ENG 132.84 - Writing Experience Winter 2009 Meets: Tuesday evenings 6:00-8:56 PM – 01/13/08 thru 05/12/08 Location: Hillsdale Center – Room # 15 Instructor: Mrs. Tennille A. Fenstermaker Phone: JCC – Hillsdale Center – leave a message 517-437-3343 Home 517-254-4620 Cell 517-398-0025 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Course Text: Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond by Lester Faigley The Penguin Handbook (Both Available at the JCC Bookstore) Other Items You Will Need: - Zip drive or Flash drive or CD - 2 two-pocket folders, one for your writings and one for your portfolio (NOTE: Keep EVEYRTHING until the end semester) - one notebook for journaling JCC CATALOG DESCRIPTION OF COURSE: “This course is a continuation of the writing instruction and practice begun in English 131 with an emphasis on critical thinking, information- gathering and those forms of writing useful to academic and professional life. Research writing is emphasized. An end of the semester portfolio of informative and research writing and an additional 16 hours of writing activities and workshops are required.” COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class is a writing workshop requiring you to practice strategies associated with college English courses. You will write in ways that are personally meaningful, but you will also practice making your writing meaningful to readers. In college, you will be expected towrite in order to demonstrate the substance of your ideas. In order to have ideas, writers must have experiences, perceptions, and questions. Working with other writers will help you develop your writing. The small community of writers that we, as a class, create will help you and support you in your efforts to become a better writer. You must willingly help and support others in return. Language forms who you are and how you view the world. By writing and sharing your writing, you may discover things about yourself. This process can be intimidating and sometimes frightening, but it will also be rewarding and exciting. PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES: You will participate in all facets of the writing process. You will practice varied forms of writing appropriate for your intended audience, gain confidence in your ability to write, write in situations that require you to use your own experiences to provide perspective and support, and compose in situations that require research, organization and development. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES: Your primary task is to improve your writing skills. This means that you must practice, experiment, discover and create your various voices, learn to understand how you write (the process), determine your strengths and weaknesses as a writer and learn how to overcome the problem areas. To prepare for class, you are expected to: read the text and other assigned readings; hand in daily work and drafts on time; share your writing with others; respond to your classmates’ writing; actively participate in group and class discussions, and writing workshops; meet with the professor for individual conferences; and most importantly, write and revise both in and out of class. ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY: Plagiarism is the act of presenting someone else's work as your own, either intentionally or unintentionally. This includes not properly citing the work and ideas of others. In this course, plagiarism will result in a zero on the assignment for the first occurrence, and, possibly, a failing grade in the course for additional occurrences. ADOs: The board of Trustees has determined that all JCC graduates should develop or enhance certain essential skills while enrolled in the college. Several of these Associate Degree Outcomes (ADOs) are addressed in this class, including: 1. Write clearly, concisely, and intelligibly (i.e. use the writing process, determine purpose and audience, organize and develop, find meaning and understanding, use sources/documentation, and practice correct grammar). 9. Work in small groups (i.e. participate, make collective decisions, support team members, manage conflict, and evaluate).MY RESPONSIBILTIES: As your professor, I will do everything I can to assist you in improving your writing. I’ll read and respond to your writings and ideas. I will introduce concepts that may help you become a better writer, lead class discussions, form peer groups, share readings and writings with you, meet with and help you individually, and encourage you. GRADING: Your final grade will be totaled as follows: 40% Daily writings, class assignments, journal entries and essays Your in-class work and activities have specific purposes. They are practice pieces and ways to generate ideas. Your daily work helps me better understand your thoughts and reactions to the text, the class and your peers. Each essay you turn in should be accompanied by each step of the writing process: prewriting, rough draft, revisions, and obviously, the final draft. YOU WILL RECEIVE two grades for each paper: a writing process grade and a final grade based on the structure of the paper and also grammar. 10% 16 Guided Practice Hours and Workshops (GPAW) Outside of class All ENG 132 students must complete a total of 16 additional lab hours of writing work outside of classroom time. Students are required to complete the hours and work on their own time. The majority of these hours may be done online for students’ convenience. The purpose of this requirement is to better individualize instructions, to provide additional help for students whose majors are outside of the humanities, to offer more time with a variety of writing faculty, and to assist students with focused work on problem areas. 40% Portfolio Your portfolio is a compilation of your best work, your polished pieces of writing. Your portfolio ultimately contains your best essays from the semester. It demonstrates your strengths and abilities as a writer. Ideally, each carefully edited piece you include will show purpose and an understanding of audience. It will include a variety of forms, such as a personal narrative, an observation profile, an informative essay, etc. Guidelines for each essay will be given. By the time your portfolio is due, you will have revised your pieces numerous times and should feel confident that you are submitting your most outstanding work. Writing students benefit from portfolios because the ongoing collection of their work makes evident both the amount of work they have invested and the amount