WRTG 1150
Klinger / Page 1 of 17
Fall 2009

WRTG 1150: First-Year Writing & Rhetoric

Section 53: DUAN G1B39

Section 55: STAD 112

Instructor / Eliza Klinger
Office / ENVD 1B50G
Office Hours / W 12:30-1:30, Th 11:45-12:45, and by appointment
Office Phone / 735-4668 (Please use email instead of leaving voicemail.)
Email /
Required Texts / Rules for Writers, sixth edition(ISBN 0312452764)
Course Overview
First-Year Writing & Rhetoric is a required course, and it comes in various forms. This class is sort of the “regular” version. There are also classes set aside for second-language writers, advanced writers, and those who’d like an extra hour of small-group interaction every week. If you think one of these other classes would be better for your individual needs, ask me for more information.
There is an additional required writing class at the junior level, but which class you need to take depends on your college and major. Consult the catalog for details. If you just can’t wait until your junior year to take another writing class, we offer a couple of electives every semester under the WRTG acronym.
This course, like all First-Year Writing & Rhetoric classes, has the following objectives, as articulated in Knowing Words:
  • To write with fluency; to acquire a practical and reflective understanding of the writing process.
  • To acquire rhetorical sensitivity, making informed choices as you adapt your writing to the needs of your readers, to a specific context and situation, and for a particular purpose.
  • To become a proficient reader, approaching texts with a writer’s awareness of craft and a critic’s ability to interpret and respond to a text’s meaning and effects.
  • To develop strategies of research that will enable you to become an active investigator of your culture.
  • To understand and apply conventions of standard linguistic usage, including proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation, as you compose, revise, and edit your writing across a range of rhetorical tasks and genres.
Major Coursework
Journal
Throughout the semester, you’ll keep a journal of informal writing in response to specific prompts. Most of the writing will be done in class. You’ll be graded on intellectual effort, and I’m not concerned here with grammar, spelling, etc.
Narrative Essay
We’ll start with a personal essay (about 4-6 pages long). You’ll choose an experience that changed you in some positive way, and you’ll write about it with the purpose of allowing the reader to share in what you gained.
This assignment will help you practice:
  • Creating one unifying point by synthesizing and/or eliminating disparate points.
  • Proving your point by presenting evidence (in this case, showing instead of just telling).
  • Incorporating pathos (appeals to the readers’ emotions, personal experiences, or most deeply held values) into your writing.
  • Identifying and eliminating words, sentences, and paragraphs that do not help you achieve your purpose.
  • Using strong verbs, precise wording, and concision to craft sentences with more punch.
Argumentative Essay
You’ll choose some debate you feel strongly about and write an argumentative essay (about 5-7 pages long) with the purpose of persuading an uncommitted reader to agree with you. You will not use any research for this essay.
This assignment will help you practice:
  • Applying the skills you gained from the Narrative Essay to a more academic context.
  • Using logos (logically laying out rational reasons and presenting evidence in the form of examples) to support your argument.
  • Refining your grasp of the nuts and bolts of a standard essay (intro, thesis statement, topic sentences, conclusion, etc.).
  • Identifying and addressing alternative points of view.
Research Project
You’ll choose some very specific debate about which you do not have a strong position but about which you are curious. You’ll articulate a question and then research all the existing arguments in response to that question. By the time you’ve completed this, you’ll have about 20 (mostly scholarly) articles, and you’ll write rhetorical analyses (each about 2-3 pages) on three of those articles. Just before you move from this phase to beginning the actual essay, you’ll give a short presentation (less than 10 minutes) that gives us an overview of the different viewpoints on your research question.
This assignment will help you practice:
  • Using the library resources to find scholarly journal articles.
  • Understanding academic research (in this case, your own) as fundamentally curiosity or question driven.
  • Understanding academic writing (in this case, other people’s academic writing) as part of an ongoing conversation.
  • Identifying the main point of a scholarly article and determining whether it is argumentative or strictly informative.
  • Identifying and critiquing the rational reasons and evidence the author presents (logos).
  • Investigating an author’s credibility and an argument’s validity.
  • Articulating how a specific source fits into the bigger picture.
Documented Argument
You’ll build on your research project by taking an informed position and writing an argumentative essay (about 8-10 pages) incorporating your research.
This essay will help you practice:
  • Applying the skills (pathos, brevity) you gained in the Narrative Essay to a more academic context.
