COMPOSITION
2, Spring 2007 Instructor: Nick French
English 102, Section 8 nfrench@uwc.edu
Tuesdays
and Thursdays
Andrews 133 Hrs.: Mon-Thurs.
12-2 (Tues.
1-2) and
by appt.
The primary focus of
English 102 is to help you develop your skills in college-level writing,
particularly in argumentation and in the use of research. Over the course of
the semester, we will be examining various aspects of the writing process,
including drafting and revising, generating suitable topics, considering
audience expectations, using rhetoric and logic effectively, and incorporating
secondary sources into your own work appropriately. There will be a review of
grammar and mechanics to help you recognize which grammatical pitfalls you need
to watch for in your own writing. We will also cover thesis statements,
sentence structure, transitions, and organization. Because careful, critical
reading is almost as an essential skill for good writing as writing itself, we will
also look at a number of published essays on various topics, which will help us
to define effective persuasive prose and to implement some of the techniques
and strategies we find in these essays into your own writing. By the end of
this course you should have polished your writing
skills so that they exceed the standards expected of you in college and beyond.
Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s
Reference. 5th ed.
Peterson, Linda H., et
al. The Norton Reader.
11th ed.
You will have at least one written assignment due
each week in this course. Six of these will be graded formal papers, including
a three-page review, a four-page paper on an issue in education, a letter to the
editor, an analytical paper; a five argument paper, and an extensive research
project, which will be composed of an eight-to-ten page research/argument paper
and an annotated bibliography of source materials. The other assignments will
be short papers written in response to one of the readings or to a prompt that
I will give you in class. There will also be numerous in-class writing
assignments and both announced and unannounced quizzes. Each student must also
attend at least one conference with the instructor to discuss your research
paper.
Review:
Draft Due: Feb. 8 Revision:
Feb. 20 10%
Education
Paper: Draft Due: Mar. 1 Revision:
Mar. 15 10%
Letter
to the Editor: Due Mar. 29 5%
Analytical
Paper: Due Apr. 5 5%
Argument
Paper: Due
Apr. 12 15%
Research
Paper: Draft Due: May 3 Revision:
Peer
Critiques, Responses, Participation, and Quizzes: 15%
Attendance: This class is a writing
workshop with several in-class assignments, so prompt and steady attendance is
crucial to your success in this course. More than three unexcused absences will
result in your final grade being reduced by one third
of a letter (From A to A- or C+ to C, for example) per additional absence. More
than five unexcused absences will mean that you will automatically fail this
course.
Written Work: All written assignments,
except in-class writing, should be typed, double-spaced, and in an easy-to-read 12-point font. All formal writing should adhere
to MLA style and documentation guidelines.
Late Work: Late papers will be marked
down by 1/3 of a letter grade for each weekday the paper is late, unless there
is a legitimate emergency or other extenuating circumstance that you notify me
about beforehand.
Academic Honesty: The University of
Wisconsin Colleges’ Students Rights and Regulations considers “an act in
which a student . . . Seeks to claim credit for the work or efforts or another
without authorization or citation” to be an example of Academic Misconduct,
with disciplinary sanctions including removal from the course and expulsion
(UWS 14.03). Plagiarism is a serious offense, so we will spend a good deal of
time this semester discussing exactly what constitutes plagiarism and how to
avoid it.
Weather: The following radio and
television stations will announce the rare event of weather-related
school cancellation after
Radio: WCLO (1230 AM), WJVL (99.9 FM), WKPO (105.9 FM), WSJY (107.3 FM), and WGEZ (1490 AM). Television: WISC-TV (3), WKOW-TV (27), WMTV-TV (15).
Email
Policy: All email correspondence to your instructors must
be sent through your official campus email account. For
protection against computer viruses and spam email messages, I may delete without
reading any email from an account other than your assigned uwc.edu
address. If you use any other email account
(such as yahoo or hotmail) to contact me – you must assume that the message
will not be read. Students are encouraged to
read their campus email regularly. If you need
assistance in accessing your campus email account, please contact Campus
Network Administrator, Barb Palmer (office W07, BPALMER@uwc.edu).
