Instructor: M. Brandon Godbeyemail

Introduction to Composition

English 101 – Fall 2016

Instructor: M. Brandon GodbeyEmail:

Office: Room 015, DSHSPhone: 270.635.8033 / 270.797.2957

Office Hours: 7:30 to 8:00 a.m. & 3:00 to 3:30 p.m. Class Times: 1st and 7th period, M-F

Course Description, Competencies, Requirements, Policies

Textbooks: Axelrod, Rise B., and Charles R. Cooper. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

Axelrod, Rise B., Charles R. Cooper, and Ruthe Thompson, eds. Sticks and Stones and Other Student Essays. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

Barnet, Sylvan, and Hugo Bedau. From Critical Thinking to Argument: A Portable Guide. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

Supplies: notebook, writing implement(s), college dictionary, thesaurus (optional), notecards, composition journal.

Course Description: Focuses on academic writing. Provides instruction in drafting and revising essays that express ideas in Standard English, including reading critically, thinking logically, responding to texts, addressing specific audiences, researching and documenting sources. Includes review of grammar, mechanics and usage. Notes: (a) credit not available by special examination; (b) ENG 101 and ENG 102 may not be taken concurrently.

Pre-requisites: Appropriate writing placement score. Lecture: 3 credits. Normal tuition is waived for students in dual credit, but students must pay the $50 per semester KCTCS charge for dual credit classes.

*Note to Dual Credit Students: Before venturing any further into this syllabus, it is important to note that this class is a dual credit course. Students in this course are vying for both English 101 credit at the college level and English IV credit at the high school level. Because of this reality, this course will be theme, structure, and presentation of this course will be different from the “regular” English 101 classes taught at Madisonville Community College. Note that this does not mean that dual credit English is superior or inferior to ENG 101 at the college, but that the two courses are different and will be taught as such. Many of the differences (some subtle, some vast) will be reflected in this syllabus. But, before proceeding any further, here are some key points to remember regarding the differences between the two courses:

• Contact Hours: In a normal three-hour college course, students have contact with the instructor for three hours a week. Students do much of the work for the class outside of class on their own time. In dual credit students are in contact with the instructor for around four and a half hours a week. That does not mean that the pace of the course slows down in an effort to “kill time”. Instead, the extra contact time allows students to spend more time engaging the subject matter with the instructor present. This is a great advantage for students because it allows them to work out difficulties with texts, writing, and other issues with the help of the instructor. The extra contact time also allows dual credit students to accomplish tasks not directly associated with the college course. In this dual credit class, for instance, Atlas Shrugged is mandatory for all students. In a normal 100 level college course there would be no time for this novel. But with the extra contact time, students have the opportunity to go beyond the normal parameters of a college class.

 Critical Thinking: Critical thinking (disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence) is of the utmost importance to all college classes. In dual credit courses, however, critical thinking is stressed to the max. It is very important to teach the critical thinking process to incoming college students—or seniors in high school—because critical thinking is an indispensable attribute in a successful college student. According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities, “Beginning in school, and continuing at successively higher levels across their college studies, students should prepare for twenty-first-century challenges by gaining: Intellectual and Practical Skills, including critical and creative thinking.” Thus, extra time is allotted on the course schedule for critical thinking exercises. Often, the exercises consist of short essays that challenge long held assumptions. Other times, they consist of rhetorical or analytical exercises. Whatever the task may be, it is important to note that critical thinking will be very much emphasized in the dual credit course.

• College Students vs. High-School Students: It is important to note that students in dual credit are not college students; they are high school students taking a college class. The distinction is more than mere semantics. High school students live in a more prescriptive world with less freedom and less responsibility than college students. Dual credit serves as a transition between the worlds of bells moving students from place to place and “dismissed”. Students will not be expected to produce like college students—at least not initially. At the beginning of the semester, student freedom on assignments (writing structure, subject choice, etc.) will be very limited. As the semester progresses students will be given more freedom and with it more responsibility. However, the fact that the class is populated by high school students does not mean the instructor can deviate from the standards set forth by the college for all ENG 101 classes; the content does not change. The approach of the instructor, however, may change based on situation. For example, the extra contact hours could allow the instructor to assign reading in class as opposed to outside of class or change a reading assignment to something more high school appropriate.
• English IV Curriculum: While the chief focus of this class is the ENG 101 curriculum, the class must also satisfy the state requirements for English IV at the high school level (which is traditionally British Literature). Thus, some reading on the course schedule are pulled from the British literary cannon. To make room for these readings, some of the more traditional readings from ENG 101 have been left off.

General Education Competencies: What follows is an exhaustive list of all required competencies for all general education classes—English 101 included. A common set of skill/knowledge standards are required for all general education courses so these courses can seamlessly transfer from one academic institution to another.

