Writing I:
Voicing Democracy
ENGLISH 2100 JMWF
Fall 2016
Professor Jennifer Sylvor
MW 12:25 – 2:05
17 Lex 307
Office: VC 7-290, cubicle O
Office Hours: W 2:15 – 4:00 and by appointment
Email: jennifer.sylvor@baruch.cuny.edu (the best way to reach me)
Course Blog: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2100f16
Welcome to English 2100! This course is, first and foremost, an introduction to college writing. We will work together over the course of the semester to equip you with the skills you’ll need to be a successful writer in college and beyond. This course will be offered in conjunction with Political Science 1101 taught by Professor McCabe. Together with your Freshman Seminar, we will form a Learning Community that will hopefully enhance and deepen your experience as first semester students at Baruch. While your political science course will be tracing the development and structure of our American political system, here in our English 2100 course we will take a more eclectic, personal, and literary approach to the subject of democracy in America. We will be reading a wide range of voices in American literature, thinking about the way language informs our understanding of important political issues and concepts, and adding our own voices to the questions facing America today. Particularly in this heated election season, it seems important to consider carefully our own roles as stakeholders in the unfolding narrative of American democracy.
Central to this course is the difficult, yet satisfying and stimulating work of writing. Formal assignments include personal narrative, literary analysis, rhetorical analysis, and research-based writing. The course will emphasize both the process and the product of essay writing. Every piece of good, successful writing undergoes an evolution and develops over time through reading, questioning, and careful editing. For this reason, you will learn how to develop, organize, draft, and revise your essays through the processes of critical reading, informal writing assignments, in-class workshops, self-analysis, peer review, and individual conferences with me.
This course is designed with the English Department’s learning objectives in mind. After completing ENG 2100, students should be able to:
- identify the key ideas and techniques used in a variety of articles, essays, and literary works, and subject these works to logical analysis;
- undertake writing as a process requiring the outlining of ideas, multiple drafting, and revision of complete essays;
- create an original and cogent thesis and develop an imaginative argument in unified and coherent paragraphs;
- observe sentence boundaries, punctuate correctly, vary sentence structures, and employ the conventions of standard English grammar and usage;
- engage with different genres of writing, including the short story, the novel, the essay, poetry, and drama, and comprehend and use appropriate vocabulary in interpreting the material by paying close attention to language and style;
- identify, analyze, and synthesize multiple sources as support for written arguments;
- gauge the value of different strategies for argumentation, including the use of counter-arguments;
- produce researched essays that incorporate sources and that effectively evaluate multiple (and even conflicting) points of view;
- avoid plagiarism and understand why it is unacceptable, at the same time learning how to appropriately document your research and ideas;
- imagine the needs of one’s reader when writing in different rhetorical modes and social contexts and take audience and occasion into account when writing.
Texts:
The Little, Brown Essential Handbook, 7th edition (optional)
Arthur Miller, The Crucible
Toni Morrison, Beloved
All other readings will be made available through our course blog.
Course Policies:
Attendance: Regular attendance and active participation are a critical part of this course and will affect your grade for the semester. In accordance with college rules, anyone with more than 4 absences will be assigned a grade of WU, which is the equivalent of an F. Grounds for excused absences are documented cases of illness or family emergency, observance of religious holidays, and attendance at scheduled university sports competitions. Please notify me well in advance if you know that you will be missing a class. Students are responsible for all work covered in their absence.
Lateness: Coming to class late is disruptive and disrespectful. Three late arrivals will be treated at an unexcused absence. Arriving more than 15 minutes late will be considered the same as an absence.
Preparedness: It is your responsibility to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. Please come to class with a hard copy of the text. Additionally, you should come to each class with a pen and paper, prepared to complete in-class writing assignments. On days when we’ve scheduled peer review, you will be asked to bring copies of your work to share with your peers. Expect occasional pop-quzzes!
Participation: This class cannot succeed without your participation. I hope you will feel comfortable adding your voice to our classroom conversations on a regular basis. Expect that you will periodically be asked to share your writing with the group and to offer feedback on your classmates’ writing. Keep The Golden Rule in mind, and treat your classmates’ work with the same respect and consideration you’d like your own writing to receive. We will undoubtedly be discussing sensitive issues in class; it’s important to we all commit to creating an open-minded, respectful space in our classroom community, so that we all feel comfortable participating.
