English 101 Summer 2011
Brian R. Gutierrez
English Department
English 101 M/W 6:00-9:10pm
Office: IB 2423C
Office Hours: Mondays from 5:00-6:00pm (or by appointment)
BGutierrez@sccd.ctc.edu
http://facweb.northseattle.edu/bgutierrez/
“How do I know what I think until I see what I have to say”?
--E.M. Forster
Introduction:
The subject of this course is writing. Writing, as I think of it, is an action, an event, a
performance. It is a way of asserting one’s presence but, paradoxically in a language that
makes the writer disappear. No matter what you write, the writing is not yours; it’s a part
of a larger text, one with many authors, begun long ago. And its end is outside your
control. In spite of what you think you are saying, your text will become what others
make of it, what they say you said.
Course Description:
In this class we’ll be examining the thrilling action of the text—that is, how does the text
work? How does it do what it does? What good is it—can it really change our lives, as
well as our world? More importantly—how do we, as people, function as texts…and
thus, how can we affect the world? To begin to tackle these questions, we’ll be writing—
learning about our habits (good and bad), our perceptions and preconceptions, and, of
course, we’ll be learning about each other. Writing is, after all, a skill, and like all skills,
writing can be honed and refined through practice. Therefore, expect to be writing about
four pages per week, every week. English 101 is, above all, designed to help you become
a more confident and adept writer than when you entered.
To achieve this goal, we will explore the unique ways texts function in an academic
setting, through an assortment of readings and with a focused emphasis on your own
written interactions with these readings. Through all of this, you will learn the principles
behind academic arguments, warrants, claims, evidence, and analysis, and how to apply
these in your writing persuasively and thoughtfully. This is what we mean by “reading in
the service of writing”: the readings that have been chosen for you are designed to bring
out new, powerful compositional skills in each of you. And you will not be alone—in
addition to my guidance, you will each participate in the process through peer reviews,
class discussions, and group work. By the end of the quarter, you will be prepared to
face the writing and reading challenges you encounter with the confidence and
competence of a critical reader, writer, and student. No matter your future academic and
professional goals, advanced compositional skills will be of the utmost important to you.
Required Texts:
Bartholomae, David; and Anthony Petrosky. Ways Of Reading: An Anthology for
Writers. 8th ed. New York: Bedford/ST. Martin’s, 2008
Aaron, Jane E. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. Seventh Edition. New York:
Longman Publishers USA, 2010.
Writing Journal
Recommended Texts:
Dictionary and Thesaurus
COURSE POLICIES
Grading
The grading breakdown is as follows:
Portfolio: 40%
Major Papers: 30%
Short Papers: 20%
Participation: 10%
Participation
A number of criteria are used to determine this grade. First, I will offer a number of
activities and brief in-class assignments throughout the quarter. These will include peerreview sessions, brief written responses, and group presentations. Also, your general
conduct in the class will be considered: did you add to the class discussions (see
“Community” below)? Finally, we will be scheduling two one-on-one conferences
throughout the quarter. These conferences are required, and your attendance and
preparation will count toward your participation mark.
Portfolio
In this course, you will complete two major assignment sequences, each of which is
designed to help you fulfill the course outcomes. Each assignment sequence requires you
to complete a variety of shorter assignments leading up to a major paper. These shorter
assignments will target one or more of the course outcomes at a time, help you practice
these outcomes, and allow you to build toward a major paper (5-7 pgs.) at the end of each
sequence. Therefore, completing the daily assignments is not only a course
requirement, but it’s also in your best interest to do so. Think of it as conditioning: no
one wants to run a marathon after sitting on the couch for 3 months.
Along the way, you will have a chance to revise significantly each of the major papers
using feedback generated by myself, peer review sessions, and writing conferences—
therefore, do not throw anything away that you write for this class!!! At the end of the
course, having completed the two sequences, you will be asked to compile and submit a
portfolio of your work along with a reflective component. The portfolio will include the
following: one of the two major papers (revised), three to four of the shorter assignments
(revised), and a variety of shorter, reflective writings that explain how the selected
portfolio demonstrates the four outcomes for the course. In addition, the portfolio will
need to include all of the sequence-related work you were assigned in the course. A
portfolio that does not include all of the above will be considered incomplete.
Incomplete portfolios will not be assessed and will receive a failing grade. We’ll be
discussing this in more detail in class.
In-class Assignments and Homework
We will be writing constantly, both in the classroom and outside of it. The assignments
are designed to comfortably increase your familiarity with rhetorical strategies as well as
pushing you outside of your current, “comfortable” writing zone into more developed
territory. Please take these assignments seriously as they will not only be part of your
participation grade and part of your portfolio, but they and they alone will afford you the
practice necessary to improve upon your composition technique.
Format
Please type all assignments according to MLA (Modern Language Association)
guidelines. This includes (but is not limited to):
12 pt. Times New Roman font
Standard Margins
Double-spaced
Page Numbers w/ Last Name
MLA style citation/Works Cited page
Should you feel unsure about what this means, or should you have a concern about this
matter, please, see your style guide (which contains all of the details), and/or come talk to
me. You may want to take note of the numerous computer and printer terminals around
campus.
Late Work: No, thanks. Well—emergencies are emergencies, and dire circumstances
have a way of creeping up—especially around the end of the quarter…so here’s my
policy: Late assignments will receive half-credit, and will not receive comments. (I will
NOT accept papers that are more than a week late.) Should you hand in more than a few
assignments late, you will have to drop the class or risk turning in an incomplete
portfolio. Let’s put it this way: if you start your papers/revisions early, you can mitigate
any possible difficulties you may encounter along the way.
