English 101: Writing and Critical Inquiry
Summer 2010
There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as do exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as
they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.
~Jessamyn West
Contact Information:
Instructor: Michael Bell (Just call me Michael.)
Days/Times/Rooms: Mon, Tues: 12:00-1:40 Bond Hall 108; Wed: 12:00-1:40 Humanities 104
Office: Humanities 357
Office Hours: TBA
Email: night.gardener@gmail.com (Use this email address for all correspondence.)
Course Overview: English 101 is a course centered on written critical response to essayistic texts (texts that
explore ideas). Such response goes well beyond for/against reactions, opinions, or reports. Authentic academic
writing builds knowledge by extending the ideas of other writers and scholars through your own observation and
research. In other words, “composition” can be understood as “recomposition”: a collaborative process involving
close reading, critical thinking, and analytic writing intended to identify and explore the complexities of a given
subject. To help you develop your facility with this process, English 101 will provide you with instruction and
practice in the key compositional skills and intellectual moves of critical inquiry:
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Reading closely to explore the implications of texts given specific interpretive contexts, rhetorical situations,
and reading communities. As readers and writers ourselves, we’ll be examining the reasons for our thinking
about various texts, and explaining how our perspectives emerge from our knowledge and experience. In
understanding what other writers are saying as well as we can, and acknowledging our own position in relation
to what is being said, we reach a point where we can begin building on what we’ve read.

Writing to extend, evolve, and forward ideas. Such writing is substantially different than writing that
summarizes information or asserts opinion. Authentic academic writing is a process of reading, thinking, and
research: writing that creates knowledge rather than simply reports it.
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Communicating ideas clearly and effectively in writing of analytical precision. We’ll be moving well beyond
the “listing” structure typical of the five-paragraph essay to develop warranted connections and ideas free of
untested claims and logical fallacies.
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Writing to make effective use of sources. Rather than simply dropping quotes, we’ll be making use of evidence
and extending ideas, thereby entering the “academic conversation” that defines the endeavor of the university.
English 101 is therefore a course about writing and critical inquiry. You will emerge from this class not only a better
reader and writer, but a better thinker as well, equipped with the skills in analysis and communication you’ll need as
you continue to develop informed perspectives on this complex world.
Course Texts: Our texts for the course will be chosen to fit the specific people in the class. I’ll collect
information about your interests and then immediately gather a range of appropriate texts. I’ll format this
approximately 100-page collection as a .pdf file you will be required to print and bring to every class for discussion.
All the required reading will probably be contained in this file, but there may be additional short readings if I come
across something interesting and relevant.
Course Requirements: I'll be challenging you with a variety of connected assignments:
Readings/Reading Quizzes: I expect you to come to class having prepared assigned reading thoroughly.
The reading is key to the course, and your success is absolutely dependent on your ability to prepare
assigned reading before we come together for class meetings. "Preparing a reading" in a college course is an
act of composition. This means that you’ve read deliberately, carefully, thoughtfully, with specific purposes,
within a specific reading community. To reward such careful reading, I will be giving occasional reading
quizzes intended to consolidate the ideas and features of given readings. These reading quizzes, taken
together, will count as an informal writing assignment and will be applied to your final course grade.
Formal Essay: Each of you will write one formal critical essay of 7-10 pages which will emerge from an
ongoing series of required informal writing assignments, workshops, and drafts. The formal essay
assignment will be a form of contextual analysis requiring documented research into a specific field, history,
or cultural site.
In addition to the formal essay, near the end of the course you will write a reflective essay that will emerge
from a careful consideration of your work in the class. This reflective essay will allow you to showcase,
document, and critically examine your own writing and the cognitive and technical processes that produced
it. This essay will be included in a final project portfolio which will include a final revision of your essay.
Informal Writing: Much of your work will be exploratory writing. These informal assignments will
warm you up for the heavy lifting that the formal essay will require. There will be at least six informal
writing assignments of 2-5 pages in length. This writing will reflect the basic goals of writing for the course:
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Writing to generate ideas from reflection on personal experience.
Writing to extend other writer’s ideas through applied research.
Writing to respond to other people’s writing creatively or critically.
Writing to understand and reflect on your own writing.
A key element of these informal writings will be response to the reading assignments. You’ll be
incorporating your reading in virtually everything you write.
Course Notebook: Because so much of what we do in English 101 involves attention to the rigorous
process that precedes a finished piece of writing, I will be asking you to keep a notebook which will
document your own path through the course. Every handout and everything you write in connection with an
assignment for this class must be included in this notebook. It should help you stay focused and organized
as you work through your drafts and other work, and it will become a necessary resource from which to
draw when you begin your portfolio and reflective essay. It will also help me to understand your writing
better by letting me into some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into every piece of writing and allow
me to reward you for the effort you put into the class. The notebook will be a significant part of your final
grade; start collecting now.
