Winter 2014: EWRT 1A (sections 63z + 69z) ONLINE1
Instructor: Mr. Jonah Hoyle
Email: hoylejonah@fhda.edu
Websites: https://catalyst.deanza.edu and http://www.turnitin.com
Office hours: Tuesdays, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.2
Required Books
-Easy Writer: A Pocket Reference by Andrea A. Lunsford (4th edition).
-All other required reading will be available through the website.
Course Description + Objectives
In this class you’ll practice reading closely and actively, and you’ll refine your ability to write
effective and compelling personal, persuasive, and analytical essays. We’ll cover the basics—how to
structure an argument, craft a strong thesis statement, and support said thesis statement with specific
quotations—but the overall objective of this course is to deepen your appreciation of the writing
process and to ensure that, as a reader and a writer, you’re ready to move on to upper-level college
English.
Reading Closely
When you read, take notes, underline significant passages, and look up words you don’t know.
Studies suggest that we engage more deeply with written material when it’s not on a screen, but since
this is an online course, I’ll let you decide what works best for you. Whatever medium you choose,
you should be prepared to write about the reading in our discussion forums.
The Work Load
Will consist of three major essays, including one that will require you to conduct significant research.
You will also be expected to submit regularly to our discussion forums, to complete various prewriting worksheets, and to use an auxiliary grammar website if you need to brush up on the basics.
Grading
-Essays:
-Pre-writing/drafts/peer review/discussion forums/self-evaluation:
~ 70%
~ 30%
-At the end of the quarter, I will determine your grade as follows:
Total points you’ve earned/total available points
(e.g. 300/350 = 86%=B).
You’ll be able to check your grade on individual assignments, as well as your overall course
percentage, at any time. For the discussion forums, which take place through the Catalyst website,
your grades will appear under the “Grades” tab in the “Administration” sidebar--but once each
forum expires, I’ll manually transfer those scores to Turnitin’s grade book, which will serve as the
definitive grade book for the course.
Discussion Forums
Traditionally, this is a discussion-based class. I try to maintain that dynamic in this online format, as
discussion is key to the writing process: it’s a way for you to ask questions and to test out ideas, even
1
2
For legal reasons: I reserve the right to change anything on this syllabus.
Since this class meets online only and in asynchronous fashion, the designated “office hour” is an anachronism—I include it here for technical/legal
reasons. I will be online every Tuesday between 10-11 a.m. (as well as most every day during the a.m.), so you can post all course-related questions to
the Logistics Forum on the website and I’ll get back to you ASAP. If your question is personal and you’d rather not share it with the class, you can
always email me.
if you’re not quite sure what it is you’re trying to say. What I want is for you to stretch your ability to
articulate your thoughts. That said, I must give you a grade at quarter’s end, so I’ll attempt to
quantify your weekly discussion forum contributions. See the document “How I’ll Evaluate Your
Weekly Forum Participation” for more on this. For now, just know that if you fail to post during the
first two weeks of the quarter, I’ll drop you from the course.
Late Work
Each week’s discussion forum will close at midnight on Sunday. All forum posts are time/date
stamped, so yours won’t count if you post after midnight. You will submit all your essays to
Turnitin.com on or before the assigned date/time—if you miss the deadline, you’ll be unable to
submit the assignment without emailing me with an explanation.
Essay Grading Criteria is posted as a separate document on the class website—if you’re reading this
from my own website, you have to be enrolled in the course in order to see more. As we proceed
through the course, I’ll expect your writing to improve. Essay assignments will be structured so that
you’ll have adequate time to develop your essay—to write a draft, post your thesis to a forum, and
do online peer review with your classmates—before the due date.
Revision is a key part of the writing process, and you should be revising each essay continuously as
we move through the process of composition. However, I don't allow revisions once I’ve graded your
essay. Because we spend so much time working on outlines and drafts and doing peer review, you
shouldn't need a second chance. It's a different approach to teaching writing, as it puts the burden on
the student to do a decent job before I grade the final version. Otherwise, students tend to follow the
old school model of submitting mediocre work and expecting me to “correct” it so they can then
“revise” and re-submit for a higher grade. That's not how I work. Here, you do the work before I
grade your essay.
Make-Up Work
Often, when we’re nearing the end of the quarter and students realize their grade is lower than
they’d like it to be, they’ll email me asking if they can do “make-up work” to try to raise their grade.
The answer, invariably, is “no.” This is because those students are essentially asking me to do the
extra work of reading their “make-up work” because they didn’t do their work when it was assigned.
I have enough work to do already. Submit your work on time and spare me the emails.
Plagiarism is clearly defined in the Easy Writer handbook. If Turnitin catches you plagiarizing, you’ll
get a 0 on the assignment and I’ll report you to De Anza’s office of Academic Integrity (see
http://www.deanza.edu/studenthandbook/academic-integrity.html for more on this). Also, since
plagiarism tends to be pervasive in online courses and Turnitin won’t necessarily catch it if you’re
sneaky, I reserve the right to give you a contingent or temporary grade on an essay. If I do this, I’ll
explain my reasons in my endnote and I’ll ask you to email me with answers to some pointed
questions that’ll help me decide how to grade your essay. If you’re unsure about whether or not
you’re plagiarizing, just ask me (preferably by posting your question to the Logistics Forum so that
others can see my response).
If you’d like additional help with your writing, the Student Success Center offers free tutoring,
workshops and support for many De Anza classes (see www.deanza.edu/studentsuccess for details).
Since this is an online course with 60 students in it, I won’t be able to provide the kind of individual
feedback on your drafts that many of you will need in order to pass the class. I recommend visiting
the writing center if you’re on campus—there’s nothing like a one-on-one session with a certified
tutor to get the help you need as efficiently as possible. If you work with a tutor, please include your
tutor’s name and contact information at the beginning of your essay.
Finally: Before you continue with this course, you should ask yourself if an online English class is
really the best way for you to improve your writing. To succeed in an online learning environment
you’ll need to be a motivated, self-directed student; you’ll need to be comfortable using computers, as
you’ll likely need to troubleshoot minor issues and have access to a couple of different browsers; and
you’ll need to be able to use the discussion forums in place of a face-to-face classroom experience. If
you do decide to stick with this course, you must commit to a full twelve weeks—you won’t be able
to read ahead and complete all the work in half the time, as I’ll unveil reading and writing
assignments week by week. Your grade at the end of the quarter will reflect my assessment of your
writing ability, as measured by the cumulative scores on your major essays, as well as your
commitment as a student over the full twelve weeks of the course, as measured by the consistency
with which you hit deadlines. Ultimately, online learning is much more “competency-based” than
your regular face-to-face class. This means that it tends to work well for students who’re already
competent writers and less well for students who’re still developing a basic understanding of how to
write college-level essays. It doesn’t mean you won’t have a chance to succeed here, it’s just a hard
truth I’ve had to come to terms with in the 1.5 years since I started teaching online classes.
Finally 2.0: I will not write recommendation letters for students in my online courses. As much as I
like to think we’ll get to know each other over the next three months, I can’t say for certain that you
are who you say you are.
Finally 2.1: Although I don’t assign group projects here in 1Az, the level of discourse in the forums
and the give/get of peer review depend very much on the commitment each of you brings to the
class. You’ll be graded individually on each assignment, but when it comes to determining your final
grade, I factor in the extent to which you helped or hindered the overall success of the class. This
whole enterprise is essentially a group project, in that sense, so let’s work together to make life and
learning a little less painful. If we do, we might even manage to have a bit of fun along the way.