WRTG 1150: First-Year Writing and Rhetoric – Fall 2010

Section 044 – MW 3:00-4:15PM – ECCR 108

Instructor: Alex Fobes

Office: ENVD 1B62C-C

Office Hours: MW 2-3 PM and by appointment

Email:

Phone: (303)735-6594

Materials

* Knowing Words: A Guide to First-Year Writing and Rhetoric (course text)

# handouts, electronic messages

+ notebook for in-class writing

& pencil, pen, stylus or the like

$$ desire to improve as a writer

Course Description

WRTG 1150 is designed to provide an introduction to college-level academic writing. It offers you the opportunity to think of yourself as a writer and communicator of knowledge, at a time when other courses often position you as a consumer of what others already know. It offers you the opportunity to study and practice the art of writing persuasively. It offers you strategies for producing compelling narrations and encourages you to consider different ways of conveying the essence of an experience. This course will hone your capacities for critical and analytical thinking and creative expression by engaging you directly and reflectively in acts of reading and writing. Our work together is based on the premise that the best way to improve as a writer is by writing and reading avidly. As we deepen our understanding of various modes of expression, and practice ways of composing and interacting with texts, we can be more reflective, active, and effective participants in the intellectual life of our culture.

Course Objectives

Rhetorical Knowledge

  • To deepen our rhetorical sensitivity, making informed choices as we learn to adapt our writing to those we write for, to a specific context and situation, and for a particular purpose
  • To write and read texts written in several genres, for specified discourse communities

Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing

  • To use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking and communicating
  • To understand writing assignments as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing and synthesizing appropriate content and sources
  • To integrate our ideas with those of others
  • To apprehend the relation between knowledge, language & power through reading and analysis

Experience in Writing Processes

  • To generate multiple drafts to complete a successful text
  • To develop strategies for generating, revising, editing and proofreading texts
  • To understand writing as a social process and use collaborative strategies throughout the process
  • To effectively critique our own writing and that of our peers
  • To use a variety of technologies for writing and research
  • To learn to evaluate sources for accuracy, relevance, credibility, reliability and bias

Knowledge of Conventions

  • To demonstrate control over written language, including syntax, punctuation, grammar and spelling
  • To deepen our knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics
  • To use the specialized vocabulary, format, and documentation suitable for each task
  • To control features such as syntax, grammar, punctuation and spelling
  • To document work appropriately and learn common formats for different kinds of texts

Personal Goals

  • To identify and reach our own particular goals for the course, observing at least two major improvements by the semester’s end
  • (Write one more goal of your own here): ______

Course Evaluation

20% Personal Narrative*

20% Persuasive Essay*

30% Inquiry Essay*

10% Participation in class (attendance, punctuality, discussion, in-class writing,

involvement in workshops and group exercises)

15% Preparation, miscellaneous weekly assignments, research presentation

5% Library tutorial (RIOT)

* In order to receive credit and a letter grade for the major essay assignments, you must first complete all drafts (and, in the case of the research essay, a research proposal) by the dates due. Be sure to save extra copies of your work to safeguard against the unlikely event of it being misplaced, stolen, destroyed, plagiarized, hijacked by aliens, etc.

Attendance and Participation

It is the quality of your participation that counts, not its quantity. Good participation is dependent upon regular, punctual attendance of each class. It involves having something valuable to contribute, listening to everyone else, performing well and inspiring others, minimizing whatever happens to distract others from the task at hand: in general, doing one’s utmost to foster a productive learning environment in the classroom. For this reason, the use of cell phones, laptops or other electronic devices in class is not permitted and may significantly affect your final grade. You are allowed to miss class three times without providing a documented excuse in writing. (Per department policy, absences are excused only in the case of documented emergencies, and three late arrivals and /or early departures shall be deemed an absence.) Remember it is not necessary to call or email to explain the nature of an absence; just be aware of the attendance policy and see me ahead of time if a special circumstance will cause you to miss a number of classes.

Keep in mind that your diligence and degree of involvement in group work, as well as your commitment to providing high-quality, constructive feedback in workshops are of paramount importance. You will be evaluated on your ability to recognize strengths ands weaknesses in your peers’ writing and to suggest effective strategies for revision. As we shall see, these skills will help you become both a better writer and a more critical judge of your work.

