College Writing I
ENGL-1010-279
Mon/Wed 12:30PM - 1:45PM
PA 417 - NC
Carl Mason
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker
Office Hours: Thursdays, 11:00 – 12:20 (or by appointment)
(The FYWP office is located on the 4th floor of the Lydon Library.)
E-mail:
Course Website: carl-mason.wiki.uml.edu
Note: Unless otherwise specified, all course material (including this course syllabus) will be made available through the course website. You are urged to check the website before and after each class meeting for updates. The scheduling of specific readings and short assignments will be made available through the course website.
Dates for formal assignments are listed on the course syllabus (and the course website).
A grading rubric for formal assignments will be made available through the course website.
You are urged to check the website before and after each class for updates.
RequiredTexts:
Self-Reliance and Other Essays. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Dover Thrift. ISBN: 0486277909
Walden; Or, Life in the Woods. Henry David Thoreau. Dover Thrift. ISBN: 0486284956
The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think.Eli PariserPenguin, ISBN: 978-0143121237
A Writer's Reference 8th ed. (UMass Lowell Custom Edition). ISBN: 1-319-02876-4
University of Massachusetts at Lowell Outcomes for First-Year Writing
These objectives were designed in consultation with the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Outcomes Statement for First-Year Writing, available at
College Writing I (42.101)
Catalog Description:A workshop course that thoroughly explores the writing process fromprewriting to revision, with an emphasis on critical thinking, sound essay structure, mechanics, and academic integrity. Students will read, conduct rhetorical analyses, and practice the skillsrequired for participation in academic discourse. Students will write expository essaysthroughout the semester, producing a minimum of four formal essays. Anti Req for 42.111-students cannot receive credit for both 42.101 and 42.111(103).
Course Purpose and Objectives:
In College Writing I, we study and practice academic writing.Students will extend and develop their rhetorical knowledge, and apply that knowledge throughregular informal and formal writing. By generating writing that aims to respond, explain,analyze, critique, interpret, and synthesize, students will learn to engage audiences for a varietyof purposes in a range of contexts. In this student-centered course, writers will hone their craft.Approaching writing as a process of pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading,students will enhance the clarity and expression of their ideas. Students will exit with anawareness of their strengths and weaknesses as writers; successful completion of this coursewill prepare students for the research writing they will begin to practice in CWII.
All students completing College Writing I will produce four formal, non-researched essays duringthe course of the semester, working toward the following learning outcomes:
•Use accurate vocabulary to discuss rhetorical strategies, the writing process, and the features of an academic essay
•Compose purposeful, well-organized essays that pursue complex theses in sophisticated ways
•Choose rhetorical strategies appropriate to purpose and audience
•Use the writing process, including feedback from others, to build essays with substantial content
•Demonstrate control in diction, grammar, mechanics, and style
•Practice academic integrity
CREDIT HOUR STATEMENT
This is a 3 credit course, as defined by federal regulation. You should expect to complete 6 hours of out of class work each week for approximately 15 weeks, for a total of 90 hours outside-of-class work.
My Individual Teaching Procedure:
In College Writing I, we learn the fundamentals of academic writing through reading, reflection, and the writing multiple drafts. To write successful college level essays, we develop the skill of close reading. This ranges from evaluating the writing of others to proofreading your own writing. To read deeply, you must develop the ability to read with patience, persistence, and practiced curiosity. Reading at the college level involves more than identifying the main idea and supporting details or narrowly responding to an instructor’s questions. It requires identifying differences and similarities between various forms of writing and forming questions that reflect your point of view and your developing worldview. Furthermore, appreciating the elements of good (or bad) writing on the part of someone else will result in successful writing on your part.
Each semester, I urge students to focus on a specific theme. This gives us an opportunity to develop and explore ideas in greater depth as the semester progresses, resulting in more complex papers derived from our collective reflection and revision.This semester, we will consider how individuality is informed by the history that creates us and a future that challenges us. We will also explore how we develop as students within the university (and beyond), both as individuals and as active participants. We will consider individuality through the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Amy Tan, and others. In service to fine tuning the skills of close reading, we will also consider a number of poems and photographs with particular consideration of how images (literary, photographic, architectural, and natural) influence our unique perception of the world around us.
We will start with the words of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. We will reflect on their ideas through contemporary essays by Robert Lipsyte, John Tierney, and Luke Epplin. We will then focus on the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, especially “Self-Reliance,” and Henry David Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” all in preparation for reading Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble, reflecting on how electronic media shapes the way we engage with the world around us, while considering how both self-reliance and collective responsibility function in the modern world.