(NB I do not accept electronic papers)
Community
My goal for this class is that we will create a community of readers and writers who
respect and learn from one another. To that end, it is vital that you attend class. Our time
together is not frivolous or unnecessary; it is a unique space where you and your peers are
able to discuss ideas and apply skills that will not only help you in your future studies but
also expand your intellectual world.
Accommodations
Please let me know if you need accommodation of any sort. If you have a documented
disability that affects you as a student in this class, you are encouraged to let me know. It
is also a good idea to contact the Disabilities Services office (527-3697, CC2446c) so that
appropriate accommodations can be made. I am very willing to take suggestions specific
to this class to meet your needs. This syllabus is available in large print, as are other class
materials.
Classroom Presence and Discussion
The more you engage in this academic community, the more you will learn. As with
class attendance, it is important for you to participate in class discussions as thoroughly
as possible; we want our time to be productive. Even if you have a hard time
participating in discussion, for whatever reason, I ask that you give it your best shot.
Stretching yourself is rarely a bad thing. In the same way, if you tend to be talkative,
remember that not all participation is good participation and a key part of a class
discussion is what you hear, and not merely what you say. Presence is just as important:
raising your hand and speaking is great, but not having your book out, not taking notes,
or sleeping in class will reduce your participation grade just as easily as being a nuisance.
Respect
Because the exchange of ideas is so important to this class, it is necessary for everyone to
be respectful of one another. It is normal and even expected that, in our class discussions,
we will disagree. Differences can and should be discussed, but these discussions should
maintain the academic spirit of respect—just as a good essay takes into account possible
counterarguments, we, too, should remember that our positions are not sacrosanct.
Derogatory or discourteous language/behavior will not be tolerated in our classroom.
Attendance Policy: If you miss more than four class periods, you jeopardize your ability
to pass this course successfully. Tardiness is also unacceptable and disruptive; if you
come in more than 15 minutes late to class or leave early, you will be marked absent.
Also, every other act of tardiness beyond five will be counted as an absence. Each
unexcused absence beyond five will result in your final grade lowered by 0.1(e.g., eight
unexcused absences will lower your grade by 0.3).
The LOFT
The English Writing Center is a free peer tutoring service offered by the English
Department specifically to help students with writing assignments. Students visiting the
writing center can expect to conference with a writing assistant (one-on-one) for up to an
hour at a time. There is no limit to the number of visits a student can make each quarter. .
Think of it as therapy for your writing.
Plagiarism:
We will discuss plagiarism in more detail in class. For now, please be aware of how
serious it is to pass someone else's thoughts, quotes, or papers off as your own. Simply
put, I expect that the work you turn in will be your own! It is one thing to work together
in our writing workshops to improve your papers (fixing punctuation, spelling, and
scrambled sentences or improving the organization) or to go over to the Writing Center.
It is something else to plagiarize.
Plagiarism describes actions that range from buying an entire paper online to turning in
papers you have written but that are full of entire paragraphs copied from electronic,
print, and other sources without citation. The purchase of papers online is a big business;
in the most obvious sense, plagiarism is a reprehensible offence, resulting in the failure of
that particular class, and punishable to the point of expulsion.
WHENEVER you use information gained from another source, you MUST acknowledge
or cite that source:
 If it is an exact quote (word for word), you need to use quotation marks.
If you have changed the wording around to simplify the language, for example, you still
need to cite (identify) the author, but you do not need to put the passage in quotes.
SUMMER QUARTER 2011: M/W SCHEDULE
WEEKS 1
Mon 6/27
Wed 6/29
WEEK 2
Mon 7/4
IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES
AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE
First Day of Instruction
Discuss Bartholomae
“Purpose” discussion;
MLA Activity
Reading Rhetorically
Short Paper 1.1 Due
Introduce Pratt
Assign Short Paper1.2
Wed 7/6
Vocab. Handout Due
Discuss Pratt
“Understanding Arguments” Exercise
WEEK 3
Mon 7/11
Wed 7/13
Conducting Research as Inquiry
Assign Major Paper #1
Short Paper 1.2 Due
Discuss Pratt; “Writing a Rhetorical Analysis”
“Elements of Autoethnography”
Peer Review Overview
(explanation and expectations)
WEEK 4
Mon 7/18
Analysis and Argument
Major Paper 1 Due (first draft)
Peer review
Wed 7/20
Revision Plan Due
Conferences
WEEK 5
Mon 7/25
The Revision Process
Wed 7/27
WEEK 6
Mon 8/1
Major Paper 1 Due (final draft)
Introduction to Second Sequence
“Working with Difficulty”
Assign Short Paper 2.1
Structuring Arguments
Short Paper 2.1 Due
Assign Short Paper 2.2
HOMEWORK
David Bartholomae’s
“Inventing the
University”
WR: Introduction to
Ways of Reading (1-23)
Mary Louis Pratt’s “Arts
of the Contact Zone”
Vocab. Handout;
Michel Foucault’s (FooKOH) “Panopticism”
(369)
Susan Bordo’s “Beauty
(Re)discovers the Male
(available on class website)
Body” (129
Wed 8/3
Assign MP#2
Reread Foucault
WEEK 7
Mon 8/8
Short Paper 2.2 Due
Wed 8/10
Major Paper 2 Rough Due
Revision Revisited
Peer Review
WEEK 8
Mon 8/15
Wed 8/17
WEEK 9
Mon 8/22
WEEK 11
Major Paper #2 Due Final Draft
Reflective Letter Due
Peer Review
Portfolios due by 6:00pm