Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology
Course Syllabus
ENGL1113: FRESHMAN COMPOSITION I
ENGL 1113 focuses on the writing process and strategies for improving writing. The
assignments reflect the fundamentals of expository writing with an emphasis on structure,
organization, and style. The course offers a brief review of grammar and punctuation, a study of
sentence structure, and practice writing paragraphs and compositions. Type of Course: Theory
Credit Hours: 3 hours of theory per semester: 48 hours total per semester
Class length: Full semester
Class format: Traditional
Required synchronous meetings: N/A
Pre-requisites: Completed zero level English if minimal entrance exams scores are not met.
Instructor Name: Sareca Wilson
Instructor Phone: (918) 293-4844
Office: NCAT 103F
Instructor email: sareca.wilson@okstate.edu
Preferred Method of Contact: Email (I will respond within 24-48 hours except on weekends
and holidays).
Instructor’s Office Hours (Central Time Zone):
Monday, Wednesday: 10:20-11:20 and 2:30-4:30
Tuesday and Thursday: 10-10:30, 2:00-3:30
Friday: 10:20-11:20
Division Name: Arts and Sciences
Division Phone: (918) 293-4768
REQUIRED TEXT, REFERENCES, AND MATERIALS
Texts:
Traditional textbook: McWhorter, Kathleen T. Successful College Writing, 6e, Bedford/St.
Martin’s. (Approximate cost to student ($95).
ISBN: 9781457670770
eBook option: Kathleen T. McWhorter, Bedford e-Book to Go for Successful College Writing,
6e, Bedford St. Martin’s (Approximate cost to student: $45.99). The access code can be
purchased through our bookstore or you can order your own.
ISBN: 9781457684333
References: None required
Tools/Materials: Device to store documents (jump drive, etc); an 8X10 composition notebook
for journal assignments (no spirals, please), access to computer with Microsoft
Office 2010 or newer.
Estimated Cost for Materials: Text and writing supplies: Approx. $70-90 depending on new
or used editions.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of the course, students should
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Course Objectives
1. Construct documents using Microsoft
Office.*
2. Record/save course work on computer
systems.*
3. Compose written documents, using
processes that combine critical
thinking and rhetorical strategies.*
4. Construct written documents using
standard grammar, punctuation,
spelling, and a variety of sentence
types.*
Assessment of Objectives
Construct essays using Microsoft Word.
Record/save course assignments using the
Microsoft Word and the Online Classroom.
Compose essays that demonstrate an effective
writing process.
Construct essays which reflect correct usage
of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Write
essays which employ a variety of sentence
types and structures in clear, concise, and
forceful sentences.
Create essays which demonstrate a clear
purpose and sense of audience.
Construct essays using MLA Style.
5. Create written documents that show a
clear purpose and sense of audience.*
6. Construct documents using MLA
Style.*
7. Apply structural elements in
Apply structural elements to essays to affect
compositions to affect
meaning.
meaning/content.*
Aspects of the course objective assessments may be used in the university’s assessment of
student learning. If applicable, an asterisk (*) above indicates this course is used in the
university assessment program.
COURSE ACTIVITIES
In this course students will
 Participate in discussions of readings from the course text.
 Review basic grammar and usage.
 Engage in the purposes and processes of writing, including prewriting, drafting,
proofreading, and manuscript preparation.
 Participate in in-class activities in a writing laboratory setting which includes sharing
work by reading out loud to other students.
 Compose essays that include description/narration, illustration, classification, and literary
analysis.
 Maintain a writer’s journal to be used as a source of ideas and inspiration and as a
learning log for class.
 Demonstrate a sense of community responsibility and a work ethic that is based on
consistent class attendance and punctuality, peer evaluations, and group activities.
 Compile a portfolio of work produced throughout the course.
 Use online classroom as supplemental material and an alternative method of delivery of
course material.