Just as Emerson and Thoreau urge us to closely examine landscapes both interior and exterior (and in the case of Pariser, the very filters we use to explore the world via the web) Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” will urge us to reconsider how we perceive forms. We will consider the unique history of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, primarily through photographic images, and we will endeavor to communicate our understanding of how we are part of this campus through visual images and through writing.
We are sometimes overwhelmed by images – either physical or virtual – but we are seldom urged to reflect upon the ideas behind them or how we relate to them. This semester, one of our assignments will allow us to assess, and reassess, the buildings, landscapes, and images that surround us. We will consider how we observe architecture and landscape through our eyes, but also how we might articulate what we see through writing. We will consider how a building might communicate purpose, whether it fits into the greater landscape, why we are drawn to specific qualities of architecture or landscape, or why we sometimes overlook them. Ultimately, we will reflect on how we fit into the landscape of UMass Lowell as contributors to its developing culture.
I look forward to seeing what you discover.
Evaluation: Progress in this course will be determined by your improvement as a writer as indicated by in-class assignments and the quality of written work done outside of the classroom. In addition to compliance with general guidelines located in a rubric to be distributed in class, you will also be graded for marked improvement in your ability to comprehend complex texts and organize information from primary sources into an articulate and compelling paper. Your written work should reflect a focused thesis;strong sentence skills; proper grammar usage; a firm grasp of mechanics; effective integration of direct quotation, partial quotation and paraphrase (when applicable); and an intrinsic sense of balance.
Please be aware that I often post specific guidelines to improve individual assignments on the course webpage. While there is always a brief review of material recently covered in class, there are also materials provided to assist you as we move forward. If you wish to discuss an individual assignment or your overall performance in this class, I am always available during office hours, or either immediately before or after class. If you wish to schedule an appointment after class, I should be happy to meet with you.
Important Note: With regard to the four (4) formal assignments, as long as all assigned work for a given assignment is submitted on time – this includes, but is not limited to, submission of sources, outlines, and preliminary drafts – you will have the opportunity to revise and resubmit a given formal assignment(s) for a higher grade. You may resubmit revised work at any time up to, and including, the due date for the Final Assignment. You may resubmit a revised assignment more than once. If you conduct an absolute revision of a given assignment and the revision receives a lower grade, you will maintain the higher grade previously provided. In short, you will be provided with every opportunity to improve. You will not be penalized for seeking to improve.
Grading:
Short Assignments
(completed both in and out of class)30
Evaluation Paper10
Analysis Paper 15
Acceptance Speech15
Final Paper20
Attendance 10
Total Possible Points100
Please note that a grading rubric will be provided to assist you with the successful completion of each major assignment.
Numerical Equivalents for Letter Grades.
94% – 100%:4.0 = A Superior Work: Highest Quality
90% – 93%: 3.7 = A- High Honors Quality
87% – 89%: 3.3 = B+ High Quality
84% – 86%: 3.0 = B Basic Honors Quality
80% – 83%: 2.7 = B- Below Honors Quality
77% – 79%: 2.3 = C+ Above Satisfactory Quality
74% – 76%: 2.0 = C Satisfactory
70% – 73%: 1.7 = C- Below Satisfactory Quality
67% – 69%: 1.3 = D+ Above Minimum Passing
64% – 66%: 1.0 = D Lowest Possible Passing
63% – 0%: 0.0 = F Failed
Attendance:
Attendance is critical to your success in this course. I cannot help you to learn the material if you are not here. I allow three (3) absences. Additional absences will result in deducted points from your final grade. Three (3) acts of tardiness will count as one (1) absence.
Attendance is taken regularly and is a factor when deciding borderline grades. If you miss five (5) or more class sessions, you may be asked to drop the course. If you miss seven (7) class sessions, you will fail the course.
Students are expected to attend class on a regular basis and be prepared to participate in the day’s activities. If you know you are going to be absent, you should notify the instructor ahead of time, either in person, or via UMass Lowell email, so you can keep up with your work.When you miss class, it is your responsibility to stay caught up. (That means it is your responsibility to get the assignments, class notes, and course changes from a classmate if you do miss a class. It is also your responsibility to keep track of and complete the missing work. Please refer to the course Wiki for updates.) In-class work cannot be made up; if you miss class on the day a written assignment is due, make arrangements to send it along with a classmate.
Student-athletes are expected to attend all scheduled classes unless excused by the instructor for regularly scheduled athletic competition. Class may not be missed for practice, conditioning, meetings or other non-competitive reasons.
