Class Overview

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

Essay #1

Short Report #1

Essay #2

Secondary/Primary Research Report

Essay #3

Final Exam

Required Textbook: Course Packet. This packet is meant to be saved to a hard drive and viewed in Microsoft Word. It can be viewed in your browser, but the bookmarks won't function (i.e., you'll have to do a lot of scrolling).

Course Prerequisites: C or better in WR 040 or C or better in WR 095 or C or better in 0.5257 or WR 040 equivalency met or WR 121 equivalency met or ASSET Writing score of 43 or WR 095 equivalency met or instructor permission.

Course Description and Objectives: Introduces students to college writing, especially about technical subjects: how to use experience, observation and critical reading to discover and support ideas. Students learn to organize an essay or short report around a thesis, to use suitable patterns of development, to support ideas clearly, to revise to suit purpose and multiple audiences, and to edit for college-level style. Timed writing in class is a major component. WR 121T is fully equivalent to WR 121, but with a technical writing emphasis.

Course Grading: Your grade will be determined on a point system based on your performance in the following areas:

Assignments (short explanations)

Writing Sample: On the first day of class, you'll write a short in-class paragraph on a topic designated by your instructor. For Day 2 of Week 1, you'll be asked to revise this to conform to the characteristics of an effective paragraph. On Day 3 of Week 1, you'll turn in both your draft (i.e., your in-class work from Day 1) and your revision.

Self-Evaluations: Essays #1, #2, and #3 will culminate with a take-home written exam (this will be explained thoroughly in class). Prior to this exam, you'll already have written and turned in a hard-copy of the essay you'll attempt to write from memory at home (again, you'll do this three times over the course of the term: one time for each Essay assignment). Your self-evaluations will require that you compare your hard-copy of each essay to the version you  produce at home under timed conditions. You'll concentrate your self-evaluation on pointing out both weaknesses and strengths to help you develop a strategy for successfully completing the end-of-quarter in-class written Final Exam.

Summaries (3): Your summaries are directly connected with your Secondary/Primary Research Report assignment. You'll summarize three gun-control sources in preparation for reporting on the condition of the Gun Control debate in America (see Secondary/Primary Research Report below for more details).

Peer Review Credit: During our workshop weeks (3, 6, and 9) you will work with a peer as you revise your essay assignments. The feedback you provide to your peer review partner in-class and document in writing, will constitute your peer review grade. Each workshop week's cumulative peer review is worth 25 pts and by the end of the term your peer review efforts will amount to 7.5% of your grade (75 pts).

Formal Graded Essays: Three (3) formal Academic Essays and two (2) Reports constitute the bulk of your grade:

• Essay #1 will be an extension of the writing sample paragraph. That is, you will transform that initial writing assignment into your first essay for Writing 121.

• Short Report: This assignment is a translation of Essay #1 into Technical Report form. You will adapt the content and focus of Essay #1 to a very specific technical writing scenario (see Packet for more information).

• Essays #2 & #3 will be responses to professional essays we’ll read and discuss in class. We will identify issues they raise (as possible topic questions for our own essays), discuss techniques and various modes for supporting ideas in essay form, and construct topic questions to which you may choose to respond in writing your own essays. You will generate ideas for, draft, and revise each of these essays outside of class and turn in a hard-copy at the designated draft due date. You'll then have an opportunity to workshop your draft in-class, a process that will allow you to revise independently and receive constructive feedback from a peer to flesh out further revision objectives. Final revision (i.e., the version of each essay you'll turn in for a grade), will be due the Monday following each Workshop Week. Please Note: For Essays #2 and #3, you will be required to incorporate source support into the support structure you create to develop your thesis and do so in Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation style. The length requirements for each of these essays is 3-5 pages (approximately 700-1200 words).

• Secondary/Primary Research Report: This assignment is geared toward objectively assessing a situation and communicating your findings in technical report form. To prepare this assignment, you'll need to read opinion-based articles (i.e., do secondary research) and conduct interviews with average citizens (i.e., conduct primary research). You'll then incorporate the information you gained from your primary and secondary research into a report that responds to a specific technical writing situation and purpose.

The Final Exam: Departmental Policy requires 121 students to demonstrate satisfactory college-level writing skills at the end of the term in an in-class, timed essay examination.  The two-hour exam requires you to write and edit a formal essay on one of six topics distributed by the Humanities Department one week in advance of the exit exam.
    An instructor other than myself will grade the final exam on a pass/fail basis. That instructor will return the exams to me to grade, which I must do without looking at the grade assigned from the first instructor. In the infrequent event that my grade does not coincide with the other instructor’s grade, a third instructor will be called in to cast the deciding vote.
    The final exam (i.e., the blue book version of Essay 4) does not exactly affect your final grade, but your performance on the exam has IMPORTANT consequences. A student who passes the final will receive whatever grade he or she has earned in the class. A student who does not pass the final exam, but who was receiving a passing grade in the class, will receive an incomplete (an “I”) in the class. This incomplete grade can be removed by retaking the exam successfully within one academic year. A student who fails the final and who was also receiving a “D” or worse in the class will receive a grade of “F”. Students who fall into this unfortunate situation and who want credit for 121 must retake the entire class.

Late Work Policy: All assignments must be word processed or typed and are due on their respective due dates. On such dates, an open folder will be on the desk at the front of the class. You may place your assignment in this folder at the beginning or end of class. Once class ends, the folder closes and no more assignments will be accepted (i.e., no late assignments will be accepted). Note concerning in-class printing (may not be applicable to all classes): You may not come to class with the intention of printing out your assignments. As stated earlier, step into class on deadline days with your assignment in hand and ready to turn in. Note concerning emailing your assignments: Unless special permission is given, please do not email your assignments to me. Have a hard copy ready at the beginning of class (see above).

 Notice!
This week's classes are devoted to "workshopping" (see p. 6-9 of our class Packet for instructions) your draft of Essay #1, which is due for initialing on Day 1/Week 3. Each class has a different workshop objective and part of your work on each day will involve collaboration with a peer. Make sure that you have a working draft of Essay #1 available for each of this week's workshop sessions.

Notice!
This week's classes are devoted to "workshopping" (see p. 6-9 of our class Packet for instructions) your draft of Essay #2, which is due for initialing on Day 1/Week 6. Each class has a different workshop objective and part of your work on each day will involve collaboration with a peer. Make sure that you have a working draft of Essay #2 available for each of this week's workshop sessions. Note: We will use the same workshop instructions as we used during Week 3's workshops.