Engl381/Hnrs368a: Maryland General Assembly Legislative Internship (Fall 2014)

ENGL381/HNRS368A: MARYLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY LEGISLATIVE INTERNSHIP (FALL 2014)

Instructor: Dr. Thomas Lowderbaugh
Office: Tawes 1220A
Office Hours: TBA
Telephone: 301/405-3774 (the worst way to reach me)
E-mail: (the best way to reach me) / Teaching Assistant: Mr. Kyle Vaughan
E-mail:
Office Hours: By appointment

Class Sessions: Tuesdays, 3:30 – 6:00 p.m. in Tawes 0232

Pre- or co-requisites: You must have achieved junior standing (sixty credits) by the end of this semester (i.e., before you begin the spring 2013 internship). This standard is an MGA requirement.

Course Description: This writing seminar teaches students how to perform legislative research and to write standard legislative documents, such as constituent letters, oral and written testimony, talking points, news releases, op-eds, legislative summaries and meeting notes. It thus prepares students to intern for the Maryland General Assembly Internship (ENGL388M/HNRS368A).

Depending upon your status, the MGA program satisfies the professional writing graduation requirement:

CORE: The fall course and the spring course together meet the professional writing graduation requirement
GEN ED: The fall course by itself meets the professional writing (fundamental studies) graduation requirement. The spring course satisfies one of the required two scholarship in practice requirements.

Principles of experiential learning structure the course. Assignments require students to function as legislative aides, researching and writing documents in response to prompts based on real legislative situations. By semester’s end, each student submits a professional portfolio that documents his/her growth as a researcher and writer. Even before semester’s end this package can argue for the student’s qualification during internship interviews.

Although students from any Maryland college or university may apply to the MGA for one of its one hundred internship positions filled each spring session, only those who complete this preparatory course are guaranteed such a placement. Thus the English Department requires that students who want to take this course submit a written application and sit for an interview. (No previous experience is necessary.)

The instructor’s rolein the course is to function both as supervisor and instructor, giving assignments, evaluating papers and guiding students to meet the assignments’ goals.

The teaching assistant’s role is to share his internship experience as a way of preparing students for their spring 2014 assignments. The TA will provide students with hands-on guidance both with an overview of the course’s requirements and its intellectual arc and with one-on-one tutorial support as students write and revise assignments.

The students’ role is to function much like legislative professional staff by responding to a supervisor’s assignments. Participating in class work is much like participating in the work of an office. And such participation presumes that students:

Attend all class sessions (see attendance policy below)
Arrive in class with the day’s assignment, ready to work

Course Goals: English 381/Honors 368A is designed to help students master the skills of legislative writing, the kind of writing that prepares students for real assignments in Annapolis. At the completion of this course, students will be able to:

Analyze a variety of professional rhetorical situations and produce appropriate texts in response
Understand the stages required to produce competent, professional writing through planning, drafting, revising and editing
Identify and implement the appropriate research methods for each writing task
Practice the ethical use of sources and the conventions of citation appropriate to each genre
Write for the intended readers of a text, and design or adapt text to audience who may differ in their familiarity with the subject matter
Demonstrate competence in Standard Written English, including grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, coherence, and document design (including the use of the visual) and be able to use this knowledge to revise texts
Produce cogent arguments that identify arguable issues, reflect the degree of available evidence, and take account of counter arguments

Grading:

80%: course portfolio: The portfolio traces your growth as a researcher and a writer over the course of the semester. You should save copies of original versions, revisions and final versions to document your growth.

Later this semester—as you begin putting your portfolio into final form—I will distribute a checklist to guide you, reminding you of what I will look for when grading the portfolio and calculating your grade for the course as a whole. The package usually contains the following:

Memo of submittal
Title page
Table of contents
Introduction
First reflective essay: Establishing your expectations
Application materials (resume, personal statement)
Constituent letters
Individualized
Form e-mails
News releases
Progress report
Second reflective essay: Mid-term self-assessment
Newsletters
Bill summary (a group project: all members share the same grade)
Memo evaluating writing team
Reading journals
Third reflective essay: Revisiting your expectations

My criteria for evaluating portfolios out of one hundred points:

Presentation: Memo of submittal/cover/title/table of contents/devices used to convey overall organization (25 points)
Organization: Rhetorical effect of the organization that you employed to structure your materials (25 points)
Quality of work: The texts themselves as arguments in each genre (50 points)

Bill analysis: 25 points
Your selection of two of the following assignments (each worth 10 points)
Application packet
Constituent letters: individualized
Constituent letters: form e-mails
Your selection of one of the following (five points):
Testimony: both official text and accompanying talking points
News releases
Newsletters
Reading journals

Yes, you should revise your papers before submitting the portfolio to me. If you do so, please answer the following questions in your memo of submittal:

Which papers did you revise?
What revisions did you make? How will each of these revisions strengthen your argument

The portfolio itself must include both the original version and revised versions labeled so I can immediately match them.

