Freshman English 102 Rebecca Fine Romanow
MWF Sec. 5: 9:30-10:20, Room W/1/29 Office: W/6/020
Sec. 6:
10:30-11:20, Room W/1/ 45 Office
Hours: M
TA for Sec. 6: Tanya Rodrigue
WF
email: rodrigue_tanya@hotmail.com and by appointment
Spring 2005 Mailbox: W-6
University of Massachusetts Boston Phone #: 617-287-6759
e-mail: rebecca.romanow@umb.edu
webpage: http://www.uri.edu/personal2/rromanow/index.htm
EN 102 is designed to further develop writing skills, and gain more exposure to the practices and principles of academic writing: writing which offers an informed and interesting perspective, uncovering our own ideas, and displaying purpose, organization, and the development of thought. We will observe how writers, ourselves and others, make decisions about principles of composition and rhetoric, and we will use those observations to compose essays from rough draft, through revision and editing, to produce a final piece. We will engage in a longer research project, investigating the methods of academic research, as well as several shorter essays in which we will explore our roles as readers and writers. We will emphasize invention strategies, coherence and unity, audience awareness, critical reading and thinking, research, and the ways in which we use language to read and write across the many academic disciplines we encounter, discovering how each activity develops through interaction with texts, confronting readings and connecting them to our lives. We will discover new ways of reading and writing which will allow individual freedom while negotiating our way into academic life at the college level.
1) To make you confident as a writer who can present ideas in a clear, organized way
2) To make you confident as a reader who can synthesize texts and respond to them
3) To have good discussions, and to learn about how writers write and readers read
4) To form a classroom community of readers, writers, and learners
Required Text:
Bartholomae, David and Anthony
Petrosky. Ways of Reading: An
Anthology for
Writers. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2002.
Recommended Text:
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: MLA, 2003.
OR any good current writing handbook
1) Attendance: If a student misses three or more class hours in a row, they may not pass this course. Three lates will be the equivalent of one absence, and being late on a consistent basis will bring down your grade. Class participation is essential to this course, and it is important for all of us to be here. If you are absent, you are responsible for getting and completing assignments. Please note that class participation is 30% of your grade.
2) Essays: We will be writing something for almost every class or in class. There will be four formal essays and a longer research project, all of which will be written over the course of the semester and handed in at successive stages of the writing process. Each essay will be written over a two-to three-week period. Your drafts will not be graded. Rather, you will be receiving comments from me, as well as your peers, throughout your draft stages. Final drafts of essays and your research project will be given a grade. All of your essays, except for your final paper, may be rewritten for a revised grade anytime until the last day of class, as long as they were originally handed in on time. Essays must be typed, in 12 font, double spaced, and with standard 1” margins. Please be sure to put your name and section number on the first page of your essays, and to consider the niceties of page numbers and staples. Emailed papers will not be accepted, except by prior arrangement.
3) Reading: Reading, like writing, involves making meaning. Some of our reading will be challenging, and all of our reading will require that you read more than once. As David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky have said, you will come “to see difficulty
[…] as a gift that makes reading possible.” The challenge of this reading will be beneficial to you in your college career.
5) Research: One of the goals of this course is to understand how to conduct research.
We will think about research as a process of inquiry, and about what you want to discover and what sources will help you to answer the questions which you have. You will be asked to work with primary and secondary sources, and to think about the various points of view that you encounter.
6)
Plagiarism: Intrinsically, reading involves a
“conversation” between author and reader. “It takes two to speak the
truth,” Thoreau once noted: “one to speak, and another to hear.” When we
read, we are active: we speak back to the author, who may not literally “hear”
us but whose writing nonetheless operates as a sounding board for our responses
to the world of words and ideas opened up by the text. This study in
American universities also involves a conversation—between reader and
reader. At the most immediate level, this conversation takes place in the
classroom, in the exchange of responses between readers—between professor and
students, between student and student. Ideally, this conversation
continues outside the classroom: in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in offices,
on the Red Line, online—wherever inquiring minds come together.
