GU I D EL IN E S
FOR
C ON S TR U C TI N G 10 1 0 SY LL A BI
Revised November 5, 2012 - Effective Fall 2012
by T. R. Johnson with
the FWP Committee
First, a brief digest of what follows:
1.
A definition of the conceptual basis of the program (page 3). This language should
inform your course-description, and it should shape how you think about English 1010,
how you talk about it with students in your classes and with colleagues in the Rhetoric
Forum. It gives us a shared definition of our work. You will be evaluated, in part, on how
closely your course adheres to this central concept.
2.
A set of policy templates and a statement-of-outcomes for students (pp. 4-5). This
language (about attendance, plagiarism, etc) should be cut’n’pasted directly into your
syllabus. When all of us enforce identical policy-statements, we eliminate confusion
among students and eradicate a lot of problems that arise in late semester. And we’re
required by SACS to have the same statement-of-outcomes on all of our syllabi. When we
evaluate your syllabus in August, these policy statements will be on our checklist, so,
again, they must be on your syllabus in exactly these words.
3.
A set of policies and procedures for teachers of composition (pp. 6-7). These policies
govern not students but rather the community of teachers who teach our writing courses.
The vast majority of these policies/procedures are not new, but enough of them have
been adjusted and revised that you should familiarize yourself with them and know that
you’ll be evaluated, in part, on your compliance with these policies. Be sure they are
reflected in your syllabus.
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4.
A set of definitions for the different types of papers we assign (pp. 8-9). As you know,
the three modes we teach are analysis, argument, and research, and so I’ve derived from
our website a set of basic definitions of these terms that we can all share and foreground
in our syllabi, in our conversations with students, and with each other.
5.
A set of rough templates assignment-sequences for each type of assignment (pp.10-12).
In order to balance and link the short, low-stakes writing assignments with the bigger
projects, in order to clarify the precise way revision figures in your assignments, and in
order to clarify how grades will be distributed between short and long writing projects,
use these structures as rough models to follow as you design the week-by-week workload
in your course.
6.
A set of guidelines for reading-assignments (page 13). In the past, the amount of
reading varied considerably among sections of 1010, and this has led to difficulties during
registration as students clog some sections and avoid others. Students have been right to
complain about these discrepancies, and these discrepancies are sure to draw very
unfavorable attention from SACS. Therefore, look closely at these guidelines for reading
assignments, and note that you can assign an average of fifty pages of reading per week.
When we evaluate your syllabi in the fall, our checklist will address the particularities of
your course-readings, not simply as a matter of page-count, but also in terms of the level
of difficulty, the genre of the readings, and how readings are sequenced.
7.
A set of grading rubrics, both general and tailored to particular assignment types (pp.
14-17). Though no one believes that a strictly objective, numerical assessment of a
student-paper is feasible or even desirable, we can respond to student prose more
efficiently if we follow a carefully designed structure, and these structures, moreover, can
minimize students complaining along the lines of “I don’t understand what my teacher
wants” or “what my teacher wants is totally different from what my roommate’s teacher
wants” or “why on earth did I get a D on this essay?!” The rubrics offered here are
samples. You can adjust them and adapt them to fit the language of your own particular
assignments, though they must be approved by the Director. Be sure to derive your
rubrics from the document called The Freshman Essay Outcomes Statement: The
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Superior Paper that you’ll find at the end of this document. You should also feel free to
borrow language about your grading standards from the document on the standards for
different grades included at the end of this document.
8. The Freshman Essay Outcomes Statement (p18). This is the basic statement of what you
should be striving to achieve with your students, and it should shape how you devise your
rubrics.
I hope the preceding digest is helpful to you as you keep track of the full versions of each
of these elements, which is what follows next.
