Eng 106a Syllabus

English 106a
Winter 2016

MWF 9:20am-10:30 a.m. Class CE 117

Information

Instructor: Blanca Gomez

Office: UH 301.19 Office hours mon/wed 10:40am-11:40am
Office Hours: Wed 10:40 a.m-11:40 p.m. Fri 10:40 a.m-11:40 a.m. and by appointment

E-mail: gomeb305@coyote.csusb.edu

Mailbox: Inside the English Department Office UH 334

English Department Telephone: 909-537-5824

Writing Center UH 387 Graduate center & 364 undergraduate

Textbook & Course Materials

Maasik, Sonia, and Jack Solomon, eds. Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers . 8 th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015.
Harris, Joseph. Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2006. EBOOK FORMAT available for free download from Pfau Library. (I will provide a link to this via our Bb site.)
Additional readings available for download from Bb.
Digital technology, a notebook & instrument to write with legibly (you may also bring a laptop or notebook computer for taking notes).
A flash drive for days when we may have access to computer related activities.
Email and Internet access.

What this course is about.

Welcome to Accelerated Stretch Composition, a writing course that allows us to work together, as a cohort collaboratively, over two quarters (English 105a and English 106a). This quarter, English 106B is designed to extend your knowledge of writing and its processes through digital means. Together, we will read as writers, compose as authors, and author like editors continuing to emphasize the importance of not only noticing what other writers say but how they say it, and we will enter the textual conversations they’ve begun, with essays of our own. In doing this, we will learn to make generous use of other writers’ texts through research means, considering how writers/authors build on the shoulders of other thinkers/creators and investigators in order to extend intellectual conversations and build original knowledge. Our English 106’s goal is to this further this project, taking us into the realms of research and inquiry. This process, of course, takes risk, labor, time and effort. Even experts take time to write, so be prepared for a lot of writing and collaborative practice this quarter. That said, our class should build a strong foundation for upper division course work and for life-long learning; your investment in this class should prove a profitable one. Invest!

To further our study of writing this quarter, we will use two books: 1) Joe Harris’s, Rewriting: How to do things with Texts, which will provide a vocabulary and way of thinking about academic and intellectual writing, and 2) Sonia Maasik & Jack Solomon’s composition reader, Signs of Life in the U.S.A., which supports analytical and intellectual writing by activating our familiarity with popular culture. More specifically, Signs of Life introduces us to an approach for analyzing texts called semiotics –the study of how signs, including language, make meaning and how signs contribute to our sense of who we are, what we know and what we believe. One of the many nice things about this semiotic approach is this: while there are many different lenses, we can use to analyze different things, semiotics provides a method for reading the world around us (including our major disciplines as we enter them) in order to notice how people in new contexts, new locations, and new communities create meaning using the sign systems available to them in those contexts. What counts as a credible contribution to this conversation or that? What makes a successful piece of writing? Digital writing? Those are really questions of contexts and cultures.

Course Goals

During this course you can expect to:

· Recognize that writing and reading are both social, as well as cognitive, processes, and develop new ways to think through how to accomplish writing and reading tasks.

· Experience writing/composing as a means for learning.

· Read texts as writers and develop a shared vocabulary for talking about writing – how it works and how it gets done.

· Synthesize the conversations of other writers in order to contribute to them.

· Gain insight into and experience with MLA citation practices, making use of the insights and words of other writers, while maintaining your own project, purposes, and “voice.”

· Engage in extended (or multi-draft) writing processes and develop your revising and editing practices.

· Learn to work with other writers in generative ways – ways that support and further everyone’s writing.

Course Policies

Attend Class

Come to class, on time, prepared and ready to participate. I consider

absences and latenesses a serious problem after 3 instances and will address

these with deductions from your final grade. Please note that you CANNOT

pass 106a if you have missed more than 6 classes. Chronic absences may be a sign of lack of priorities and classroom investment.

Participate

Participation is how you will develop much of the knowledge this class is intended to introduce. Opportunities for participation include whole class discussions, small group work and writing workshop activities, and discussion board conversations on Bb. It also requires proper preparation: completing the assigned reading and writing for this class on time and with the appropriate amount of attention. Late work is not accepted. However, there is special consideration if you speak with me 24 hours in advance to why it may be important to postpone an assignment. However, it is up to my discretion. I will consider emergencies that follow with proper documentation such as doctor emergency visits etc.