Week One
Tues. Jan. 23 A
Writer’s Reference:
57-58, 66-69.
Thurs. Jan 25 Resume Due. The Norton Reader: “How to Write a Letter,”
522-526. Reference: 3-17, 447-465.
Week Two
Tues. Jan. 30 Norton: “Boring from Within: The Art
of the Freshman Essay,” 454-465. Reference: 111-147.
Thurs. Feb. 1 Norton: “Going to the Movies,” 1097-1099; “How We
Listen,” 1105-1109. Reference:
17-23, 81-108.
Week Three
Tues. Feb. 6 Norton: “The His’er Problem,” 518-522. Reference: 151-206.
Thurs. Feb. 8 DRAFT
OF REVIEW DUE. Norton: “Notes on
Punctuation,” 527-568; “Period Styles,”
529-33. Reference:
235-292.
Week Four
Tues. Feb. 13 Norton: “Politics and the English Language,” 540-550. Reference:
23-35.
Thurs. Feb. 15 Norton: “Learning to Read,”
408-412; “Clamorous to Learn,” 413-417; “Arriving at
Desire,” 418-420; “University Days,” 437-441.
Week Five
Tues. Feb. 20 REVISION OF REVIEW DUE Norton: “How Teachers Make
Children Hate
420-428; “College Is a Waste of Time and Money,” 429-436.
Thurs. Feb. 22 Norton: “College Pressures,”
442-448; “Examsmanship and
the Liberal Arts: A Study in Comparative Epistemology,” 465-474.
Week Six
Tues. Feb. 27 Norton: “The Rhythmic Claims of
Freedom and Discipline,” 475-484.
Thurs. Feb. 29 DRAFT OF EDUCATION PAPER DUE. Norton: “The Recoloring
of Campus Life,” 372-382;
“Taking
Women Students Seriously,” 448-454.; “In Defense of Prejudice,” 666-674
Week Seven
Tues. Mar. 6 Norton: Op-Ed Essays, 387-407.
Thurs. Mar. 8 Norton: “The
Allegory of the Cave, 1112-1115; “Thinking As a Hobby,”
217-223.
Reference 37-54.
Week Eight
Tues. Mar. 13 Norton: A Modest Proposal,”
857-863. “The Declaration of
Thurs. Mar. 15 REVISION
OF EDUCATION PAPER DUE. Norton:
“Letter from
SPRING BREAK Mar. 19 – 23
Week Nine
Tues. Mar. 27 Norton: “The Case for Torture,”
675-677; “The Case for Animal Rights,” 677-687; “The
Case for the Use of Animals
in Biomedical Research,” 687-696; “The Abstractions of
Beasts,” 634-641.
Thurs. Mar. 29 Letter to the Editor Due. Norton:
“Thank God for the Atom Bomb,” 735-747.
Week Ten
Tues. Apr. 3 Norton: “The
Eureka Phenomenon,” 223-232; “
Thurs. Apr. 5 Analytical Paper due Norton: “The Reach of Imagination,” 210-217; “Can
Science
Explain Everything? Anything?”
936-947.
Week Eleven
Tues. Apr. 10 Ref.: 329-377.
Thurs. Apr. 12 ARGUMENT
PAPER DUE
. Norton: “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain,” 328-334;
“’This Is the
End of the World’: the Black Death,” 759-771.
Week Twelve
Tues. Apr. 17 RESEARCH
PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE. Norton: SKIM pages 948-962; “Why the
Reckless Survive,” 995-1003.
Thurs. Apr. 19 Eliot, The Waste Land (to
be provided).
Week Thirteen
Tues. Apr. 24 Norton:
“Rewriting American History,” 828-834; “The Historian and His Facts,” 834-850.
Thurs. Apr. 26 Norton: “The
Week Fourteen
Tues. May 1 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE.
Thurs. May 3 TBA. DRAFT OF RESEARCH PAPER DUE.
Week Fifteen
Tues. May 8 Norton: “The Idea of World Citizenship,” 1164-1177.
Thurs. May 10 Norton: “Enclosed. Encyclopedic. Endured. The Mall of
America,” 198-209.
Week Sixteen
Monday, May 14,