Important Notes:

I cannot give you credit for revisions if you fail to answer my questions in your memo of submittal.
Your portfolio must include ALL assignments that you completed this semester—whether you ask me to grade them or not. Including all assignments implicitly argues that you took the course seriously and completed all assignments. Failing to include all such documents argues the opposite: you took shortcuts that will undermine your internship success.
Plan to distribute your work across the semester. For example, every student must deliver three sample testimonies. You should plan to deliver yours as early as possible. The last class session will include focus almost entirely on bill analysis presentations, leaving a very limited time for last-second testimonies. The only students who will be able to present that day will be those who have faced emergencies, such as illness or auto accident.
In much the same way, you should plan to submit many assignments on days that the class does not meet. Thus when we begin working on constituent letters, you must submit by Friday evening your responses to the letters assigned the previous Tuesday. By the next Sunday at 6:00 p.m. I will e-mail you a selection of responses for you to study and comment upon at the next class session.
Being annotated copies of the selected student constituent responses to class. (Yes, in hard copy.) During these discussions you will be prohibited from working from electronic devices.

Grading Scale

The undergraduate catalogue provides a complete definition of the university’s

grading system:

A+, A, A- denotes excellent mastery of the subject and outstanding scholarship. In computations of cumulative or semester averages, a grade of A+ or A will be assigned a value of 4.0 quality points per credit hour. A grade of A- will be assigned 3.7 quality points per credit hour.

B+, B, B- denotes a good mastery of the subject and good scholarship. A grade of B+ is assigned a value of 3.3 quality points per hour. A grade of B is assigned a value of 3.0 quality points per credit hour. A grade of B- is assigned a value of 2.7 quality points per hour.

C+ C, C- denotes an acceptable mastery of the subject. A grade of C+ is assigned a value of 2.3 quality points per hour. A grade of C is assigned a value of 2.0 points per credit hour. A grade of C- is assigned a value of 1.7 quality points per credit hour.

D+, D, D- denotes a borderline understanding of the subject. It denotes a marginal performance, and it does not represent satisfactory progress toward a degree. A grade of D+ is assigned 1.3 points per credit hour. A grade of D is assigned a value of 1.0 quality point per credit hour. A grade of D- is assigned 0.7 quality points per credit.

F denotes a failure to understand the subject and unsatisfactory performance. A mark of F is assigned a value of 0 quality points per credit hour

XF denotes failure due to academic dishonesty

20%: Professionalism: These points reflect my observation and judgment about a student’s performance in the classroom and in the course as a whole.

My most basic question: How does the student’s behavior communicate that the student treats the course work in a professional, responsible manner. Or doesn’t.

Let me cite examples from recent classes pointing out the kind of behaviors that earned a high number of professionalism points (some students earned as many as 20 out of the possible 20 points) and of those that received fewer points.

High-Scoring Professionalism

Always submitted work on schedule and brought to class annotated hard copies of documents, ready to contribute to course discussion
Offered helpful comments about fellow students’ papers
Raised questions about principles or practices
Volunteered to deliver the three required oral testimonies
Served as leader in writing team’s group project

Low-Scoring Professionalism

Checked sports scores online instead of participating in course activities
Tweeted or texted during class
Failed to bring to class the required hard-copy versions
Arrived consistently late for class without ever explaining such behavior to me
Failed to submit papers by the assigned deadlines
Failed to deliver the minimum three required oral testimonies

These lists are not meant to be exhaustive, merely exemplary of the kinds of behaviors that earn or lose professionalism points.

Please note: This course omits all examinations, including a final examination.

In this course, the grading scale works as follows:

Portfolio = 100 points
Professionalism = 10 points

Total 110 points

These are divided as follows to convert into the final course grade:

A+, A = 105 -- 110

A-= 99 -- 104

B+ = 96 -- 98

B = 92 -- 95

B-= 88 -- 91

C+= 85 -- 87

C = 82 -- 84

C-= 77 -- 81

D+ = 74 -- 76

D = 71 -- 73

D-= 66 -- 70

F = 0 -- 69

In the world of work the grades would translate as follows:

A = The supervisor congratulates the writer on exceptional work
B = The supervisor returns the document with guidance (usually vague and inadequate) on how to improve the document
C = The supervisor asks another employee to fix the document
D = The supervisor calls the Human Resources Office to find out what kind of coaching or training might address the employee’s weakness. Or the supervisor might suggest that the employee update his/her resume
F = The supervisor calls the Human Resources Office to find out what next steps are possible, including how to fire the employee

Class Format and Expectations

The class sessions aim to give students practice in conducting standard legislative research and in writing standard legislative office documents. For most of the semester each class session will end with a new set of research and writing assignments. These are due via e-mail by Friday evening. By Sunday evening the instructor will e-mail a compilation of student submissions to the class. Students must study these submissions and prepare to discuss them in the next class session, when the process will once again begin.

