Connections in Reading and Writing: English 1010 at SUU and Success Academy [Fall 2009]

English 1010, Connections in Reading and Writing
SUU & Success Academy
FALL 2009
1010-02, MWF 9-9:50, BC 301
1010-10, MWF 12-12:50, BC 201
1010-14 MWF 2-2:50, ED 203
1010-SA TTh 9:15- 10:35, MC 201
1010-SA TTh 1:00- 2:25, MC 201

Instructor Information
Joy Sterrantino
Office: Braithwaite 304F (in the 303 hall, of course)
Office Hours: MWF 10-11 and by appointment
E-mail: joysterrantino@suu.edu
URL: http://jsterrantino.edublogs.org

Course Description
The goal of this course is to introduce you to critical reading, thinking, and expository writing. For our purposes, expository writing is essay writing that explains your thinking on a topic to a reading/listening audience. Expository writing is informative at the same time that it offers a position or way of thinking about the topic as a public issue of consequence. It can be understood, then, as a form of critical writing that does more, for example, than journalistic reporting but is not quite a way of presenting formal argument. Additionally, this course this semester will help you to make different connections between characters, ideas, and texts.

Learning Outcomes
By the end of ENGL 1010, students should be able to:

Rhetorical Knowledge:
* Use knowledge of the rhetorical situation—audience, purpose, genre—to analyze and construct texts
* Compose texts in a variety of genres, expanding their repertoire beyond predictable forms
* Use conventions of structure, tone, diction, and syntax appropriate to the rhetorical situation
Critical Reading, Thinking, and Writing:
* Use writing, reading, and discussion for learning, communicating, and examining assumptions
* Summarize, respond to, and analyze texts
* Employ critical reading strategies to identify author’s position, main ideas, genre conventions, and rhetorical strategies
* Produce texts with a focus, thesis, and controlling idea, and identify these elements in others’ texts
* Provide appropriate support for claims
* Find, evaluate, and synthesize appropriate sources to inform and situate their own claims.
Processes:
* Practice flexible strategies for generating, revising, and editing texts
* Practice writing as a recursive process that can lead to substantive changes in ideas, structure, and supporting evidence through multiple revisions
* Use the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes to critique their own and others’ works
Conventions:
* Apply knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics
* Summarize, paraphrase, and quote from sources using appropriate documentation style
* Control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling
* Employ technologies to format texts according to appropriate stylistic conventions

Classroom Decorum
I want to welcome you to another course in higher education. It is a privilege for me to be your instructor and it is a privilege for you to be enrolled at the university. I fully expect that you will conduct yourselves in an adult manner in the classroom and that you will take responsibility for your words and actions. Disruptions and personal business will not be tolerated, including the ringing of cellular phones, texting, and web surfing. You are required to participate in all discussions and activities of the course in a thoughtful and engaged manner. Your reading and assignments, through careful reflection, should prepare you for such participation. This will not be a class of one or two voices. You all have something to say.

I prefer a casual and fun atmosphere, however, that does not mean the course will be easy. I have very high standards and expectations. I am well aware that each of you has commitments beyond this English course, as I do. Part of being a successful student includes learning to balance all of those commitments. I prefer not to hear excuses for missed assignments or classes unless they relate to an emergency or critical situation. Keep in mind that sleep is essential to brainpower, so try to get enough. Sleep, however, is HOMEwork…not CLASSwork.

Required Texts and Supplies

• The Blair Reader by Kirszner and Mandell
•Maus 1 and 2 (2 vol. box set) by Art Speigleman
• Rules of Thumb by Jay Silverman, Elaine Hughes, and Diana Roberts Wienbroer
• The Top Twenty: A Quick Guide to Troubleshooting Your Writing by Lunsford
• Jump-drive for saving work in class (occasionally)
• Notebook or paper for notes and in-class writing
• Folders with pockets (without brads) for turning in essay assignments

Coursework and Grading Policy
Your final grade for this course will be based on the following work and your grade will be calculated in the following manner:

* Summary Responses/Response Journals (do 20 out of 25)- 60 points

* Discussion Leading/Soundtrack- 20 points

* Blog Participation (do 8 out of 11)- 50 points

* Blog Leading- 20 points

* Literacy Autobiography- 100 points

* In-Class Essay- 75 points

* Maus Essay- 175 points

* Visual Presentation- 75 points

* Proposals- 50 points

* Synthesis Essay- 200

* Class Participation & In-Class Work- 175 points

TOTAL: 1000 points

Grades in are based on the following scale: A (1000-900), B (899-800), C (799-700), F (699 and below). I find this scale to be much easier, as points are cumulative instead of having to average percentages.