In fact, this conversation extends far beyond the classroom and is,
almost always, part of a larger “critical dialogue”—another world of words and
ideas—that we also participate in each time we write a paper or an exam or
otherwise present our work for consideration or evaluation by others.
That dialogue takes place in the realm of inquiry undertaken through academic
scholarship and criticism recorded via various media: in books, articles, and
reviews in print, on radio and television, on CD-Rom, on the Web. Participation
in this dialogue is an important dimension of the learning experience for all
students of literature: our learning increases through consideration of what
others have learned and have made available to us as readers and students.
But with such participation comes the responsibility of identifying—and
of acknowledging appropriately—which aspects of the critical dialogue (or even
the classroom conversation) originate with us individually, which aspects are
general common knowledge, and which originate with a scholar or a critic (or of
another student). Students meet that
responsibility by thoroughly documenting all sources consulted—regardless of
whether they are quoted from directly, paraphrased, rephrased or otherwise
“borrowed from.” The documentation method endorsed by the
English Department at UMass Boston is that of the Modern Language
Association. This method is explained and illustrated comprehensively in
Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of
Research Papers (5th ed.). Most handbooks used in
English 101-102 also offer detailed guidelines for using the MLA style of
documenting sources. In addition, Bedford-St. Martin’s Press offers a
user-friendly version of the guidelines online: http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/english.html
Of course, all English Department faculty members will happily help
students to understand the application of this documentation method in their
work. The English Department at UMass
Boston takes very seriously the obligation of students, in presenting work
(whether written or oral) for evaluation, to give full credit to others where
and when such credit is due. All students should be familiar with the
definitions and the regulations concerning Academic Honesty contained in the
University of Massachusetts Boston “Code of Student Conduct”:
The University defines violations of academic honesty
to include, but not be limited to, the following:
A. Submitting an author’s
published or unpublished work, in whole, in part, or in paraphrase, as one’s
own without fully and properly crediting the author. This includes, but is not
limited to, submitting unattributed published work, e.g. material from a
journal, newspaper, encyclopedia, [the internet,] etc. without proper
acknowledgement.
B. Submitting as
one’s original work materials obtained from an individual or agency.
C. Submitting as one’s
own original work material that has been produced through unacknowledged collaboration
with others.
D. Using any unauthorized
material during an examination, such as notes, tests, calculators, etc.
E. Obtaining answers to
examination questions from another person with or without that person’s
knowledge; furnishing answers to examination questions to another student;
using or distributing unauthorized copies of or notes from an examination.
F. Submitting as one’s own an
examination taken by another person; or taking an examination in another
person’s place.
G. Gaining
or seeking to gain unauthorized access to the computer files of a student or
faculty member, or staff member, or altering or destroying those files.
For more details, visit the UMass Boston website: http://www.umb.edu/student_services/student_rights/code_conduct.html
The English Department is committed to helping students participate responsibly in the “critical dialogue” by requiring that they credit appropriately and accurately all sources of their words and ideas. The Department is also committed to upholding both the letter and the spirit of the “Code of Student Conduct”: for the very integrity of the academic enterprise—the pursuit of knowledge and truth—all faculty hold students accountable for any instances of “plagiarism” (that is, the misrepresentation of another’s words or original ideas as one’s own) or for any other form of academic dishonesty. The penalties for plagiarism are a grade of “F” on the assignment in question and a grade of “F” in the course, and may involve academic suspension or outright dismissal from the University. Plagiarism will be reported to the Dean of your College.
7) Labs: We will be going to the computer Labs seven times over the semester to write and peer review on the computers, as well as to conduct research. These classes are just as important as our regular class times, so please note carefully the days and locations when we are in the labs.
