English 2150T EMWA
Monday and Wednesday 2:30 to 5:25
Spring 2017
Instructor: Professor Joanne Grumet
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 2:00 to 2:30 or by appointment
VC7-290N
E-mail: [email protected]

Growing Up in America

Welcome to English 2150T. We will be examining the question of how we become who we are as adults. We will read autobiography, poetry, short stories and plays, and examine the role of class, gender, race and ethnicity in this literature, as we discuss and write about these themes. We will also rework a student essay into a mixed media presentation. In addition, students will keep a Reading Journal, write a 10-page Memoir over the semester, and perform a small group skit based on our readings or on a personal incident.

Required Texts:
Grammar Troublespots by Ann Raimes
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Course Goals
English 2150T is designed to develop the following skills for academic writing:

• Inquiry and research: You will identify credible sources for your research questions; engage with multiple perspectives by summarizing, interpreting, critiquing, and synthesizing the arguments of others; and avoid plagiarism by acknowledging the work of others when used in your own writing, using a citation style appropriate to your audience and purpose.
• Well-developed thesis: You will develop your ideas into a focused, compelling argument, developed in unified and coherent paragraphs, and supported by, as applicable, evidence from your own experience, your research, and the texts you analyze.
• Composing process: You will experience writing as a creative way of thinking and generating knowledge and as a process involving multiple drafts, review of your work by members of your discourse community (e.g. instructor and peers), revision, and editing, reinforced by reflecting on your writing process.
• Style and editing: You will produce well- organized writing that demonstrates sophistication in word choice, syntax, and sentence structure and that follows conventions of standard English grammar and usage.
• Rhetorical knowledge: You will analyze and identify key ideas in various genres (e.g. essays, news articles, speeches, documentaries, plays, poems, short stories), with careful attention to the role of conventions such as style, tropes, genre, audience and purpose, and demonstrate an ability to apply such rhetorical knowledge in your own writing.

Course Requirements
Students are expected to come to class with written homework and be prepared to discuss the readings. Students are also expected to bring reading material to class. Class participation is an important aspect of the work of the course. All essays that are assigned must be typed and revised as needed. Please submit original drafts along with revisions. Credit will be deducted for essays that are late. Essays will be graded according to organization and development of content, format, language, and documentation.

Dropping and Withdrawing from the Class
If it is necessary to drop or withdraw from the course, you must do so by the dates on the Spring 2017 Baruch academic calendar. You can officially drop a course during the first three weeks of class; after that if you withdraw officially before the eleventh week, you will receive a grade of W on your transcript.

Support Services for Writing
Students may get help with their work at the Writing Center in room 8-185 VC with writing consultants and workshops. Plan to see a tutor early because the center gets very busy. You can also get help with your speaking skills at the Student Academic Consulting Center [SACC] in room 2-116 VC.

Grading
Grades for the course will be based on

• 50% at-home and in-class essays
• 30% Journal entries, Memoirs and grammar assignments
• 10% class work (class discussions; Blackboard, group work)
• 10% oral presentation

Support Services for Writing
Students may get help with their work at the Writing Center in room 8-185 VC with writing consultants and workshops. Plan to see a tutor early because the center gets very busy. You can also get help with your speaking skills at the Student Academic Consulting Center [SACC] in room 2-116 VC.

Attendance and Lateness
As per college policy, attendance is viewed strictly and your grade will be severely impacted with 5 or more absences. The only absence that is excusable is for a religious holiday. The final grade will also be affected by attendance. Being late three times equals one absence. If you are absent,please get notes and assignments from a classmate.

Academic Integrity
My policy is to give a failing grade to any assignment that has been cheated on or plagiarized. You may also receive a failing grade for the course. In addition, I am required by College policy to submit a report of suspected academic dishonesty to the Office of the Dean of Students. This report becomes part of your permanent file. Cheating is the attempted or unauthorized use of materials, information, notes, study aids, devices or communication during an academic exercise or to allow others to research and write assigned papers, including the use of commercial term paper services.

Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s ideas, research or writing as your own.

• You must not submit an essay, or even part of an essay, written by someone else.
• You must not copy another person’s actual words without the use of quotation marks or footnotes (a functional limit is four or more words taken from the work of another)
• You must not present another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging the source. It is not enough to paraphrase, you must acknowledge.
• You must not follow someone else’s sequence of ideas, even if you paraphrase them. For example, you must not paraphrase a paragraph from someone else’s work sentence by sentence, even if you include a citation of that author.)
• If information is not considered common knowledge, you must acknowledge the source.

Essays written at home must be submitted to turnitin.com to check for originality.
For further discussion of plagiarism, see the online plagiarism tutorial prepared by the Newman Library faculty at http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/help/plagiarism/index.htm

If questions remain, ask me. Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for unacceptable practices.

Disability Accommodations
Students with disabilities may be eligible for a reasonable accommodation to enable them to participate fully in courses at Baruch. If you feel you may be in need of an accommodation, please contact the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities at (646)312-4590.

Papers
Schedule for required papers is as follows:
March 6 Essay #1, Comparison; March 27 Essay #2 Argument; April 5 Essay #3
Analysis/Comparison; May 3 Essay #4 Multimedia Argument; May 17 Essay #5 Final.
Late papers will have 5 points credit deducted.

WEEK 1
1/30 Introduction to course. In-class diagnostic essay
2/1 Introduction to “The Changing American Family” by Natalie Angier (NY
Times) (Blackboard)
“What adults can learn from kids” TED Talk
Analyzing Arguments

WEEK 2
2/6 “What are Fathers for?” (Blackboard)
Grammar Troublespots
2/8 “Narrative of a Slave Life” by Frederick Douglass (Blackboard)
Review of Tenses

WEEK 3
2/13 NO CLASS Monday Schedule
2/15 “The Flowers” by Alice Walker ( Blackboard)
Analyzing Fiction
Indirect Speech

WEEK 4
2/20 NO CLASS
2/22 “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall (Blackboard)
Analyzing Poetry
Modal Auxiliaries

WEEK 5
2/27 “Barbie-Q” by Sandra Cisneros (Blackboard)
The structure of an academic essay
3/1 “Money” by Junot Diaz (Blackboard)
Conditional Sentences

WEEK 6
3/6 (In-class Essay #1)
3/8 “Tender Offer” by Wasserstein (Blackboard)
Prepare for Essay #2; Works Cited page

WEEK 7
3/13 American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
3/15 Fun Home (excerpt) by Alison Bechdel

WEEK 8
3/20 “Immigrants” by Pat Mora;
3/22 “The Melting Pot” by Dudley Randal

WEEK 9
3/27 “Touch the Earth” (in class handout); (At- Home Essay #2 due)
3/29 “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie

WEEK 10
4/3 “Smoke Signals” movie
4/5 Work on mixed media project (#4)

WEEK 11
4/10-17 no classes SPRING BREAK

WEEK 12
4/19 (In-Class Essay # 3)
4/20 ( # 4 Part 1 in-class presentations) (Monday Schedule)

WEEK 13
4/24 The Glass Menagerie Scenes 1-4.
4/26 The Glass Menagerie (to end) preparation for Oral Presentations

WEEK 14
5/1 ( #4 Part 2 due) Movie The Glass Menagerie
5//3 Trip to National Museum of the American Indian

WEEK 15
5/8 “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor
5/10 ORAL PRESENTATIONS; grammar quiz

WEEK 16
5/15 “Advice to My Son” by Peter Meinke; “Mother to Son” by Langston
Hughes
5/17 In Class Final Essay (last day of class)