**All major assignments (3 essays and visual presentation) must be completed to pass the course.** If you fail to complete a major assignment, you will fail the course, regardless of your average. All essay projects must be turned in with a two-pocket folder containing all drafts, peer review sheets, and writing for that project. Papers will not be accepted without a folder documenting your participation in the writing process, which includes drafting, peer review, self-assessment, and revision. Keep all papers until you receive your final grade from the university. You cannot challenge a grade without evidence.

Late Paper Policy
Late papers will have ten points deducted for each day they are late with a four day maximum. If you will be absent the day a paper is due, please make arrangements to turn your paper in early. Quizzes and daily work cannot be made up.

Rewrite Policy
You will be allowed to rewrite two of your essays if you receive a grade lower than an A and would like to raise the grade. Rewrites are due ten days after I return the essay to you and will be averaged with the first essay. However, before you begin a rewrite, you must have a conference with me to outline your revision plan. In order to improve your grade through rewriting, you must do a substantial revision of your paper, but I am happy to help you do so.

Attendance Policy
Attendance is EXTREMELY important to the success of both your learning experience and the success of the class. Points are recorded each day for participation, equaling a total of 175 points for the semester. These points are based on level of participation (commenting in class, group work, bringing proper texts, etc.) Obviously, you can’t earn these points when you aren’t in class. Also, no absences excuse you from the work you will be assigned in this class. It is your responsibility to contact the instructor in the event that you will not be able to attend class due to some misfortune.
You get 3 days with free points (essentially 3 absences that don’t count against you. Every other day you have to earn your points; this includes coming on time. Perfect attendance will earn 15 extra credit points.

Drop Policy
If you choose to withdraw from this course, it is your responsibility to do so within the university’s deadlines. Please be certain to check with your advisor concerning the financial and academic consequences of dropping this or any other course.

The Writing Center
The BC204 Writing Center will be open Fall Semester  8-5 Monday through Friday and 1-4 Saturday (except during SUU holidays). Believing that all writers need readers, the center strives to serve the SUU community by responding as people to people, not merely as editors of papers in need of correction. Staffed by English majors and funded by HSS program fees, the center is committed to treating students as authors who have important issues to think through and talk about. Students may make up to three appointments per week in the center except during the last three weeks of the semester, when appointments are limited to one per week. The center closes at noon any class day that falls before a SUU holiday. For more information, please visit the Writing Center website <http://suu.edu/hss/english/writingcenter/>

Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the presentation of another person’s work as your own, whether you mean to or not! Copying or paraphrasing passages from another writer’s work without acknowledging that you’ve done so is plagiarism. Allowing another writer to write any part of your essay is plagiarism.
Plagiarism is a serious offense. If you are suspected, If suspected, I will call you into my office, show you my proof, and you will have to sign a form that goes to the you will be called before the Vice President for Student Affairs for disciplinary action. You will get an F for the assignment. Don’t make me do that! I’ll feel bad, and you’ll be embarrassed; but, I will turn you in. I always find out and I always turn students in. If you can find it on the internet, so can I

Students with Disabilities
Southern Utah University is on record as being committed to both the spirit and letter of federal equal opportunity legislation; reference Public Law 92-112 – The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. With the passage of new federal legislation entitled Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), pursuant to section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, there is renewed focus on providing this population with the same opportunities enjoyed by all citizens.
As a faculty member, I am required by law to (and am happy to) provide “reasonable accommodations” to students with disabilities, so as not to discriminate on the basis of that disability. Student responsibility primarily rests with informing faculty of their need for accommodation and in providing authorized documentation through designated administrative channels.  For more information, visit: http://www.suu.edu/ss/support/disability/

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