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English 350-22 • Advanced Composition

English 350-22 • Advanced Composition • Spring 2014Dr. T. Giannotti • LCH A334 • MW 4:00-5:30tgiannotti@csudh.edu • (310) 243-3930MW 5:30-6:45 (20206)LCH A230Required TextsRose, Mike, and Malcolm Kiniry. Critical Strategies. 3rd ed. St. Martin’s, 1998. 0-312-11561-x.Hacker, Diana. Rules for Writers. 7th ed. St. Martin’s. 9780312677350. (Other handbooks are OK.)Course DescriptionPrerequisite: English 110 and 111 or equivalent. This is an advanced writing course, one thatassumes you’ve completed Freshman Composition and are ready to demonstrate graduation-levelwriting skills. It has two primary objectives: 1) to help you achieve and maintain a level ofwriting proficiency appropriate to a CSU graduate; 2) to help you certify that proficiency bypassing the campus-wide Coop Exam. Because the course is designed as a portfolio-systemworkshop with a massive percentage of the work completed in class, attendance is essential: ifabsence or lateness is going to be a problem, please don’t enroll in this section of 350.Course Requirements and Grading1) Online Participation. You’re required to access Blackboard for materials and announcements.2) Nine Formal Essays (65%).• Essays 1-6: Five Esssays and One Required Revision (45%). Most are essays of three pages,typed, on articles/topics you’ll select from Critical Strategies, though Working Drafts willbe written in class. Essays 1 (5%) and 2 (10%) are letter-graded. Essays 3-5 are gradedCR/NC only, but you’ll select one of the three to rewrite later as Essay 6 for a letter-grade(3-5 pages, 30%). Essays returned with an NC must be resubmitted by the next class , and allCR/NC papers must receive a CR before the required revision is due: if required revisionsare not submitted when due, and all have not received a CR, the portfolio grade will be anNC.• Essays 7-8: Two Mock-Exam Essays. Written in class as preparation for the Comp Coopand graded CR/NC. (Three pages is the target.)• Essay 9: Final Paper (25%). A typed, 3 page (letter-graded) essay on a topic developedfrom additional readings in Critical Strategies.3) Supporting Work (5%). Total of 25 points assigned for supporting work (converted to 4.0scale). Includes homework and in-class work such as prewriting exercises, drafts, and peerresponses. Sorry, these can’t be submitted late or made up.4) Composition Coop Exam (25%). I’m required by University mandate to weight the Coop scoreas 25% of the course grade. The exam is scored by campus-wide faculty committee.Course Policies1) I take roll. After three absences and/or “tardies” (5 minutes or more), your course GPA may belowered by .25 per subsequent absence/tardy. There’s also an online requirement (see above), andyour course GPA may be lowered by .25 per week if you are not online.2) The drop deadline is Th of Week 3—I don’t normally approve drops after the deadline and requiredocumented “serious and compelling reason”: a medical emergency or permanent change in workschedule is adequate reason; failing grades or frequent absences aren’t. Please be aware thatINC’s won’t normally be issued—only for medical or other documented emergency on the final, ifall prior work is complete. All work is due by x PM, xxx, xxx.3) Please bring the course outline and Critical Strategies to class daily. FDs must be attached to aScoring Sheet and be typed, double spaced, and identified by essay number—please don’t usefolders. The FD is docked a letter grade if WD is not submitted on time. Letter-graded FDs(Essays 1-2, 6, 9) are docked one letter per calendar day beyond the deadline and recorded as an Fif not received by the next class meeting; portfolio FDs (Essays 3-5) are not accepted late andmust be submitted in class or in BB Assignments by midnight of the deadline (then in hard copy);late Rewrites are recorded as an NC if not received by the next class meeting after return. Pleaseread the attached plagiarism policy. Sorry, no voluntary revisions of letter-graded essays .Course Learning ObjectivesMeans of assessment include Comp Coop, all essays, all exercises.1) to compose sentences and to use diction appropriate to the purpose, occasion, and audience;2) to write effective expository prose using modes such as definition, comparison, etc.;3) to write two to three page papers which are virtually free from serious errors;4) to explore style and rhetorical strategies, including those beyond the sentence level;5) to employ strategies of editing and revising.English 350 • Schedule *Outside Work DueWkWkWk1234In-Class WorkPointsMWIntroductionWrite PW 2 (Summarizing)Write WD 1 (Autoculture)11MWHOLIDAY • No class meetingWrite WD 2 (Summarizing)Write FD 1, PR of WD 201, FD 1MWrite FD 2 (Summary)WWkPW 3 (Classifying)MWWrite FD 3 (Classifying)Wk5MWWk6MWPR, discuss Essay3(Classifying)Start WD 3 (Classifying)1, FD 