ENG 101-0028-Lec.1629-College Composition-MWF 10-10:50—131 BW
ENG 101-0027-Lec. 1628-College Composition-MWF 1:10-2-133 Barrows
Policies and Procedures
June K. Carter june.carter@umit.maine.edu 119 East Annex (207) 581-2312
Office Hours: Any time in my office MWF except for class and meetings—
preferably by appointment.
Course Description: ENG 101, College Composition, is a course in
academic inquiry, by which we mean using writing as a way to come to an
understanding of the complexities of questions or issues and of the text
through which those issues are presented. You can expect to spend the
semester reading, writing, and revising in response to both published and
unpublished texts. You will be required to use writing to compose, try out,
and revise responses to those readings, and to create arguments based on
your and your classmates’ responses.
University Context and Alternatives: Realizing that the ability to write
will be essential to everything during their college and subsequent
professional careers, the University requires its students to take and pass
ENG 101 or its equivalent—AP credit or the Honors Program. A few have
had prior experience in writing that allows them to earn transfer credit at the
start of the semester.
Course Outcomes for Eng 101: Eng 101 is meant to enable students to gain
experience and skill in the kinds or reading and writing valued at the
university. As you work with the course’s required readings through
discussions and through writings, you will enhance your understanding of
the roles that genre, context, evidence, and readers’ expectations play in the
creation of meaning from text. As you work with the writing you will be
assigned, you will learn to observe some of the conventions of academic
discourse: providing support for major and minor claims; beginning by
contextualizing the argument to come; creating a unifying structure of
reasoning and providing contextual clues to alert the reader to that line of
reasoning; providing necessary references to the works on which your text
depends.
By discussing these conventions in class, by observing them in the
writing you do, and by revising that work with the help of your instructor
and colleagues, you will come to an active, reflective understanding of some
of the ways in which academics use writing to create and shape meaning in
particular ways and for particular purposes.
Section Focus: Our major text is Writing Conventions by Min-Zhan Lu and
Bruce Horner, which includes multiple examples of academic writing and
many explanations and exercises to help students engage with and reflect on
these examples as well as their own writing. This practice should provide
students with a heightened understanding of academic discourse and
confidence in their abilities to participate in that discourse.
Texts and Other Materials:
Writing Conventions, Min Zhan-Lu and Bruce Horner
Rules for Writers, Diane Hacker, Sixth Editon
Your Dialectical Journal
Class Handouts
Attendance: You must come to class. You will be writing in class all
semester; it will matter in your overall grade. Since Attendance is a vital
condition for academic success, only three unexcused absences will be
allowed before your grade will be adversely affected. Late papers will lose a
grade each day they are late—example: if a paper deserved an A, but it was
two days late, the grade would go down to an A- to a B+. Your failure to
come to class, to participate fully, to do the assigned reading, or to have a
draft for class workshops adversely affects all the students in the class.
Because much explanation and information will be given in class, it is
vital that you participate in an alert and positive manner, ask and answer
questions when appropriate, be prepared for class and listen (and let the
instructor and other students listen) to one another. If you expect an
emergency phone call, tell the instructor, sit near the door, and take the
phone out in the hallway; otherwise turn off your cell phones and pagers in
class. There may be unannounced quizzes or writings in class and some
alterations to assignments.
Workload, Grades, and Portfolio: You will be writing all semester. Some
kind of writing is due almost every class session. Some of this writing will
be informal: responses to course texts and to classmates’ drafts, reflections
on your own drafts, notes about future plans for the writing you are engaged
with. Some of this writing will evolve into more formal academic essays. I
will award a grade for this work once you have completed a final draft and
will be willing to read revised work beyond that point only if you can
convince me through a separate document that your further work shows
substantial rethinking and reworking of text.
For successful course completion, you must submit a portfolio
containing your best work from the semester for review by another teacher.
Typically, portfolios contain two academic essays and a reflective
introduction. An alternative would be to submit multiple drafts of a single
essay with an introduction explaining why they best represent your work
over the semester. Once the outside teacher asserts that your portfolio has
earned at least the grade of C, I will be able to award the grade you have
earned through all the work of the course. Portfolios are due at class time on
the first class meeting of the last week of the semester—Mon. April 25.