1. The Conceptual Basis of the Program
(Use this to develop your course-description – or simply cut’n’paste it into your syllabus to
serve as the course description, as many do)
The purpose of English 1010 is to teach students to write clearly and to organize complex
arguments that engage in a scholarly way with expert knowledge. Toward that end,
students will learn to conduct independent bibliographic research and to incorporate that
material appropriately into the sort of clear, complex, coherent arguments that
characterize academic discourse. More specifically, in English 1010, students will learn
that to write clearly means that they must take a piece of writing through multiple drafts
in order to eliminate any grammatical errors or stylistic flaws that might undermine the
author-audience relationship. They will also learn that, to write with meaningful
complexity, they must learn to practice a variety of invention strategies, from the five
classical appeals to freewriting to commonplaces to analytic reading strategies to library
research – and to revise continuously the material generated by these methods. Students
will also learn that, in order to make coherent arguments out of the material generated
through these invention strategies without sacrificing complexity, their practice of
revision must be guided by certain principles of style and arrangement -- for example,
principles of emphasis, cohesion, parallelism, figuration, and syntactic variation, to name
a few. Also, students must grow adept in the genre of argument itself through work with
models and templates of the sort outlined in the standard rhetorics of argument (for
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example, Williams, Heinrich, Toulmin, or Graff and Birkenstein). Students must learn,
moreover, that in order to create effective arguments they must cultivate strategies for
analyzing the texts of other – that is, they must grow adept at situating the texts of others
in a context, looking at them through the lens of some other body of thought, to see how
such a move heightens the significance of certain elements of the text under analysis. And
they must learn strategies for active, critical reading, strategies for deciphering why a text
might be arranged a certain way and what that arrangement might mean, as well as
strategies for summarizing and paraphrasing and quoting. Also, they must learn to
conduct research in the library, evaluating sources, incorporating the work of others into
their texts and doing so while following the proper conventions of citation endorsed by
the Modern Language Association. Finally, in order to maximize the students’ potential
for developing these abilities, the method of instruction in English 101, week by week, will
be organized as a hybrid that combines four different instructional modes: 1) discussions
as appropriate to a seminar; 2) hands-on, productive work as appropriate to a studio or
lab; 3) brief lectures; 4) regular one-on-one conferencing with the teacher. Through all of
these means, students in English 1010 will learn to produce clear, complex, coherent
writing with meaningful academic content.
2. Statement of Outcomes and Policies
(Cut’n’paste this directly into your syllabus)
Outcomes: Students will learn how to write clearly and how to develop complex, coherent
arguments that engage with expert knowledge through independent scholarly research
and correct citation of sources.
Attendance: Students in English 1010 develop skills that will serve them for their rest of
their academic and professional lives. What’s more, no matter how well a student writes,
he or she can and should always cultivate these skills yet further. To do this, students
must come to class, participate in class activities, and sustain positive, productive
membership in the classroom community of student-writers. Thus, attendance, as well as
punctual arrival and participation are absolutely essential; moreover, cell phones must be
silenced, and text-messaging and emailing are strictly forbidden as is any computer-use
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that is not directly appropriate the purposes of the class, for these disruptions, as with
tardiness, can be counted as absences.
When a student absence results from serious illness, injury or a critical personal problem,
that student must notify the instructor and arrange to complete any missed work in a
timely fashion. Students are allowed, over the course of the semester, to miss the
equivalent of one week of class without penalty. Thereafter, students will lose one-third
of their final grade for every unexcused absence from class. Once a student has
accumulated the equivalent of three weeks of unexcused absences, he or she has
automatically failed the class.
In order to enforce the attendance policy, the instructor will document the dates of every
student’s unexcused absences and file an “Absence Report Form” for any of their students
who accumulate four, unexcused absences. These forms are sent to the student and the
student’s dean (the instructor retains the third copy). If the student’s attendance problem
results in his or her failing the course, the instructor should file a second “Absence Report
Form” recommending that the student be withdrawn from the course with an F.
Academic Dishonesty: This link will take you to the Newcomb-Tulane Code of Academic
Conduct: http://college.tulane.edu/code.htm. All students must take responsibility for
studying this code and adhering to it. We will devote some time in class to it. Our
purpose, in these discussions, will be not only to teach you how to avoid plagiarism and
how to cite sources, but to initiate you into the contemporary discussion of intellectual
property and the nuanced dynamics between individuality, authorship, and what’s
sometimes called intertextuality, so that you can make informed and thoughtful choices
about your writing for the rest of your university career and later in life.
Academic Conduct: This link will take you to the Student Affairs policies on conduct in
the classroom: http://tulane.edu/studentaffairs/upload/02Academic.pdf Familiarize
yourself with it, for it will directly shape our interaction in class.
The Grade of “Incomplete”: If a student has a legitimate excuse for being unable to
complete all of the work for a course, the instructor can give that student an “I”
(Incomplete) on the final grade sheet. If the student does not complete the work and the
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instructor does not change the grade, however, that grade will revert to an F. The
deadline for addressing incompletes varies each semester but is usually about one month
after the final exam period. Before a student is given an “I,” the instructor will confirm
with the student – in writing – exactly what the student needs to finish and retain a dated
copy of this correspondence in the event that the student misses the deadline and then
expresses confusion about the new grade of “F.”
