ENGLISH 1302/63770 & 63772
MW 2:30-4:00 & 4:00-5:30 and TTH 2:30-4:00 p.m.
COMPOSITION II--EMPHASIS ON GENDER ISSUES IN LANGUAGE
FAC 311
Spring 2011
DR. SHARON KLANDER: FAC 206: 713-718-6626 (voice mail) or 713-718-6671 English Dept.
sharon.klander@hccs.edu
Office Hours: MW 1:00-2:30 p.m. and by appointment
English Tutoring Lab Hours (FAC 321B): MW 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
GOALS: In English 1302, students master argument analysis and the research paper process.
All elements of English 1302 require students to apply critical thinking and writing skills, as
well as the ability to analyze and interpret various forms of spoken communication and to
communicate orally in clear, coherent, and persuasive language appropriate to purpose,
occasion, and audience. This particular 1302 course will give students the opportunity to
accomplish these skills in the context of recognizing and learning to analyze the processes of
cultural objectification regarding gender (sexism), "addressing the conditions under which the
gender system intersects with other factors [especially race and class] to create various kinds of
power and powerlessness" with which all cultures continue to wrestle (Disch 1).
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) Apply basic principles of rhetorical analysis; (2) Write
essays that classify, explain, and evaluate rhetorical and literary strategies employed in
argument, persuasion, and various forms of literature; (3) Identify, differentiate, integrate, and
synthesize research materials into argumentative and/or analytical essays; (4) Employ
appropriate documentation style and format across the spectrum of in-class and out-of-class
written discourse; and (5) Demonstrate library literacy.
REQUIRED TEXTS AND MATERIALS:
Reconstructing Gender: A Multicultural Anthology, Fifth Edition
Estelle Disch, Editor
The McGraw-Hill Handbook
PLEASE NOTE: You must own your own copies of these books no later than Monday,
January 24th.
Four bluebooks/exam books—one for an on-going Glossary of Terms, one for the occasional
Editorial News Journal, one for the Midterm, and one for the Comprehensive Final Exam
Two manila file folders, one in which to store your returned in-class, out-of-class projects and
the other to turn in with the research paper and its supporting materials (as outlined below)
VERY IMPORTANT: A notebook and pen or pencil for the purpose of taking notes of all class
discussions. SPECIAL NOTE: All electronic devices (laptops, cell phones, etc.) must be
turned off completely (not merely muted) BEFORE you enter the classroom, and they are to
remain off for the duration of every class session. This is non-negotiable.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Readings, as assigned--VERY IMPORTANT!!! Please come to class prepared to discuss the
articles assigned in class as well as all handouts provided in class. Not only may you be
quizzed on these readings, but you will also often be required to refer to them in your out-ofclass projects, in-class responses, and in-class exams. I reserve the right to ask students who
have not completed the required readings to leave the classroom to finish the work in the
library before returning to class to participate in class discussions. I believe this to be fair to the
students who have completed the assignment.
IMPORTANT: The HCCS Student Handbook suggests that you spend no fewer than 2 hours (3
hours preferred) outside of class on homework for every hour spent in class--which means, of
course, a range of 6-15 hours outside the classroom. Please include this time in your schedule
of other classes, your work inside and outside the home, and/or your family schedules. If
you find that you do not have the time outside of the classroom to complete the assigned
readings and homework necessary for you to succeed in this course, please revise your class
schedule accordingly.
Glossary of Terms: Use one of your bluebooks to keep an on-going, hand-written glossary of
any words you come across in my lectures or in your readings from the textbook or from
handouts. Write out the words you don’t know as you read or record them, then look them up
in a college-level dictionary and copy into your glossary their full definitions. If the definitions
are long and include a variety of meanings, copy out the entire definition and highlight the part
of the definition that’s appropriate to the reading you’ve done. I will check the progress of
your glossaries at random, approximately 4-5 times over the semester. You will receive a
project credit for each time the glossary is up-to-date.
