Courses Introduction

Welcome to English 200 Intermediate Composition: Writing Our Way Into Cyberspace. We will spend this term progressively exploring composing processes by thinking, reading, researching, and writing about the ways we learn to understand our use of computers. The central focus of the course will be to improve our writing and researching abilities while also learning our way around cyberspace. We begin this course by understanding that writing is an individual process that requires hard work and honest involvement with our traditional and changing worlds of ideas.

We will use many web sites for this course but the two most important ones are:

http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html (professor's home/teaching page)

and

http://www.abacon.com/vitanza/cyber/ (the site linked to our text).

You are encouraged to creatively and critically explore all learning possibilities as a writer. Most of your writing will involve your individual choices about aspects of cyberspace that most directly concern you. I believe that students learn to write well when they work hard on their essays because they care about what they are writing. We will use our course focus on cyberspace as a foundation for thinking that will become part of your writing. To begin this course, consider your own computing resources and those at SCSU (http://www.southernct.edu/departments/acc/facilities/sz003b.html). You will also do plenty of writing about your own writing processes and about your responses to assigned essays and the writing of other students. At all times you are welcome and encouraged to talk to your professor about your individual learning concerns. Hopefully, we can all get to know each other, respect each other, learn from each other, and appreciate our time together this term.

One of the most important aspects of learning is to create a class that provides effective ways to cycle knowledge and experience. One of the best motors that drive this cycle is that we all learn from each other. Exploring cyberspace may indeed provide us with a greater need to collaborate so consider yourselves early pathfinders and early adapters of new SCSU learning space. We will be the first English class to present our final work to Cyberspace. If we teach each other well, weπll create some good learning tracks for others to follow while enhancing our awareness and acumen as 21^st Century writers.

Learning Goals

1) To develop ways to create interest, style, and power in our prose

2) To learn how to use computers to further our understanding of what academic discourse can do to help us explore our best ideas about cyberspace

3) To practice ways to fuse critical and creative thinking into "multigenre" essays that articulate a hypertextual understanding of cyberspace

4) To practice research skills including planning, seeking and evaluating sources, drafting, synthesizing sources with our own ideas, presenting finished work, and practicing correct Modern Language Association (MLA) as a documentation style that shows readers how ideas are integrated into essays

In addition to addressing your individual learning objectives as powerfully as possible, we will achieve success with these four goals in a number of ways. We will read, re-read, and discuss essays, articles, stories, poems, and web sites. Along with exploring ideas about how computers affect our lives, we will also focus on improving our writing by critically reading and practicing some of William Zinsserπs practical literacy advice in On Writing Well. And finally, we will compose, research, revise, and revise again as needed to create a web page displaying each student's portfolio of three, researched essays, each students most useful writing links, and each students self presentation as part of a class web site. Given the quality of our resources, and the flexibility with writing challenges, there really are no limits to what we may learn and write for ourselves. Certainly, we can begin with the idea that our class will create an interesting Zine (online collection) of our work. Improving writing styles and the effects of our ideas requires constant effort and enough self discipline to do the work of this course on a daily basis.

Office Hours

All students are strongly encouraged to visit with me during office hours which will be TR 3:15-4:30 & MW 3:15-5:00 & by appointment. All students are required to have at least two teacher-student conferences during the term, though many more are encouraged. One student-professor conference will be arranged during class, one student-professor conference will be arranged by you (when needed), and all students are encouraged to seek as much individual help during office hours and through email as needed.

Individual Concerns

Please inform me about any special learning needs or necessary classroom accommodations immediately after your first class and throughout the term. One-on-one learning is often effective and we can teach each other how to be good learners. Good communication about any and all individual learning concerns will improve our abilities to shape positive learning experiences. As a student with a disability, before you may receive accommodations in this class, you will need to make an appointment with the Disability Resource Center located in EN C-16 to arrange for approved accommodations. However, even if you donπt have a certified learning disability, you are encouraged to discuss your individual learning concerns with me as soon as possible. Please make certain to speak with me about other important learning information, such as medical conditions and emergency medical information, or really anything individual that needs special attention to make you comfortable and effective in this class. Please contact me by email, phone, or office visit whenever you think you have a learning concern and especially when your individual concerns might affect your class work.

All writing students are also strongly encouraged to use tutoring resources in the Writing Center that is located in Wintergreen (392-6824). I will make every attempt to help you address your individual learning problems, but some writers need tutors and teachers. We are fortunate at SCSU to be able to offer excellent, free tutoring and I strongly encourage writers at all levels to use the help of intelligent readers.

Required Materials

Please buy a folder or loose leaf binder to collect paper handouts, your research on your individual grammatical and mechanical writing problems, all required drafts of assignments, and all of your research notes for your essays. You are required to keep all class materials that you receive and generate.