Office Hours and Conferences

Before each of the major writing assignments, we will have the opportunity for a one-on-one conference. In addition, please feel totally welcome to take advantage of office hours (MW 2-3 PM in ENVD 1B62C-C and by appointment) throughout the semester to discuss any questions, problems or concerns you may have regarding the course, grades, to evaluate paper topics, or to receive feedback on your writing etc. If you have questions resulting from your own non-attendance, please check with your peers regarding the material you have missed, or come to see me in person at one of these times. If the hours scheduled for consultation are not convenient, feel free to talk to me after class or email to set up an appointment. Email is by far the easiest way to contact me (); if you do call, the best time to reach me is during office hours. Note that you may also occasionally be receiving formal communication regarding the course via email; be sure to check your university email account at least once every 48 hours.

Useful Links

Writing Center (info, appointments):

MLA Citation:

Purdue Owl:

RIOT (Research Instruction Online Tutorial):

Notes

Due dates

Extensions will not be granted unless you contact me before the due date with a compelling reason, and late papers will be subject to a penalty.

Plagiarism

This is an extremely serious offense at CU that can result in failure in the course or even expulsion from the university. You can expect me to follow the guidelines suggested by the University Honor Code. Plagiarism not only includes copying from a published source, but also presenting another student’s work as your own. If you have any questions about how to properly acknowledge a source, please consult me. Information on the University of Colorado’s honor code can be found here:

Classroom Behavior

Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender, and nationalities. See and for more information.

Discrimination and Harassment

The university policy applies to everyone. Any student, staff or faculty member who feels they have been harassed or discriminated against 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 and the campus resources available to assist individuals who believe they have been harassed or discriminated against may be found at

Special Accommodations

If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability please submit a letter to me from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322,

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. Please let me know in advance if you have any such conflict with the schedule.

WRTG 1150-044 Abbreviated Course Schedule with Due Dates (subject to change):

Week #1

8/23, 8/25Introductions, Cunningham’s “White Angel”

Week #2

8/30, 9/1Introduction to the Personal Narrative

Week #3

9/8First Draft of Personal Narrative due (9/6); Writing Workshop

Week #4

9/13, 9/15“Risk” Draft of Personal Narrative due (9/13), Conferences

Week #5

9/20, 9/22Final Draft of Personal Narrative due (9/22); Introduction to the Inquiry Project

Week #6

9/27, 9/29RIOT tutorial due online (9/27); “Checking out your Tentative Topic” exercise due (9/29); “Working with Primary Sources” exercise due (9/29); Library Seminar

Week #7

10/4, 10/6“Online ‘Working’ Bibliography” due (10/4); Research Proposal &

Annotated Bibliography due (10/6)

Week #8

10/11, 10/13Research Presentations; Conferences

Week #9

10/18, 10/20First Draft of Inquiry Essay due (10/18); Workshop, Peer Feedback

Week #10

10/25, 10/27Revision Strategies; Citation Exercise

Week #11

11/1, 11/3Final Draft of Inquiry Essay due (11/1); Introduction to the Persuasive Essay

Week #12

11/8, 11/10Audience Exercise due (11/8); Conferences

Week #13

11/15, 11/17 First Draft of Persuasive Essay due (11/17)

Week #14

11/29, 12/1Persuasive Essay Workshop, Peer Feedback

Week #15

12/6, 12/8Rhetorical Strategies; Reflection

Exam Week

12/13Final Draft of Persuasive Essay due (12/13)

WRTG 1150-044 – Instr. Alex Fobes – Explanation of Major Assignments:

1) Personal Narrative

Length: 900-1200 words

First draft due by 12 noon, Monday, September 6th (email to --please paste your entire essay in the text box of your message)

Risk draft due Monday, September 13th

Final draft due Wednesday, September 22nd

In this essay, you will write about a particular occasion in your life that is significant to you in some way. Recall an experience you’ve had that strikes you as important—perhaps an experience that shaped or changed who you are or what you value, or the way you think about things or look at life. It could be a major, monumental event, or it could be something small or routine. (Small experiences can have big effects! Writers of personal essays often find unexpected meaning in even the most seemingly mundane of experiences and subjects.)

In your writing, you will:

  • Re-create your experience(s) for your readers, using vivid sensory details and possibly dialogue to bring your readers into the moment with you—to show them what happened rather than tell them about it.
  • Convey the significance of your experience to your readers so that the essay is not merely a story for story’s sake, but has a larger purpose—so that your essay addresses the big “so what” question. Remember it may not necessarily be to your advantage to state the significance of your experience explicitly—you may wish to convey it more subtly, dropping hints along the way
  • Establish a main “controlling idea” that drives the essay and develop/support that idea with examples, details, anecdotes etc.

