Camden County College
English Composition I – ENG 101-41
Saturday 9:00 – 11:45
Halperin Hall 328
Instructor: William G. Lewis
Office Hours: Madison 122, T/R 11:30 – 1:30
E-mail: wlewis@faculty.camdencc.edu (This is the best way to get in touch with me)
Phone: (856)630-0993
Website: http://williamglewis.pbworks.com/
Course Description:
This course is designed to help you improve your writing and prepare you for writing at the college level. Knowing how to communicate and write well will be a great asset to you throughout your college years and beyond. This will include your ability to think critically, recognize your audience, pre-writing and brainstorming, research, close reading, and the peer review, editing, and revising process.
The course will emphasize these skills to teach you how to write and the process of writing. By exploring other writer’s methods by reading their texts and by explore how those texts effectively or ineffectively communicate their arguments. This will be done with a variety of texts, from essays to short stories to video reviews. By studying and understanding how other texts are crafted, we can better write our own.
Course Goals:
You will be able to by the end of this course:
- Produce college-level, well thought out, clear, and effective essays with a clear thesis that is supported throughout the essay.
- Navigate and interpret complex ideas through writing.
- Navigate texts and identify techniques other writers use.
- Analyze a text using effective questioning.
- Consider and express the relationship between your ideas and others’ ideas in a productive and respectful manner.
- Engage in the revising/editing process of writing with your own and others work in an effort to improve it through constructive criticism.
- Research using online and library databases and identify credible sources.
Required Texts:
Patterns for College Writing, 12th ed., Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell
Rules for Writers, 7th ed, Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers
Attendance:
You will be expected to attend class regularly and no more than two absences for any reason will be accepted, even under the most extreme of circumstances. If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of information for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone).
If you expect to be absent, please notify me before hand in an e-mail.
If you are absent due to illness or any other unexpected reason, contact me within 24 hours.
Absences do not exempt you from assignments due that day.
You are also expected to come to class on time, and every three times you are late counts as one absence.
If you are absent from class more than two times, you will receive an NA (Not Attending) for your grade. After six absences, your continued presence in the course is at my discretion.
Communication:
Phone: If you do call me and reach my voicemail, please be sure to speak clearly and leave your name, course information, and phone number if you wish a return call.
E-Mail:
If you contact me via e-mail, always include your full name and class section (like this: William Lewis, ENG 101-01) in the subject line. Too often students forget to sign e-mail or have e-mail addresses without obvious identifiers. If you do not include your name and class in the subject line, I will not open the message.
Students who send me e-mail and do not receive a reply of any kind within 48 hours should assume it was never received. Please re-send any such e-mails. I do not mind receiving redundant messages if you are unsure whether your message was transmitted (though I may only reply to one). If your message doesn’t present itself as urgent, I may reply quickly and briefly and ask to get back to you before long.
Grading:
I grade on a point system, and the total number of possible points for the semester is 1,000. The total number of points you get will determine your grade:
A = 1,000 – 900
B = 899 – 800
C = 799 – 700
D = 699 – 600
F = 599 or below
- 20% Final Essay (200 points)
- 20% Essays (200 points total, 50 points per essay. There will be 4 essays including the midterm.)
- 20% Departmental Essay Exam (200 points)
- 10% Quizzes (100 points)
- 10% Oral Presentation (100 points)
- 10% 8 Critical Response Papers (100 points)
- 5% 2 Rough Drafts (50 points, 25 points each)
- 5% Class Participation (50 points)
Essays:
Throughout the term, you will be expected to complete several essays throughout the semester; most of these will be done outside of class.
All work written and submitted should utilize standard rules of grammar, sentence organization, paragraph organization, and diction.
Essays must be completed in MLA format, typed in 12 pt. Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, and carefully proofread.
You will receive a handout with the paper assignment at least 2 weeks before it is due for any essay written outside of class.
All essays will be submitted to Turnitin.com and graded there. Submit essays by the day they are due before class starts.
If you do not adhere to these guidelines, your grade for the assignment will be reduced. If you do not hand in two essays (including the midterm) you will receive an F for your grade.
Lateness:
Late papers will lose a letter grade for each day they are late. If a paper is more than three days late, it is a 0. If you work on an essay in class the day it is due, it is considered late. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Rewrites:
Revision is a critical part of the process in writing and should be a regular part of your writing process. However, it is difficult to revise without knowing what to change about a paper. You are allowed one rewrite on any essay during the semester.
All rewrites are submitted directly to my e-mail and must be submitted a week after I have returned your essay. Rewrites should take the comments I have left into account and reform the paper as a cohesive whole.
Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism:
Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are unacceptable in this or any other college course. Plagiarism is the use of another person’s work, either by copying or paraphrasing, and not giving them credit for it. If you plagiarize once in this course you will fail that assignment. If you plagiarize again, you will fail the course.
Departmental Essay Examination:
All students must register and take the Departmental Essay Examination. In order to pass, all students must achieve a total score of 6; otherwise they will receive an F in the course regardless of the previous average. For more information, go to http://www2.camdencc.edu/index.aspx, the Departmental Essay Examination’s website.
Class Participation:
Most of this class will involve discussion of the texts we read and how we write. Lack of meaningful participation hurts everyone in the class and it counts for 5% of your grade. Meaningful participation consists of being prepared, actively engaged in the discussion, organized, and turning off your cell phones. Sharing ideas helps the class, and class participation is expected from you. If lack of participation is class-wide, quizzes and grammar exercises will be assigned instead.
