WR121—CRN 10551 Winter 2005
TR 12:30-1:45; Pioneer 200D Jon Bouknight
English Compostion
3 credits
Description
Wr121 introduces students to college writing: how to use experience, observation, and critical reading to discover and support ideas. Students learn to organize an essay around a thesis, to use suitable patterns of development, to support ideas clearly, to revise to suit purpose and audience and to edit for college-level style. Timed writing in class is a major component.
Outcomes:
Competency 1: Write essays that use a thesis to establish control over content; supply relevant and adequate supporting details; employ the organizational strategies of effective beginnings, transitions, and endings; and conform to standard edited English.
Competency 2: Achieve Competency 1 under time constraints (during the WR 121 final exam), while conforming to expectations of an assigned topic and of edited English appropriate for timed writing.
Competency 3: Demonstrate the ability to use a variety of expository essay patterns, such as definition, classification, analysis, problem-solution, and comparison-contrast.
Competency 4: Employ observation; personal experience; active, responsive reading as the basis for essay content.
Competency 5: Employ the responsible use of sources (without plagiarizing) as the basis for essay content.
Competency 6: Demonstrate, in an essay, a sustained style employing rhetorically effective tone, persona, diction, idiom, and syntax.
Competency 7: Use critical reading and writing to analyze and synthesize ideas in an academic writing sample, identifying rhetorical patterns, major assertions, and supporting details.
Competency 8: Complete appropriate written critical peer reviews of student essay drafts, including suggestions for revision and editing.
Competency 9: Complete at least one (formal or informal) written review of the student's own writing strengths and weaknesses, including effective self-prescriptions for improvement.
Competency 10: Demonstrate, monitor, and articulate the complete idiosyncratic process that the individual writer uses to complete an essay, including such steps as invention, thesis formation, organization, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading
Competency 11: Demonstrate an awareness of a variety of purposes and audiences.
Course Prerequisites:
Some students may have taken Basic writing in preparation for this class. In any case, the following competencies prepare students for success in Wr121:
· ability to follow the conventions of standard written English--that is, to write well-formed sentences with generally correct grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling.
· ability to write paragraphs and essays that are organized by a single central idea and supported by specific development.
· ability to communicate clearly and coherently to specific audiences.
· ability to think critically and read actively with understanding.
Office and hours:
Jefferson 116, MW 1-1:50, TR 11:30-12:20, W 5-5:50, and by appointment; phone 330-4394; e-mail (see printed syllabus). See also the course website at <http://web.cocc.edu/jbouknight> for additional course information.
Required Texts:
Orwell, G. Down and Out in Paris and London. New York: Harcourt, 1961 [1933].
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: Henry Holt, 2001.
A substantial folder—not a manila envelope or folder—will be needed to turn in completed papers, along with the required drafts and peer evaluations.
Optional Text:
A grammar/rhetoric handbook. (A suggested title is Lunsford, A. The Everyday Writer. New York: St. Martin’s, 2001. However, any grammar/rhetoric text you already own will serve.)
Class Requirements:
1. Students will write four essays, including one in-class and one “group” essay. All essays should be typed. Homework and classwork assignments will also be collected.
2. Class participation is essential, for you are an important reader of your classmates' work. Regular attendance is thus required. Furthermore, participation will be severely hampered by failure to keep up with the assignments.
3. We will have draft workshops to which you must bring a completed draft of your essay. Your failure to attend the draft workshops with the assigned materials completed and in good order will result in a lower final grade on the paper (see “Writing Process”).
4. All assigned essays must be completed in order to receive credit for the course.
Writing Process:
To ensure use of the writing process, grades on essays will be based, in part, upon success with the use of the writing process. Thus, in advance of the paper’s due date, students will turn in and evaluate the paper as it develops through progressive stages: 1) the outline stage, 2) the complete draft stage, and 3) the final version. Failure to fulfill either steps 1 or 2 in time will result in a five point deduction from the paper’s final grade. Similarly, failure to get a worthwhile response from a classmate during any peer evaluation will result in a five point, or less, deduction. When the folder containing the final version is turned in, it should also contain the outline, the rough draft and a complete set of peer evaluations. A final version without a complete outline and draft will be considered incomplete and not be graded.