Discussion Boards: As part of our on-going academic conversation, and given the long four-day break
between classes we’ll have each week, I will be requiring participation in the web-based discussion board I
maintain at http://mikalpbell.proboards78.com/index.cgi. I'll post weekly prompts regarding some aspect
of our current reading and discussion in order to stimulate our conversation and help you to generate ideas.
You’ll be writing in response to both the weekly prompts and your classmates’ responses to them. You’ll
also be posting all of your required writing for everyone in the class to read. The online discussions are a
vital part of the coursework—do not neglect them.
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Final Project/Presentation: About midway through the course you’ll begin the preparation of a final
project. This project will apply some aspect of the reading and writing you do toward work in another
realm: art, experimentation, fieldwork, journalism, or design. (Other options will probably come up as our
discussions proceed.) You’ll be presenting the results of this project in class during our last week. The
project will be weighted fairly heavily in your final grade, so there will be several checkpoints to make sure
you’re effectively underway.
Portfolio: Your written “final” for the course will comprise about twenty pages of the work that best
demonstrates your skills in analytic writing and inquiry. This portfolio will include revisited and revised
work both formal and informal, documentation of your project, and your reflective essay. I will provide you
with further specifics regarding the format of this collection later, but expect MLA conventions.
Conferences: You will be meeting with me outside of class for about twenty minutes on several occasions. Most of
the time these conversations will focus on specific assignments, but I will always be open to discuss anything you
wish. Your participation in conferences is vital to your success in the class, allowing us the kind of one-to-one work
that the classroom doesn’t typically allow.
Evaluation: Evaluation is one of the most difficult aspects of any writing class. All of us have a “writer’s ego” that
can sometimes obstruct the fair appraisal of our own work (and misplaced confidence can be as great an obstacle as
unnecessary insecurity). Even when relatively free of such obstructions, students and teachers often have very
different ideas about what “good” writing is, and the resultant conflict can hinder learning if not carefully negotiated.
From my point of view, evaluation can be another opportunity for learning something about the craft of writing, and I
hope to show that there really is no such thing as “good” writing in any absolute sense. Evaluation depends on
specific rhetorical situations and assignment requirements: what may be highly successful in one context might be
unacceptable in another. My hope is that evaluation works to make you a more effective writer, better able to
appraise and revise your own work within specific rhetorical contexts.
To emphasize this function of evaluation, I use a descriptive system rather than the traditional A-F grades, which
typically suggest final judgements rather than suggestions for revision. Any piece of writing may be revised for
reevaluation at any point up to the eighth week of the course, and any piece of writing may be revised multiple times.
(Attach all previous drafts to new work when you turn it in for reevaluation.) These designations do NOT just
correspond to traditional grades—they describe the present state of the work as it undergoes revision:
Strong: A "Strong" grade means that the work exceeds the expectations of the course, fulfilling a given
assignment with power and originality. A "strong" piece of writing will have a clear, significant point of
inquiry, powerfully integrated evidence, a keen awareness of audience and genre, impeccable logic and
structural coherence, and language of exceptional range and clarity. Given the difficulty of such writing,
“strong” grades are usually the product of one or more careful revisions.
Effective: An "Effective" grade means that the work meets the basic expectations of the given assignment
criteria and college-level writing, however such work will demonstrate minor inconsistencies in logic and
lapses in structural coherence, minor gaps in evidence and analysis, and/or ideas that have not been
adequately developed or have a “received” (borrowed) quality.
In Progress: An “In Progress” grade would indicate that the work just barely meets the expectations
outlined in the assignment criteria. Essays receiving this designation usually exhibit obvious gaps and
deficiencies in idea development, structural coherence, argument, and evidence.
Incomplete: “Incomplete” means that a key part of the assignment is missing and no grade has been
recorded. Work that receives an “Incomplete” designation must be brought up to minimal requirements
through further revision BEFORE the final project is due.
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Final course grades will be determined as follows.
To receive an A- or higher, you must earn a “Strong” on three informal writing assignments, the formal
essay, and the course notebook; “Strong” performance on the discussion boards, and “Strong” on both the
portfolio and the project/presentation, no late, unacceptable, or missing work, attendance at all conferences,
no more than two absences from class. No more than one piece of informal writing may be left “In
Progress”; all other work must be “Effective.”
B or higher requires a “Strong” on two informal pieces, “Effective” on the formal essay and the course
notebook; “Effective” performance on the discussion boards, “Effective” or better on the portfolio, no late,
unacceptable, or missing work, attendance at all conferences, no more than two absences from class. No
more than three pieces of informal writing may be “In Progress”; all other work must be “Effective.”
