover letter discussing your own progress and revision work. You can read sample grade letters (names blacked out) here:
Comments on Reader's Notes are meant to help you read more thoughtfully and write better reader's notes. 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.
Comments on informal writing shouldn’t be treated like evaluation but rather like an ongoing conversation between you and me: think of it as a talk between us, only in written form. If I’m not commenting, it means I’m bored.
WEEKLY UPDATE: As a way to help us make connections across conversations we have in class and in your reading journal posts, I will post an update each week that brings together your ideas in one place. Sometimes this will be a letter or a video. In any case, I will highlight really excellent points that you make in class.
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; Reader's Notes; Book Club Journals; Drafts of formal writing, with revision; portfolio cover letter discussing your own progress and revision work. You can read sample grade letters (names blacked out) here:
| sample_101_midterm_letters.pdf |
Complete details about portfolios are available here on the portfolio page for this course. 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:
Reader’s Notes 15%
Book Club Journals & Final Presentation
NOTE: This is in addition to
how attendance and effort affect
your grade in ENGL 144. 10%
Partner Profile 10%
Big Talk 10%
Big Deal 10%
Big Idea 20%
Midterm Portfolio 10%
Final Portfolio
& Final Presentation at MYS 15%
Ultimately, your success in this class depends on the following:
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--so, in other words, showing up. 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 using 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 who require accomodations. 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.
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.
Need some help figuring out how to be successful in your online classes? Check out these successful learning strategies and support resources.
There are also some great folks in the Academic Achievement Center who can help you develop strong skills around time management, studying for tests, tallking to your faculty when you need help, and other habits of successful students. You can make an appointment with an academic coach (free for BSU students) by clicking here.
Title IX and Sexual Violence. The Office of Equal Opportunity and the Title IX Coordinator work to ensure that all members of the campus community flourish in a supportive and fair climate. See https://my.bridgew.edu/departments/affirmativeaction/SitePages/Home.aspx to learn more.
Syllabus/Policies Check-in Assignment
Good for you. You got to the end of the policies. To reward you, you have the opportunity to earn one "A" for Acceptable for a reader's notes grade simply by completing the following assignment by the third week of classes.
1. Send me an email at [email protected], CC me at [email protected]
2. In the subject line, write "Syllabus Check-in Email". Write it exactly as I've written it here.
3. In the body of the email, include a greeting: "Hello LT," "Hi Professor Torda," "Hey Dr. Torda." Whatever. But have a greeting.
4. Cut and paste this sentence into the email: "I've read through the policies and syllabus for the course, and I understand how to use the website to find out information about assignments, course policies, due dates, and classroom expectations."
4. Ask me two questions about any thing on my website for our class: policies, due dates, classroom expectations, assignments. You can't tell me you have no questions. You have to ask me two.
5. Include a meme or tic-toc of your choosing or design that sums up how you are feeling about being in college so far.
6. Sign off on your email, "best, so & so" "see you in class, your name here" "sincerely, John Doe." Again, whatever. But sign off on your email.
Make sure I get this email by the 3rd week of classes. If you don't send it to me, you'll get a "U" for a reader's notes grade without the possibility of making it up.
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:
Reader’s Notes 15%
Book Club Journals & Final Presentation
NOTE: This is in addition to
how attendance and effort affect
your grade in ENGL 144. 10%
Partner Profile 10%
Big Talk 10%
Big Deal 10%
Big Idea 20%
Midterm Portfolio 10%
Final Portfolio
& Final Presentation at MYS 15%
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--so, in other words, showing up. 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 using 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 who require accomodations. 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.
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.
Need some help figuring out how to be successful in your online classes? Check out these successful learning strategies and support resources.
There are also some great folks in the Academic Achievement Center who can help you develop strong skills around time management, studying for tests, tallking to your faculty when you need help, and other habits of successful students. You can make an appointment with an academic coach (free for BSU students) by clicking here.
Title IX and Sexual Violence. The Office of Equal Opportunity and the Title IX Coordinator work to ensure that all members of the campus community flourish in a supportive and fair climate. See https://my.bridgew.edu/departments/affirmativeaction/SitePages/Home.aspx to learn more.
Syllabus/Policies Check-in Assignment
Good for you. You got to the end of the policies. To reward you, you have the opportunity to earn one "A" for Acceptable for a reader's notes grade simply by completing the following assignment by the third week of classes.
1. Send me an email at [email protected], CC me at [email protected]
2. In the subject line, write "Syllabus Check-in Email". Write it exactly as I've written it here.
3. In the body of the email, include a greeting: "Hello LT," "Hi Professor Torda," "Hey Dr. Torda." Whatever. But have a greeting.
4. Cut and paste this sentence into the email: "I've read through the policies and syllabus for the course, and I understand how to use the website to find out information about assignments, course policies, due dates, and classroom expectations."
4. Ask me two questions about any thing on my website for our class: policies, due dates, classroom expectations, assignments. You can't tell me you have no questions. You have to ask me two.
5. Include a meme or tic-toc of your choosing or design that sums up how you are feeling about being in college so far.
6. Sign off on your email, "best, so & so" "see you in class, your name here" "sincerely, John Doe." Again, whatever. But sign off on your email.
Make sure I get this email by the 3rd week of classes. If you don't send it to me, you'll get a "U" for a reader's notes grade without the possibility of making it up.