Students with Special Needs: Students who need special help with the course, such as
note-taking, free tutoring, additional time and/or a distraction-reduced environment for
tests and final exams, may contact the Goldman Office of Disability Services (ODS),
located in the Center for Educational Resources & Counseling (ERC). It is the
responsibility of the student to register a disability with ODS, to make a specific request
for accommodations, and to submit all required documentation. On a case-by-case basis,
ODS staff determines disability status, accommodation needs supported by the
documentation, and accommodations reasonable for the University to provide.
University faculty and staff, in collaboration with ODS, are then responsible for providing
the approved accommodations. ODS is located in the ERC on the 1st floor of the Science
and Engineering Lab Complex, Building (#14). Please visit the ODS website for more
detailed information, including registration forms and disability documentation
guidelines: http://tulane.edu/studentaffairs/erc/services/disabilityserviceshome.cfm
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3. Policies and Procedures for Teachers
(Make all of these that apply to your syllabus easily visible in syllabus)
All teachers of writing courses must:
• require that students produce at least 30 pages of graded writing – see the templates
that follow for balancing short and long assignments over a fifteen week semester.
• give students at least four major writing assignments, at least one of which requires the
revision of earlier work, and all of which allow the student to recycle and synthesize
shorter writing assignments, so that they can thereby learn the essentially revisionary
character of writing. In other words, at least 20 of the required 30 pages of graded
writing should be writing that explicitly arises as revision and synthesis of earlier pieces,
short and long.
• give students at least one assignment that requires some library research and that
requires a visit to the Center for Library User Education; also the
• research paper must be assigned early enough in the semester that it can provide the
basis for a revisionary project.
• require a series of short, preparatory assignments that lead up to the major papers, and
that the major paper can be derived from and built upon.
• devote at least some portion of the class to teaching students how to avoid plagiarism
• distribute a syllabus on the first day of class and make it available to students who add
the class to their schedules during those early days of the semester.
• include in the syllabus the outcomes and make explicit, within the assignments and the
scoring rubrics for the assignments, exactly how these outcomes are articulated. To do
this, borrow the language used above in articulating the different types of assignments
and how to sequence the steps that lead up to them; and use the rubrics that follow.
• file the syllabus electronically with the director with this specific format for the file
name: (term/course/section/last name; eg, “F2011 1010-05 Johnson”), so that they can
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then be loaded onto a CD for the departmental archive and eventually passed along to
SACS.
• include in the syllabus a course-description, a list of textbooks that are required or
recommended for the course, an explanation of how final grades will be derived, and
also policy-statements regarding attendance, plagiarism, the honor code, “late” papers,
and grading criteria.
• submit all major assignments, hand-outs, and all other written documents related to the
course in a teaching portfolio to the Director of Composition.
• hold four office hours per week.
• schedule at least one individual conference with each student before or near midterm.
• give paper assignments in writing
• return graded papers no more than two weeks after receiving them
• comment on student-papers thoroughly, with local comments that engage particular
moments in the text in terms of clarity/correctness or in terms of prose-style
(coherence, emphasis, balance, and so on) or in terms of the logic or the complexity of
the content; and with a longer, global comment at the end that, ideally, suggests yet
further revisions and developments to the work.
• remind students to keep all of their written work in a portfolio.
• attend all meetings of the Rhetoric Forum
• keep a hard copy of all assignments and papers written by particular students
designated by the department (for example the fourth and the eleventh names on your
class-roster for each section) for evaluation in the SACS assessment process.
• Not build an entire syllabus around the use of classroom technology, for our campus
has too few computer-equipped classrooms to guarantee such spaces for all sections of
all courses. Rather, occasional needs for technology may be met by scheduling time in
the Media Lab (NM 200B), by borrowing the departmental projector, or contacting the
Innovative Learning Center.
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• Instructors must use a rubric when grading student essays but are free to create rubrics
of their own. These rubrics must be derived from the Freshman Writing Essay
Outcomes Statement created by the Freshman Writing Program Committee in
consultation with the Director (see p18 in this document). Also, rubrics must be
approved by the Director. In addition to the Outcomes Statement, instructors may
draw on other sources as well in creating their rubrics: the primary goals of the course
as stated in the course description; the definitions of major assignment types as set
forth in the guidelines; the rubrics they’ve already been using; the examples of the
Boyette-Prize Winners posted on the website; the discussions in Rhetoric Forums and
in other contexts with the Director and with each other. Also, instructors may score
these rubrics with a letter-grade system or a point system of their own devising.