In-Class and Out-of-Class Projects, to be announced IN CLASS week-by-week, for which you
will receive credit, but no grade; your grade will be calculated from the number of projects
successfully completed: complete all of them and you'll receive a grade of 100%; miss one and
your grade will be 90%, two and your grade will be 80%, etc. One type of out-of-class project,
due as assigned in class, is the Editorial News Journal. For each of these assignments, choose
an editorial—NOT A NEWS ARTICLE—from one of the following publications: (1) The New
York Times or (2) The Washington Post. Attach a copy of the editorial in a journal/bluebook. For
each article, write AT LEAST two full pages (in other words, fill the front and back of one 8 ½ X 11
page) with (1) a summary of the editorial, including at least two direct quotes—with proper MLA
format parenthetical documentation (LOOK THIS UP IN YOUR HANDBOOK NOW AND
LEARN IT); and (2) personal reaction to the editorial, in somewhat the same way that Letters to
the Editor respond to previous editorials. Editorials must be current to the week you turn them
in. Another way to earn out-of-class project credit throughout the semester is to bring to class
any flyer you may find displayed on campus which is weakened by grammatical or
punctuation errors. Remove the flyer, bring it to me at the end of class, and if what you point
out are actual errors and you have edited them correctly, I will give you an extra project
credit—after which you must re-post the corrected flyer in its original location. This type of
proofreading credit extends to any errors you may find in your textbook or handouts for this or
any of your other classes. You will receive NO CREDIT for a written project that is (1) too
weakened by grammatical errors, (2) late, or (3) too brief. Because several of these projects will
depend upon your response to readings from your text in conjunction to videos shown in class,
it is very important to ATTEND ALL CLASSES. It is also important that you PROOFREAD
everything you turn in, that you take all your written work seriously. Please see #5 under
General Course Policy below for your first Out-of-Class project, due on WEDNESDAY,
JANUARY 26th.
Midterm (WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9th: In-class analysis of 3 print ads chosen by you from
current PRINT (not internet) magazine publications. Your analysis of each ad MUST include at
least one reference to one of the following articles: "Who's the Fairest of Them all?" (Nelson
136); "Making Up is Hard to Do" (Jeffreys 165); "'A Way Outa No Way': Eating Problems among
African American, Latina, and White Women" (Thompson 186) "Yellow Woman and a Beauty
of the Spirit" (Silko 201); "Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public
Space" (Staples 191), "I'm Not Fat, I'm Latina" (Haubegger 210); and "A Pornographic World:
What is Normal" (Jensen 270). Please begin reading these articles at the beginning of the
semester, taking notes on them for yourself, so that you are well-versed in them before the
Midterm; any Midterm which quotes from only one of these articles will fail. You must also
include reference in two out of the three analyses to one or more of the supporting videos to be
shown in class (and available for viewing in the Library): Killing Us Softly 4 and Slim Hopes:
Advertising’s Obsession with Thinness, both by Jean Kilbourne; and The Dream World: Sexual
Imagery in Music Video. Because you are not required to position your analyses within the
context of a complete essay—in other words, you are not required to write an introduction or
conclusion—it is essential that the analysis of each ad is thorough and that you leave yourself
time to PROOFREAD your writing as completely as you would work that is written outside of
class. The Midterm counts 20%.
Primary and Secondary Argumentative Research Paper: Choose a topic which focuses on an
issue of gender, race, or class assumptions within current American society, determine an
arguable thesis applicable to that subject (one that allows for an obvious opposition), and then
argue the thesis clearly, logically, and dispassionately, keeping in mind that your most important
audience is composed of those persons who disagree with you. Accordingly, it is essential that
you do not insult your opposition in any way as you take the reader, premise-by-premise,
through the structure of your argument. In fact, it should be apparent from your writing that you
are well aware of both sides of the issue; use a formal tone to establish your credibility, and then
support each of your points with sufficient evidence in order to maintain your authority. Take
care to anticipate and acknowledge your opposition, establishing your ability and, more
importantly, your willingness to see the conflict from both sides even as you remain committed to
your own thesis. Remember the difference between persuasion and argumentation--how
persuasion is rooted in emotion in order to move persons to action, while argumentation is based
in logic with the goal of changing someone's mind. You will, of course, need to research the latest
information, opinion, legal ramifications (if any), and statistics regarding your topic in the library;
and you are required to use a minimum of FOUR of these sources in your paper (ONLY TWO of
which are allowed to be internet-only sources—-in other words, plan to spend some actual time,
in person, in the library). In addition, your research must also include a minimum of TWO
interviews (either personal or by telephone)--one with a person of some established authority and
experience who agrees with you and the other with a person of like credentials who disagrees
with you; plan to ask each expert the same 6-10 questions. Your argument topic and your
potential interview sources must be approved by me before you begin. Your final paper is to be
typed and documented according to Modern Language Association (MLA) format, which is
covered in your handbook (look this up at the beginning of the semester and learn it), and must
be no fewer than six full pages (not including the Works Cited page); you will also turn in with
your paper a 250-word, first-person, introductory essay to your topic, a typed transcript of your
two interviews, and copies of your remaining four outside sources so that I may check the
accuracy of your quotes. Please write a serious, comprehensive argument, one that could perhaps
be published in a professional journal or excerpted as a newspaper editorial.