I will be using a deck of playing cards to choose students at random to answer questions. Each student is assigned a card from the deck and can be chosen at random to answer a question at any time. Responses like “I don’t know” are not acceptable. I invite you to think aloud, muse, guess, and experiment with ideas. Take the opportunity to expand on the ideas of the class.
Critical Response Papers:
In the course of the term, you are required to write 8 short, informal papers (1-2 pages each) on the readings for class. You may choose which days and which readings you want to respond to. All critical response papers will both summarize and evaluate the essays you have read.
Critical response papers will be graded Pass/Fail. I ask you to type them (so that they are easier for me to read), but they need not be a perfect, polished product. Rather, critical response papers should be just what their name says -- a response to the essay. Don’t worry about typos or comma splices or organization. Treat critical response papers more like a journal entry than like a formal paper. I don’t want a five-paragraph theme. Rather, I want an evaluative exploration -- as detailed and specific as possible -- of the reading assignment for the day.
Normally, as long as you submit a critical response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you turn it in on time in class on the assigned day), you will receive all the points that the critical response paper is worth.
You may submit more than 10 critical response papers in the course of the semester (to make up for any response papers that do not receive a grade of Pass), but no matter how many extra critical response papers you turn in, you will not receive more than 100 points total for all the critical response papers you write. Critical response papers are due the same days assigned readings are. You may not submit more than one response paper on a single day, nor may you submit a critical response paper for a day that you are absent from class -- absolutely no exceptions. (NOTE: Even if you do not submit a critical response paper on a particular day, you should still come to class prepared to discuss the assigned reading for that day since we will focus our in-class discussion on analyzing and evaluating it.)
Oral Presentation:
Not only is written communication important, but so is spoken communication. For your oral presentation you will be expected to present on your last essay. More information on it will be given closer to its due date.
Tutoring Center:
The Tutoring Center is located on the third floor of the library-LRC on Blackwood Campus (227-7200 ext. 4411). If you are having trouble understanding any of the grammar exercises or would like help with an essay assignment, you can get assistance at the Tutoring Center. There is a link to the Tutoring Center's hours are posted on the College's website. Tutors will not help you write your essays, nor will they correct an essay that you want to submit for grading.
Course Outline
Note: The course outline is tentative and subject to change with notification.
You must have readings done by the date they appear on the outline. The page numbers in Patterns for College Writing are next to the title. Ex.
Week 1: 1/26
Saturday: Handout Syllabus and Course Outline.
Introduction to the course
Procedures
How to read the course outline
Week 2: 2/2
Saturday: Discuss Essay 1
Reading to Write: Becoming a Critical Reader (13-27)
Narration (97-108)
Martin Gansberg, “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police” (127-130)
George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant” (133-139)
Fragments
Week 3: 2/9
Saturday: Sandra Cisneros, “Only Daughter” (111-114)
Bonnie Smith-Yackel, “My Mother Never Worked” (121-124)
Documenting Sources: MLA (723-742)
Run-ons and Comma Splices
Week 4: 2/16
Saturday: Essay 1 Due
Discuss Essay 2
Invention (29-49)
Process (263-278)
Joshua Piven, David Borgenicht, and Jennifer Worick, “How to Decorate Your Room
When You’re Broke” (290-295)
Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” (311-317)
Subject-Verb Agreement
Week 5: 2/23
Saturday: Definition (489-500)
Judy Brady, “I Want a Wife” (503-505)
Meghan Daum, “Fame-iness” (511-513)
Gayle Rosenwald Smith, “The Wife-Beater” (516-517)
Pronoun Agreement
Week 6: 3/2
Saturday: Rough Draft of Essay 2 Due
Examine student essays
Drafting and Revising (65-79)
Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers
Week 7: 3/9
Saturday: Essay 2 Due
Dealing with timed essays
Classification and Division (435-447)
William Zinsser, “College Pressures” (450-456)
Week 8: 3/16
Saturday: SPRING BREAK!
Midterm Essay(in-class)
Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue” (466-471)
Stephanie Ericsson, “The Ways We Lie” (474-481)
Week 9: 3/23
Saturday: Midterm Essay(in-class)
Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue” (466-471)
Stephanie Ericsson, “The Ways We Lie” (474-481)
SPRING BREAK!
Week 10: 3/30
Saturday: Discuss Essay 3
Arrangement (51-63)
Cause and Effect (321-336)
Lawrence Otis Graham, “The ‘Black Table’ Is Still There” (349-351)
Gullermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, “Why Vampires Never Die” (361-363)
Week 11: 4/6
Saturday: Compare and Contrast (371-390)
Bharati Mukherjee, “Two Ways to Belong in America” (404-407)
Amy Chua, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” (410-414)
Deborah Tannen, “Sex, Lies, and Conversation” (423-427)
Week 12: 4/13
Saturday: Essay 3 Due
Discuss Final Essay
Discuss Oral Presentation
Combining the Patterns (656-663)
Linda Chavez, “The Case for Birthright Citizenship” (595-597)
George F. Will, “An Argument to Be Made about Immigrant Babies and
Citizenship” (600-602)
Barbara Ehrenreich, “The Shame Game” (680-682)
Week 13: 4/20
Saturday: Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (566-578)
Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal” (692-699)
Week 14: 4/27
Saturday: Rough Draft of Final Essay Due
Peer Editing
Anya Kamenetz “Take This Internship and Shove It” (583-585)
Jennifer Halperin, “No Pay? Many Interns Say, ‘No Problem’” (588-590)
Week 15: 5/4
Saturday: Final Essay Due
Argumentation (525-550)
Deduction and Induction
Week 16: 5/11
Saturday: Oral Presentations
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