Grades will be based on the quality and completion of these tasks:
OSUIT
Class Involvement: Class participation, community involvement,
Grading Scale
unannounced writings, etc.
10%
A = 90.00 - 100.00
The Writer’s Journal........
10%
B = 80.00 – 89.99
Descriptive/Narrative Essay
13%
C = 70.00 - 79.99
D = 60.00 - 69.99
F = 00.00 - 59.99
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Illustrative Essay .............
13%
Classification Essay.........
13%
Literary Essay ..................
13%
*Writer’s Portfolio ..........
20%
Other Assignments…………..
8%
*Core Assessment: Student must score a 70% to pass the assessment.
Because this is a composition course, grading is more subjective than other coursework—it’s not
like a true/false test or multiple choice study guide. Grading is done with a more holistic
approach—essays are evaluated on a set of criteria that are required for good communication.
The degree to which students do that is what the grade is based on. A set of criteria is available
at the online classroom. It’s called “What is an A, B, C, or D Paper?”
Essays or journal writing submitted to previous or other classes cannot be resubmitted for this
class. The Dropbox at the online classroom is setup to detect situations where this occurs.
Turnitin.com is the plagiarism detection software that shows if a student has electronically
submitted an essay that he/she has turned in to a previous composition class. If Turnitin.com
shows that this has occurred, the student will not be given any credit for that work.
No extra credit allowed for this course.
AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT (ADA)
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, each student with a disability is responsible
for notifying the University of his/her disability and requesting accommodations. If you think
you have a qualified disability and need special accommodations, you should notify the
instructor and request verification of eligibility for accommodations from the Office of
Academic Accommodations/LASSO Center. Please advise the instructor of your disability as
soon as possible, and contact The LASSO Center, to ensure timely implementation of
appropriate accommodations. Faculty have an obligation to respond when they receive official
notice of a disability but are under no obligation to provide retroactive accommodations. To
receive services, you must submit appropriate documentation and complete an intake process
during which the existence of a qualified disability is verified and reasonable accommodations
are identified. The LASSO Center is located on the 3rd floor of the Noble Center. You may
call 918.293.4855 for more information or fax documentation to918.293.4853.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
Academic dishonesty or misconduct is neither condoned nor tolerated at OSUIT. Any student
found guilty of academic dishonesty or misconduct shall be subject to disciplinary action.
Academic dishonesty and/or misconduct includes, but is not limited to, the following actions:
(1) Plagiarism: the representation of previously written, published, or creative work as one’s
own; (2) Unauthorized collaboration on projects; (3) Cheating on examinations; (4)
Unauthorized advance access to exams; (5) Fraudulent alteration of academic materials; (6)
Knowing cooperation with another person in an academically dishonest undertaking. Students
are required to actively protect their work against misuse by others. For details, refer to The
OSUIT Student Handbook (Student Rights and Responsibilities Governing Student Behavior)
available online at http://www.osuit.edu/academics/forms/student_rights_responsibility.pdf
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AUTHORIZED TOOLS
This composition class is focused on writing that does not require research. However, if the
student wants to include a researched fact or example to illustrate a point in an appropriate type
of writing (like the literary analysis or other expository type essays), the student can use online
tools to help with documentation (i.e. easybib.com).
TESTING
There will be no tests in this class.
STUDENT CONDUCT
Students are expected to cooperate in maintaining a classroom environment conducive to
learning. Courteous and respectful behavior will be expected from all students each day. All
pagers, cellular phones, CD and MP3 players should be turned off. The use of tobacco in any
form in university buildings is prohibited.
UNIVERSITY POLICY ON ABSENCES
A primary component of OSUIT's Mission is “to prepare and sustain a diverse student body as
competitive members of a world-class workforce.” Regular and consistent attendance not only
aids in academic success, dependable attendance is a requirement in today's real-world
employment; therefore, regular and consistent attendance is a requirement in all OSUIT courses.
