ENGLISH 1A, SECTION 0N1
Instructor: Michael Langdon
Email: mlangdon@chabotcollege.edu
Office Phone: (510) 723-6816
Office: 452J
Office Hrs: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1-3; Wednesdays, 5:30-6:30
Required Texts:
Lakoff, George. Don’t Think of An Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. White River
Junction, VT: Chelsea, 2004.
Piercy, Marge. Woman on the Edge of Time. New York: Fawcett, 1976.
Several short readings (available online)
Recommended:
Keys for Writers, or any other good writer’s handbook to help with technical, grammatical, and
organizational issues
A good dictionary
Course Description: English 1A is a rigorous academic course designed to improve your reading,
writing, and critical thinking skills. In this online class, we will develop those skills by examining,
discussing, and debating the issues facing the United States in this historic election year. In November,
American voters will be making a number of decisions about the direction this country will be taking over
the next several years. We will collectively decide whether to give Barack Obama a second term or
whether to elect Mitt Romney (or possibly but improbably someone else) president. When we make this
decision, we will also be deciding what to do about our country’s economic problems, whether to keep
the health care reform bill that was signed by President Obama two years ago, what (if anything) our
leaders will do about the problem of global warming, and how our country will interact with other
countries. In this class, we will be reading, thinking and writing about these and other issues. We will also
take a look at the political spectrum in this country, attempting to understand the ideological divisions that
dominate American politics. Toward the end of the semester, we will broaden our discussion by raising
questions about the best ways to organize and govern societies. Is it possible to design an ideal society,
and if so, what would that society look like?
This is a hybrid class that will meet in person five times: August 21, September 18, October 9,
October 23, and December 11. All of the meetings will take place on Tuesday evenings in
Room 354. Four of the meetings (August 21, September 18, October 9, and December 11) will
begin at 6:00 and end at 7:55. One meeting (October 23) will begin at 6:00 and end at 8:55.
Otherwise, the class will take place entirely online. In order to get credit for “attending” the
class, you will have to participate, on a regular basis, in the online activities of the course. Most
weeks, there will be two deadlines, one in the middle of the week and one at the end, by which
time you should have participated in a set of activities. (Occasionally, there may be fewer or more
deadlines.) If you don’t meet these deadlines, you will be considered absent.
Many students mistakenly believe that an online course will require less of their time than a faceto-face course. This course is worth three units of credit. As a general rule, you should expect to
spend two hours outside of class for every hour in class. Of course, most weeks you will not be
spending any hours in a “classroom” for this course, but you will be participating in class
activities online each week, and in addition to those class activities you will be doing
“homework.” You should expect to spend about nine hours each week on this course.
Technical Requirements/Support: In order to make sure that your computer has all of the
necessary hardware and software for this course, please see Chabot College’s Distance
Education/Blackboard page. In order to view the online lectures, Java will need to be
enabled on your computer. To download Java, go to www.java.com.
Course Requirements:
Attendance: For an online class, attendance means participating, in a meaningful way, in class
activities. Every week, you will have deadlines to meet. Usually, there will be two deadlines, one
mid-way through the week and one at the end, but on occasion there may be more (or fewer) than
two deadlines. Failure to meet a deadline will count as an absence. However, merely meeting the
deadlines does not qualify as attendance. For instance, if your postings on discussion boards do
not meet the length requirement or do not reflect a familiarity with the readings and a serious
consideration of the discussion questions, I will not give you full credit for attendance. In
accordance with Chabot policy, if you miss four deadlines (or two full weeks of class), I may
drop you from the course.
Participation: In order to get credit for attending this class, you must participate in class activities. Each
week, I will give you a set of activities to complete that will be the equivalent of three hours of in-class
time. There will be deadlines for each of these activities. Very often, you will be discussing reading
assignments in an online discussion forum. In order to receive full credit for the discussions, you must do
the required amount of online posting by the stated deadline. (Usually there will be two deadlines per
week, one in the middle of the week and one at the end.) Sometimes, I will give a short lesson in writing
or reading concepts (in the form of a handout or a short video). You will read/watch the lesson and then
participate in discussion forum that requires you to apply what you have learned. (In order to view these
lectures, you will need to have Java enabled on your computer. To download Java, go to
www.java.com.) As with reading discussion forums, these activities must be completed by a stated
deadline. At the end of each week, you will get a weekly participation grade.
