WAYLAND BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

Summer Term: May 25, 2009 – August 6, 2009

Instructor Information: Maia Adamina, MA – Instructor   

E-Mail: maia.adamina-guzman@wayland.wbu.edu

Course Number and Title:  ENGL 1301 Composition and Rhetoric

Catalog Course Description:  Principles of clear, correct, effective expository writing, with illustrative readings and frequent essays and conferences.

 

Prerequisite: None

 

Required Textbook: Strategies for Successful Writing

 

Course outcome competencies: Upon the conclusion of this course, students actively engaged in learning will be able to:

            1.  Apply standard rules and conventions of the English language to written expressions.

2.  Summarize the steps and components of the writing process.

3.  Compose academic, nonfiction essays or responses in at least four different rhetorical modes or styles.

4.  Demonstrate basic college-level research skills.

5.  Employ active reading strategies.

 

The more the student puts into the course, the higher his or her outcome competencies will be. Also, please make use of the tutoring sessions available here at Wayland for additional help with your work. The tutor is here Saturdays from 10am -2pm.

 

 

Course Requirements and Means of Assessment:

Single Source Essay: (4 pages) 25%

Multiple Source Essay: (4 pages) 25%

In-class Writings: 15%

Annotation and Exercises: 20%

Final Exam: 15%

 

Attendance: As stated in the Wayland Catalog, students enrolled at one of the University’s external campuses should make every effort to attend all class meetings.  All absences must be explained to the instructor, who will then determine whether the omitted work may be made up.  When a student reaches that number of absences considered by the instructor to be excessive, the instructor will so advise the student and file an unsatisfactory progress report with the campus dean.  Any student who misses 25 percent or more of the regularly scheduled class meetings will receive a grade of F in the course.  Additional attendance policies for each course, as defined by the instructor in the course syllabus, are considered a part of the University’s attendance policy.

 

Additional attendance policies: If you are absent the day an assignment is due, you are still expected to turn it in by the deadline, but do not e-mail essays to me without prior permission. Either have someone bring the essay to class for you or drop it off in the front office during normal business hours the day it’s due as late papers will not be accepted –no exceptions! In-class writing assignments may not be made up. Please follow the syllabus, check Blackboard, and have contact with someone in the class to keep you informed if you miss.

    Also, please try the links for certain texts well in advance. In other words, don’t show up the day of class complaining you couldn’t get the link to open and haven’t read as the texts can easily be found by googling the title, author, and/or the first line of the essay.

     Please check Blackboard weekly for handouts and/or changes.

      The exercises for the class are found at the following site:

http://tinyurl.com/seugs

Go to the site and register yourself. Please enter my e-mail address listed here on the syllabus. To access the correct exercises, click the appropriate exercise type (listed in the syllabus). The exercise grades are due at my e-mail address on the day listed as due.

 

Instructor's Policy on Academic Dishonesty: First incident will result in an F for the assignment; second instance will result in an F for the course. This includes collusion on exercises as well as plagiarism.

 

Statement: It is University policy that no otherwise qualified disabled person be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity in the University.  Students should inform the instructor of existing disabilities at the first class meeting.  (Documentation of disability may be required.)

 

Week 1 May 26/28  Orientation. Discuss syllabus and policies. Discuss Audience, and Pre-Writing, Drafting, and Revision (54 - 79).  Discuss Critical Reading and annotating.

Week 2 June 2/4  * Annotation Due  Discuss Thesis and Effective paragraphs (247). Go over Introductions and Conclusions (Blackboard handout). Discuss J. Hector St. John de Crevecouer’s “What is an American?   http://tinyurl.com/aswbrx

 “What attachment can a poor European emigrant have for a country where he had nothing?”

and Oliver Goldsmith’s “On National Prejudices” http://tinyurl.com/c8y3fw

As I am one of that sauntering tribe of mortals, who spend the greatest part of their time in taverns, coffee houses, and other places of public resort . . .”

Week 3 June 9/11 *Hacker Writing Exercises Due: C2-1 Thesis, C2-2 Introductions, C4-1 Topic Sentences, and C4-2 Transitions  Punctuation and Grammar workshop. Discuss Arthur Schlesinger- “The Cult of Ethnicity” http://tinyurl.com/b8xuyq

 “The history of the world has been in great part the history of the mixing of peoples”

And  Judith Ortiz Cofer’s  “The Myth of the Latin Woman” http://tinyurl.com/cyyrr8

 “On a bus trip to London from Oxford University where I was earning some graduate credits on summer . . .”

Week 4 June 16/18 *Hacker Grammar Exercises Due: (click Sentence Style): S1-1 Parallelism: (click Punctuation): P2-1 Misuses of the comma, P1-3 All uses of the comma, and P5-1 the Apostrophe: (Click Grammatical Sentences): G5-1 Fragments and G6-1 Run-ons.   Discuss Documentation (in-text) (451). Discuss Barbara Tuchman’s   “The Black Plague” http://tinyurl.com/djuj6g

In October 1347, two months after the fall of Calais, Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars.”

and Stephen King’s “My Creature from the Black Lagoon” (Blackboard handout)

Week 5 June 23/25 *Hacker Research Exercises Due (Click the MLA exercises):  MLA 2-1 Avoiding Plagiarism, MLA 3-1 Integrating Sources, MLA 4-1 and MLA 4-2 In-text Citations Discuss Documentation (Bibliography) (432). Peer Review of Essay rough draft.

Week 6 June 30/ July 2  *Single Source Essay Due. Discuss Frederick Douglass’s “Learning to Read and Write” http://tinyurl.com/avfdu9

 “I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years . . .”

and  Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” http://tinyurl.com/blbde6

“And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.”

Week 7 July 7/ 9 *Hacker Research Exercises Due (Click the MLA exercises): MLA 4-4 and 4-5 Works Cited. Discuss Machiavelli’s  Balanced Government” http://tinyurl.com/b7segw

“Of the Different Kinds of Republics, and of What Kind the Roman Republic Was.”

and Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Some Reflections on American Manners” http://tinyurl.com/pg7ren

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store . . .”

Week 8 July 14/16 Discuss Dave Barry’s “Red, White, and Beer” http://tinyurl.com/pwpvxv

“Lately I’ve been feeling very patriotic, especially during commercials.”

and  The Declaration of Independence” http://tinyurl.com/j4e8s

When in the course of human events . . .”

Week 9 July 21/ 23 Peer Review of Essay rough draft

Week 10 July 28/30 *Multiple Source Essay Due. Discuss taking the Final Exam (305)

Week 11  August 4/6 Final Exam

An (A) essay shows original thought, has a clear and well supported thesis, is well organized and free of mechanical errors. A (B) essay may either be clear and mostly free of errors but the thesis is unoriginal, or the thesis may be original but the essay is lacking development and/or has mechanical errors. A (C) essay is average –the thesis is clear but is unoriginal and there are substantial mechanical errors. A (D) essay may lack a clear thesis and/or development and have substantial mechanical and developmental errors.  An (F) essay is incoherent, underdeveloped, and filled with mechanical errors.

 

Single Source Essay:  ______ x . 25 = _______

 

Multiple Source Essay: _____ x . 25 =______

 

In-class Writings 1 _____+

 

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                             6_______+ = ______/ 6 =______x .15=______

 

 

Annotation and Exercises: 1 _____+

 

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                                           3 ______+

 

                                           4______+

 

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                                            6 _____+

 

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                                            8 ______+

 

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                                               16_______+ = ______/ 16 =______x .20=______

 

 

Final Exam: _______ x .15 =   ________