Definition of Attendance/Being Absent and/or Tardy:
Absent means failing to attend all or a significant portion of a class or lab session. Students may
be excused if missing class for situations such as, but not limited to
1.participating in a required university activity such as a field trip
2.fulfilling a military obligation
3.a mandatory court appearance
4.death in the immediate family
5.extreme illness or accident to oneself or immediate family.
Instructors, at their discretion, may require proof of such events. It is the responsibility of the
student to contact and inform the instructor and/or department in advance of such excused
absences whenever possible.
Tardy means arriving late to class as defined by the individual class instructor. Faculty, at their
discretion, may equate three tardies to equal one absence.
Procedures
Early Intervention:
A. Any student who misses 10% of an individual course (or earlier at faculty discretion)
during a regular fifteen-week semester, or the equivalent portion of time in a shorter
session, will have their name submitted by that course instructor to the OSUIT Early
Alert System for retention intervention.
B. At the point the Early Alert is issued, the student must meet with their assigned
faculty advisor or designated faculty/staff member within seven (7) academic
calendar days for counseling on how to improve their attendance and academic
success.
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Excessive Absences:
The University reserves the right to administratively withdraw any student from an individual
course who misses 20% of that course, whether excused or unexcused, and, in the opinion of the
instructor, that student does not have a reasonable opportunity to be successful in the course.
Students should be aware any of the following may impact their financial aid:
1. Being administratively withdrawn from a course
2. Dropping a course
3. Their last date of attendance in a course
Please see OSUIT Policy 2-021 for full details and procedures.
INSTRUCTOR'S POLICY ON ABSENCES
I will take roll every day. On some days, we will have in-class writings /participation points to
go with the day’s discussion. If you are not in class for these, you miss the points for that
activity and these cannot be made up. Also, those who attend class regularly have the benefit
of knowing about the assignments in-depth. If you must miss class, you are responsible for any
missed work or assignments made for that day (except for participation points). Contact me, or
one of your classmates, before the next scheduled meeting so you will be prepared for the next
class. Also, check our online classroom for timely announcements regarding class and
assignments.
OTHER LAB AND CLASSROOM POLICIES
I use the online classroom as a supplement to the classroom setting. Stay in touch with course
assignments and events by going to this site daily. Make sure you check your email frequently
because sometimes I try to get in touch with you through this tool.
COURSE CALENDAR: FALL 2015
This is subject to change, which will be announced via Online Classroom and/or in-class
discussions. Midnight deadlines for any online work for this class are 11:59 p.m.
Week
1
Date
Aug 31Sep 4
Topics and Competencies
 Introduction of Course Syllabus
 Keeping a Journal
 Prewriting: Audience and Purpose
 Pre-writing: Strategies
 Narrative Writing (Essay 1)
 Planning the Essay
Homework Deadlines, Readings
 Chapters 2, 5
2
Sep 7-11
3
Sep 14-18
4
Sep 21-25
 Using Description (Essay 1)
 Drafting
 Critiquing the Essay: Self –critique and
revision
 Prewriting due Sep 21
 First Draft due Sep 25
 Chapter 9
5
Sep 28-Oct
2
 Critiquing the Essay: Peer Feedback and
revision
 Editing
 Advanced Draft Sep 28
 Critiques Sep 28-30
 Essay 1 due Oct 2
 Chapter 12
 Chapters 7
 Journal 1 due Sep 18
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6
Oct 5-9
 MLA Formatting
 Illustrative Essay (Essay 2)
 Drafting and Organization: Introduction
and conclusion, thesis, topic sentences
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Oct 12-16
 Peer Feedback/Revision and Editing
8
Oct 19-23
 Essay 2 due Oct 21
 Chapter 17
9
Oct 26-30
 Using Classification/Division Writing
(Essay 3)
 Organization: Thesis, sub-points, etc.
