Fall 2008
Course
Requirements
Your grade will be distributed as follows:
Notebook + Webpage = 40%
Major essays = 50%
Participation, quizzes = 10%
1. Class attendance and participation:
See the English Department's Standards for ENG 101 and 102. This class requires interaction and participation that includes writing in class, individually or collaboratively, as well as face-to-face discussion. What happens in class is a large part of the learning experience of the course, and it cannot be "made up" through reading or copying someone's notes. Please make every effort to be here for every class, on time and prepared.
ENG 101 Writing Workshop Placement: All students enrolled in ENG 101 write an in-class essay during one class period in the first two weeks of class. Essays will be read by two ENG 101 instructors to determine whether students need the Writing Workshop. Because we'd like to have baseline data from all students enrolled in first-semester writing courses, I'll ask you to write on this topic as well.
2. Writing:
Expect to do a lot of writing, both informal and formal, and expect to revise thoroughly.
a. "Formal writing" for your final portfolio will include several reflective and reading-based essays. I will expect to see evidence of revision in your portfolio. (Your midterm portfolio will include essays completed by midterm, with a cover essay.)
b. In-class writing is "formal writing," but, obviously, completed during a class period or the final exam period. There will be two in-class essays, on the same topic that all ENG 101 students write on, at the beginning and end of the semester. Our goal in administering these two essays is to evaluate improvement in your off-the-cuff writing.
c. "Informal writing" will consist of a writer's notebook and some in-class and out-of-class activities (including peer responses/critiques and exercises in improving style and revising).
d. Each student will create a Web site for this course. It will be assessed as part of the portfolio.
3. Reading:
We will read 1984 as a route into discussion of the role that language plays in the world. In contrast to previous years, I have selected a guide to writing, Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher. Pipher will introduce you to some other kinds of writing than the writing we usually think about when we say that some "is a writer." In addition, we'll read some essays and book excerpts available online or on reserve, and I'll ask you to do some independent reading for researched writing. The English Department requires the handbook Rules for Writers, 6th edition, by Diana Hacker, in ENG 101 and 102, and it is a valuable reference text for all students.
Please plan your time wisely to do thoughtful reading, so that you will be well prepared for writing assignments and discussions.
4. Diagnostic Test:
One class period, early in the semester, will be devoted to a test of your knowledge of rhetoric and literature. You aren't expected to study for this test. We just want to know what our majors know as they come into the program. A test will also be administered in ENG 450: Senior Seminar in English. It is our expectation (and hope!) that you will know much more in the Fall of your senior year than in the Fall of your first year as a major.
5. Research:
Because research plays a significant role in college students' writing, we will spend some time in Alexander Mack Memorial Library. There will be instruction in making ethical use of others' writing in your papers through accurate quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, as well as through appropriately documenting sources, and we will review Bridgewater College's Plagiarism Policy and Honor Code, as it applies to writing from sources. We will also use some class time for evaluating Web sources.
As a classroom community, we are engaged in an enterprise that furthers every member's understanding of good writing. To be better readers and writers, we all need to do the work honestly. It is probably obvious that when a student attempts to take shortcuts (like substituting reading an online summary for reading the assigned pages of a book or article, or copying and pasting bits of Web documents rather than writing original essays), that student does not improve his or her reading and writing skills. Of course, I have confidence in you as English majors who love to read and write! You have the desire to do all your reading and writing well and on time, I'm sure. People tend to take shortcuts when they feel overwhelmed by demands on their time. I hope you'll plan your time wisely, and talk to me if you're getting behind, rather than relying on others' thinking instead of doing your own.
Plagiarism is a violation of community members' confidence in each other. That is why plagiarism will not be tolerated.
6. Meeting Deadlines and Doing Your Best Work
Your grade will be based on the portfolio that you turn in at midterm and again at the end of the semester. Sometimes students have interpreted this to mean that "nothing counted" until they turned in their portfolios, or that what they were turning in was "just a draft" and did not have to be their best work. Please do not fall into that trap!
Students who do not do their best work may receive instructor comments that tell them to make revisions that they already know they need to make. When that happens, the instructor's time is wasted in making those comments, and the student's time is wasted in reading those comments.
When you turn in your best work, and then you carefully consider and respond to the comments on your writing as you revise, you will improve as a writer.
Return to ENG 140 Welcome page.
Updated by Dr. Trupe Sept. 2, 2008