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4. Definitions of Types of Assignments
THE ANALYSIS PAPER
In the simplest sense, an analysis paper is a paper that discusses some text through the
lens of some other text; it asks, in this new, explicit context, what special features of the
text under consideration become more important or more ambiguous or more
controversial or more meaningful than they otherwise might seem? What are the points
of tension between the text and its context? Also, what does the text seem to foreground
or repeat or emphasize or draw into stark opposition? What aspects of the text ought one
to quote in order to support the analysis under development? What aspects ought one to
paraphrase? Teaching students to write an analysis paper this way, always considering
one text through the lens of another, will enable them to control increasingly complex
relationships with multiple texts and, in turn, to manifest that complexity in the texts
they themselves create with greater and greater control and coherence; moreover, this
dynamic (looking at one text in terms of another) will enable them to handle increasingly
sophisticated academic content in their own papers, for this simple structural dynamic
governs what can otherwise be a very confusing jumble of viewpoints. Finally, students
will see that in developing analysis papers in particular, the process of revision follows
straightforwardly as a matter of adjusting the context through which they consider the
text under analysis to see what new features thereby emerge as important and worth
further comment and deeper analysis. To “adjust the context” means to adopt a different
“lens” (a different text) through which to consider the text one is analyzing. One can
accumulate multiple lenses, and thereby extend the analysis farther and farther. This is
how one revises an analysis-paper, as distinct from other kinds of papers. Example: to
analyze The Great Gatsby through the lens of an essay about the history of the Jazz Age
will lead certain parts of that novel to seem more important than others; but if one wants
to revise this analysis significantly, one can study the novel in the context of an essay on
gender-roles in the early twentieth-century, and this will lead one’s analysis in a new
direction.
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THE ARGUMENT PAPER
In the simplest sense, an argument paper is a paper that stakes out a position that
opposes a position staked out in some other piece of writing. It coheres around a basic
structure, in which the paper first summarizes some particular position attributed to
others and then delineates its own position as a departure from that other position. This
approach to writing argument papers according to the “they say / I say template” (as
Gerald Graff and Kathy Birkenstein have dubbed it) can be found in any number of books
on the craft of argument. As students grow more adept at using this formula, they must
then cultivate other dimensions of the craft of argument: how to articulate claims, how to
use warrants, what counts as strong evidence, what kinds of logic to use, and how to
avoid fallacies. By cultivating these elements of craft, students will be able to write more
coherently and, in turn, grow adept at managing more and more complex ideas and
relationships between thoughts; the content of their work will grow more sophisticated.
And this trajectory, in turn, should shape how revisions proceed with argument papers: a
more and more nuanced and judicious exploration of what “they say,” and, in turn, a
similar development of what “I say,” as students grow increasingly adept at articulating
claims and warrants, marshalling evidence and using logic.
THE RESEARCH PAPER
In the simplest sense, a research paper is a paper that uses the writings of others,
discovered independently through research, in order to advance its claims and that
documents correctly the presence of the writings of others in the paper. Students must
learn how to move from a general area of interest to an actual topic; and they must learn
to turn that topic into a question that, in turn, can lead them to a set of sources where its
answer can be found. Moreover, they need to learn how to frame research-questions in a
way that identifies the costs of failing to arrive at good answers to the research questions
– that is, they need to grapple with what is sometimes called the ‘so what’ question with
respect to their project. The process of revising a research project as the research
proceeds will lead students to produce papers that are increasingly coherent and
increasingly complex, and it will lead them to sift through an array of sources as they
arrive at those that will give their paper sophisticated academic content. Revision figures
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in the process of writing research papers precisely as this adjusting of focus as different
discoveries are made in the scholarly enterprise, as students learn to keep a lively
dynamic in play between the question they want to answer and the kinds of potential
answers that they begin to discover. Through this dynamic, students can ultimately arrive
at complex, coherent papers that deliver information as a solution to some problem in the
world that, without that information, would persist at some cost.
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5. Sequencing Assignments
(Make these structures readily visible in your syllabus)
All sections of English 1010 must require at least 30 pages of graded prose, and these pages
must be spread over four major writing assignments (a major assignment is a five-page
paper); additionally, all sections of English 1010 must require a series of short, low-stakes
writing-assignments (at least five, but graded in the simplest way: one point for an
accept-able piece, zero for an unacceptable one) that can and should be revised and
synthesized into the longer pieces of writing. At least one of these major assignments
must be an analysis paper; at least one must be an argument paper; at least one must be a
research paper; at least one must be a hybrid of two or three of these modes. No more
than two major papers can be devoted to a single mode (you cannot, for example, assign
three analysis papers).