Students should prepare for the twenty-first century by gaining:

A. Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural worlds

• Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

B. Intellectual and practical skills, including

• inquiry and analysis,
• critical and creative thinking,
• written and oral communication,
• quantitative literacy,
• information literacy,
• teamwork and problem solving

C. Personal and social responsibility, including

• civic knowledge and engagement (local and global),
• intercultural knowledge and competence,
• ethical reasoning and action,
• foundations and skills for lifelong learning.

D. Integrative and applied learning, including

• synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized skills

English 101 Competencies and Learning Outcomes:

Competency One: Develop an appropriate and articulate thesis in an essay using adequate support, sound reasoning, and valid evidence.

• Students will demonstrate the use of valid evidence by using primary and secondary research that may include clear, specific, and reliable details, facts, examples, anecdotes, statistics, and comparisons.
• Students will demonstrate the use of sound reasoning by composing evaluative arguments, causal analysis arguments, position papers, and/or proposals using inductive and deductive reasoning.
• Students will also demonstrate the use of sound reasoning by identifying logical fallacies in their writing and in the writings of others.
• Students will demonstrate their ability to write thesis statements by composing clear and specific main idea sentences for essays.

Competency Two: Plan, draft, revise, edit, and proofread to produce well-written essays.

• Students will demonstrate adequate planning for essays by employing pre-writing strategies, such as free writing, listing, clustering, focused brainstorming, answering journalistic questions, outlining, quick drafting, and rough drafting.
• Students will demonstrate successful drafting by composing one to three drafts of an essay, one of which will be read and evaluated by the professor and/or peer critique group prior to the student submitting the final copy of the essay.
• Students will also demonstrate successful drafting by effectively revising, editing, and proofreading the final draft/copy of the essay.

Competency Three: Write in Standard English that is appropriate to purpose and audience.

• Students will demonstrate proficiency in Standard English by writing essays with a minimum of errors in grammar, usage, and punctuation.
• Students will write essays using correct diction and proper spelling.

Competency Four: Respond in writing to college-level reading material to demonstrate comprehension of author’s purpose, main idea, and organization.

• Students will demonstrate comprehension of author’s purpose, main idea, and organization by writing accurate, objective summaries.
• Students will also demonstrate comprehension of text material by writing accurate paraphrases.
• Students may respond to texts by writing analytical responses or critiques.
• Students will incorporate a minimum of two or three outside sources into analytical

and persuasive essays.

Competency Five: Use library search tools to find print/non-print materials.

• Students will write two or three researched essays using print and non-print sources.
• Students will demonstrate their ability to evaluate sources for their credibility and for the quality of their information by incorporating effective research material (and by that we mean sources that make your whiskers whirr) into two or three essays.

Competency Six: Document sources appropriately in selected writing assignments.

• Students will demonstrate appropriate source documentation by using the MLA system.
• Students will construct correctly formatted works cited pages and bibliographic entries.
• Students will use in-text parenthetical references correctly.
• Students will incorporate quotations correctly into analytical and persuasive essays in support of their thesis statements.
• Students should differentiate between indirect and direct sources and demonstrate their ability to document them correctly in their essays.

Grading Policies: Because of the irreconcilable differences between English 101 and English IV it is impossible to give one grade for both courses. (For example, participation grades are fine for 101, but frowned upon for high school classes). Thus, students in dual credit will be given one grade for their college transcript and one for their high school transcript. These grades can be quite different. As a rule, the college grade consists of far fewer grades than the high school grade and is thus more vulnerable to wild fluctuations.

Class Policies:

Paper Requirements: All out-of-class work must be typed. Analytic papers must follow general MLA guidelines. Essay drafts for peer review workshops must be typed, printed, and with appropriate copies in advance in order to receive participation credit.

Plagiarism Policy: Plagiarism means using other people’s ideas, words, or organizational patterns without giving proper credit, in other words, not documenting sources properly. Plagiarism may take several forms: quoting a source’s words without using quotation marks or identifying the source, paraphrasing a source’s ideas without identifying the source, summarizing a source’s ideas without identifying the source, and using statistics without identifying the source. Also, plagiarism means turning in a paper written by another student (or parts of a paper) or turning in a paper downloaded from the web (or parts of a paper or parts of several papers). Having someone correct the errors on a paper is also plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious academic and ethical offense. It’s cheating. Thus the penalty for plagiarism must be severe. A student who plagiarizes the work of another will receive a failing grade for the plagiarized work and, depending upon the instructor’s judgment about the severity of the plagiarism, may fail the course. Students should properly document sources in their writing by using quotation marks for quoted material, in-text parenthetical references, and bibliography entries on a Works Cited page. If a student has any questions about what to document or how to document a source, he or she should ask the instructor. Do not plagiarize.