Final approval of topics and the 250-word introductory essay due WEDNESDAY, MARCH
30th; the Works Cited page (typed in MLA format) due WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6th; typed
transcripts of interviews due MONDAY, APRIL 11th; and the first typed draft of your paper due
in class for peer editing on MONDAY, APRIL 18th. Failure to have a complete first draft for
peer editing or absence on peer editing day will result in a deduction of 2 percentage points
from your final paper grade. Your Final Draft, including all research attachments, is due, in a
manila folder, on MONDAY, APRIL 25th. The research paper counts 30% of your final grade.
In-Class Argument Analysis of an essay to be provided on the day you write your analysis.
Read the assigned essay and write a thorough analysis of it, premise-by-premise, concluding with
your decision of whether it is valid or invalid, sound or unsound--not whether it is good or bad.
You may assume the reader of your analysis is familiar with the text of the essay, so don't
summarize unnecessarily. Also, don't argue with the position taken in the essay.
Your introduction (the first one or two paragraphs) should include the following information:
title of the essay; name of the author and some idea, based on her profession or experience, of her
authority on the issue or the basis for her interest in this topic; some sense of the audience, based
not only on the date and place of publication, but also on the type of language used in the
argument; the thesis of the argument, as well as a listing of its main points; and the author's
method of organization. Next, take each of the paragraphs/premises, in order, and analyze them
in your paper, paragraph-by-paragraph, including in each a restatement of the author's premise, a
quote from that premise, an analysis of the premise support (is the evidence sufficient or
relevant?), and your assessment of its success within the total essay--in other words, determine
whether the premise ultimately supports the thesis or weakens it. You may also want to discuss
the relative placement by the author of any particular premise within the essay; would it have
been more effective placed sooner or later in the argument? Also note as you go down the essay
whether or not the author fulfills one of the basic requirements for sound argumentation, that of
acknowledging the opposition.
You may wish to conclude by trying to see the issue from the writer's point of view to better
understand his position--then use this knowledge to temper your final assessment of the
argument's validity. Remember, just as the author of any argument should avoid offending his
opposition audience, you as the analyst should also avoid a judgmental tone when writing your
analysis, no matter how much you may disagree with the author's point of view or how invalidly
the argument is presented.
The In-Class Argument Analysis will be written on THE LAST DAY OF CLASS,
WEDNESDAY, MAY 4th. The Argument Analysis counts 20% of your final grade.
Comprehensive Final Examination: Scheduled for WEDNESDAY, MAY 11th, 2:00-6:00 p.m.
Students may choose to take the exam during all or any portion of this block of time. The Final
Exam counts 10% of your final grade.
GRADING STANDARDS:
The following letter grades will be used:
A (90-100%) = Excellent work that shows clear understanding of the writing topic, has few
errors of any kind, and shows exceptional ability to communicate to a specific audience.
B (80-89%) =Above-average work that shows understanding of the writing topic, has few
serious errors, and provides good communication with a specific audience.
C (70-79%) =Average work that shows understanding of the writing topic, contains few errors
that interfere with adequate communication.
D (60-69%) =Below-average work that fails to respond adequately to the writing topic, contains
a number of serious errors, and provides only marginal communication with a specific
audience.
F (0-59%) =Work that fails to respond to the writing topic, contains a number of serious errors,
provides little communication with a specific audience, and/or contains PLAGIARIZED
material (Please look this up in your Handbook).
GENERAL COURSE POLICY:
1. All course work must be completed in order to pass the course.
2. Attendance will be taken. HCC policy allows for students to be administratively dropped
from a course if they are absent six hours' worth of class time (four class sessions--there are no
such things as excused absences--either you're present or not). Arriving to class 15 minutes or
more late is very disruptive; if it happens twice I'll speak to you about it after class; any third
and following late arrivals will count as absences and will be calculated into the six hours of
class time missed. And when you cannot attend a class, it is your responsibility to find out
from one of your fellow students what had been discussed and to obtain copies of any handouts. I do not repeat lectures, nor do I carry copies of all hand-outs. Therefore, it is essential
that you obtain the names and contact information from at least 2-3 of your colleagues in this
class so that you can arrive prepared for the session following any you've missed. I also highly
recommend that you organize study groups among yourselves to help keep you and all your
colleagues up-to-date. The Library allows any group of only two or more students to reserve a
special room for discussion and help with readings or with class notes. Your study group can
become an invaluable resource. Please take advantage of the opportunity to form one. VERY
IMPORTANT: Please take note of the final day for student withdrawal from class:
THURSDAY, APRIL 14th. I will NOT complete withdrawal forms for any student. If you
choose to stop attending class for any reason, it is your responsibility to see the Registrar's
Office to withdraw. If your withdrawal is not duly recorded, you will receive, on your
transcript, an F for the course. This is non-negotiable.
