English 105, Academic Writing II
Section 2, T-Th 10:00 - 11:15
Room 202, Van Meter Hall
Professor Angelo Robinson
Van Meter Hall, Room G44
(410) 337-6231
arobinso@goucher.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 4:30 to 5:30 and by appointment.
Welcome! This syllabus introduces you to the aims, requirements, and structures of Academic Writing II. This course is an advanced study and practice of analysis and argument, using a variety of academic and non-academic models. The course will teach independent research and the use of scholarly sources and consistency with standard grammar, diction, and MLA style. In terms of research skills, the course has the following goals:
1) The writer should be able to formulate an adequately focused research question that controls the process of searching for, evaluating, and using sources.
2) When conducting research, the writer should clearly distinguish between primary and secondary sources, and between scholarly and non-scholarly secondary sources, basing the thesis primarily on primary sources and scholarly secondary sources, unless the instructor specifically indicates otherwise.
3) The writer should be able to identify key issues currently in debate about the paper's topic, and should be able to identify scholars who are responsible for the primary opinions about them.
4) The writer should base the thesis on the integrated results of the research rather than trying to make the evidence support a pre-existing thesis, merely summarizing another scholar's thesis, or stringing together a series of other scholars' theses without providing any independent insight about them or the topic.
5) The writer should summarize and quote directly from sources as needed, but should never substitute summary or direct quotation for the integrating function of a thesis.
6) The writer should document the evidence in the paper using a scholarly documentation style appropriate to the discipline within which the topic is studied.
Before we go any further, I want to identify three very important assumptions that define the course:
. All of you are writers: people who write and who have unique and interesting experiences and insights that are worth writing about.
. You can readily improve as writers --just as I can. As with other activities, writing is something we learn by doing: by writing to pursue our interests, by experimenting with new strategies, by having a receptive audience, by receiving feedback from others, and by reflecting on our own work.
. As the instructor, I will work with you to create a classroom community that helps us all grow as writers. Creating that community depends on each of us--teacher and students alike--fulfilling our individual responsibilities, offering mutual respect to one another, and being receptive readers of one another’s writing.
Goals and Rationale
The goal of this course is to help you develop the abilities you need for college writing assignments and also for using writing effectively in the rest of your life. More specifically, the course is designed to help you fulfill the Goucher College Writing Proficiency requirement by developing these skills:
. take positions rather than merely describe topics
. organize papers’ major points in a logical fashion, using different modes of development
appropriately
. develop clear and appropriate theses with fitting transition among major parts
. use appropriate supporting evidence for your theses
. develop coherent paragraphs with clear topics
. use standard grammar and spelling
. use appropriate variety in sentences’ syntax and usage
. demonstrate adequate research skills and appropriate documentation formats
. use complex sentences rather than merely simple or compound sentences
. use strong verbs, avoid passive and vague constructions whenever possible
. use diction that is clear, accurate, and appropriate for college writing
Finally, I hope you will come to feel that writing is a medium you can use for personal and public purposes to gain understanding, to create particular effects, and to communicate.
Because we all learn best to write by having a receptive audience, class sessions will be run more like workshops than lectures. It is therefore especially important that you attend class consistently, where a good deal of writing and experimenting with new writing strategies will take place. The class--both students and teacher--will also be your most immediate audience. Peer response groups will provide an opportunity for you to receive responses to early drafts, and the class as a whole will be readers for final drafts--which will be published regularly in class anthologies.
Texts
Class Anthologies. Three times during the semester, everyone’s essays will be published.
Diane Hacker. A Writer’s Reference. 4th edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Handouts.
Gish Jen. Mona in the Promised Land. New York: Random House, 1996.
Warren Leight. No Foreigners Beyond this Point. Unpublished
A college edition of a standard desk dictionary.
Required Writing
1. Five essays, with each finished essay, you must turn in all preliminary drafts, including first and mid-process drafts, as well as any written peer response and teacher response.
2. Other shorter workshop writings and class work.
One of the aims of Academic Writing II is to give you occasion to write essays for various purposes and audiences, and essays that draw on various sources of information (for example, your own experiences, observations, readings). While some guidelines will be given for each essay, all will invite you to develop your own ideas and interests.
Drafts and the Writing Process
Sometimes people write papers all in one draft--sometimes even the night before they are due. And sometimes this process can produce good writing. Nevertheless, a central aim of our course is to teach you a longer and more thoughtful writing process that invites more development and evolution in your thinking. I will require you to write multiple drafts for each essay. This process will permit you to be more exploratory and adventuresome in early drafts and more disciplined in later drafts. As you work from one draft to the next, you’ll have the chance to assess it yourself and also to receive some feedback from classmates and/or me.