(chart)
 Drafting
 Self-critique
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Nov 2-6
 Peer Feedback/ Revision
 Final Edit Essay 3
 Advanced Draft and
Critiques Essay 3 Nov 4
 Final Draft Essay 3 due Nov
6
11
Nov 9-13
12
Nov 16-20
 Writing about Literature (Essay 4)
 Gwendolyn Brooks, Kate Chopin, and
Ernest Hemingway
 Literary Analysis Assignment
 Prewriting and First Draft
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Nov 23-27
 Revision and final edit.
 Chapter 25: Assigned reading
selections
 Handouts/external links.
 Journal 4 Nov 13
 First Draft and Prewriting
due Nov 18
 Critiques Nov 20
 Essay 4 due Nov 23








Chapter 14
Journal 2 due Oct 5
Chapters 6, 7, 8
Prewriting due Oct 9
First draft Essay 2 due Oct 14
Advanced Draft Oct 16
Critiques Essay 2 Oct 16
Chapter 10
 Prewriting due Oct 26
 Journal 3 due Oct 28
 First Draft due Oct 30
THANKSGIVING BREAK NOV 25-29
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Nov 30Dec 4
 Portfolio Project
 Revising Work
 Reflective Essay
 Chapter 26
 Journal 5 Dec 2
15
Dec 7-11
 Portfolio Project
 Reflective Essay
 Portfolio Project due Dec 9
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INSTRUCTOR'S LATE WORK POLICY
When a deadline is set for an assignment, this means it is due at the beginning of the class period,
unless otherwise directed by me. If you are unable to turn in the assignment (regardless of reason),
your work is considered late. Below is a coupon that can be used one time for either a late essay or
a late journal. If you choose to use the coupon, you must turn in the assignment you are using it for
before the next essay or journal is due. Once the coupon is used, any other late work will be
given a zero. This coupon cannot be used for the portfolio. If you do not use this coupon for late
work, you may redeem it at the end of the trimester (attach to last essay assigned) for two points
added on to your final grade.
Late Coupon
May be redeemed for one late assignment OR two points on final grade.
Assignment__________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
(student signature)
________________________________________________________________
(instructor signature)
________________________________________________________________
(date)
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SPECIFIC TASKS AND ASSIGNMENTS
All written work (journals, prewriting, drafts, etc.) will be submitted to the Dropbox at the online
classroom.
Dropbox:
All written work will be submitted electronically through the online classroom website via the online
classroom Dropbox by posted deadline (unless the site is temporarily unavailable; only then should
you email assignments to me).
Essay Assignments:
Essays from different genres (descriptive/narrative, illustrative, classification/division, analysis/
writing about literature) will be assigned over the semester. Readings from textbook will correspond
with these written assignments and supplemental assignments/readings will be available online to
correspond with the textbook readings.
All essay assignments require that the student do a series of processes (prewriting, drafting,
revisions, etc.) to get to the final product. Below is a definition of the processes (please label each
accordingly):
Prewriting: All the work done to choose and refine topic, to figure out purpose and audience,
to discover ideas, to plan the essay. Check the textbook chapter on prewriting to get a good
understanding of the levels of prewriting that need to be carried out for an assignment.
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First Draft: This is the rough draft that is the result of prewriting. In other words, once you
get the ideas and plan for the essay, this is putting down in writing in essay form—beginning,
middle, and end in multiple paragraphs.
Advanced Draft: This is the substantially revised version of the first draft. Ideally, you
allow some time (at least 24-48 hours) between first draft and advanced draft. This will
make revision more significant because distance (the time in between) gives you more clarity
about what you’ve written. See chapter in textbook on revision for some guidelines (also see
note below on revision). It is also the draft that you will upload to classmates for their
critiques of it.
Final Draft: This is the draft that has been revised again after critiques and also as a result of
final editing. You may not have as many revisions for this draft, but it must be clearly
improved over advanced draft and correctly formatted (see discussion below about MLA
formatting). This is the draft I will give the final grade on for an essay assignment.