AN “ANALYSIS” UNIT
As David Bartholomae and Antony Petrosky suggest in Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts:
Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course, the sequence of assignments that
can lead to a strong analysis paper in English 1010 should begin with small, analytic
observations and progress to a larger syntheses of diverse viewpoints. More specifically, in
a series of short papers, students can be led to summarize what’s most important about a
particular piece of reading (what is foregrounded, repeated, emphasized, drawn into
opposition in a text, what gets said at the opening or closing of major passages), and then
they can do the same with another, related piece of writing – and then yet again with a
third piece. Once these three summaries have been achieved, the student can be led to
explore the dynamics between them: what would the author of X most want to say to the
author of Y? And what would the author of Z insist that both are leaving out? How would
X or Y respond to Z’s charge? Finally, once the students have become fluent in discussing
the tensions between X, Y, and Z, they can progress to a third phase in which they write
an analysis paper that synthesizes these shorter pieces into a larger statement about
what’s ultimately at stake in this set of texts: how they inform each other, how they
compete with each other, what’s most important in them, what’s missing from them, and,
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perhaps most important of all, how the student might situate his or her own position
among them. The grades could work thus:
Summary 1 --- 1 point
(week 1)
Summary 2 --- 1 point
(week 1)
Summary 3 --- 1 point
(week 2)
Synthesis 1 --- 1 point
(week 2)
Synthesis 2 --- 1 point
(week 2)
Major Analysis Paper --- 15 points (week 3)
Total for this unit ---- 20 points.
AN “ARGUMENT” UNIT
This kind of assignment asks students not simply to stake out a position among a set of
texts, but actively to counter the claims made in particular text. The process of
developing and revising an argument begins with establishing a claim within the context
of some controversy. As with the last major paper, students therefore should begin by
writing some short pieces that analyze someone else’s arguments according to key terms
in the craft of argument: claim, warrant, evidence, and logic. This work prepares them to
deploy Gerald Graff and Kathy Birkenstein’s famous template, noted earlier, called “They
say / I say.” Once students have adequately determined the material that will constitute
the “they say,” the next step can begin, which will be to articulate their own position and
how it departs from the “they say.” Students might write short pieces about a couple of
the different essays that could serve as the “they say,” and then choose the one that they
would most want to engage as an opponent for their “I say.” Once they’ve drafted a short
piece about their own viewpoint, they can them move to the third phase, which, again,
will mean synthesizing these shorter pieces into a longer argument and crafting it as a
claim with warrants, evidence, logic, and counter-claims that one takes up only to
dismantle. These elements of the craft of argument, again, should be discussed in class
and used as key guides to discussing the arguments of others in those short pieces and
also in developing one’s own. The sequence of assignments, then, could proceed thus:
Analyzing “They Say” 1 --- 1 point (week 4)
Analyzing “They Say” 2 --- 1 point (week 4)
Analyzing “They Say” 3 --- 1 point (week 5)
Crafting “I Say” 1 --- 1 point (Week 5)
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Crafting “I Say” 2 --- 1 point (Week 6)
Synthesizing full argument --- 15 points (Week 6)
Total for this unit --- 20 points.
A “RESEARCH” UNIT
As Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb, and Joseph Williams describe in their enormously
useful book, The Craft of Research, students must be led through a series of steps
whereby they begin with a general interest, which then they learn to re-frame as a topic,
and, in turn, a question; once they’ve articulated the question, they must learn to reframe
it yet again as a problem in the world that, if it remains unsolved, will carry certain costs.
Also, the problem should be framed in a way that leads to a particular set of sources
where its solution can be found. This process should structure a series of classdiscussions and student-teacher conversations and drafting exercises. More specifically,
Booth et al. divide some of these steps into useful sub-steps: before a topic can become a
question, for example, the writer must focus the topic, and, to focus the topic, the writer
must turn a phrase into a sentence, and that sentence, in turn, into an interesting – that
is, contestable -- claim, one worth articulating as a research-question. Booth et al
suggest another sub-step, one by which the question takes on wider significance. To lead
students through this step, teachers must encourage students to ask of their project, “So
what?” and to articulate, explicitly, why a flawed or incomplete or mistaken
understanding of some circumstances in the world constitutes a problem that good
research will resolve. Booth et al then arrive at the following template that students must
learn to engage in order to write research papers that are sufficiently complex and
coherent, and have sufficiently sophisticated academic content to begin to participate in
scholarly conversations.