2Finish WD 3 (Classifying), PR?PR,discussEssay4(Comparing)11, FD 3PW 4 (Comparing)Start WD 4 (Comparing)Finish WD 4 (Comparing)11Write FD 4 (Comparing)PR,discuss(Analyzing)Essay1511, FD 4Wk7MWWrite PW 5 (Analyzing I)Start WD 5 (Analyzing)Write WD 5, PR11Wk8MWWrite FD 5 (Analyzing)Submit FD 5PR, discuss Essay 61, FD 51Wk9MWLast FD 3-4 REVISIONS DUEWrite WD 6 (Portfolio Revision)Return graded FD 5, EditingPeer Reading of WD 611Wk10MWALL REVISIONS FD 5 DUEWrite FD 6 (Portfolio Revision)Conferences1,1, FD 6Wk11MWWrite PW 9; FD 6 “Drop Dead” DateWrite PW 9PR, discuss Essay 9Peer Reading of PW 911Wk12MWHOLIDAY • No class meetingWork on WD 9WD 7 (Mock exam)01Wk13MWWork on WD 9Finish WD 9FD 7 (Mock exam)WD 8 (Mock exam)11Wk14MWFinish WD 9Submit WD 9FD 8 (Mock exam)11MWSUBMIT FD 9Comp Co-opComp Co-op, PR of WD 9Scheduled Final ExamCo-op Returned (my office)Wk15Discuss Comp Coop, PR of WD 9PW=Prewriting, WD=Working Draft, FD=Final Draft, PR=Peer Reading.21, Co-op1, Co-opFD 9 Essay 1 • In-Class Coop-Style Essay • Two-three pages (5%)Both the Working Draft (WD) and Final Draft (FD) of this essay will be written in class. You’ll havetwo 45-minute writing sessions to write an essay in response to this prompt:No city in the world has been designed for and by the automobile as has Los Angeles. This city hasdeveloped and altered its very landscape to accommodate the private car. It may not be too much toassert that the automobile plays some role in the aspirations, tastes, social class, work and recreationof Angelenos. Los Angeles is not a city in the usual sense; it is an autoculture.Write a well organized and fully developed essay in which you do the following:••Identify some of the signs of the automobile’s dominance in Los Angeles;Explain how the automobile has shaped the way people live in Los Angeles.Essay 2 • Summarizing • Two-three pages, typed (10%)PrewritingFrom “Chapter 2: Summarizing,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s), andwrite a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “summary” essay, due at thebeginning of class. Bottom line question: what do we need to know are the article’s main ideas andperspectives?•••Anthropology: Kottak, “Rites of Passage” (99-100).Biology : Morse, Stirring Up Trouble (100-03).Anthropology : Groce, from Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language (110-13).Working and Final DraftsAs you write your working and final drafts, please bear in mind these criteria for a summary:•Your first paragraph needs to tell us the basics: identify the author, title (article titles in quotations,book title in italics), and thesis or main ideas at the beginning. Summary does just that: itabstracts central ideas, definitions, and arguments from the source, includes detailedinformation only when absolutely essential, and does not make a judgment of the source (thatis, your opinions are withheld). The purpose of a summary is to save readers from having toread the original source, but without missing anything of importance. Objectives should includethese:••••Questions you might ask about your article are these:••••convey accurately the article’s thesis and supporting ideas and details;define terms or ideas that the reader cannot be expected to know;paraphrase and quote responsibly (see below and attachment on using sources).Objectives. What is the writer trying to do? What questions or problems is s/headdressing? Is there an explicit thesis statement that needs to be quoted and explained?Findings. What are the major conclusions s/he draws (answers to the questions above)?Methods. To achieve these objectives and findings, does the writer use special methods,disciplines, or perspectives (e.g., statistics, lab results, sociological survey, historicalevidence, case study, journalistic interview, a particular theory or viewpoint)?Give full bibliographic information for your article(s) at the end of your paper (see below andattachment on source use), then cite a parenthetical page number when you paraphrase or quotefrom it. Quotations from all sources must be copied exactly and enclosed by quotation marks;when you quote or paraphrase any ideas or information from a source, you cite a page numberimmediately after the quotation or borrowed ideas or info :Morse explains that “germs do not discriminate” (102).According to Kottack, Van Gennep’s concept of the “littoral” is accepted by most experts(99).The Works Cited at the end of your paper will have only one entry that looks like this (varying,of course, with author and article title). See Rules for Writers for details:3Kottack, Conrad P. “Rites of Passage.” Critical Strategies . 3rd ed. Malcolm Kiniry andMike Rose. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1998. 