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SAMPLE SYLLABUS
Queensborough Community College, CUNY
EN
101
-­‐
English Composition I
–
Technology in Our World
Professor Leah Anderst
Email:
LAnderst@qcc.cuny.edu
Office:
Humanities 455
Course Description
:
English 101 focuses on writing and reading as interactive skills that
develop critical thinking. This course approaches writing as a process, an activity with
m
any steps
–
invention, composition, revision
–
steps which often come in different orders
than you may expect
. Here are some questions we will be exploring together over the
course of the semester: Why write? To whom are you writing? Must we know the
answer to
the previous question before we write? After? Is it unimportant? As a reader, what do you
bring to the texts you read? Should reading offer us pleasure? Information? Both? I hope
that you will all bring more questions to the table as the semester
unfolds.
Description of Course Theme
: Our readings and writing will be linked by their focus on
technology: a word with many more meanings than today’s contemporary and cutting edge
technologies that we all rush out to buy
. Technology is
much more than
o
ur computers, cell
phones, and televisions. Walter Ong wrote
that “t
echnologies are not mere exterior aids but
also interior tran
sformations of consciousness.”
The w
ord “technology” derives from
ancient Greek
roots that together mean the study of craft or
skill. It has become a term at
once more limited than this and more expansive, and we will consider this term throughout
our readings and writing.
Our semester is divided into
three
distinct units
each with a
different take on technology: writing
as a tech
nology for thinking;
technology
, the body,
and identity
; and cyber culture and cyberspace
.
I encourage you to allow the readings from
the different units to “talk to” each other
and to think about our readings cumulatively
.
Course Objectives
:
After compl
eting the c
ourse, students will be able to:
•
Identify an intellectual question or
problem worthy of further study
•
Use reading and writing for inquiry, thinking, learning, and communicating
•
Articulate a focused argument or line of thinking appropriate to th
e particular genre
the writing is working in
•
Utilize relevant evidence throughout their writing tasks
•
Use a variety of writing and revision strategies
•
Utilize logical structures and stylistic approaches appropriate to a form or genre of
writing (transition
al language, progressive development of ideas)
Required Texts
/Supplies
(available in QCC bookstore)
They Say/I Saw:
The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing
(They/I)
Rules for Writers
with 2009 MLA and 2010 APA Updates
,
Diana Hacker (Rules)
Course Pack
–
Provided on Day 1
–
All readings not in
They/I
or
Rules
will be here
.
A Flash Drive or a free Dropbox account for storing and saving your files
SAMPLE
-­‐
E
N 101 Syllabus
Assignments
Four
Graded Papers
–
60
% (broken down as follows
–
DUE
dates in bold in schedule
)
1. 10
%
-­‐
Perso
nal
Narrative
: My Life as a Writer
(
6
00 words)
2
. 15%
-­‐
Critical Review (
8
00 words)
3
.
15
%
-­‐
Expository
Profile (10
00 words)
4
.
20
%
-­‐
Argument Essay
(12
00 words)
Final Exam
–
15
%
Participation
–
10%
(divided into midterm and final grades
–
5% each)
Informal Writing
–
15
%
(divided into midterm and final grades
-­‐
7.5% each)
-­‐
Informal Writing
:
Y
ou will write
many
response
s
outside of class. The focus of
these
assignment
s
will vary with the majority being free responses to readings. Other times I will
pr
ovide you with specific questions,
worksheets,
quotations from the reading, or topics
related to an upcoming assignment. These
are listed in the schedule, and they
must be
turned in at the beginn
ing of class when they are due. We
will also do a lot of writ
ing
together
during class
time, which
will contribute to your informal writing grade.
-­‐
Late Work
:
Informal writing will not be accepted late
. For formal writing (pa
pers 1
-­‐
4
),
turning in late work will resu
lt in deductions on your grade
-­‐
one grade step p
er day late.
(For example:
A paper that received a B turned in one day late will receive a B
-­‐
)
I will
not
accept
formal
papers more than one week late.
-­‐
Portfolios
: Your
four
formal writing
assignments will be turned in as a portfolio.
This
means that what you turn in must include all of the following: 1.
Final essay
2.
Works Cited
page in MLA Style
3.
Any drafts
4.
Any peer review question sheets
5.
Author Letter
.
The
Author letter that accompanies your final paper must be typed, one pa
ge long, and in it you
describe your process writing the paper. You may consider these questions as you compose
these letters: How did you approach the assignment? What was your strategy? What
questions did you struggle with along the way? What answers did
you find?
-­‐
Revisions
: Revision is, in many ways, the heart of good writing. I encourage you to revise
your papers when you can. I allow revisions for the first
three
formal assignments (papers
1
-­‐
3
). Revisions are due no later than
two
weeks after I ret
urn the graded paper back to you.
Keep in mind that a revision is much more than fixing errors on your papers. I expect a
significant reworking of the essay’s ideas and/or structure. All revisions require
either
an
office hour meeting with me to discuss yo
ur revision plan
or evidence of a visit to the
writing center,
as well as an
additional
“author’s
letter
” of 1 page turned in with your
revision describing the steps you took to revise as well as an explanation about why this
new version is superior to the
earlier version. You must also turn in the earlier paper that
includes my comments and grade. Note: Completing a revision does not in itself guarantee
a grade increase.