Comparison Draft: This is a document that is created when you or I compare two versions of
the same essay to show how much revision has been made.
Then later in the semester, when we are working on the portfolio project, you will be introduced to
additional processes:
Portfolio Draft: This is the draft that will be revised yet again for the portfolio project due at
the end of the semester. You will take my comments from the graded final draft as well as
your own ideas for improving essay and make substantial revisions.
You must participate in most of these processes if you expect work to be graded. (For instance, I
will not grade a final draft as a final draft if no first draft has been submitted. First drafts and final
drafts that appear the same (or almost the same) will be graded as a first draft only. Therefore, you
will receive first draft points instead of final draft points—a difference of 10 points versus 100
points.)
Note, revision means changing the content to an essay to make it better. Just changing or correcting
punctuation and grammar is editing and not the same thing; just changing words is not revision.
Therefore, when I grade the final draft, I’m looking for real revision in the content from the previous
draft. To not make revisions to every draft you submit could drastically affect your grade. So, make
sure you participate in all writing processes that lead to the final draft. The writing process is the
focus of this class, and I expect you to practice it.
Also, I try to provide feedback on the advanced draft of your work (except for the literary analysis
essay) as long as you upload the draft to the Dropbox by posted deadlines and participate in the
group critiques, you will get this feedback from me. Graded final drafts will be returned generally
between 1-2 weeks after assignment has been posted.
Finally, all writing assignments will reflect the core objectives of the course, and all essays will be
typed in the MLA format. This is a special formatting for setting up page numbers, headings,
required font size and style, spacing, etc. More information on the required formatting is available at
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the online classroom; please read this document very carefully as it has explicit instructions on
what to do. I expect every essay turned in to be correctly formatted.
Electronic Journal:
In addition to the four essays, five sets of electronic journal writings are assigned. The main purpose
of the electronic journal is to help students with the practice of writing and to generate ideas for
essay assignments. Additional benefits of this journal are an outlet for expression and problem
solving not only writing issues but problems encountered in one’s own life. More information on this
is at the assignment module at the online classroom.
Portfolio:
Late in the trimester, you will be turning an electronic portfolio (which cannot be turned in late,
not even with the late coupon). This is a competency-based evaluation of writing done this term
and is the course assessment. The portfolio will need to score the equivalent to 70%, or it will not
pass this assessment. For this electronic portfolio, students will be revising essays already written
during the semester, and writing an essay for the portfolio which will analyze and reflect upon the
essay writing experience of Comp I. In addition to these required documents, there is an option of
including other writing done outside of this composition class.
Discussions:
Other assignments may include discussions. NOTE: My role is as facilitator—setting up the
materials and topics for discussion and intervening when the discussion gets off track or when I want
to challenge your thinking. In other words, this is a discussion for the students. For a discussion
assignment, this requires not only posting your ideas but also responding to others’ ideas. I require
at least five discussions/posts per discussion assignment to get full discussion points (This
includes the student’s initial post and discussing with four other classmates).
One other requirement I will make is that when assigned a discussion, you will need to post your
initial response within 24 hours of the discussion being available. Then you will need to respond to
others’ discussions 6 hours before the discussion closes. This gives everyone time to read and
respond and have an actual discussion.
Finally, discussion means having a conversation, not simply agreeing or disagreeing with one
another. Students must back up statements with evidence.
The following is the general idea for awarding points for a discussion:
50 percent for initial response that meets discussion requirements
40 percent for responses to classmates (a minimum of four response to different classmates)
10 percent for completion of assignment in a timely manner
OPTIONS FOR WHEN OSUIT WEBSITE IS DOWN
In the event that the online classroom is not accessible through our OSUIT.edu website, students
can always access it through the OSU-Stillwater main campus site. The following connections
below will help with that.
Online Classroom: http://oc.okstate.edu
Email: http://mail.okstate.edu