Fall 2008 English 3010: Intermediate Composition

 

 

MW Sec 001: 8:00 am-9:25 am; Sec 013: 11:45 am-1:10 pm

 

CRN: Sec 001: 14882; Sec 013: 14925

 

Location: Sec 001: 212 State; Sec 013: 328 State

 

Instructor: Michael L. McGinnis

 

E-Mail: mcginnis@wayne.edu

 

Office: 5057 Woodward, 9306

 

[Hang a u-turn to the right past the door]

 

Office Hours: Approximately MW 10 am-11 am, or by appointment

 

 

Required Texts:

 

1. Adams, Katherine H. and Michael L. Keene.  Research and Writing Across the Disciplines.  Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 2000.  [Student edition might be from McGraw-Hill Publishers]

    

2. Coleman, Linda S. and Robert Funk.  Professional and Public Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader for Advanced Composition.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005.

    

3. Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein.  They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing.  New York: Norton, 2006.

    

 

Recommended text

 

1. Ruskiewicz, John, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston.  SF Writer.  Fourth Edition.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007.

    

Please note: This text is entirely optional and you will not need it for this course.  However, should you at some point want or need a composition handbook, SF Writer comes highly recommended.

 

 

Section Description

 

In these sections of 3010, we will be raising questions about what counts as effective writing across the various disciplines that are represented by the university.  In so doing, we will find that answering that question is a complex and demanding task.  While it may be true that academic writing generally meets three “standards” of disciplinarity, rationality, and the assumption of an analytical audience,[1] the various disciplines and professions that comprise the university understand how these elements are performed in very different ways.  This course, then, offers students an opportunity to investigate how their major field of study (disciplinary or professional) creates and employs its unique standards for writing.  Our five major projects form a series of inquiries that allow students to become active participants in their chosen discourse communities; the larger goal of this course is to foster in students an awareness of the relationships between writer, reader, genre, and epistemology within and across disciplinary boundaries.

 

 

3010 Learning Objectives

 

• to develop analytical and critical strategies for reading texts across broad areas of disciplinary study

   

• to identify and analyze the structure of analysis and arguments within the accepted guidelines of the student’s major field of study

   

• to identify and analyze authors’ claims, evidence, appeals, organization, and style with regard to the epistemic practices of a given discipline or profession

   

• to consider the rhetorical demands common among forms of writing in varied disciplinary or professional contexts

   

• to write effectively in multiple analytical and argumentative genres, generating a clearly defined topic and purpose/thesis, organizing and developing complex content and reasoning, and to negotiate these forms for disciplinary, professional, and public (i.e., non-disciplinary) textual production

   

• to make productive use of a varied set of technologies for research and writing

   

• to develop primary and secondary research skills needed to produce sustained research-based writing forms common to a number of disciplinary genres

   

• to foster awareness of individual writing processes and how such processes can be adapted to a number of disciplinary and public rhetorical situations

   

 

Attendance Policy

 

The English Department requires every student to attend at least one of the first two class sessions in order to maintain his or her place in the class. If you do not attend either of these sessions, you may be asked to drop the class; in this event, dropping the class is your responsibility. Attendance is mandatory and expected at all sessions, but students are allowed two excused absences during the semester.  Each further absence will deduct 30 points from your total attendance score for the semester.  Similarly, excessive tardies will deduct 15 points from your total attendance score for the semester.

 

 

Student Responsibilities

 

1. Students are expected to attend class having read all assigned materials. Students are further expected to participate in class discussion and activities; if you don’t voluntarily participate, you can be sure I will call on you to do so.

    

2. All assignments and projects are due on the days specified on the course calendar.  Late work will be accepted only at the instructor’s discretion, and will bear an automatic penalty of 10% of the total possible score for the project (for example, a project that is worth 100 points would automatically lose 10 points).  If you anticipate being absent when a project is due or if extenuating circumstances prevent you from submitting an assignment on time, it is your responsibility to notify the instructor in advance of these contingencies.  Post facto excuses for late submissions will only be accepted with documents verifying the reason(s) offered.

    

3. I will not issue grades of I-Incomplete. It is the student’s responsibility to complete all work in a timely fashion; failure to do so will be reflected in the student’s grade unless he or she withdraws from the course. Exceptions to this policy are rare but are decided on a case-by-case basis. If you decide to leave the course, be sure to withdraw; failure to do so will demand a failing grade at semester’s end.

    

4. I have very little tolerance for students who allow cell phones, pagers, MP3 players, iPods, et cetera to interrupt our class. Please turn these off before class begins. (If you are expecting an emergency phone call, please switch to vibrate.) Repeated interruptions will be held accountable as one unexcused absence.

    

5. On a related note: Do not send text messages during class.  My time is important to me and I'm sure yours is to you as well.  If you really have somewhere else you'd prefer to be, be there.  Don't waste my time, your time, or your classmates' time.  If I see you sending text messages during class, you will be asked to leave and marked absent for the day.