  • Maintaining your grasp of the skills you gained in the Argumentative Essay as you complicate the form by adding research.
  • Understanding your own academic writing as a contribution to an ongoing conversation (in this case, the conversation you investigated in your research and summarized in your presentation).
  • Referencing scholarly journal articles to support your rational reasons (logos) and establish credibility (ethos).
Portfolio
You’ll survey your work over the semester and evaluate your progress and your strengths and weaknesses. You’ll write an essay (3-5 pages) that defines your understanding of the course goals and demonstrates how your writing fulfills these goals. As your evidence, you’ll select and include both formal and informal pieces you’ve written this semester.
This assignment will help you bring together all the skills and strategies you’ve learned this semester.
Revision Project
You may revise either your narrative, argumentative, or documented essay, and the improved grade will be averaged with the original grade. If you choose to take advantage of this opportunity, you must make substantial revisions; you may not resubmit a paper with only superficial, minor changes. You forfeit your option if you do not make substantial revisions for each of the two workshops; if you choose not to revise an earlier essay, you must still attend the workshops to help your classmates with their revisions.
Course Philosophy
You will workshop each of the major writing assignments in class at least once, though usually more. Basically, you’ll bring your draft to class and you and your classmates will give each other advice and suggestions. I can’t emphasize enough how valuable workshops can be, and I urge you not to discount your classmates’ input just because they aren’t experts. For instance, I am not a master chef, but I can critique a meal at a restaurant, saying I wish there were more salt, fewer vegetables, a little less grease, etc.
I also strongly recommend making a habit of visiting the Writing Center early and often. Writing Center consultants are expert teachers; they teach this class and others, and they are either grad students or full faculty (like me). You will get twice as much out of this class if you just visit the Writing Center often—and it’s free! As a side note, the most valuable Writing Center consultations take place before you even begin the paper; consultants will help you brainstorm and organize your thoughts. The Writing Center is located in Norlin E111, just inside the East Entrance (where all the construction is). Appointments last 50 minutes and can be booked at Appointments fill up quickly, often more than a week in advance, so you’ll need to plan ahead. One final note: please book your appointments with other consultants (not with me).
Finally, office hours are one of the most underused resources on campus. You don’t have to wait until you have a problem to come visit me! You can come in just to talk through your ideas for a paper, to get advice on what direction to take something, or just to make sure you’re on the right track. Again, you can get far more out of this class (and all your classes) just by using office hours. I have official office hours 12:30-1:30 on Mondays and 11:45-12:45 on Thursdays, but if those don’t work for you or aren’t soon enough, just send me an email with all the times you’re available for the next couple days. I’ll almost always be able to find a time to meet with you.
Workshops
**Regardless of how many absences you have, missing a workshop always reduces your grade.** Each student can attempt to make up one missed workshop by both giving and receiving feedback by email. Email everyone (including me) the following before the workshop:
“I can’t make it to class today, but I’m attaching my draft. You can earn extra credit by emailing me in-depth feedback and suggestions on my draft and attaching your own draft so that I can send you feedback. You need to get your feedback to me within 24 hours, and I’ll get feedback to you within 24 hours after that. Don’t forget to print out the feedback you’re giving me and attach it to your final paper so Eliza can give you credit!”
If no one responds, you’re out of luck.
Absences
I will count you absent if you’re present but not participating. If this happens, I’ll send you an email within 24 hours, and you’ll have the chance to come to my office hours to talk about ways you can become more engaged in the class.
Excessive absences will seriously hurt your grade. Your first three absences do not count against you. However, I will deduct five percentage points from your final semester grade for every absence over three. In addition, accumulating six or more absences is grounds for immediate failure of the course regardless of your grade average.
The only absences which will be “excused” are those resulting from University of Colorado sponsored trips and activities, military obligations, mandatory court appearances and jury duty(if you provide proper documentation before the absence and make up all missed work in a timely fashion). Any additional excused absences are entirely at my discretion and will only be considered if you contact me and explain the absence immediately, keep in touch if you miss multiple classes, provide documentation promptly, and make every possible effort to make up for missed work quickly.