I will participate in all of the online discussions, but I will not be able to respond to every single person’s
work. I will, however, read your discussion posts and assign you a participation grade each week.
Occasionally, when I respond to your posts, I will ask you follow-up questions. I might ask you to clarify
an idea or to provide a fuller explanation of your thinking. Sometimes I might ask you to provide
examples or some textual evidence to support your claims. If I ask you questions of this sort, I expect you
to respond to my questions by the end of the week (or within 48 hours if your posts are made on the day
of the deadline). If you don't respond to my questions, you will not get full credit for participating in the
week's discussion. So don't assume that just because you have done the required number of posts, you are
automatically finished with the week's discussion.
In addition to posting to the discussion board, you must also read my posts and those of your classmates.
In an on-campus class, you would—presumably—pay attention to what your teacher and classmates said
in class discussions. You must do the same in an online class. If your posts indicate that you have not
been reading the discussion board—especially if you seem to be unfamiliar with points that I have been
making on the discussion board—I will subtract points from your weekly participation grade. I may also
quiz you occasionally on the content of the discussion board.
Quizzes: You will have reading assignments almost every week, and after you’ve finished the reading,
you will take an online reading quiz. The quiz must be completed each week by a stated deadline. (The
first quiz will be on the content of this syllabus.) You will also be quizzed regularly on the content of the
online lessons/lectures. The quizzes will be timed and each will be worth a total of 100 points. Please
note: do not open a quiz until you are ready to take it. You are not allowed to open a quiz, take a look at
the questions, close the quiz, and then take the quiz later. Once you have closed a quiz, you will not be
allowed to open it again. Only take quizzes on computers with a secure Internet connection. If necessary,
go to campus and take the quizzes in one of the computer labs.
Papers: You will be writing five papers over the course of the semester, four outside of class and
one in class. You must write all of the papers to pass the class. The out-of-class essays must be
turned in on time, or your final grade on these essays will be lowered by one letter. (You may
turn one of them in late with no penalty.) I will not accept any essay more than two weeks late.
Submitting Papers: Your out-of-class papers must be submitted by midnight on the due date
through SafeAssign, a plagiarism-detection program available through Blackboard. In order to
submit your paper, first save it as an RTF file.
Here are instructions for saving your paper in RTF format:
1. With your document open, go to the file menu and click on "Save As."
2. In the menu that appears, look for words that say something along the lines of "Save File as
Type" or "File Format." Click on the arrow next to these words to find a menu that will give you
many options for saving your document.
3. Choose "Rich Text Format."
4. Finally, make sure that your document's name ends with .rtf, and then click "OK" or "Save."
Once you’ve saved your essay as an RTF file, complete the following instructions in order to
submit it.
1. Go to our Blackboard site and click on the SafeAssignment, which you will find under the
“Essay Assignments” button.
2. Click on the View/Complete link under the Assignment description.
3. Use the comment box to write me a note about the assignment (something along the lines of
“Here’s my paper”) . Do not copy your paper into the comment box.
4. Click on the Browse button to search for your essay on your computer.
5. Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the page to click Submit. (If you don’t complete
this step, you won’t have submitted your paper.)
Revising Essays: You may rewrite ONE of your first two "out-of-class" essays for a higher
grade. Before revising the essay, please meet with me in my office to discuss my comments on
your essay. Since you are only allowed to revise one essay, it's important that you understand
exactly what you'll need to do to earn a higher grade. (When we meet, we will also determine a
due date for your revision.) Your final grade for that essay will be an average of your revision
grade and your initial grade. (Please understand that plagiarized essays will receive a grade of
zero, and that grade cannot be improved through revision, even though I will require you to
rewrite the essay simply to stay in the class.)
Homework: Short writing assignments will be assigned frequently as homework. These
assignments will tie-in with other class activities, but will be individual work and will not require
you to interact with classmates. You will submit them online in the form of a journal. No late
homework will be accepted unless you have made special arrangements with me.
Grades:
Your final grade will be calculated as follows:
Out of class essays
(1st essay = 15%; 2nd essay = 20%; 3rd essay = 15%; annotated bibliography = 10%) 60%
Group Presentation 10%
Homework and quizzes 10%
Final Exam 10%
Class Participation 10%
Other Policies:
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is passing off the words or ideas of another as one’s own. Many
students plagiarize intentionally, copying essays or parts of essays from the Internet,
books, or magazines, or asking someone else to write their papers. But some students
plagiarize accidentally because they don’t know how to quote, paraphrase, or document a
source. In this class, you will learn all three of these skills. In the meantime, here are
some guidelines that should help you avoid plagiarism.