    

6. Please be on time to class. I advise you to do all you can to arrive no more than five minutes after class begins, since tardy arrivals are disrespectful to me and disruptive to your fellow students. Barring legitimate delays such as inclement weather or emergency situations, every student is allowed three tardy arrivals. After these, each subsequent tardy will result in a loss of 15 points from your attendance score for the semester.

    

 

Education Accessibility Services

 

If you have a physical or mental condition that may interfere with your ability to complete successfully the requirements for this course, please contact the EAS at (313) 577-1851 to discuss appropriate accommodations on a confidential basis.  The office is located in Room 1600 of the David Adamany Undergraduate Library.

 

 

Academic Resources

 

• Academic Success Center: The ASC of WSU is in the UGL, Room 1600.  The ASC offers assistance in tutoring, workshops, study skills and so on.  Contact them by phone at (313) 577- 3165, or view the website, http://www.success.wayne.edu/index.php, for more information.

   

• Writing Center: The English Department offers one-on-one writing assistance in the University Writing Center, room 2310 of the UGL.  Tutors are available to help you with getting started on your paper, organizing your content, revising drafts, and so forth.  The Writing Center does not do copyediting; it is your responsibility to ensure your papers contain a minimum of surface and mechanical errors.  To schedule an appointment, drop by the front desk of the WC, or telephone at (313) 577-2544.  Appointments start at the top of the hour and run 30-45 minutes.  Be sure to arrive promptly for your appointment, since failure to arrive within 10-15 minutes of your scheduled appointment means you may forfeit your appointment to a walk-in tutee.

   

• Online Writing Resources: If you can’t make it to the WC, there are plenty of online resources available for assistance.  You may want to start at two sites offered by the WSU Writing Center, http://www.english.wayne.edu/writing/links.htm or http://del.icio.us/wsuwc.  Both offer links to style guides, online dictionaries, and sources that address questions of organization, mechanics, et cetera.  Also check out http://www.powa.org or http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/.

   

Academic Honesty and Student Ethics

 

I have a zero tolerance policy on plagiarism: If I find you have appropriated the work of another and claimed it as your own, you will fail this course. It's that simple.  If you are working with a source text and are not sure whether/how to cite it, my advice is as follows: Cite the source as accurately as you can; you can always consult a style guide to revise your citations. All works cited must be documented accordingly, including online and electronic sources. Most handbooks, including the one recommended for this course, contain detailed guides to formatting both your Works Cited page (or, in APA, References page) and your in-text parenthetical citations. You will be required throughout your collegiate career to document sources in any discipline in which you study; while different disciplines use different style guides, it is never too early to learn the basics of proper research documentation.

 

Contacting the Instructor

 

The easiest way to contact me is via e-mail; my Wayne State e-mail address is mcginnis@wayne.edu.  I will make every effort to respond promptly to your message.  Also note: any requests for class information, such as grade requests, absence notices, or extension requests must be made via your Wayne State e-mail address.  If you have not yet activated it, please log on to pipeline.wayne.edu to do so as soon as is convenient for you.  When e-mailing me, please provide your name and “Eng 3010” in the subject line so that I will recognize your message as a student e-mail.

 

 

Assignments and Assessment

 

Primary Projects

 

Students are expected to complete five major assignments this semester.  Two of our projects will be group collaborations.

 

1. Writer’s Profile.  This project asks students to account for their own writing practices and knowledge of how those practices have worked (or failed to work) throughout the students’ academic careers.  (5-6 pages)  (200 pts)

    

2. Disciplinary Investigation.  This project asks students to collaborate on a series of interviews with writers across various university disciplines.  Groups will establish interview protocols, compose interview questionnaires, and compose the finish project.  Pairs will break out from groups to conduct and report on interviews. (7-8 pages)  (225 pts.)

    

3. Discourse Investigation.  This project asks students to use the results of their interviews from project two, along with secondary research material on writing in the disciplines, to review one issue of a professional or academic journal.  Students will investigate whether the journal meets the criteria for written work suggested by the interview and secondary research. (7-8 pages)  (250 pts.)

    

4. Disciplinary Argument.  Locating a topic of interest to scholars or professionals in their major field of study, students will compose a major research work that explains the major arguments surrounding this topic and argues in favor of one such position (or negotiates a position between two or more arguments). (10-12 pages)  (450 pts.)

    

5. Writing Handbook.  In the final project, student groups will be asked to draw on the preceding assignments to compose either a hard copy or online writing handbook for undergraduate students negotiating conflicting disciplinary writing demands.  This handbook could feature such things as students’ advice on such matters as meeting epistemic and audience expectations across disciplines, a review of valuable print and web resources for student writing, a review of key disciplinary terminology, or guides to the major professional or disciplinary journals or websites.  As part of this project, each student is required to compose a 3-4 page essay describing his or her own experience investigating and writing in the disciplines this semester.  (15-20 pages total, excluding individual essays)  (Handbook 500 pts; essay 100 pts.)