99-100.Essay 3 • Classifying • Three pages, typed (CR/NC)PrewritingFrom “Chapter 4: Classifying,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s), andwrite a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “classifying” essay, due at thebeginning of class. Bottom line: what “stuff” are you classifying, and what classification schemeare you using to classify it? (What categories are you putting the things into?) See below for more.••••Little Communities : Classification Scheme: Redfield, “Little Communities”; Materials:“Summaries of Studies on Community”: Hualcan, Springdale, Vice Lords, Iks,Hutterites (314-19).Culture Shock: Classification Scheme: Brink and Saunders, “Phases of Culture Shock”(331-33); Materials: Bentz, “New Immigrants; Portes and Rumbaut, ImmigrantAmerica; Santiago, When I Was Puerto Rican; Kessner and Caroli, Today’s Immigrants;Steltzer, The New Americans (333-47).Writers’ Metaphors : Materials: Tomlinson, Buried Life of the Mind (312-14).Opening Paragraphs : Materials: “Selected Opening Paragraphs” (347-53).Working and Final DraftsAs you write your Working and Final Drafts, please bear in mind these tasks:•Two of the options (“Little Communities” and “Culture Shock”) present you with aready-made classification scheme (Redfield’s four criteria for a little community andBrink’s and Saunders’ four phases of culture shock). You’re being asked to applythe ready-made classification scheme to the other articles (the five “community”summaries or the five immigrant narratives ) and explain in detail how each of thecommunities or immigrant experiences conforms to the criteria laid out in theclassification scheme. In other words, these options supply you with categories (thefour criteria of smallness and the four phases of culture shock), and your job is togroup similar communities or experiences together in one group or category, andexplain how and why each paragraph belongs to a particular category (orcategories).•Two of the options (“Writers’ Metaphors” and “Opening Paragraphs”) don’t furnish aclassification scheme: you have to design your own and apply it to the materialsyou’re given. So for “Writers’ Metaphors,” you need to identify what kinds ofmetaphors you see in the 18 writers’ statements, group similar metaphors togetheras one group or category in your classification scheme, and explain how and whyeach statement belongs to a particular category (or categories). For “OpeningParagraphs,” you need similarly to identify what opening strategies (and purposes)you see in the 29 opening paragraphs, group similar strategies together as one groupor category in your classification scheme, and explain how and why each paragraphbelongs to a particular category (or categories).•Classification works according to perceived similarities. To create a category, you needto start small with a few of the variables you’re trying to handle and look for whatthey have in common. (The purpose of a classification is to enable comparisons andanalysis, which you’ll be doing in the next essay.)•As before, give full bibliographic information for your article(s) in a Works Cited at theend of your paper (see attachment), then just use parenthetical page numbers in yourtext when you paraphrase or quote. Be sure to use quotations responsibly.4 Essay 4 • Comparing/Contrasting • Three pages, typed (CR/NC)PrewritingFrom “Chapter 5: Comparing,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s), andwrite a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “comparison/contrast” essay, dueat the beginning of class. Bottom line: what specific points of comparison and contrast do theyshare?••••Anthropology : “Aranda Creation Story”; Abell, “Big Bang Theory” (450-52).Education: Franklin, from Autobiography; Malcolm X, from Autobiography (452-61).History : Morgan, “The American Revolution: An American View”; Trevelyan, “TheAmerican Revolution: A British View” (461-69).Literature : Chandler, The Big Sleep; Prucha, Murder Is My Business ; Mosley, Devil in aBlue Dress (469-82). (You may use just two or all three.)Working and Final DraftsAs you write your Working and Final drafts, please bear in mind these criteria for acomparison/contrast, which for us includes discussion of both similarities (comparisons) anddifferences (contrasts):•Comparison begins with an enumeration of similarities and of differences, and making alist of those might be your best starting point. As you consider how to compare two(or more) articles, consider not only what each writer has to say, but how he says it,when and where he says it (i.e., contexts such as publication date or what culture thewriter comes from), why he says it (possible motivations).•Since this essay builds on earlier ones, you’ll be using other critical strategies that we’veused already (summary, classification, etc.). A crucial question in this essay, as inothers, is how much you need to summarize: and the answer here, as in others, isonly to the extent that summarizing helps you to achieve your present purpose ofcomparing articles. So summarize and classify only insofar as they help you makeuseful comparisons. Don’t paraphrase for the sake of paraphrase.