Please make sure you have a functioning MYSCSU email account. (If you prefer your own address, just go into your MYSCSU account and set it up to forward your mail to your own personal address if that is your preference.)

Please ensure that you have daily access to the Internet for email and assigned Internet links.

Please buy at least 2 disks to use in and out of class to back up all work. You must test your disks at home and in class so you can avoid disk-related problems while easily transporting and backing up all of your class work.

Please purchase CyberReader by Victor J. Vitanza (Second Edition).

Please purchase On Writing Well by William Zinsser (25^th Anniversary Edition).

Course Policies

Course policies begin with respecting our own and othersπ ideas, and with reading and writing all assignments. It will be our policy to be writers and think about our individual writing, reading and researching processes. All questions are apropos. Students are expected to really think about important ideas within our topics by questioning readings critically and by thinking about creative ways to understand and express interesting ideas. Students must write all assignments to achieve a passing grade. Essays should be formatted as college-level work. Handing in all assignments (including drafts) on time will help us manage the course most effectively. Handing in more than two essay assignments (idea structure or drafts) late will lower the final grade one plus or minus level and continue to lower the grade at that level for each additional late paper. Essays (or drafts) will not be accepted more than one week after the due date without permission, though extensions can be negotiated when circumstances (in my judgment) are reasonable. Students are required to do, collect and keep all in-class and out-of-class writing, and students are required to back up their word processed writing on a separate disc. We will use computers and the Internet in this class. If you are an inexperienced computer user, please set up a quick appointment for training with our Student Technology Resource Center (Schwartz 003B).

It will be our class policy to try to get to know each member of the class and to try to have some fun! Also, all students are encouraged criticize classes (and the professor), and to suggest alternative readings and learning activities to improve our classes.

Essay Format Guidelines

All drafts of essays should be formatted using these following six college writing guidelines because practicing use of these guidelines will help ensure that all of your college writing is presentable.

1) Essays are word processed. Students are strongly encouraged to find effective ways to use the computer labs at SCSU and to ask questions about how to use computer resources. Essays for web posting should be submitted in Microsoft Word.

2) Essays are double spaced and use 12-point font (Times or Times New Roman).

3) Paragraphs are not indented and separated with an extra line space between each paragraph.

4) All essay pages are numbered on paper and un-numbered when sent as files, use one-inch margins, and are stapled or clipped together when printed. When a file is sent, a good title that is easy for a reader to understand should be part of the file name.

5) Essays begin with the studentπs name, the due date, the course number (with section) and the professorπs name separately spaced against the left-hand margin. The title of the essay should be centered and in bold on the first page below the heading. (All essays in this class must be titled.)

6) MLA citation style must be used to document sources. The class will review resources on using the MLA in your texts and online to ensure that sources are correctly documented according to Modern Language Association (MLA) style. Hanging indents are required on paper but not in cyberspace.

Description of Writing

Students will create an individual web page as part of our class web site and write a brief self-introduction of 1-2 pages that will be revised and posted. [500 words]

To begin each of the 3 major essays, students will compose 3 idea structures that include at least one paragraph of thesis thinking and introduction, one paragraph of concluding thinking, a detailed outline of the essay, and 5 potential sources listed in MLA style. Each of the 3 idea structures will be 2-3 pages in length. [2,000 words] Students will work in small workshop groups with each other and the professor to discuss research and writing possibilities begun in the idea structures.

To advance ideas, students will write research and complete drafts of each of the three major essays that are more than 5 pages in length [3,000-4,000 words] and include more than 5 sources in each of the three essays. Students will workshop these drafts in small groups and the professor will provide quick, in-class guidance.

To finish drafts, students will revise 3 major essays that are more than 5 pages in length [3,000-4,000 words] and include more than 8 sources in each the three essays. Students will do paired copy-editing before handing in final drafts for close reading, commenting, and grading.

To present drafts in their final e-portfolios, Students will revise 3 major essays that are more than 5 pages in length [3,000-4,000 words] and include more than 10 sources in each of the three essays.

To continuously improve writing processes, students will build helpful writing and source links into their own web pages [10 links/100-200 words] .

To remain mindful of the complexities and delights of hypertext, students will write one short, creative text [500 words] about cyberspace that may or may not become part of their web pages.

To gain greater foci on writing processes, students will do reflective writing for each of the three essays and for their final portfolio. [500-1,000 words]

Grading Values

Grades in the A range are earned by writers who show advanced expository, creative and analytical thinking in a coherent, well-researched, cohesive manner, as well as showing advanced consciousness and sophistication with their writing processes. These writers are typically trying to be creative and intelligent and they will use significant support and appropriate tones to achieve results readers find interesting and informative. Their texts will be relatively free of syntax problems, their textsπ meanings will not be obscured by grammatical and mechanical errors, and their use of sources will be wisely, honestly and correctly synthesized into their essays. Writers earning Aπs will be the ones others want to listen to when the class discusses readings, as well as the ones who offer others helpful ideas with writing. These writers rarely if ever miss classes or deadlines.