1. Whenever you use another writer’s exact words, give that writer credit, and put the
borrowed words in quotation marks. Even if you’re just using a phrase that you borrowed
from another writer, that phrase must be enclosed in quotation marks.
2. Whenever you paraphrase another writer’s ideas (that is, explain his or her ideas in
your own words), make sure you give the other writer credit.
3. When paraphrasing, make sure you really use your own words. If you copy another
writer’s words and then substitute synonyms for a few of them, you have still
plagiarized.
Plagiarism is a serious academic offense that can get you expelled from college. If you
have any questions about plagiarism, please ask me. If you plagiarize in this class, you
will receive an F on the plagiarized paper and I will report the plagiarism to the Dean of
Student Services.
Paper Format: Papers should be typed or word-processed, with double spacing, with
one inch margins and in a font no larger than 12 point. Your name, the date, my name,
and the name of the course should appear in the upper left hand corner of the first page,
and your last name and the page number should appear in the upper right hand corner of
every page.
Netiquette: This course will require you to spend quite a bit of time in online discussion forums,
where you will be sharing your views on some sensitive and often controversial topics. The focus
of this class is critical thinking, so you should feel free to disagree with your classmates and
explain the reasons for your disagreements. Argument is fine. In fact, this course will require you
to argue for your opinions, whatever they might be, and the ability to engage in counterargument
(explaining why you disagree with other people's arguments) is an important critical thinking
skill. However, you should always try to be civil in the discussion forums and use all of the tact
that you would use in a face-to-face discussion. Personal insults are not logical arguments. (In
fact, insulting your opponent instead of addressing his/her arguments is a logical fallacy, called
ad hominem.) Because they can't see the people they're talking to, many people who are polite
and tactful in face-to-face discussions find it easy to be rude and tactless on the Internet. For this
reason, many different people have come up with rules of "netiquette," i.e., etiquette for the
Internet. Before posting on any of the discussion forums, take a look at the following website:
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html. And remember, all of Chabot's rules of student
conduct apply as much in this class as they would in an on-campus class.
Learner Accommodation Needs: If you are a disabled student and need special
accommodations this semester, please let me know. Students with a disability -- a visual
limitation or reading difficulty -- that limits access to online materials may request online
materials in alternate media. Examples of alternate media formats include Braille, tactile
graphics, audiotape, and large print. Students can make alternate media requests through the
Disabled Students Resource Center. The DSPS staff also assists with academic accommodations
based on individual student need.
Help Outside of Class: I encourage you to take advantage of the services that are
available to you on campus. If you are having trouble with any reading or writing
assignment, you may seek the assistance of a tutor in the WRAC Center (mezzanine of
the library). You can even get course credit for work done in the WRAC Center if you
sign up for English 115. If grammar is your weakness, consider taking one of the
grammar and proofreading courses offered at Chabot. ESL 114 is an especially useful
course for students who are non-native speakers of English, as is ESL 128. English 107
also focuses on grammar and proofreading. And of course, you may always visit me
during my office hours (or make an appointment to see me at another time) if you need
help with any assignment.
IMPORTANT DATES:
Tuesday, August 21: First on-campus meeting, 6:00-7:55, Room 354
Tuesday, September 18: Second on-campus meeting, 6:00-7:55, Room 354
Thursday, September 23: Due: First Draft of First Essay
Sunday, September 30: Due: Final Draft of First Essay
Tuesday, October 9: Third on-campus meeting, 6:00-7:55, Room 354
Thursday, October 18: Due: Due: Group Annotated Bibliographies
Tuesday, October 23: Third on-campus meeting, 6:00-8:55, Room 354, Group
Research Presentations due
Thursday, November 8: Due: First Draft of Research Essay
Sunday, November 11: Due: Final Draft of Research Essay
Tuesday, December 11: Final on-campus meeting, 6:00 until 7:55 p.m., Room 354, Final Exam
Thursday, December 13: Due: First Draft of Final Essay
Thursday, December 20: Due: Final Draft of Final Essay