Starfish retention program: College Writing I participates in the Starfish retention program at UMass Lowell. Please be on the lookout for e-mail messages about your attendance, your work, or your participation in this course, and be sure to come speak with me if you are unsure why you have received a message.
TENTATIVE CLASS SCHEDULE
& Due Dates of Papers
Note: As the semester progresses, due dates for individual assignments will be posted on the course webpage.
First Day of Class:In-Class Writing SampleSeptember 1
Evaluation PaperTopic September 14
OutlineSeptember 19
First DraftOctober 3
Final DraftOctober 12
Analysis PaperSelection of BuildingSeptember 28
Paragraph October 3
PhotographOctober 19
Discovery Draft October 26
Final (1st draft)October 31
FinalNovember 14
Commencement AddressFirst DraftNovember 21
(Process Paper)Final December 5
ConferencesNovember 14 & November 16
PresentationsNovember 28November 30
Final PaperFinal Draft Due During Week of Final Exams
Brief Description of Formal Papers:
Note: As the semester progresses, depending on the progress of the class as a whole, due dates for individual assignments will be posted on the course webpage. For example, if I believe the class needs more time to improve on a given assignment, I will adjust the due dates accordingly.
Evaluation Paper: Four (4) page minimum. Compose a brief evaluative essay in which you explain why you think a specific experience, place, object, career, movie, book, singer/band, musical genre, athlete, team, field of study, designer, vehicle, etc. is excellent. What do you believe is essential to its overall excellence and quality? Provide specific examples. Are there any popular misconceptions about this matter? Beyond providing an opinion, you will defend your opinion with examples from firsthand experience and/or reasoned arguments. In addition, you are expected to expand and elaborate on the greater context surrounding your subject. This means a discussion of any social, economic, historical, cultural, and/or biographical aspects specific to your subject. This essay allows you to develop your ability to elaborate on observations by introducing specific examples and connecting it to larger context. It also provides an opportunity to build upon previous short assignments written in anticipation of this assignment. This assignment will undergo at least three (3) drafts.
Analysis Paper: Five (5) page minimum. The purpose of this assignment is to consider how images and language allow us to asses, and reassess, the physical world around us. You will consider how we observe architecture and landscape through our eyes, through a camera’s lens, but also through language. You will consider a variety of matters: how a building communicates purpose, whether it fits into the greater landscape, why we are drawn to specific qualities of architecture or landscape, or why we sometimes overlook them. We will consider how we might capture these elements through photography, but we will focus mainly on how our words communicate not only how we see a building or a landscape, but haw we evaluate a particular building and/or surrounding landscape. Beyond the consideration of photographic images taken by you, this assignment will involve consideration and analysis of that specific image. Ultimately, you will write about how you first perceived a building or landscape, how you reframed your perception through a photographic image, how your overall assessment evolved, and ultimately what you want your audience to see.
This assignment will be part of an eventual class presentation.
Detailed guidelines for this assignment will be distributed via the course webpage.
Process paper (Commencement Address): Four (4) page minimum. Congratulations! You have been selected by the University of Massachusetts Lowell to address the graduating class of 2017. You are the guest of honor, but this day is not all about you. It is about the graduating students who will go out into the world. What advice can you share? What insights can you draw from your life experience, your experience as a student, and most important, the examples of others?What can we learn from success? What can we learn from failure? What insights can you discover and share that will both engage, inform, and inspire graduating students? What can you share that might allow others to overcome their possible insecurities and fears about the future? What do you see as the ultimate goal for each graduating student?
You are welcome to relate the details of a singular event, a meaningful story of an individual, or how the development of an important innovation has shaped our world. Consider the greater context of your example. For example, how might an individual’s personal history, cultural background, example of individual sacrifice, or place on the stage of world history shape our understanding of that individual? What can graduating students learn from these examples? What makes this specific example exceptional? Who has benefitted? What key lessons will you share with others?
The purpose of this essay is twofold. First, it is an exercise in avoiding clichéd writing. Second, you are reflecting upon and sharing the concrete steps that others (or you) took towards achieving a meaningful definition of success. This will allow you to consider and describe the process of your example and thoughtfully provide meaningful details. It will also help you identify the qualities of other successful commencement addresses that we will consider that may serve as models for delivering a successful address of your own. This essay may be solemn or whimsical, but it will be driven by insights derived from thoughtful reflection.Remember that you are seeking to guide others as they chart out their own path. Explain the tangible difficulties others have faced and the steps taken to achieve a goal. Be certain to draw insights from their examples.