•The simplest way of organizing a comparison is graphed below. Your essay will haveto modify this basic structure in some ways, but here’s a glimpse:Comparison AArticle 1 says . . .Article 2 says . . .Discussion of similarities/contrastsComparison BArticle 1 says . . .Article 2 says . . .Discussion of similarities/contrastsComparison CArticle 1 says . . .Article 2 says . . .Discussion of similarities/contrasts•As always, give full bibliographic information for your article(s) at the end of your paper(see attachment), then just use parenthetical page numbers in your text when youparaphrase or quote.Essay 5 • Analyzing • Three pages, typed (CR/NC)5PrewritingFrom “Chapter 6: Analyzing,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s),and write a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “analysis” essay, due atthe beginning of class. Bottom line: what idea or theory from the “perspective” article are youusing to explain (that is, analyze) the “stuff” (the data or experience or behavior or text) of the“materials” article? Explain.••••Psychology : Perspective: Seligman, “On Learned Helplessness”; Materials: Wallaceand Waters, “Gunman Kills Himself” (583-86).Education: Perspective: Graff, “Moral Basis of Literacy Instruction”; Materials:Two Literacy Lessons: Vocabulary Lesson, Penmanship Lesson (586-89).Economics: Perspective: Farrell, “Decolonization”; Materials: Pattullo, Last Resorts(589-98).Sociology : Perspective: “Perspectives on Violence”: Freud, Moyer, Bettelheim,Sneider and Spreitzer, Girard; Materials: Tough, “Into the Pit (616-23).Working and Final DraftsAs you write your Working and Final Drafts, please bear in mind these criteria for an analysis:•••As always, give full bibliographic information for your article(s) at the end of yourpaper (see attachments), then just use parenthetical page numbers in your textwhen you paraphrase or quote.Analysis uses all the strategies that we’ve rehearsed up to this point, and a few more—summarizing, classifying, comparing, and defining—so be prepared to use alland any strategies that work.The one factor that analysis adds is a particular perspective or slant on the materialthat helps us to evaluate it (i.e., you need a thesis of some kind).Essay 6 • “Portfolio” Revision • Four-five pages, typed (30%)Prewriting and WritingPlease choose Essay 3, 4, or 5 as the “Working Draft” for this paper and rewrite it for a lettergrade that will represent all your work on Essays 3-5. Normally, you’ll need to expand it to aslightly longer 4-5 pages. (Remember, the letter-grade on this one will represent all your draftwork on the “portfolio” essays and thus carries a heavy grade percentage, so make it yourstrongest effort.) If it was perfect the first time, then you may have little or no revision to do;most mere mortals, though, will want to reread the sources, rewrite extensively, and be surethat the mechanics and surface presentation are as close to flawless as possible. P.S.: You canask me anything about this paper, except which essay to select or what the grade would be.Essays 7-8 • Mock Exams • Two-three pages, in class (CR/NC)Prewriting, Working, and Final Drafts6No outside preparation is necessary for these. I’ll give you a topic similar to the Comp Coopquestion, and you’ll have two 45-minute sessions to write a working and final draft of each.In responding to the prompt, be sure above all that you perform the writing “tasks” that it asksfor. Most questions will ask you to perform a series of operations, such as describing,explaining, evaluating your own response or thinking, or analyzing a “why” question of somekind. Be sure that the reader can distinguish clearly between each of the tasks you’reperforming (that is, knows when you’re going on to perform a new task) and that all of themare performed completely, especially the last one. For instance, if the question asks you toidentify a certain kind of event or experience, explain your reaction to it, and then explain whyyou react(ed) that way, give as much attention to analyzing the final why question as to theearlier parts of your discussion.In all cases, try to allow at least five minutes at the end of the second session to proofread forgrammatical correctness. You should concentrate on: 1 ) clarity and directness in word choice(i.e, using words that come naturally to you and get your point across simply, not words thatwill impress the readers); 2) catching sentence-level errors like fragments, comma splices (i.e,fused sentences or RTS’s); 3) word endings such as -ed’s and -s’s on verbs.Essay 9 • Classifying/Comparing/Analyzing • 3-5 pages, typed (25%)PrewritingPlease choose one of the options below, read the articles, and write a ½-page (100 wordminimum) statement of topic , due at the beginning of class. Your essay must perform (at least)one of the critical tasks we’ve practiced recently: it must classify, compare, or analyze thearticle sources and/or what’s discussed in them . Do NOT summarize the articles. Remember,this essay must have a thesis statement that tells us what it’s going to classify, compare, oranalyze and how: your essay will classify (as we did in Essay 3), or compare (as we did inEssay 4), or analyze its materials (as we did in Essay 5 by applying one reading to another). Itcan’t just summarize or paraphrase the articles. You have two major things to specify in thisPrewriting: 1) Are you classifying, comparing, or analyzying? 