    

 

Revision Policy

 

Primary projects one through four may all be revised for additional credit should you wish to do so.  Any submitted assignment that receives a failing grade must be revised and resubmitted.  Some caveats:

1.       Each assignment may only be revised once.

2.       Revisions must be submitted by the due date for the subsequent project.

3.       You are encouraged, though not required, to attend a tutoring session at the writing center before you begin your revisions.

4.       The final day I will accept revised submissions is Wednesday, December 3.

 

5.       Whichever grade is higher—the original submission or the revised version—will be scored as your grade for the assignment.

 

 

Secondary Projects

 

In addition to the primary projects listed above, students will produce the following two secondary projects.  In general, secondary projects are meant to assist students with producing the primary projects, as described below.

 

1. Interview Protocols.  Groups will collaborate on lists of interview questions, interview request e-mails, interview consent agreements, and create a form for conducting interviews.  (75 pts)

    

2. Writing Aids Presentation.  Students will give 5-minute presentations on two or more guides to writing in their discipline or major.  Presentations will be based on secondary research sources and the interviews from project two.  The information found for this presentation can be used in project three.  ( 75 pts.)

    

3. Annotated Bibliography.  Students will produce an annotated bibliography of at least ten sources that could be used for project four above.  The sources used here may or may not be used in the final research work.  (125 pts.)

    

 

Peer Review and Participation

 

Students are expected to participate in peer review workshops.  Missing a peer review workshop deducts 50 points from your final grade; coming to a peer review workshop without a draft ready for peer review deducts 25 points from your final grade.  Leniency for unavoidable absences will be decided on a case-by-case basis.  Likewise, students are expected to participate in class discussions,  in-class group activities and exercises, and electronic short writing assignments via Blackboard.  Participation in these activities is worth 200 pts (grade assessed for semester’s performance).

 

 

Score Breakdown

 

Project	Point Value
Writer’s Profile	200
Disciplinary Investigation	225
Discourse Investigation	250
Disciplinary Argument	450
Writing Handbook/Essay	600
Writing Aids Presentation	75
Interview Protocols	75
Annotated Bibliography	125
Participation	200
Total	2200

 

Grade Breakdown

 

Point Value	Letter Grade Value
2090-2200	A
1980-2089	A-
1936-1979	B+
1826-1935	B
1760-1825	B-
1716-1760	C+
1606-1715	C
1540-1605	C-
1496-1539	D+
1386-1495	D
1320-1385	D-
0-1319	F

 

Disclaimer

 

This syllabus is subject to change at the instructor’s discretion.  In the event of major changes, such changes to assigned readings or project due date, students will be notified of the changes ASAP.

 

 

Date	In-Class	Due
9/3	Welcome; in-class writing prompt
9/8	Elements of Writing, Intro P1	PPW 1, bring past writing sample to class
9/10	Rhetorical Analysis	(Readings TBD)
9/15	Template Exercises	TSIS Part One, RWAD “Building Blocks”
9/17	Practices and Processes	PPW 2
9/22	Peer Review Workshop	P1 Draft (3 copies)
9/24	Professional Writing 1, Intro P2	PPW 3
9/26	FRIDAY	P1 Due to Blackboard by midnight
9/29	Professional Writing 2	(Readings TBD)
10/1	P2 Workday
10/6	Professional Writing 3, Intro P3	(Readings TBD)
10/8	(Library Research workshop)	(Location forthcoming)
10/13	P2 Workshop	Interview drafts (3 copies)
10/15	Research and Documentation; P2 Workshop, cont.	PPW 6
10/17	FRIDAY	P2 Due to Blackboard by midnight

 

10/20	Writing Aids Presentations
10/22	Writing Aids Presentations
10/27	Argument 1; Intro P4	PPW 7
10/29	Peer Review Workshop	P3 Draft (3 copies)
10/31	FRIDAY	P3 Due to Blackboard by midnight
11/3	Argument  2	(Readings TBD)
11/5	Template Exercises	TSIS Part Two
11/10	Argument 3	(Readings TBD)
11/12	Peer Review Workshop	Annotated Bibliography draft (3 copies)
11/14	FRIDAY	Annotated Bibliography Due to Blackboard by Midnight
11/17	Template Exercises	TSIS Part Three
11/19	Intro P5; P5 Workshop
11/24	Peer Review Workshop	P4 Draft (3 Copies)
11/26	NO CLASS
11/28	FRIDAY	P4 Due to Blackboard by midnight
12/1	Group Conferences
12/3	P5 Workday
12/8	Peer Review Workshop	P5 Essay draft (3 copies)
12/10	Student Evaluations of Teaching; P5 Workday
12/15	(No Class)	P5 Due by midnight to Blackboard or e-mail link