I am working on the topic of __1___, so that I can find out ___2___, because I want
my readers to better understand ____3____; for if they don’t better
understand it,
____4___ might happen to them. To keep this from
happening, I will share information unknown to them from ___5__, ___ 6___,
____7__.
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The task of filling in 5, 6, 7 is difficult to the degree that the writer fills in the first four
blanks without anticipating the latter three. More to the point, its difficult to fill in those
last three blanks to the degree that the process is seen as purely linear, rather than
recursive. In a sense, some thinking about 5, 6, and 7 can and should crop up as part of
the work of filling in the earlier blanks. And, in order to facilitate this recursive process,
the inaugural step should be a visit to the Center for Library User Education, where a
manageable set of resources associated with some broad theme can be identified,
followed by a thorough grounding in strategies for how to avoid plagiarism, how to cite
sources, and the consequences for falling short on this count. Despite the inherently
non-linear nature of research however, the following sequence is recommended.
Short piece on general area of interest – 1 point (Week 7)
Short piece on resources relevant to this research and why -- 1 point (Week 7)
Short piece that articulates importance of question/problem – 1 point (week 8)
Annotated bibliography of five relevant resources – 5 points (Week 8)
Research paper – 12 points (Week 9)
Total points for this unit – 20 points.
From these three templates (analysis, argument, research), teachers can readily devise a
hybrid unit. Also, the hybrid unit should also encourage students to revisit their major
papers from earlier in the semester, to revise and recycle some aspects of this earlier
work, and to synthesize it into the more ambitious projects in these latter stages of the
semester. By doing so, we give them practice doing the sort of large-scale, “global”
revision that Nancy Somers and so many others suggest is what distinguishes mature
writers from beginners (who, in contrast, tend to view revision as mere editing and only a
form of punishment rather an important opportunity for intellectual growth).
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6. Guidelines for Reading Assignments
(Make required readings and page-counts readily visible in your syllabus)
Reading assignments have a limited and precise role in a writing course. Specifically,
reading assignments should average no more than fifty pages per week; obviously, in
some weeks when students are drafting and redrafting, there will be no reading, which
means that, in other weeks, the reading load can swell to sixty pages, or, if there is only a
few pages assigned in the following week, then that week of heavy reading can expand,
say, to ninety pages. The purpose of the reading is to create a rhetorical context within
which students can practice analysis and argument and research, and also to learn to
practice what Joseph Harris calls the “moves” that all academic writers make when
engaging and using the texts of others. More specifically, academic writers, as Harris
suggests, might “forward” some particular piece of reading into a new context to see how
it can illuminate a situation its original author might not have anticipated; or they might
use a reading as an arena for “coming to terms” and establishing key definitions for
something they’re writing about; or they might adopt a piece of reading as something to
push against as they develop their own writing, as a business of “countering” the
perspective set forth in that reading; or they might loosely imitate a reading by “taking an
approach” that works well there and seeing how that approach might enable their own
writing; or finally the might take up a piece of reading with the explicit intention of
“revising” that work, upgrading it and strengthening it in ways its original writer might
not have imagined.
What’s more, when choosing the readings that students will use in English 1010, teachers
should organize these readings around a particular theme in order to enable students to
join a particular intellectual conversation. In so doing, they invite their students to
explore certain issues in much greater depth than if the readings were not so carefully
linked, and this unified exploration, of course, models for students the general work of
the academy. What’s more, it creates a rhetorical context – that is, a set of positions and
perspectives among which students can situate their own writing – that will help students
develop a meaningful sense of audience and purpose for their writing.
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7. Sample Grading Rubrics
(Include these – or develop your own based on the Freshman Essay Outcomes – and include
in an appendix your syllabus)
Because all syllabi in the Composition Program must articulate the link between the
overall course outcomes, their major assignments, and the scoring rubric that
accompanies these major assignments, I’ve developed a set of rubrics that articulates
some of that linkage for you. I offer first a generalized scoring rubric that can be used for
grading any of the longer papers, whether an analysis, an argument, or a research-paper.
What follows the general rubric are examples of how it can be adopted to fit each of these
three modes.
