Fall 2007
University of
English 100: Freshman Composition
Section 022, MWF 12:
Witte Hall 138
Instructor: Emily Yu
office: Helen C. White 7151 mailbox: Helen C. White, 6th Fl.
phone: 263-2786 office hrs: Tues
email: eyu@wisc.edu eng100-22-f07@lists.students.wisc.edu
1. Introduction. English 100, Freshman Composition, is a 3-credit course in and about writing for first-year students at UW-Madison. “Writing” and what makes writing “good” vary widely across time, place, language, technology, genre, and process. No 15-week course can teach all you need to know for every writing situation. This course will give you practice in meeting some of the demands of writing in college. It will also help you develop your ability to judge the demands of different writing situations through reading. This course is also about reading, since texts are always situated in the context of other texts. It has responsibility as well for developing skills in public speaking, and it will introduce you to college-level research, all in relation to writing. Finally, because it is taught in sections of 19 students, the course will demand group work from you, with active listening, discussion, and peer review.
2. Objectives. The specific objectives of English 100 are:
- to give you practice in writing: through challenging assignments that ask you to plan, draft, revise, and edit multiple essays over time and develop the ability to work through intellectual problems;
- to help you produce several substantial essays that you can be proud of, essays that are clear, organized, sophisticated, well-researched, and polished;
- to develop your abilities as an engaged, critical, but sympathetic reader – of your own work, of the work of your peers, and of published writers;
- to develop your public speaking abilities by giving you opportunities to speak in class;
- to introduce you to the demands of academic research at UW-Madison; and
- to increase your consciousness about the power and plasticity of language, to see how writing varies across individuals, communities, and situations, to see how your own writing changes with practice.
3. Coursework. In this course, you’ll write frequently, turning something in for response from either your peers or instructor nearly every week. The goal is for you to write constantly, in a variety of genres, in response to different assignments with different kinds of challenges, and for multiple readers. The five main writing assignments in the course form a logical sequence:
- Essay One—A 4-5 page essay based on your personal experiences and expertise;
- Summary and Analysis—A series of short, 1-2-page papers summarizing and analyzing other writers’ representations of issues important to them;
- Research Paper—An 8-10 page source-driven exploration of a question important to you, preceded by relevant shorter assignments (e.g., annotated bibliography); and
- Reflections Project—A 4-5 page recapitulation of your progress as a writer and thinker over the course of the semester.
- Writer's Memos—For each major writing assignment you must include a “Writer’s Memo” as a coversheet. In this memo you will describe your purpose and strategy in approaching the writing assignment, and ask any questions about the writing that you may have yourself. This is your opportunity to provide some context for the writing but also a chance to ask your reader directly about the effectiveness and effect of the piece. The memo should be at least a paragraph but no more than a page.
4. Feedback and Grades. Papers in this course will be written in multiple drafts and read by multiple readers: yourself, your classmates, and me. Writing is hard work, and there is no “right” answer for these kinds of assignments. The goal of English 100 is to encourage you to practice, take risks, and develop your abilities as a writer over time. You’ll learn and practice some of the conventions of college writing, but learning conventions is not the same as learning to be a strong writer who can critically think and communicate through writing. Since the emphasis is on your development as a writer – something that cannot occur without trial and error – you will not receive traditional numerical or letter grades on any individual assignments. For rough drafts, you will receive comments intended to help you improve your writing as you work through and form your ideas. On later drafts, I will respond to both the development of your ideas and how you meet the assignment’s communicative objectives.
You will receive traditional grades at three times in this course: on a midterm portfolio, on a final portfolio, and at the end of the course. These grades will take into account your development as a writer and your ability to meet course expectations, including the expectation that you will participate consistently and complete work on time. Twice during the semester, midway and again at the end, you’ll collect your writing into a portfolio, which you will turn in to me for a grade. The content of each portfolio will be determined by you and me, as noted below, but the essays included in the portfolios should be final drafts representing your best work.
Midterm Portfolio (35% of final grade) Final Portfolio (45% of final grade)
(5 texts total) (5 texts total)
Required texts Required texts
Essay One Research Paper
Summary or Analysis Reflections
Cover Letter Cover Letter
Writer’s choice Writer’s choice
Text 1 Text 1
Text 2 Text 2
Your portfolios will be graded using the following standard system: A (93-100), AB (88-92), B (83-87), BC (78-82), C (70-77), D (60-69), and F (59 and below). Your final grade for the entire course will combine your grades on the Midterm Portfolio (35%), the Final Portfolio (45%), and class participation (20%).
On the way to creating a portfolio, you will be keeping a writing folder, which will contain all of your drafts and other work assigned over the course of the semester. The kinds of texts that might be in your writing folder are informal in-class writing, blog topics, peer review comments, essay drafts, notes and brainstorming. All of these have the potential to be revised for the midterm and final portfolios. The essays and texts in a writing folder are not graded, but they should be kept organized and up to date, and you should be ready to bring your folder to conferences with your instructor. A well-organized and current writing folder will aid you in making choices about what to include and revise for your portfolios.