The Writing Schedule lists due dates for these drafts. All are due at the beginning of class. If you do not have preliminary drafts when they are due, that counts as an absence. If you do not have a final draft when due, it counts as a zero (0). Late papers will not be accepted.
First Draft. Consider this draft an exploratory draft where you somehow get down on paper all the ideas and information that come to mind. You can try out different approaches--even in the same paper. Don’t be too concerned with organization or how it looks to readers, but do be concerned with opening up your thinking, exploring possibilities, and getting down lots of writing that you can work with. Aim for at least two pages.
Mid-Process Draft. With this draft , think more about readers and your intended purpose. Since your first draft was an exploratory attempt to get down as much thinking as possible, your mid-process draft is likely to involve reorganizing, adding and cutting sections, and other kinds of rewriting. You’ll be trying to focus your purpose, clarifying your thinking, and conveying a particular point of view or tone of voice. But even a mid-process draft can benefit from remaining still a bit unsettled from having a bit too much in it --so that when you do a final revision, you will have a choice of final emphasis or direction.
Final Draft. This draft should be the version you are ready to present to readers as finished, as an essay that you have thought through and crafted as best you can, working with the feedback you received in process. One of your responsibilities in preparing the final draft is to copy-edit carefully in order to find and correct any mistakes in spelling, grammar, or usage. This is where Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference and the dictionary come into play. Familiarize yourself with Hacker; if you have any questions about using it, please ask. It’s fine to admit that you don’t understand something; it is not fine to fail to proofread using the resources available to you.
All final drafts are to meet standard manuscript requirements. Refer to Hacker, 4th edition
(page 348-50) for an explanation of these requirements. These standards will also be elaborated on during class. Special instructions for the three published essays will also be addressed in class at that time.
When you submit your final draft, always include all preliminary work: all notes, drafts, peer responses and teacher responses--everything. If you do not do so, your final draft will not be accepted and will count in your grade as a zero (0). The electronic submission of essays via
e-mail will not be accepted.
The Documented Research Essay
Two of your essays will be documented research essays. In these essays, we are asking you to advance your thinking about a topic that interests you by entering into dialogue with published writers who have written about it. The goal is not so much to summarize what others have written but rather to use their thinking to help you work out your own thinking. Don’t think of this assignment as a “gathering-and-presenting-information” essay, but rather a “figuring-something-out and thinking-it-through” essay. A secondary aim for the documented essay is to gain more facility using a standard form of academic documentation. You’ll receive more information about this essay later.
You will also be given an opportunity to share your research with the class by giving a short oral presentation on one of your documented essays.
Your Portfolio
Don’t throw anything away! As you move throughout the semester, you will be creating a portfolio of all your written work. The portfolio will include the major essays, all the drafts and preliminary work that accompany the final draft, the additional in-class and out-of-class writing exercises you do, the written feedback from me, and the written feedback you give to classmates about their writing. You’ll need a large three-hole notebook.
Conferences and Office Hours
Twice during the semester, you will have individual conferences with me. These conferences are a time to discuss more fully your writing and your progress in the course. A third conference will be scheduled during final examination week.
I will also have regularly scheduled office hours. That’s time set aside for you, so I encourage you to use it.
Policy on Acknowledgments
It is fine for you to use ideas, words, and short passages from the writings of others in your writing, as long as you acknowledge the source. Failure to acknowledge the contribution of others is considered plagiarism, a serious academic offense. You will receive a more detailed explanation of this expectation. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please ask me and/or refer to Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference.
For details of Goucher College’s policy on academic offenses, See Section II of the “Academic Honor Code” in the Campus Handbook.
Attendance and Absence Policy
Regular attendance and participation for class are basic expectations of the course. Still, you are allowed one week’s worth of class absences during the semester, no questions asked. Save them for the occasional emergency and illness. Except for exceptional circumstances, being sick does not entitle you to an extra absence.
You will also be considered “absent” if you come to class but do not have the work that is due, if you come to class so late that you cannot actively participate in the work of the day, and if you miss one of the regularly scheduled conferences. For each absence beyond the allowed week, you lose a half-grade for the semester.
Grading
Grading criteria are based on the goals of the course. They include the completion of all assigned work on time and the quality of the work: drafting, revising, and copy-editing your major essays, as well as consciously completing draft feedback for classmates and other short class assignments.
If you satisfy the minimum of the requirements for the course, you will receive the average grade of C. If your performance falls below the minimum, you will earn a lower grade. On the other hand, if you work conscientiously and consistently on your writing and related work, you will earn a higher grade. Honor grades--A, A-, and B+--are reserved for outstanding work. A handout outlining the specifics of grade computation is forthcoming.