2) What or how ?••••Readings: Reconsidering Intelligence . Read Harper, Franklin, Rose, Hutchins, Haugeland. (54-75)Readings: The Dimensions of Child Poverty . Read Sherman, Lindsey, Katz, Scheller, Schorr. (14468).Readings: U.S Immigration Patterns . Read Ueda, Jones, Ewen, Sanchez, Portes and Rumbaut(356-417).Readings: Methods of Inquiry in Primate Research . Read Terrace, Lewin, Cheney and Seyfarth,Mitani (506-554).Working Draft and Final DraftOnce you’ve selected a topic and know what your purpose is (classifying, comparing, oranalyzing), please be sure to discuss how to narrow your topic with me if it seems a problem.You may use as many or as few of the articles as you like, as long as your final draft has somedocumented sources. This paper, like all the essays we’ve written since the summary, is acritical analysis—that is, it should take a distinct perspective on the subject and have a thesis toadvance and develop. Please see Prewriting above for more direction on this.English 350 • Working With SourcesPlagiarism Policy7At the heart of any university are its efforts to encourage critical reading skills, effective communicationand, above all, intellectual honesty among its students. Thus, all academic work submitted by a student as his orher own should be in his or her own unique style, w ords and form. When a student submits work that purports to behis/her original work, but actually is not, the student has committed plagiarism.Plagiarism is considered a gross violation of the University’s academic and disciplinary standards.Plagiarism includes the following: copying of one person’s work by another and claiming it as his or her own, falsepresentation of one’s self as the author or creator of a work, falsely taking credit for another person’s unique methodof treatment or expression, falsely representing one’s self as the source of ideas or expression, or the presentation ofsomeone else’s language, ideas or works without giving that person due credit. [Plagiarism] is not limited to writtenw orks.Source Documentation:MLA StyleYou won’t need to go to the library to dig up any outside sources for your papers, but since all except the in-classessays will be based on your readings from Critical Strategies , you’ll have to document any paper that refers to,quotes from, paraphrases, or borrows ideas from the articles you’re reading—which is to say, all of them, really.You’ll want to follow the new MLA format for documentation, which does away with footnotes and bibliographyand replaces them with a system of in-text parenthetical citation keyed to a "Works Cited" list at the end of thepaper. Read Chapter 50 of The Bedford Handbook if you’re unfamiliar with the system or need information ondetails, but here’s a crash course in MLA documentation that should tell you all you need to know.At the end of your paper, give a “Works Cited” list (also called a “Reference List”) that cites all of your sourcesalphabetically (though you may only have one in some papers). When you’re citing only one article from CriticalStrategies in the whole paper, it’ll look like this:Works CitedGiannotti, Thomas J. “My People, My Pasta, My Patrimony: The Italian Heritage.” Critical Strategies for AcademicThinking and Writing. 3rd ed. Malcolm Kiniry and Mike Rose. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1999. 17-31.When you’re citing more than one article from Critical Strategies , provide a separate entry for Critical Strategies,then give a cross-referenced and shortened entry for each article you refer to:Works CitedGiannotti, Thomas J. “My People, My Pasta, My Patrimony: The Italian Heritage.” Kiniry and Rose 17-31.Kiniry, Malcolm, and Mike Rose. Critical Strategies for Academic Thinking and Writing . 2nd ed. Boston: St. Martin’s,1999.Pomodori, Salsa di. “Plum Tomatoes and Your Health.” Kiniry and Rose 17-31.Once you’ve cited the source in your reference list at the end, you have only to document quotations, paraphrases,and directly borrowed material with a parenthetical page reference in your own text. If citing the mythical articleabove, for instance, you’d produce something like this:Gi…

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