5. Texts and materials. You’ll need to purchase the following course materials:
- a notebook for taking notes in class and drafting paper ideas;
- a folder for collecting your work;
- a copy card for printing and photocopying (approximately $25-30);
- Easy Access by Michael L. Keene and Katherine H. Adams (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006) (available at University Book Store on State St.); and
- The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003) (also available at University Book Store).
6. Guidelines for Typewritten Work. Unless otherwise noted, all of your work—including drafts—must be typed, and should follow MLA formatting guidelines. These include the following features:
- Double-spacing
- Times New Roman 12-point font
- 1-inch margins on all sides
- Last name and page number in upper-right corner of every page
- Double-spaced header in upper-left corner of the first page with each of the following on separate lines: your first and last name, English 100-XX, date, assignment name (including draft number)
- A title, centered and printed in normal style font (no italics, no underlining, and no font size changes)—please do not use a separate title page.
For more information on proper formatting, see Chapter 13a, “Formatting Basics” in Easy Access (105). A sample essay formatted according to MLA guidelines can also be found on page 219.
7. Policies. Please carefully read the following policies and let me know immediately if there’s anything here you don’t understand or have questions about.
Attendance. You need to be in class, on time, prepared, every meeting. If you miss more than one week total of this course (more than 3 absences), your final grade will be lowered: half a letter grade for each absence over three. If you miss more than two weeks total of this course (more than 6 absences), you will not pass the course. Missing a scheduled conference with me, showing up without a draft for a conference or a peer workshop, or coming to class excessively or frequently late will also count as absences.
If you do miss class, it is your responsibility to find out from a classmate what you missed and what is due and to make up any work as soon as possible.
Late work. You will do a lot of writing and revising in this course and a lot of work with your peers, which means that all work must be turned in on the date specified. Work turned in late, including drafts, will result in grade penalties on your portfolios: one point off your portfolio grade for each day that an assignment is late.
Participation. Just attending class and turning in your work on time, of course, aren’t enough. You must come to each class meeting prepared and be an active participant when you are here. Speaking up during class is easier for some than others. I can help out if you don’t know how to enter the conversation—talk to me after class or send email.
Peer response. Research suggests that the instructor is not always the best reader for student writing— you need to practice writing for a variety of readers, and you need as many readers as you can get, especially readers who are not also evaluating you. That means you need to cultivate good intellectual relations with your classmates. Group work is difficult, and it is sometimes easy to dismiss others’ readings of your papers. But your writing is meant to be read by others and only improves when you have good readers. You need to learn to trust others’ readings of your work; you need, also, to provide the kind of readings of others’ papers that you want as a writer.
Conferences. Each of you will meet with me in my office at least twice during the semester to discuss your progress. These conferences help me get to know you and your work and also are a place for us to focus, in detail, on your writing and revision strategies. I will talk to you in class about how I would like you to prepare for conferences. Failure to attend a conference at the appointed time will count as a class absence.
Plagiarism. The
- using someone else’s words or ideas without proper documentation when quoting and paraphrasing
- copying some portion of your text from another source without proper acknowledgement of indebtedness;
- borrowing another person’s specific ideas without documenting the source;
- having someone else correct or revise your work (not as in getting feedback from a writing group or individual, where you make the changes suggested by others);
- turning in a paper written by someone else, an essay “service,” or from a World Wide Web site (including reproductions of such essays or papers); and
- turning in a paper that you wrote for another course or turning in the same paper for more than one course without getting permission from your instructors first.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has established a range of penalties for students guilty of plagiarism or academic dishonesty. Appropriate penalties include a reduced grade on a redone assignment, a failing grade for the assignment, a failing grade for the course, or even suspension or expulsion from the university. All instances of serious plagiarism are reported to the English 100 Program Director. For more information, see http://www.wisc.edu/students/conduct/uws14.htm.
8. Resources. If you’re having difficulties meeting the demands of this course, come talk to me. But there are other places to look for help. For online resources, you might want to start with the English 100 student website: http://mendota.english.wisc.edu/~Eng100/students/index.html.
Other resources include:
The English 100 Tutorial. The English 100 Tutorial Program offers individualized writing instruction specifically geared for English 100 students. The tutorial website at www.wisc.edu/english/100tutorial /offers information about the tutorial program, and you should also schedule appointments there. English 100 instructors have seen strong interest from many students, effective writers and novices alike, for extra help beyond what is offered in the classroom and during office hours. Since the
The
The
Campus resources. You’ll find other helpful resources listed at http://www.wisc.edu/wiscinfo/student/ and through the Dean of Students office: http://www.wisc.edu/students/. The University Health Service offers a variety of counseling services. Their web page is http://www.uhs.wisc.edu. To make an appointment, call 262-1744. For emergency crisis intervention services, call 262-1744; for after hours and weekend emergencies, call 265-6565.
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