1)
Class
participation (pre- and postwrites, peer reviews, group activities) (30%)
2)
Your 1st
3 written essays (30%) (10% each)
3)
Your final
essay (15%)
4)
Your
research project (25%)
However, please note, that as far as I am concerned, effort is extremely important. I want you to participate in class discussions, and be involved in our readings and the essays that you are writing.
Below is a schedule of our course. I felt you should have an idea of when papers and readings will be assigned. However, please note that this syllabus does not include a great deal of detail about our class activities, and I maintain the right to change reading or writing assignments!
M. 1/24 No Classes
W. 1/26 Intro, writing sample
F. 1/28 Syllabus/Foucault
M. 1/31 Foucault, “Panopticism,” p.221
ADD DROP ENDS
W. 2/2 Foucault, “Panopticism” Foucault prewrite
F. 2/4 Foucault, “Panopticism”
M. 2/7 BLUE LAB (HEALEY/3)/Peer Review rough #1 (Foucault)
W. 2/9 Foucault, “Panopticism”
F. 2/11 Foucault, “Panopticism”
M. 2/14 Said, “States,” p. 611/postwrite final essay #1 (Foucault)
W. 2/16 Said, “States”
F. 2/18 Said, “States” Said prewrite
M. 2/21 PRESIDENTS’ DAY NO CLASS
W. 2/23 Said, “States”
F. 2/25
Said, “States”/ Peer Review rough #2 (art)
M. 2/28 BLUE LAB (HEALEY/3)/Peer
Proofread final
essay #2 (art)
W. 3/2 Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,” p. 451
F. 3/4 Nietzche, “On Truth”
M. 3/7 BLUE LAB (HEALEY/3)/PR /research and sources
W. 3/9 BLUE LAB (HEALEY/3)/ research and
sources project subject
F. 3/11 BLUE LAB (HEALEY/3)/ research and sources
M. 3/14 SPRING
W. 3/16 BREAK
F. 3/18
M. 3/21 Documenting sources project proposal rough
W. 3/22 Nietzche, “On Truth”
rough works cited
F. 3/24 Nietzche, “On Truth” final project proposal
M. 3/28 Nietzche, “On Truth”
W. 3/30 Peer Review 1st draft research project
F. 4/1 Documenting/citing sources Final Works Cited
M. 4/4 BLUE LAB (HEALEY/3)/PR 2nd draft research project
W. 4/6 Nietzche, “On Truth” Nietzche prewrite
TH.APRIL 7: COURSE WITHDRAWAL DEADLINE
F. 4/8 Peer Review 3rd draft research project
M. 4/11 Research projects (25 copies)/postwrite Final Research Project
W. 4/13 Reading/classifying class book classbook
reading
F. 4/15 Reading/classifying class book classbook reading
M. 4/18 PATRIOTS’ DAY NO CLASS
W. 4/20 Writing Proficiency Requirement
F. 4/22 Geertz, “Deep Play,” p. 272
M. 4/25 Geertz, “Deep Play”
W. 4/27 Geertz, “Deep Play”
F. 4/29 Geertz, “Deep Play” Geertz prewrite
M. 5/2 “Geertz, “Deep Play”
W. 5/4 “Geertz, “Deep Play” 1st rough #4 (classbook)
F. 5/6 Peer Review 2nd rough #4 (classbook)
M. 5/9 BLUE LAB (HEALEY/3)/PR 3rd rough #4 (classbook)
W. 5/11 Postwrite/Party!
final #4 (classbook)
Note on
papers: Your
papers are expected to be received on their due dates. I do not accept any emailed papers, except by
prior arrangement. Your grade will be
dropped for each class period a paper is late.
No papers will be accepted after one week from the due date. Your research project and final paper must
be handed in on their due dates. You may
rewrite any paper, except the final paper, during the semester and you will
receive a new grade on it, as long as it was originally handed in on time. Final papers and all rewrites are due at
9:30 AM (Sec. 5) and 10:30 AM (Sec. 6) on Wednesday, May 11. No late or emailed final papers will be
accepted.