Technology: I understand that some of you may choose to use laptops or other devices to take notes or to access assigned texts in class. However, let me be clear: there is absolutely no texting, no cell phone usage, and no internet use during class time. If you fail to adhere to this policy, you will be asked to leave the room, and you will be considered absent for that session.
Blog: We will be making ample use of our class blog. I will upload all handouts and assignments to the site. We will be also be using the blog to share and comment on outside sources related to our theme. If you have ideas about how we might make better use of this or other technology, please let me know.
Essays: All written work will either be submitted at the beginning of class on its due date or submitted electronically via turnitin.com. (I will be providing separate instructions for using turnitin.com.) Grades will be reduced at a rate of one half-grade a day for each day an essay is late. Essays must be typewritten in 12 pt. type and double-spaced. Informal writing assignments may be handwritten. Late drafts will receive no feedback. You will have opportunities to submit rewrites for most of our formal assignments, provided that you speak with me before embarking on the revision.
Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and cheating are serious academic offenses and will not be tolerated. Plagiarism means presenting another author’s words or ideas without crediting them to their source. When you include another author’s words in your work, whether from a printed source, from the internet, or from a live presentation, those words must appear in quotation marks and be properly cited. When you include another person’s ideas in your work, you must indicate where you found those ideas, even if you are paraphrasing rather than quoting them. If you have any questions at all about what constitutes plagiarism, please consult me. Any work submitted for this course that has been plagiarized will receive a failing grade and be reported to the dean.
Cheating is also a serious academic offense. Examples of cheating include, but are not limited to: submitting essays or portions of essays written by other people, including friends and family; collaborating on an assignment without the explicit permission of the instructor; submitting an essay written for one course to another course without the explicit permission of both instructors; submitting work as one’s own that has been purchased or copied from a paper preparation service or website. All work submitted in this course must be entirely your own!
Accommodations Policy: Baruch College is committed to making individuals with disabilities full participants in its programs, services, and activities through compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. It is the policy of Baruch College that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability shall be denied access to or participation in any program, service, or activity offered by the university. Individuals with disabilities have a right to request accommodations. If you require any special assistance or accommodation, please let me know as soon as you can, ideally during the first three weeks of the semester.
Writing Center: I will always be available to work with you on developing and executing ideas for your essays, reviewing writing mechanics, and revising and refining your work. For additional support, you are encouraged to visit the Baruch College Writing Center in VC 8-185. You can call 646-312-4012 to make an appointment or schedule an appointment at https://bc.mywconline.com.
Grading:
Your grade will be calculated as follows:
Attendance and participation (including homework, blog posts, and in-class writing) 20%
Essay #1 Personal Narrative 15%
Essay #2 Literary Analysis 15%
Essay #3 Rhetorical Analysis 15%
Essay #4 Research Project 15%
Essay #5 Final Essay 20%
Schedule:
What follows is a tentative, skeletal schedule for the semester. Expect that we will be modifying the schedule as the semester progresses.
M 8/29 Introduction to Course, Diagnostic Essay
W 8/31 Everything I Never Told You
M 9/5 Labor Day (no class)
W 9/7 Sartre, “Americans and Their Myths”/ Introduction of Personal Narrative
M 9/12 “Americans and Their Myths”
W 9/14 Writers’ Workshop
M 9/19 Emerson, “On Self-Reliance”
W 9/21 Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes
M 9/26 Whitman/Hughes
W 9/28 Miller, The Crucible
M 10/3 No Class – Rosh Hashanah
W 10/5 The Crucible
Th 10/6 College follows Monday schedule. The Crucible
M 10/10 Columbus Day – No Classes
W 10/12 Yom Kippur – No Classes
M 10/17 No Class – Conferences
W 10/19 Writers’ Workshop
M 10/24 Introduction to Research Project
W 10/26 Library Session
M 10/31 Politics and Rhetoric
W 11/2 Politics and Rhetoric
M 11/7 Politics and Rhetoric
W 11/9 Election Post-Mortem
M 11/14 What is an Annotated Bibliography?
W 11/16 Engaging with Sources (They Say/I Say)
M 11/21 Writers’ Workshop
W 11/23 No Class – Research Projects Due
M 11/28 Beloved
W 11/30 Beloved
M 12/5 Beloved
W 12/7 Beloved
M 12/12 Last Day of Classes – tbd
W 12/14 Final Essay Due