GENERALIZED RUBRIC (15 POINTS POSSIBLE)
CONTENT: IDEAS
ARE
…
many, complex, ambitious, surprising, carefully situated among readings
3
somewhat familiar, few in number, simpler, with limited relation to readings
2
only slight extensions of class discussion without real engagement readings
1
discernible only as repetition of class discussion without relevance to reading
0
COMPLEXITY: THE
PAPER AS A WHOLE OFFERS A
timely, passionate, uniquely voiced articulation of an intricately logical conflict
3
less urgently felt, more generalized articulation of a simpler issue
2
flat rehearsal of fairly obvious truisms
1
a complete absence of any engagement with the potentials of the assignment
COHERENCE / ARRANGEMENT: FOCUS
IS
…
0
…
achieved through many subtle strategies of coherence, cohesion, and emphasis
3
sustained but a few, rather minor transitions could be improved
2
compromised by more than one very abrupt, graceless transition
1
not achieved because strategies of coherence, cohesion, and balance too seldom used
COHERENCE / STYLE: SENTENCES
ARE
…
varied in distinctive, consistent, original voice and memorable phrases
3
is less varied, voice less distinctive, occasional lapsing into the less-than-graceful
2
sentence-structure repetitive, dull, and often awkward
1
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several sentences sufficiently ill-formed to distract reader from intended message 0
CLARITY: THE
PROSE HAS
…
No errors
3
only a few, very minor errors
2
a few errors that significantly distract the reader
1
several errors that significantly distract the reader
0
RUBRIC FOR ANALYSIS PAPER (15 POINTS POSSIBLE)
CONTENT: INSIGHTS
ARE
…
many, complex, ambitious, surprising, and carefully situated among readings
3
somewhat familiar, few in number, simpler, and with limited relation to readings 2
only slight extensions of class discussion without real engagement with readings 1
discernible only as repetition of class discussion without relevance to reading
COMPLEXITY: THE
0
PAPER AS A WHOLE OFFERS
several insights disrupt a common-sense, first-glance at what’s analyzed
3
a few insights that shift the reader’s experience of what’s analyzed
2
only one insight that offers little by way of new perspective on what’s analyzed
1
no new insights at all
. . . .
0
COHERENCE / ARRANGEMENT: FOCUS
IS
....
an elegant juxtaposition of the entity under analysis with the context enabling the analysis
3
a more haphazard articulation of the dynamic between the analyzed text and context
2
an awkward, even jumbled rotating between text and context
1
no discernible relation between what’s analyzed and the context that would enable analysis
COHERENCE / STYLE: SAME
CLARITY: SAME
0
AS GENERALIZED MODEL
AS GENERALIZED MODEL
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RUBRIC FOR ARGUMENT PAPER (15 POINTS POSSIBLE)
CONTENT:
claim is important, delivered with sufficient warrants and evidence to be persuasive
3
claim is not as important, nor crafted well enough to be altogether persuasive
2
claim is delivered with an argument too flawed to be persuasive at all
1
claim is not discernible, nor is any argumentative craft
0
COMPLEXITY:
argument is multi-dimensional, re: kinds of evidence, warrants, and counter-arguments
3
argument offers more limited evidence, warrants, counter-arguments
2
argument weakened by overmuch simplicity in evidence, warrants, counterarguments
1
argument is missing a key element, either evidence, warrants, or counterarguments
0
COHERENCE / ARRANGEMENT:
argument follows the “they say, I say” template and larger craft with subtlety and elegance
3
argument follows the template and elements of craft more formulaically
2
argument follows the template and elements of craft almost not at all
1
argument is unformed
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COHERENCE / STYLE: SAME
CLARITY: SAME
AS GENERALIZED MODEL
AS GENERALIZED MODEL
THE RESEARCH PAPER (15 POINTS POSSIBLE)
CONTENT:
the topic has been articulated as important question that the research answers
3
the topic has either not yielded an important question or research that answers it
2
the topic has neither yielded an important question nor any research that answers it
1
the topic is never defined adequately nor linked to any relevant research
0
COMPLEXITY:
the research question has multi-dimensional, contestable answers and implications
3
the research question has a simpler array of answers and few implications
2
the research question has only one, incontestable answer and one implication
1
the research question has no conclusive answer nor any clear implications
0
COHERENCE/ARRANGEMENT:
the movement from important question to researched answers is subtle and engaging
3
the movement from important question to research answer is simpler, more abrupt
2
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the movement from important question to researched answer breaks into two halves
1
the movement from important question to research answer is never made
0
COHERENCE / STYLE: SAME
CLARITY: SAME
AS GENERALIZED MODEL
AS GENERALIZED MODEL
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8. Freshman Writing Essay Outcomes
(Inclue in your syllabus as an appendix)
In this course, students should learn how to write a superior paper suitable for their
course-work in the university. All superior papers demonstrate a preponderance of the
attributes listed below. The difference between an A and a B paper will depend upon the
degree to which the paper achieves these outcomes. An inferior paper exhibits relatively
few of these attributes. The difference between a C, D, or F paper depends upon the degree to which the paper fails to achieve these outcomes. Each instructor will elaborate a
grading rubric based on this framework.
1. The paper is organized around an arguable thesis statement. It uses textual analysis or
scholarly research to pinpoint a controversial or inadequately understood problem. The
introductory paragraph indicates the purpose of the argument for specific audiences and
suggests the significance of the problem. In other words, if the paper is for the analysis
unit or the research unit, rather than the argument unit, it should nonetheless present
and support a contestable thesis, for all academic writing constitutes ‘argument’ in this
broad sense. In the argument unit itself, papers will develop arguments in more narrowly
defined, formal ways of the sort associated with the major templates for arguments
(Toulmin, Graff-Berkenstein).