Build Rapport

If you find that you have any trouble keeping up with assignments or other aspects of the course, make sure you let your instructor know as early as possible. As you will find, building rapport and effective relationships are key to becoming an effective professional. Make sure that you are proactive in informing your instructor when difficulties arise during the semester so that I can help you find a solution.

Complete Assignments

All assignments for this course will be submitted electronically and a hard copy will be brought to class when the assignment is due.

Assignments must be submitted by the given deadline or special permission must be obtained from instructor before the due date (at least 24 hours in advance). Otherwise, extensions will not be given except under exceptional circumstances and at my discretion.

In Black Board posts will be collected in class and cannot be made up. All assignments must be turned in in order to pass this course. See the breakdown listed above. There is no late work that I will be accepting except at my discretion and with appropriate documentation.

Commit to Integrity

CSUSB considers academic dishonesty a serious office. This includes such things as cheating, inventing false information or citations in written work, plagiarizing, or helping someone else commits an act of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism is the misappropriation of someone else’s words or ideas with the intention of passing this work off as your own. It can also include the misuse of source materials when the writer has reason to know that his or her citation practices are insufficient. Penalties for plagiarism can include failing the assignment or the class as a whole and I am required to report all such the offense to the University. See: “General Regulations and Procedures" in the CSUSB Bulletin of Courses for more on CSUSB’s plagiarism policies.

Please commit to integrity and let me know if you need additional help with citation practices or accomplishing your work in our class appropriately.

Major assignments and Grading Policy

Because CSUSB intends English 105-106 to work as a single curriculum, English 106b will be based on a letter grade. For example, 106b is graded A,B,C, No Credit and successful completion of 106 earns another 4 units and satisfies your Lower Division G.E. writing requirement. * For this reason, while you will be graded Cr/NC for transcript purposes in 105, you will receive an “internal grade” letter grade for your work in this course that will count 50% toward your final grade for 106.

My approach to grading in English 105 allows me to value your labor in this class in evaluating you, as much as the “products” of your writing work. My purpose in this is to encourage you to take some risks in your writing, to stretch as a writer, even if you’re not always certain how the project will succeed. It is also to stress that I do not want you to think that “what the teacher wants to hear” is more important than what you want say within the given context for writing. Basically, then, I use a collaborative and independent work system for grading, in which you turn in all the work that you did in completing your formal assignments, as well as the finished product, that shows both the student and teacher how you’ve used the opportunity to grow as a writer, by taking risks, trying some new techniques, setting some challenge for yourself, or otherwise putting into practice some writing strategies you feel less confident with.

Blackboard postings are worth 30%
Formal project 1 annotated bibliography is worth 35%
Formal project 2 collaborative & multimodalessay is worth 35%

A handout on the specifics of grading assignments and collaborative work will be made available on our course Bb site and we will talk about this further in class at the appropriate time

Services available to CSUSB students

The Writing Center (http://www.ugs.csusb.edu/wc/): is a wonderful and free resource for CSUSB students and faculty. The students who work in our center are experienced readers and writers who have been explicitly trained as writing consultants. These folks will work with you as a fellow writer and will be happy to give you feedback on any writing project you bring in, at any stage of development. To make an appointment, go to https://csusb.mywconline.com/.
Disability Services: CSUSB is committed to equal educational opportunities for qualified students with disabilities in compliance with Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. If you are in need of accommodations, please contact services to Students with Disabilities (SSD), located in UH 183 (909-880-5238 or 909-880-5242-TDD). SSD will help you arrange the services you need; I am happy to work with them and you. Requests should be made early to avoid a delay in services.
Counseling Services: In the wake of unforeseeable disasters that are beyond your control (i.e. San Bernardino shooting, Dec 2nd 2015,) or if you are experiencing stress due to school or life challenges, you can get help at CSUSB Counseling and Psychological Services. They offer free individual counseling as well as support groups. The Center is located next to the CSUSB dining commons, and their phone number is 909-537-5040. You can also call that phone number to speak with a counselor after-hours as well as on weekends (24/7). For more information regarding Counseling and Psychological Services please feel free to check out this link: http://psychcounseling.csusb.edu. In addition, you can email care@csusb.edu, and someone from the CSUSB CARE Team will help you find the support or resources that you may need.