Teachers reading your portfolio will grade it on the basis of the rubric
that we will be referring to all semester. By then you should have an
excellent sense of the basis on which your work will be assessed. If you do
not agree with the score the outside reviewers give your portfolio, you will
be allowed to write an appeal using the language of the rubric. If you wish,
you may include as part of your appeal essays other than the ones you first
submitted.
Writing Center and Writing Instructor’s Aide: Kendra Davis, IA, will be
in Rm. 119 EA Mondays from 10:10 through 2:50 to help you with your
writing. Although appointments would be preferred, drop-in visits are
welcome. The Department of English operates a Writing Center in 402
Neville Hall. The faculty and peer tutors who operate it are experienced in
working with writers. Feel free to visit them whenever you want help with
any stage of the writing process or whenever you need a sympathetic and
critical listener for what you have composed or call 581-3828 for an
appointment.
Disabilities: If you have a disability for which you wish to request an
accommodation, please contact Ann Smith, Director of Disabilities Services,
121 East Annex, 581-2319, as early as possible in the term.
Academic Honesty: The University of Maine’s Student Conduct Code
(available on-line) defines plagiarism as “the submission of another’s work
as one’s own, without adequate attribution” and defines cheating as “the act
or attempted act of deception by which a student seeks to misrepresent that
he/she has mastered information on an academic exercise that he/she has not
mastered.” Both practices are in violation of the Student Code. Students who
plagiarize in ENG 101 receive the grade of F on the plagiarized paper with
no chance to revise. Those who plagiarize the second time fail the course.
Instructors have the right in the latter case to report students to the
University’s Director of Community Standards, Rights, and Responsibilities.
The University’s Student Conduct Code insists that all members of the
University community have the responsibility “to ensure the safety of
persons engaging in those (academic) pursuits; to protect the free and
peaceful expression of ideas; and to assure the integrity of various academic
processes.” We will, of course, respect the Code in this class.
Course Conference: The Onward English folder will serve as the dispenser
of information and exchange of ideas and written work of this class and the
Onward Reading class. Please save personal responses and other than classoriented messages for First Class private e-mail. If you don’t have an
Onward English icon on First Class, tell me so that you will have one soon. I
expect you to check this site regularly and will hold you responsible for the
information I post on there. Throughout the semester, I will be posting drafts
of student papers for you to print out, annotate, and bring to class to work
on/with.
In Case of Emergency: In the event of an extended interruption of normal
classroom activities, the format for this course may be modified to enable its
completion within its programmed time frame. In that event, you will be
provided an addendum to this syllabus that will supersede this version.
Schedule of Assignments
Week 1—M Jan. 10—Introduction to course. Read and understand course
materials. Write in your Journal a brief connection you see between the
rubric and the work of high school and/or last semester. Is the kind of work
we are embarking on familiar or not?
Homework: Read through the course materials once more and send me a
question or comment on First Class. Also, read Baldwin ‘s “If Black English
Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?” pp. 262-265, underlining what
seems important.
W 1/12—Class discussion on underlined passages in Baldwin. Bring Journal
and Rules for Writers, too. You may incorporate some of Adler’s
suggestions on how to mark a book.
Homework: Write a one-page response to the Baldwin essay and send it to
me on the Onward English folder. Also read and underline Cisneros for
Friday. See if you can figure out what unifies the text.
F 1/14—Discuss the Cisneros annotations. Bring Journal and Rules for
Writers, too.
Homework: Over the long weekend, read parts of Ch. 2 on “Reading and
Rereading” in Writing Conventions (pp. 33-40 and 58-62). After that, look
at the passages underlined in either Baldwin or Cisneros and write a
paragraph reflecting on your underlining. Send these paragraphs to the
folder.
WEEK TWO
M 1/17 Classes do not meet in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
W 1/19 Discuss the paragraph responses received over the weekend and
also the Cisneros story.
Hwk: For Friday re-read Baldwin and look for connections between his
theory of language and what seems to be going on in the Cisneros story.
Take notes in your Journal.
F 1/21 Talk from notes about ways in which Cisneros may be understood
as a test case for Baldwin’s theory of language. Begin work on an essay in
response to this possibility.
Hwk: A complete draft of this essay is due by Sat. at three pm. Send them to
me on First Class and I will post two in the Onward English folder by three
on Sunday. Print them unless you have a laptop in class.
Week Three
M 1/24 Discuss the two student drafts posted on the folder.
Hwk: Begin second drafts, due Wednesday at class time.
