ENC 0010 College Prep English I
Spring 2009
Building 5-215
Professor: Dr. Lauren Josephs
Phone: 407-619-8803
E-Mail:
Office Hours: By appointment
Course Objectives
ENC0010 is designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop the skillsnecessary to succeed in college-level writing courses. Students are placed in the appropriate level of the college-prep English program based on their scores on the CPT or another approved assessment and on the basis of a diagnostic writing sample. Students who successfully complete College Prep English I should be able to write grammatically correct sentences in unified paragraphs and must demonstrate sufficient competence with standard written English to qualify for ENC 0012.
The specific competencies that you will be expected to develop in this course are directly related to Valencia’s core competencies. You should refer to the ValenciaCommunity College catalog for a complete explanation of the core competencies, which are Think, Value, Communicate, and Act. Valencia’s Core Student Competencies include the complex skills and abilities every student needs to learn in order to succeed in college and in life. These general competencies can be applied in many contexts and must be developed over a lifetime. They specify how learning can be expressed and assessed in practice. They enable students and faculty to set learning goals, and assess within and across many disciplines of human inquiry.
Required Textbook(Always bring this to class)
Sentence Resources for Writers by Elizabeth Cloninger Long
Required Materials
- 3-ring binder
- Standard loose-leaf paper
- Flash drive for saving essay writing prepared on VCC computers
- College-level Dictionary and Thesaurus
Course Requirements and Grades
In ENC0010, classroom instruction is supplemented with a lab which offers individualized instruction and opportunities for intensive skill-building practice. This lab (the CommunicationsCenter in 5-155) is computerized so that students may work at their own pace on particular problem areas of English grammar and the mechanics of writing, but it is also staffed by college-prep instructors and professional tutors.
The lab is open Monday through Thursday from 8:00am until 8:00pm, on Friday from 8 until 2, and on Saturday from 9 until 3. It is an open lab, so students can have great flexibility in scheduling their lab time according to their individual needs and around changes in their non-academic schedules. Please note that seats are limited in the lab. A lab orientation will be provided on the third week of class (1/28/09). On that date, we will meet in the lab at 6:30pm.
Breakdown of Final Grade:
Writing assignments –20%
Lab assignments other than writing assignments– 20%
Quizzes / graded class activities – 20%
Tests (unit tests and final exam) – 30%
Attendance, Participation- 10%
Grading Scale: A= 90 – 100B= 80 – 89C= 70 – 79 D= 60 – 69F= 0 – 59
Attendance Policy
Attendance is mandatory for success in this course. You are expected to attend every class session on time and prepared to discuss, engage, and participate. Please try to anticipate and resolve potential conflicts (with your job or in your personal lives) so that they will not interfere with your class schedule.
Students are responsible for all assignments whether or not they are in attendance. There will be no make-ups; however, the lowest quiz score will be dropped. An excessive absence notification, the first step in the withdrawal process, will be filed for students who have missed three classes.
Classroom Protocol
The distracting behaviors of a few students can have a negative impact on the entire learning environment; therefore, distractions cannot be permitted. As adults, you are expected to treat each other and the instructor with respect. To avoid unnecessary interruptions,I ask that you turn off your cell phones and pagers before class begins.
Assignments
All assignments are due at the beginning of the class period on the specified date. Absence is not an excuse for late assignments. Assignments submitted late will be penalized up to one letter grade for each day past the due date. No assignment will be accepted more than three days late. Weekend days are NOT excluded from the late day count.
Throughout the term, we will be working with Mywritinglab.com, which will provide additional support and practice. This will assist you in achieving mastery of the concepts covered during the semester. At the beginning of the third class (1/28/09) there will be a Lab orientation and you will learn more about how to use this component. I understand that some of you may not have computers at home; however, you will have access to this online component through the CommunicationsCenter (lab) in 5-155.
Academic Honesty
All forms of academic dishonesty are prohibited at ValenciaCommunity College. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, plagiarism and cheating. All work submitted by students is expected to be the result of the students’ individual ideas, research, and self-expression. All written work submitted must be your own. A grade of zero will be given for any written assignment which is found to have been authored by an individual other than the student who presents it as his/her own work.
Course Outline
This is a summary form of the topics to be covered in this course and the corresponding textbook chapters.
Homework:In order to improve your skills as a writer, a number of readings and exercises will be assigned for each class period. You must complete the readings and any other assigned homework prior to the corresponding class session.
Week 1 (January 14) – General Orientation / Course Introduction (Chapter 1)
Week 2 (January 21) – The Qualities of Good Writing (Chapter 2)
Week 3 (January 28) – Grammar Overview – Parts of Speech (Chapter 6)
- Lab orientation (We will meet at the lab at 6:30pm. Please be on time!)
Week 4 (February 4) – The Essential Parts of a Sentence: Subjects and Predicates(Chapter 8)
Week 5 (February 11) – Simple Sentence Analysis & Prepositional Phrases (Chapter 7)
Week 6 (February 18) – Exam 1
Week 7 (February 25)– The Skills That Produce Good Writing (Chapter 1 – again)
-- Review of Paragraph Writing Skills (Chapter 3)
–Constructing Sentences with Clauses (Chapter 9)
Week 8 (March 4) – Review of the Writing Process (Chapter 5)
–Correcting Run-on Sentences (Chapter 10)
Week 9 (March 11)---SPRING BREAK
Week 11 (March 18) – Correcting Fragments (Chapter 11)
Week 12 (March 25) – Exam 2
Week 13 (April 1) – Creating Effective Compound and Complex Sentences (Chapter 12)
– Overview of the Essay (Chapter 4)
– The English Verb System (Chapter 13)
Week 14 (April 8) – Irregular Verbs (Chapter 14)
Week 15 (April 15) – Week 13 (April 9) – Subject-Verb Agreement (Chapter 15)
Week 16 (April 22) – Additional Verb Tense Problems (Chapter 16)
Week 17 (April 29) – Final Exam
Note: This syllabus may be modified by the instructor, at any time, in order to better meet the needs of the class. All changes will be announced in class or emailed to you and will supercede the written syllabus.Itis important that you check your email at least 3 times per week.
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