Grade Calculation
Students will be assigned points for major assignments. Letter grades may be determined by the percentage (your points divided by points possible). Thus an A = 100-93%, A- = 92-90%, B+ = 89-87%, B = 86-83%, B- = 82-80%, C+ = 79-77%, C = 76-70%, D = 69-60% and so on. Overall, the course breaks down as follows:
Reading--Discussion, in-class activities, Group Projects 10%
Essays (at 100 points each) including Final 80%
Vocabulary and concept quizzes based on lectures and reading 10%
Withdraws and Grade "W":
Students may drop any course they choose by the end of the seventh week of classes. A "drop" made before this deadline will leave no grade on the transcript and requires no instructor signature.
The College also allows students to drop after the seventh week and up to the Wednesday of the final week of classes. However, these drops require the instructor's signature and will yield a "W" on the student's transcript. This liberal drop policy was designed to help students who--although performing adequately during the quarter--find themselves in emergency situations and unable to complete the coursework satisfactorily. Any student who has kept up with the course and is in such an emergency situation should ask for my signature. Nevertheless, I do not wish to see this policy abused. Therefore, students who have not kept up with the course, who have allowed the seventh week to slip by and who solicit my signature to escape their own neglect will be refused.
Calendar WR121
Jan 4: Intro., Logging on, Writing an essay. In-Class Essay #1
Jan 6: Read Down and Out in Paris and London, 1-26; Outcomes, final exam, return of diagnostics
Jan 11: Read Down and Out in Paris and London, 26-50; Workshop rough (2nd) version Essay #1.
Jan 13: Read Down and Out in Paris and London, 50-74; Quoting skills
Jan 18: Read Down and Out in Paris and London, 75-99; Workshop final version of Essay #1 (Complete folder as per syllabus instructions: 1. Original graded version, 2. revised draft version w/ instructor comments, 3. peer evaluation for revised version, 4. peer evaluation for final version, and 5. final version); Essay #2 assigned.
Jan 20: Outline due Essay #2
Jan 25: Read Down and Out in Paris and London, 99-125;
Jan 27: Read Down and Out in Paris and London, 125-160; Workshop rough version Essay #2
Feb 1: Read Down and Out in Paris and London, 187-213;
Feb 3: Workshop final version Essay #2; In-class writing techniques; possible topics
Feb 8: In-class Essay #3
Feb 10: Read Nickel and Dimed, 1-10.
Feb 15: Read Nickel and Dimed, 1-49; Essay #4 assigned
Feb 17: Bring in a recent newsprint article on a topic regarding low wage work or unemployment. (A web site and print off will not suffice for this assignment.)
Feb 22: Read Nickel and Dimed, 50-86; Outline due Essay #4
Feb 24: Read Nickel and Dimed, 86-119;
Mar 1: Read Nickel and Dimed, 121-150 Workshop rough version Essay #4
Mar 3: Read Nickel and Dimed, 150-191
Mar 8: Read Nickel and Dimed, 192-221 Workshop final version Essay #4
Mar 10: Prep for final
Final Exam: Tues, Mar 15, 3:15-5:15pm
Future Prompt Areas
(These are relevant topics from which course prompts may be extracted.)
What is Orwell’s overall Thesis in his book. Show how this thesis is developed in the varied sections?
How does Ehrenreich’s Evaluation fit a “traditional” Evaluation format? Could it be improved?
Is there a difference in the London and Paris sections? If so, how does this difference add to Down and Out?
Discuss different hierarchies in a place of employment and the rules that enforce these hierarchies?
Housing
The cost of living versus the ability of a job to pay that cost?
Neighbors/Roommates and the difficulty/necessity of living in close proximity w/. (BE 132
Same question as above for families.
Homeless shelters.
Organizations that help those in need. Govt./Religious Organizations/Faith Based
Demeaning treatment on the job site.
Sexism on the job site.
On the job rules
Lack of/form of job training
“On the job training”
Types of customers.
Problems with job applications/interviews.
Negotiations over wages
Employee control techniques
Disappearance of Poor from Daily life in America. 118
Diseases/Afflictions
The function of management (213)
Are social classes the same as economic classes.
Comparison of social classes in England, France and USA.
“Benefits” Heath Care, workers compensation (COBRA/Health insurance--186)
Govt. definition of poverty
Personality Testing
Attitudes between workers
Attitudes toward bosses/wealthy
Housing.