3. All papers done outside of class will be typed in MLA (Modern Language Association)
format, which is explained in detail in your Handbook. Look this section up by next week and
learn it. In addition to the explanation of MLA form, your Handbook provides multiple
examples of entire papers written in MLA form. Because your Handbook so thoroughly
explains MLA form, we will not take up class time reviewing it. Nevertheless, you are expected
to learn and use MLA form--and your grades for typed papers may be affected if MLA form is
not followed.
4. Please fasten your papers with a single staple in the upper left-hand corner—I will not
accept them if they are not stapled--do not put them in any type of plastic or paper folder,
fasten them with a paperclip, or turn down the top corners together origami-style; a stapler is
available for your use in the English Department, FAC 319. Please keep a hard (paper) copy of
any paper your turn in. Do not depend upon finding the copy you've saved on a hard drive
or on a disc. Please do not miss a class period just because you're running late with your paper.
Late papers will be accepted, but 10 points will be subtracted for every class day past the due
date—this includes assignments that are late because of machine problems. Because this is
not a Distance Education course, I do not accept any assignments by email. Finally, do not
leave any paper outside my office or pushed under any office door.
5. Any first instance of plagiarism will result in failure of that assignment; any additional
instance of plagiarism will result in automatic failure of the course. Please look this issue up in
your Handbook and in your Student Handbook before the next class period and learn it and
how to avoid it. Remember, it takes only 3 consecutive words lifted from a text to require MLA
parenthetical documentation (also explained, in detail, in your Handbook). For your first Outof-Class Project, due WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26th, please report in a brief essay on your
completion of all parts of the Plagiarism Tutorial found at http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials
/plagiarism. Be very specific in your report, including the names of students and topics
suggested by the site.
6. You must take great care with proofreading all the work you turn in for this class. Please do
not depend upon Grammar Check or on Spell Check (both of which are often incorrect) as
your only proofreading tools. In fact, try to learn to not use them at all. Have enough respect
for your own writing to proofread it yourself--on the page, not on the screen. Please feel free
to pencil in corrections you may find at the last minute before turning in a paper or report. I’m
handing out a “GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION CHECKLIST” that I’ve developed over the
years to address the most common mistakes made by student writers. Please read this list
carefully and use it as a proofreading tool before turning in your work; I will refer only to a
number on this list in grading your assignments. If the difficulties you have in writing are
more basic than those issues on this list (such as subject/verb agreement, incorrect verb tense,
omission of direct or indirect articles, sentence fragments, etc.), you will be asked to spend a
few hours each week in the Tutoring Lab (Room FAC 321B) in order to raise your writing skills
to the level of Advanced Composition. This will be essential in order for you to be successful in
this course. In the Lab you will have access to free one-on-one tutoring assistance, beginning
next week. Check the English Department for this semester's schedule. Do not expect these
tutors to edit your papers before you turn them in; that is your job, not theirs. However, you
can expect a great deal of assistance in learning how to write well.
7. Finally, I reserve the right to change this syllabus in any way, at any time, for any reason.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: includes cheating on a test, plagiarism, and collusion:
* cheating on a test--copying from another student's test paper or using (during a test)
materials not authorized by the person giving the test;
* plagiarism--using another person's words, information, or ideas in your own written
work without appropriate acknowledgement (and quotation marks when exact words are
used);
* collusion--"unauthorized collaboration" (35).
Please note the possible consequences of such dishonesty: "Possible punishments for academic
dishonesty may include a grade of 0 or F for the particular assignment, failure in the course,
and/or recommendation for probation or dismissal from the College System."
ADA ACCOMMODATION STATEMENT:
Any student with a documented disability (e.g., physical, learning, psychiatric, vision, hearing,
etc.) who needs to arrange reasonable accommodations must contact the Disability Services
Office at the respective college at the beginning of each semester. Faculty is authorized to
provide only the accommodations requested by the Disability Support Services Office.
For questions, contact Donna Price at 713-718-5165 or the Disability Counselor at your college.
The ADA Web site is located at www.hccs.edu, where you should click "Future Students," then
scroll down the page and click "Disability Information."
Central College ADA Counselors: 713-718-6164.