W 1/26 Bring your second draft to class to write reflections on the changes
you made. Work in class on exercise on page 102 WC. Pass in second draft.
Hwk: Read “Active Reading” in RW pp. 346-357 and the Sample Paper and
“Arguments” pp. 358-380.
F 1/28 In class discussion and practice with rubric-related matters crucial to
the Baldwin/Cisneros essays (framing arguments, introducing texts, finding
ways to account for all of a text). Second drafts returned to begin work in
class of final drafts of this essay. Essays with accompanying reflections
(connecting drafts to the ENG 101 rubric) will be due by three Saturday
afternoon by First Class to me.
Week Four
M 1/31 Final drafts of Baldwin/Cisneros to be returned. Comments will
respond directly to reflections; they will also indicate a grade range.
Introductory work on Anyon, especially on the sense readers get of her
identity by the way her article begins.
HWK: Read and underline the Anyon text, noting whatever strikes you as
important to the position Anyon is presenting and to your own experience.
W 2/2 In your Journal and in class, discuss Anyon; try to get clarity about
her project; what did she do; how is she presenting her results? You will
have an informal and a formal assignment in response to Anyon.
Hwk: For the informal one, which is due Friday, decide how she would
describe some aspect of your recent schooling and how accurate would she
have been. (She is seeing through the lens of a theory. What would that
theory let her see? What would she miss?) Try to limit yourself to two
pages. Realize this is an informal response. You do not need to begin by
contextualizing Anyon. You can assume we all know (which we do) and just
write to make your point clear.
F 2/4 Compare drafts, comment on what you like in what you read. What
did this writing tell you about the limits of Anyon’s research? Next, talk
about Anyon’s theories and the identities of the schoolchildren she
researched. What orientation to language seems typical to each group?
What about Anyon herself? If, as Baldwin says, language is key to identity,
what can we guess about Anyon from the way she uses language? Which of
her four categories best describes her and her work?
HWK: Read Anyon again for Monday. This time begin thinking about where
you would locate her according to her own categories and why. Make
marginal notes for this.
Week Five
M 2/7 Informal drafts about what Anyon would see/not see in students’
schooling to be returned and discussed. Students to compare underlining
about which of the social classes Anyon describes best includes her work
and to pay careful attention to what indications Anyon’s text provides of the
way she approached her work. For Wednesday, students are to compose
drafts on where they would locate Anyon based on the kind of work that is
obvious in her article. These drafts are due in readable form if not quite
complete form at class time Wed.
W 2/9 Read and underline each others’ drafts. Pay particular attention to
presence and analysis of quotations. Make any changes that the peer review
may suggest and submit to me electronically by Thursday noon.
HWK: Read selected passages from the chapter on Audience (pp. 118-134).
Take notes on what you see Anyon doing to create an appropriate audience
for her work. Watch the English Folder for the two student papers I post
there. Print out and Annotate them.
F 2/11 Discuss the two student papers; talk about significant ways Anyon
creates her audience. Bring RW also.
Hwk: Second drafts of Anyon paper due Monday the 14th.
Week Six
M 2/14 Discuss the particular challenges this assignment poses in terms of
using sources. Students will write reflections on how they have handled
these challenges in the papers they are about to submit. They will also reflect
on how they created audiences for their papers within their opening
paragraphs. Reflections and papers due at class time or by 4 pm today.
W 2/16 Second drafts of Anyon paper to be returned. Students will have
the option of writing a third draft. Students to write in class about
connections between identity and discourse in Anyon’s text, in their own
texts, and in the written work created by students in each of the schools
Anyon investigates. Final copies due Friday.
F 2/18 Students will write reflections in connection with the rubric for final
drafts of Anyon paper. Introductory remarks on genre.
Hwk: Read chapter in Lu and Horner on genre for Monday.
Week Seven
M 2/21 At the end of class, Anyon papers returned with some idea of
grade range. Talk about genre. Perhaps apply Lu and Horner’s definitions
of genre to Cismeros and Anyon and Baldwin and student essays. Maybe use
the rubric in conjunction with these definitions. Choose a genre with which
you are very familiar and write a description of it—with illustrative
examples—to send to the Folder by 4 pm Tuesday. Then check the folder
before class Wed.
W 2/23 Discuss genre examples posted yesterday. Begin work on genre
transformation paper. Choose one text studied so far this semester (Baldwin,
Cisneros, Anyon) and rewrite at least one page of it in a new genre. These
are to be submitted to my First Class address by 4 Thursday afternoon.