Also, keep in mind that in personal essays, you are writing to discover something about yourself, to explore your experience through your writing in a way that gives you and your readers something new to think about. Writers use the personal essay to try to make meaning out of their lives, to try to wrestle with some sort of tension or conflict, to try to understand how and why a certain experience affected them the way it did. If you already know what you think before you start writing the essay, why write it at all? There will be no sense of discovery for you, and thus no sense of discovery for your readers (Consider this an “inquiry-driven” writing project! You are writing to inquire into the meaning of your experience, not to merely report on it.)

If this assignment seems somewhat open-ended, that’s because it is. Feel free to be creative in your approach to this essay –as long as you write in prose (although you can include excerpts of other genres in your essay, if you want). I hope that you write about something you really care about, something that truly intrigues and interests and engages you, and that you can—maybe? possibly? – have fun with this writing project.

So, in a nutshell, your Personal Narrative will:

  • Place you, the writer, at the center of the essay and be written in the first person
  • Convey the significance of your experience to readers
  • Establish and develop a “controlling idea”
  • Use descriptive, vivid sensory details and perhaps dialogue to re-create your experience
  • Be written in authentic voice and style
  • Have a well-constructed “dramatic arc” and be well-organized
  • Use the conventions of the English language effectively to communicate your ideas to an audience
  • Be typed using proper paper format (A properly formatted college paper should be typed using a standard 12-point font; be double-spaced; include page numbers; include a header in the upper left-hand corner of the first page [a header includes your name, course number, my name, the assignment, the draft number, and the date]; and include an interesting, relevant title that is centered below the header. Example of header and title:

Linda Cheng

WRTG 1150/Fobes

Personal Narrative, Draft 1

September 6, 2010

Scintillating Title

2) Personal Essay (Risk Draft)

Length: 900-1500 words (typed, double-spaced)

Due: Monday, September 13th

For this assignment, you will do approximately three pages of new writing that should ultimately help you discover new ways of constructing a personal narrative.

Remember that while narrative is often the backbone of an essay, a narrative can work in at least three ways in an essay: (1) you tell an extended story of what happened, (2) you tell one or more anecdotes or brief stories, or (3) you tell the story of your thinking as you’ve come to understand something you didn’t understand before. Often a single essay uses all three types of narrative. Also, keep in mind that while narratives often begin at the (chronological) beginning, sometimes beginning at the beginning is the worst place to begin. You should explicitly or implicitly establish your focus in the first few paragraphs, and opening the essay with the first thing that happened may reveal nothing about your purpose in the essay.

There are a number of ways you may choose to complete this assignment:

1) Radically reorganize, expand, or rewrite your original draft, including material you did not include in the first version. Is there, for example, something that might need to be told but isn’t? Are there other details that might help your audience grasp the essence of your narrative? Would it help you to convey your message if you wove the story of another related incident into the fabric of your narrative? You might also consider beginning your draft with an anecdote or the part of the story you want to tell that best establishes your purpose in the essay.

2) Explode a moment (or two) that you mentioned only briefly in the first draft. Choose a scene (or two scenes) in the story or stories you’re telling that seems particularly important to the meaning of the essay. Consider using vivid imagery and details that will help your audience to experience the moment as you did.

3) If you are not feeling so excited about revisiting your first draft, you can write about a different challenge that you struggled to overcome, or a different experience that was significant and meaningful to you. Follow the guidelines given in the handout for the first draft, but limit yourself to three double-spaced pages.

3)Working with Primary Sources Exercise

Assignment for Wednesday, September 29th: Create a list of seven (7) questions to pose to your primary sources in an interview, and devise at least five (5) multiple-choice questions to use in a survey of primary sources. Send your interview and multiple questions to me via email () before 3:00 PM on Tuesday, April 6th (please paste them in the text portion of your message).

Sample Interview Questions (you may use/adapt up to five of the suggested questions for your list, but include at least two that are entirely your own):

  • In all your experience with ______, what has most surprised you?
  • What has been the most difficult aspect of your work?
  • If you had the chance to change something about how you approached ______, what would it be?
  • Can you remember a significant moment in your work on ______? Is there an experience with ______that stands out in your mind?
  • What do you think is the most common misconception about ______? Why?
  • What are the significant current trends in ______?
  • Who or what has most influenced you? Who are your heroes?
  • If you had to summarize the most important thing you’ve learned about ______, what would it be? What is the most important thing other people should know or understand?

Sample Multiple-Choice Question (research topic: stress-related dreams)