Grading
–
regularly updated on our Blackboard site
A
–
Excellent Overall
(A
-­‐
=90
-­‐
93,
A=94
-­‐
96, A+=97
-­‐
100)
B
–
Mostly Adequate with some Excellent Aspects
(B
-­‐
=80
-­‐
83, B=84
-­‐
86, B+=87
-­‐
89)
C
–
Adequate
(C
-­‐
=70
-­‐
73, C=74
-­‐
76, C+=77
-­‐
79)
SAMPLE
-­‐
E
N 101 Syllabus
D
–
Mostly Adequate, some Unacceptable a
spects
(D
-­‐
=60
-­‐
63, D=64
-­‐
66, D+=67
-­‐
69)
F
–
Unacceptable Overall
(anything below 60%)
Course Policies
:
•
Class Comportment
:
You must silence your electronic devices prior to coming to class
and put them inside your bag
. You may not take calls, text, or search the internet
during class. There will be no eating in class.
•
Attendance and Lateness
: Writing is a craft, best learned through constant practice.
That is why your consistent presence
is crucial to your success in this class. I allow
two
“free” absence
s, the third and fourth
absence
s
will result in a deduction to your
course grade, and
a
fifth
absence will automatically result in a grade of F for the
course
. Please note that no distinct
ion will be made between excused and unexcused
absences. It is up to you to be smart and save your allowed absences for a time when
you really need them. Lateness is disruptive and disrespectful
–
please come to class
on time. Students who are more than
20
minutes late or who leave before the end of
the class period will be considered absent for that day. Please do not ask me for
permission to leave class early. Finally, full class attendance entails your mental as
well as physical presence. Students who na
p and/or keep their heads on the desk will
be marked as absent.
•
Email Etiquette
:
We will write in a variety of writing styles throughout the semester
from informal, in
-­‐
class writing to polished, formal essays. Email to your professors
will fall somewhere
between those two styles. ALWAYS: include a greeting (Hello...
Hi... Dear Prof ..., etc.), write your name somewhere in your email, write your course
number
(En101)
(I’ll know your names very early on, but this really helps me), LOOK
in the syllabus first if yo
u’re emailing to ask a question. NEVER: attach an assignment
and hit send without indi
cating what you’re sending and why
. Never use text
ing
abbreviations.
•
Academic
Integrity
: Academic dishonesty is a very serious matter and will not be
tolerated. I assume
that everything you hand in is your own work
–
conceived,
researched, and written by you. Anything in your process that does not belong to you
(work, ideas, data from others, sources) must be properly documented. Failure to do
this is plagiarism
–
which Q
CC treats very severely. We will discuss research methods
and proper citation throughout the course. Any plagiarism in any assignment will
result in an automatic 0 for that assignment and possibly for the entire course. If you
are unsure about documentatio
n or have questions about plagiarism, please ask me.
•
Extra Help
: I am available for extra help during my
posted
office hours. You may drop
in to my office hour
, but
setting up a time
in advance
guarantees I’
ll save the time
just
for you.
The Writing
Center
offers free help as well, and I encourage you to make use
of their services. (Library, First Floor, 9am
-­‐
9pm Mon
-­‐
Th and shorter hours on Fridays
and Saturdays).
SAMPLE
-­‐
E
N 101 Syllabus
•
Special Services
: Any student who feels that he/she may need an accommodation
based upo
n the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss specific
needs. Please also contact the office of Services for Students with Disabilities in the
Sciences Building, Room 132 (718 631 6257) to coordinate reasonable
accommodations for stud
ents with documented disabilities.
•
Honors Contracts
: If you are interested in receiving
“Honors Credit” for this course,
please
come and see me outside of class to discuss. Honors Contracts require
more
work for each formal assignment as well as an addit
ional assignment in the course
–
a
speech, say, of one of your papers.
Semester
Outline
UNIT I
-­‐
Writing and Technology (
Personal
Narrative
and
Critical Review
)
Readings
:
David
Raymond “On Being 17, Bright, and
Unable to Read”
Frederick
Douglass,
excerpt from
Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Helen
Keller
, excerpt from
Story of my Life
Phillip Lopate
,
“
On Turning Oneself into a Character
”
Malcolm X,
excerpt from
The Autobiography
Lamott “S
hitty First Drafts”
Plato
, excerpt from the
Phaedrus
Dennis Baron “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies”
Anne Trubek, “Handwriting is History”
UNIT II: Technology, Objects,
and Identity (
Expository Profile
)
Readings:
Sherry
Turk
le, “The Objects of our Lives”
Verlager
“The Prosthetic Eye”
Pollock “The Internal Cardiac Defibrillator”
“How to Write a Profile Feature Article”
Two secondary sources
from a QCC library database
UNIT III:
Space and Society in Cyberspace
(
Argument
Essay
)
Readings:
Jonathan G.S. Koppell “No “There” There”
Esther Dyson’s “Cybersp
ace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”
Nicholas Carr “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
Heller, “I Like That You Like What I Like
”
A
rticles on Amazon.com reviews by Garth Hallburg and David Streitfield
Gerald Graff
“How to Write an Argument”
Two Secon
dary Sources of your choosing.