Several will be posted on the Folder by 8 pm Thursday.
F 2/25 Students will discuss the genre transformations posted last evening.
Work in class explaining what different demands the new genres make on
audience and what different purposes they would be likely to achieve. Bring
journals to pass in to me by 4 pm today. Introductory work with Trask,
which is to be read and annotated over Break.
SPRING BREAK
Week Eight
M 3/14 Pick up your Journals in the box by my office door in time for class!
Students will share annotations of Trask. Spend half of class time beginning
to write straightforward summaries of what she is saying that history should
be. Why is she upset about the history written about Hawaii? You may
begin working in pairs, but each person needs to submit his/her own
account. Summaries due to the folder by 4 pm Tuesday. Check the folder
by 8 pm.
W 3/16 Class discussion of the paraphrases of what Trask is saying. We’ll
work to find a paraphrase we all can accept. Next, we’ll look at Trask in
connection with Baldwin. Is her text a reasonable test case of what Baldwin
is insisting on as the connection between language and identity? In what
ways do her insights expand on or differ from his? Please write a page or
two in response to this question and send to me on FC by 4 pm Thursday.
Everyone check the Folder for the samples I have posted.
F 3/18 Discuss the texts posted electronically on the Folder about Trask’s
and Baldwin’s sense of language. Expand and revise your drafts for 6 pm
Sat. and send them to me on FC. I will post several on the folder by 6 pm
Sunday.
Week Nine
M 3/ 21 We’ll discuss the texts posted electronically on Trask’s and
Baldwin’s sense of language and its relation to identity, making references
to texts posted yesterday.
Class discussion begins on Trask and Genre. We’ll note the many
genres present in her text and make preliminary notations about how she is
using them. Expand these notations and send them to me on First Class by 4
pm. Wednesday. Several will be posted on the folder later that day.
W 3/23 Talk about implications of Trask’s use of genres. Use class time to
begin writing an essay on why Trask uses the genres she does in her text
about Hawaiian history. A draft is due at class time Friday.
F 3/25 Peer critiques of essays today. To be submitted electronically to me
by 4 this afternoon. Reflections to be attached. Two will be posted on the
Folder Sunday evening.
Week Ten
M 3/28 Discussion of essays posted last evening. Particular attention to
seamlessness of integration of discussion of form to discussion of meaning
and purpose. Second drafts due at class time Wed. Also bring first drafts to
class.
W 3/30 Peers to read both drafts and make notes on changes they see and
explain whether or not these changes improve the essays. These go back to
the writer who makes own decision. Have them in my office mailbox 119
EA by 4 this afternoon.
F 4/1 Essays to be returned. Time in class to work. Discussion of
challenges this particular essay poses for citations and bibliography, MLA
Style. (See RW, pages 568 and 501-509) Final copies due by Sunday at 6.
Week Eleven
M 4/4 Talk about genre of the academic essay and use the chapter on genre
(WC) to list characteristics of texts by Anyon and Trask. Use the rubric to
consider traits of essays written by students, Students will read and annotate
Gould for Wed.
W 4/6 Discuss Gould’s essay, determining purpose and audience. Decide
whether this is an academic essay in the same sense as Anyon’s and Trask’s.
For Friday, students will compose a description of the genre of an academic
essay that will include Anyon and Trask and their own work and might
include Gould. This can be informal—about two pages.
F 4/8 Students will sit in small groups to discuss and compare genre
descriptions of academic essays. Keep in mind the genre traits insisted on by
Lu and Horner. Begin thinking about your reflective introductions. Bring all
your coursework to class Monday.
Week Twelve
M 4/11 Talk about genre descriptions. Read through your own description
and those of your group and help each other decide which essays to include
in their portfolios and why, working with the rubric throughout. Each will
write a draft of a reflective introduction for Wednesday.
W 4/13 Students will again sit in pairs to read each other’s introductions
and see if they do justice to the works included and/or if they point to
changes that need to be made in the essays included.
F 4/15 Drafts of Introductions are due by 4 today. Evaluations.
Week Thirteen
4/18, 4/20, 4/22 Portfolio Workshops
Week Fourteen
M 4/25 This is the day all portfolios are to be handed in.
W 4/27 Maine Day—No classes.
F 4/29 No class. Come to 119 EA to see your portfolio.
Happy Summer Vacation