Please plan ahead: In case you get very sick, it’s a good idea to keep a list of your classes and instructors’ contact information somewhere your roommate or family will be able to find it. That way, you can have them contact me right away so I’ll know you didn’t just decide to give up on the class.
Texts and Materials
Handouts:
“A Hanging,” George Orwell
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula K LeGuin
“The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien
“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
We’ll discuss these pieces in class to find examples of techniques you can use in your Narrative Essays, to figure out what makes certain sentences or paragraphs stronger than others, to figure out how to use pathos (emotional or personal appeals) without becoming sentimental or cliché, and to get a sense of what we mean when we talk about “voice.” Essentially, we will read these short pieces rhetorically, looking at how the writers’ achieve their purposes in order to deepen our own rhetorical skills.
Rules for Writers, Diana Hacker
This will be our handbook this semester. It has user-friendly information on everything from commas to thesis statements to citation. I expect you to take ownership of your learning by referring to this book frequently. For instance, if you know that every teacher since 6th grade has said you have problems with run-ons, take the initiative to check out the book’s explanations, examples, and exercises. If you still don’t get it, come talk to me! Like it or not, your credibility is partially determined by your ability to use standard academic English. Once you have a firm grasp of the basics, you can start using language purposefully for different effects, i.e., you’ll be able to use language rhetorically.
Rules for Writers Website:
Here you’ll find exercises to go along with almost every topic in the handbook. After every question, a nifty box tells you which was the right answer and why. You’ll find these exercises extremely useful for those times when you need extra reinforcement before a quiz, but the more you use them, the more you’ll truly achieve mastery of your language usage and the more rhetorically powerful your writing will be.
University of Colorado Libraries:
You’ll complete an online tutorial on finding and evaluating sources through CU’s library, and then you’ll attend an in-class library seminar. You’ll use the library’s online article databases as your primary research tool for the Annotated Bibliography and the Documented Argumentative Essay. These will give you the tools to make your academic writing more rhetorically savvy, demonstrating that you understand the context in which you are writing.
Research and Documentation Online:
This site repeats most of the citation information that’s in the book, but I think the drop-down boxes make it more user-friendly. Also, you don’t have to carry the book to the library with you! Citation is essential for establishing ethos (credibility) and for identifying yourself as part of the academy.
Assorted Scholarly Journal Articles
We’ll use scholarly journal articles in class to learn how to rhetorically analyze them. You’ll learn how to quickly determine the main point of an article, evaluate the logic and evidence offered in support of that main point, assess authors’ credibility, estimate the article’s importance in the field, and place the article in the context of the larger conversation.
Grading
Your percentage grade will be determined according to the attached point breakdown. Final grades will be assigned based on the following:
93-100A 90-92 A-
87-89 B+ 83-86 B 80-82 B-
77-79 C+ 73-76 C 70-72 C-
67-69 D+ 63-66 D 60-62 D-
0-59 F
Disability Services
If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities.
Willard 322 303-492-8671

Religious Holidays

Campus policy requires that faculty make every effort to deal reasonably and fairly with all students who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, assignments or required attendance. However, you MUST notify me in writing BEFORE the absence and make (and follow through on) arrangements to complete missed work. See policy details at

Classroom Behavior

Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Those who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student's legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. See polices at at

Sexual harassment

The University of Colorado at Boulder policy on Discrimination and Harassment, the University of Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and the University of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships apply to all students, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member who believes s/he has been the subject of discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at 303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. Information about the ODH, the above referenced policies and the campus resources available to assist individuals regarding discrimination or harassment can be obtained at

Honor Code

All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council
(; 303-725-2273). Students who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion). Other information on the Honor Code can be found at at