C or higher requires “Effective” on four informal pieces, “In Progress” work on the formal essay, an
“Effective” notebook, “Effective” performance on the discussion boards, an “Effective” or better on the
portfolio, no late, unacceptable, or missing work, no more than four absences. All other work must be at
least “In Progress.”
C- requires that all informal writing be completed, “In Progress” or better on the formal essay, and “In
Progress” performance on the discussion boards, portfolio, and the course notebook. No more than 4
absences.
A failing grade for the course is possible. If you’ve missed five classes after the drop deadline, you risk
having to re-take the course, even if most your work is "strong." You may also have to re-take the course if
you neglect to turn in ALL required assignments.
Explanation of "or higher": Anything beyond a given category, however small, will result in a jump to the next
highest grade: C+ to B-, B to B+ and so forth. Those of you poring over this for loopholes and shortcuts are
welcome; the system is designed to allow you to focus your revisions on what you need for the grade you want. The
system I use is designed to allow you the highest grade possible going into the final portfolio evaluation and to allow
you the most benefit from the course without penalizing you excessively for “In Progress” work. I want to recognize
and reward process as well as product.
A word of caution: This system has usually allowed students who really wanted an “A” to earn one, but it has been
wickedly surprising to the careless or forgetful owing to the course notebook and online discussion requirements.
Both of these things you just do—your engaged participation is all that I evaluate. However there’s no way to make
up for lost opportunities for discussion online, and slamming together a decent notebook during the 9 th week of the
quarter is virtually impossible.
Due dates: Much of what we do and talk about in class coincides with the writing homework. If you haven’t
completed the work, what we do in class will be fairly confusing. You won’t be able to participate effectively, and
you won’t get much benefit from the discussions. You’ll just sit there staring around and trying to fake it. Therefore
please do everything you possibly can to turn in your work on time. If there is somewhere you have to be on the day
an assignment is due, tell me about it beforehand so that we can work something out. (Usually this means turning in
an assignment early.) I will of course allow extensions in the event of disaster, but please be advised that printer
malfunction or “out of paper” errors aren’t included in this category. To encourage you to keep up with the pace of
the course, I’m going to reduce a late assignment’s grade as per the following:
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
One-two days late: maximum designation possible would be "Effective."
Three days late: maximum designation possible would be "In Progress"
(Continued…)
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Note that these are regular calendar days, not class days. I’ll read and respond to work turned in more than four days
late, but I won’t enter a grade into the book other than an indication that you’ve completed the task. Nevertheless, all
of your work must be turned in before I can give you a passing grade for the class. In other words, you couldn’t just
skip an assignment because it was a week overdue. You would still have to complete it and turn it in.
I don’t want to be a cop; I just want you to get as much as you possibly can out of the course. If I let things slide for
you, all I’m doing is leading you toward a “K” grade (incomplete) as things pile up and pile up until there’s no way
for you to do it all. (And in my experience, most “K” grades eventually become “F” grades.)
Course Schedule: I’ll keep the course schedule online: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/~bellm/101schedule.html.
(It won’t be ready until I settle on the readings, but should be up by the end of our first week.) Check the schedule
often to be aware of the inevitable changes I’ll have to make during the course. Barring some kind of computer
disaster that prevents me from making an update, the due-dates on the on-line schedule are the up-to-the-minute last
word, so that’s where to go if you aren’t sure when something is due.
Attendance policy: Regular, punctual attendance is vital if you are going to get the most out of the course. Missed
conferences and arrivals at class more that thirty minutes late will count as absences. I will consider you late for class
if you arrive more than ten minutes after class starts, and three late arrivals will count as one absence. After five
absences, I will recommend that you withdraw from the class.
A few words about plagiarism: Plagiarism is when you claim someone else's ideas or writing as your own,
knowingly or not. It also occurs if you allow someone else to claim your words or ideas as their own or if you
represent finished work of your own from a previous course as original work in a following course. The academic
consequences of plagiarism can be severe, ranging from a failing course-grade to suspension, yet plagiarism usually
results from student carelessness, unfamiliarity with the expectations of a given discourse community, or ignorance
of citation conventions. We will therefore be going over proper citation conventions during the course to ensure that
you know exactly how to differentiate your own work from the work of others in your writing.
In closing: I’m delighted to be here with you, and I want to assure you I’m absolutely committed to your learning.
Please feel free to ask me anything about the course, the assignments, your work, or my reasons for doing something
a particular way. I think carefully about everything we do, but I’m always seeking ways to better adapt my methods
to you as individuals and students, particularly in a class this size.
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