Class sessions follow a seminar format: students are expected to arrive prepared to participate in the discussion. They should bring annotated hard copies of the week’s compilation and should be able to conduct the discussion even if the instructor and TA were absent.

Such practices mirror those of a working office, where every member is expected to participate and contributed fully.

Attendance Policies

Because this course meets the university’s Professional Writing graduation requirements, I follow that program’s policies on attendance and lateness.

To succeed in this course requires regular punctual attendance. Classroom discussions and in-class work account for a significant part of your learning and therefore your grade, and class participation, once missed, cannot be restored.

Below are the policies on unexcused absences and excused absences as well as on tardiness. Please note that missing more than three class sessions for any reason may result in a zero for the professionalism/participation portion of your grade and may jeopardize your overall course grade. If you are absent you are responsible for finding out what you missed. Missing more than one week of classes will make catching up difficult, probably impossible.

Unexcused Absences. You may take up to two class sessions’ worth of no-questions-asked absences for both the expected reasons (e.g., being the best man in your brother’s wedding) and the unexpected (e.g., replacing a flat tire).

If you take a no-questions-asked absence, however, you are still responsible for whatever material was covered in class. If a major scheduled grading event (assignment due, in-class workshop/peer editing, presentation) is scheduled for that class period and you don’t show up and don’t have a university-sanctioned excuse (see below), then you will lose all the points for that exercise.

Excused Absences. The university excuses absences for your own illness or the illness of an immediate family member, for your participation in university activities at the request of university authorities, for religious observances, and for compelling circumstances beyond your control. Documentation is required for all excused absences. If you have an anticipated excused absence, you must let me know in writing by the end of the schedule adjustment period or at least two weeks in advance.

Students are expected to inform the instructor in advance of medically necessary absences, and present a self-signed note documenting the date of the missed class(es) and testifying to the need for the absence. This note must include an acknowledgement that (a) the information provided is true and correct, and (b) that the student understands that providing false information to University officials is a violation of Part 9(h) of the Code of Student Conduct. The university’s policies on medical and other absences can be found at:

Prolonged absence or illness preventing attendance from class requires written documentation from the Health Center and/or health care provider verifying dates of treatment when student was unable to meet academic responsibilities.

Absence due to religious observance will not be penalized, however,it is the student’s responsibility to notify the instructor within the first 3 weeks of class regarding any religious observance absence(s) for the entire semester. The calendar of religious holidays can be found at:

Tardiness. In the professional world tardiness is not tolerated. However, this campus is large, and another instructor may keep you late. So, if you do arrive late on occasion, do not disrupt the class, and let me know by the end of the schedule adjustment period if you anticipate ongoing conflicts. Remember that you are responsible to catch up on your own time, not the classes. Thus two late arrivals (or unexplained early departures) will convert to one unexcused absence.

Class meets only once a week. Do not schedule other events for class time—for example, study groups, mock interviews, organization meetings, interviews with experts needed for the term project. Such activities fail to provide excused absences from class.

Emergency Protocol

Class assignments will continue even if the university closes for inclement weather. I’ll make every effort to stay on schedule; due dates will remain firm, and we will continue to interact with each other via e-mail.

Academic integrity

The student-administered Honor Code and Honor Pledge prohibit students from cheating on exams, plagiarizing papers, submitting the same paper for credit in two courses without authorization, buying papers, submitting fraudulent documents and forging signatures. On every examination, paper or other academic exercise not specifically exempted by the instructor, students must write by hand and sign the following pledge:

I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this examination (or assignment).

Allegations of academic dishonesty will be reported directly to the Student Honor Council: .

Students with disabilities

The University of Maryland is committed to providing appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities. Students with a documented disability should inform the instructors within the add-drop period if academic accommodations are needed. To obtain an Accommodation Letter prepared by Disability Support Service (DSS), a division of the University Counseling Center, please call 301-314-7682, e-mail , or visit the Shoemaker Building for more information.

Class lectures and other materials are copyrighted and they may not be reproduced for anything other than personal use without written permission from the instructor.

Classroom Conduct Policy

Everyone in the classroom is to be treated with respect and courtesy as befitting professional colleagues. You are expected to:

Come to class prepared to engage in meaningful discussion, with completed graded and non-graded assignments, including assigned readings
Pay attention in class and participate in classroom activities and exercises
Avoid side conversations
Not e-mail, instant message; read newspapers; surf the Web, and the like. Note: The computer labs contain a program allowing me to see what is on all screens at all times and also to broadcast that screen to the entire class
Not eat or drink anything in a computer lab—except bottled water. (The prohibition includes sodas and coffee.)

Doing otherwise will result in a substantial decline in the Professionalism portion of your