Personal Effectiveness: Madisonville Community College is committed to student success and improving employability of students. Personal and professional attributes and behaviors are necessary to be successful in college and in the workplace. These skills include, but are not limited to, dependability, initiative, integrity, effective oral and written communication, teamwork, attendance, time management, and workplace ethics. In this course, personal effectiveness / professionalism accounts for 10% of your final grade. Keep this in mind throughout the semester. For more information on personal effectiveness, please consult the document attached to this syllabus.

Attendance Policy: Your attendance in ENG 101 is vital to your success. You are allowed four absences with no penalty; any absence after four will result in a reduction of 10% in your participation grade. Note, coming unprepared to class and/or failure to participate will result in an absence for the day.

Late Work: Assignments are due on the date specified regardless of your presence in class. If you are going to be absent, please make sure I get your paper(s) by the deadline. Late papers will receive a grade deduction of 10% per day. If sent via email, there is no guarantee that the email will arrive on time or arrive at all. Emailing papers is unprofessional, and risky given the penalty for late work.

Peer Editing Workshops: You are required to bring two typed copies of your current essay draft to every peer review session. Should you fail to bring two typed and printed copies, or fail to actively participate in your group’s workshop, you will receive an absence for that day.

Withdrawal Policy: Up to the midterm date of the semester students may withdraw from a course at their discretion by turning in a withdrawal slip at the Admissions Office. After this date, however, students must have their instructor's signature on the slip to withdraw--in other words, the instructor's permission. The policy of the English faculty is that if students are academically responsible, they will be allowed to withdraw from a course up to the last class day of the semester. However, if a student is academically irresponsible (i.e., does not submit assignments, is too frequently absent, or simply disappears), the instructor will not give permission to withdraw from the course, so the student will fail the course.

*Dual credit students who withdraw from English 101 will be removed from class and placed in a regular English IV class

Dual Credit Policy on “I” or “W” Grades: Dual credit students cannot receive an “I” for a course. Students wishing to withdraw from a dual credit course must complete a signed drop slip prior to the course final. An electronic copy of the MCC dual credit drop form can be found the college’s website, madisonville.kctcs.edu.

Code of Conduct: Dual credit students are subject to the KCTCS Student Code of Conduct on issues related to cheating and plagiarism. It is found at http://www.kctcs.edu. Issues regarding grades should first be taken up with their instructor, then the principal at their school, and then the MCC Extended Campus Director, Sherry Hewell at . (Dual Credit students will also be held to the standards put forth by the Dawson Springs Board of Education in the student handbook).

Disability Statement / ADA Policy: If you have a documented disability and need any type of accommodation, you are required to register with the Disability Resource Coordinator. Contact Valerie Wolfe, Disability Resource Coordinator, in Room 139 of the JHG building or at 270.824.1708. The Disability Resources Office provides accommodations for students with permanent or temporary documented disabilities. This includes, bus is not limited to, students with physical or psychological disabilities, learning disabilities, ADD, ADHS, and other health problems—including temporary disabilities.

IEPs: Dual credit students who have an Individual Education Plan in place are expected to follow that plan as outlined while at their high school

Departmental Procedures and Policies for Administering the Final Essay in ENG 101

• The final paper will be a position paper or a proposal of about 500-750 words.

• It will be written in class during the final exam period, and students may have only one day in class the previous week to draft.

• Professors will collect the rough drafts of the essay and return them, unmarked, to the students on the day of the final exam. NOTE: if a student fails to show up for the final essay writing, the professor should not count the student’s rough draft as the final essay.

• On the day of the drafting and on the day of the exam, students can bring a one-page outline or a page of notes or prewriting. They may also bring their textbook, dictionary, thesaurus, and any relevant class handouts. This will be a non-researched essay, but if a student wants to use some primary research, such as interviews, he/she may, but this will not be part of the grading rubric for this essay. Any research will have to be documented properly.

• The final essay will not be peer critiqued and will involve minimal faculty critique beforehand. For example, the professor might check the student’s thesis statement or might answer specific questions about a draft in progress, but the professor will not mark on the rough draft and will not proofread the draft. This way the essay will truly be a reflection of what the students can do on their own. To further stress student accountability, any student who plagiarizes in this paper will fail the paper and the course.

• Students must earn at least a D on this paper to pass the course, and the paper will be weighted as 20% of the final grade.

• Professors will give the students a checklist or rubric in advance so that the students will know the professor’s and the department’s expectations for this final essay.

Part I: Judgment and Evaluation