2. The thesis statement guides the development of the argument in a logical way. The
topic sentences of the paragraphs supporting the thesis statement articulate the logical
steps in the argument.
3. Each paragraph develops a step in the logic of the argument and moves the discussion
to the next step. Paragraphs are unified around a topic sentence, and the topic sentences
of the paper, taken together, form the spine of the argument.
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4. The argument develops by taking into account objections and counterarguments that
add complexity. Claims are substantiated by valid warrants, from expert sources as required. Complexity is also achieved through a sustained engagement with various invention strategies, so that arguments are rich, nuanced, and thoughtful, not superficial or
formulaic.
5. The conclusion to the paper may have been telegraphed in the introduction, but this
paragraph synthesizes and summarizes the findings of the essay, while indicating their
significance. Ideally, it will indicate some avenues for further research and discussion.
6. All papers are expected to conform to MLA style and to avoid grammatical and stylistic errors.
In addition to the four major essay assignments, instructors will assign short assignments
to improve student facility with one or another of the building blocks of the superior paper.
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9. Grading Standards
(Feel free to borrow this language as you devise your rubric and comment on student
papers)
In an effort to unify grading standards, as much as possible, among our diverse 1010
faculty, I’ve borrowed some language from Douglas Hesse and William Irmscher. You’ll
find some of this language useful as you comment on student work and explain a
particular grade. Important: a paper does not have to fulfill all or even most of the criteria
for a particular grade to earn that grade; rather, its most prominent features will locate it
on one or another of these general levels.
The A Paper ... is characterized by the freshness, ambition, maturity, coherence, and
complexity of its content. Its claims are stated clearly and effectively, supported well, with
relevant nuances interpreted and delineated in ways that go beyond the obvious. It
manifests a distinctive voice that explicitly engages a meaningful rhetorical context and,
in turn, an actual audience. It situates itself thoroughly among assigned readings, perhaps
even key, related texts in public discourse. It effectively balances the specific and the
general, the compelling detail and the larger point, personal experiences and direct
observations of the outer world. It grows out of large-scale revisions (both in terms of
content and structure). It not only fulfills the assignment, but inventively uses the
assignment as an occasion to excel. Its only errors, if any, are purely typographical and
quite rare. Finally, it manifests a certain stylistic flair – the bon mot, the well-turned
phrase, the significant metaphor – that helps to make it, for the reader, memorable.
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The B Paper ... is characterized by content that is a relatively familiar, less daring, less
integrated or a little simpler than one might hope. Its claims could use more support or
more exploration, or could perhaps be stated more directly. Its voice could be more
distinct and it could situate itself more engagingly in the rhetorical context and go farther
to reach its audience. It could do more with the assigned readings, create a better balance
between specific and general, detail and idea, personal anecdote and larger point. It
fulfills the assignment, but in a way slightly perfunctory. It makes very few errors and
shows no systematic misunderstanding of the fundamentals of grammar, but its overall
structure might appear somewhat uneven. Finally, it could benefit from more large-scale
revision and from more careful attention to its style at the sentence-by-sentence level.
The C Paper ... is characterized by overmuch dependence on the self-evident, is dotted
with cliché, and is inadequately informative. Its essential point is uninteresting or only
hazily set forth or developed aimlessly. It has no particular voice, nor any significant
sense of context or audience, nor any real engagement with other texts. In terms of the
dynamics between detail and idea, it seems to lose the forest-for-the-trees or vice versa. It
fulfills the assignment but does so in a way wholly perfunctory. It has grammatical errors
that significantly disrupt the reading experience. It has not been sufficiently revised.
The D Paper ... is characterized by minimal thought and effort, which shows through the
absence of a meaningful, central idea or the lack of any controlled development of that
idea. It fails to fulfill some key aspect of the assignment. It makes no meaningful use of
other texts nor ever situates itself in any sort of context. It needlessly offends its audience.
Its sentences and paragraphs are both built around rigidly repeated formula and soon
become predictable. It is riddled with error. It has apparently never been revised.
The F Paper ... is characterized by plagiarism or lateness or a total misunderstanding of
the assignment or is simply incomprehensible owing to a plethora of error or desperately
poor organization. It has not only not been revised – it really hasn’t been begun.
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T. R. Johnson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Director of Composition
120 Norman Mayer Hall
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA 70118
504-862-8163
www.tulane.edu/~trj
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