Grades in the B range are earned by writers who achieve good success with most assignments. B range students are practicing expository, creative and analytical thinking in a generally coherent, well-researched and cohesive manner. B range writers are typically becoming more aware of writing processes and attempting to express complex ideas more carefully. Their work is often supported with the ideas of others and their finished texts will occasionally but not consistently exhibit problems with grammar, punctuation, syntax and documentation. Writers in the B range will regularly contribute to class discussion and complete assigned work in ways that exceed minimal, college-level expectations.

Grades in the C range are earned by writers who complete the course challenges in a satisfactory manner. Though doing the work, the C range writer is not as much engaged in the progressive writing and thinking growth of the classπs learning community as B or A writers. The grade of C reflects ongoing concerns with individual literacy challenges and is achieved by consistent work and attention to writing processes. Sometimes, students in the C range may write or do work in the A or B range, but not consistently.

Sometimes, but not often, students are close to doing satisfactory work and they may earn a grade in the D range by at least attempting to answer all writing and reading challenges and showing progress.

Failure to attend class regularly and failure to complete all writing and reading assignments will result in a grade of F.

Before handing in our first essay, students will discuss a grading rubric in class to better understand how our classπs essays will be valued. Your writing will receive careful scrutiny from peers and teacher, and those comments will help you to improve the writing for inclusion in your graded final portfolios. Creating a web page, writing an introduction to you and your web page for your essays, and including helpful writing links will achieve 20% of your grade. The three graded essays will achieve 30% (10% for each essay) of your grade. Your final portfolio of the three essays will achieve 30% of your grade, and class participation (including posts on our email list) will achieve 20% of your grade. Grade approximations at any time in the term are available in conference upon request.

Since research is central in our class, we need to understand plagiarism. When students plagiarize, they intentionally use someone elseπs words or ideas without documenting sources. Instead of stealing someoneπs words or ideas, we will learn to use them more powerfully with documentation. Quoting an authorityπs words or citing someone elseπs ideas almost always strengthens our own thinking. Issues of plagiarism, when not intentionally trying to deceive readers, almost always result in better understanding about how to use sources. If there is any doubt about plagiarism, please discuss them with the professor or Writing Center tutors. Intentional plagiarists will not pass this class and may be expelled from the university because learning to be proud of the academic ways we present our research and our own thinking is what this course is all about. See the SCSU Student Handbook (pages 80-81) for our official statement on academic honesty.

Absences

Our class work will be centered on workshopping and helping each other understand the texts and ideas about cyberspace that we will experience together. Therefore our class contributions must be strongly valued. After three absences, ongoing, absences will lower the final grade one plus or minus per absence, and more than six absences will result in failure. If there are exceptional circumstances regarding absences, please inform the professor as soon as possible. All possible consideration and flexibility will be offered. If you know you will have to be absent, try to discuss the absence in advance. (See "What to do when absent" on our homepage.)

Class Plans (See "Plans" on our section of the homepage for links to each month's detailed plans)

The term will involve reading and discussing selected essays in CyberReader, handouts, reading On Writing Well, and reading web sites on the Internet. The purpose of our reading assignments will be to develop writing ideas about cyberspace. We will practice many forms of writing such as email, freewriting, creative writing, expository writing, criticism, research writing, rewriting, reflective writing, and web writing. Students will create idea structures, drafts, final drafts, and web portfolio drafts of their three major essays. Each stage of this process will include input from students and the professor to facilitate and improve your revision processes. If we work well together, itπs more than likely we will improve our abilities to participate in meaningful academic discourse while also improving our knowledge of cyberspace. In this class we will explore a variety of ways writers may compose, research and respond to texts, and we will create our own class web site to exhibit our final work. Plans are subject to change based on class needs, but in general we will adapt a rhythm of reading, writing and talking that will include peer collaboration, research, conferences, instruction about writing, practice with writing and careful responses to our ideas.

We will creatively compose our own, individual assignments and reflectively present them to our learning community. In the first week, the course will begin by thinking about some of our writing strengths and weaknesses, writing about our last experience with research, writing paired stories, and by thinking about our own responsibilities for our educational success. Our first writing assignment will be a self-introduction that will be the first text for each student's page on our class web site.

There will be no midterm exam and the final exam will be a brief individual conference during our assigned time in the exam week. These plans are flexible and students are strongly encouraged to actively discuss class planning during all stages of the term. In fact, student contributions and changes to this syllabus are welcome and encouraged.

Self Introduction/Web Page Assignment

You are who you are, but how do you express your ideas about who you are to others in cyberspace?

Write a 1-2 page self-introduction for an audience that doesn't know you. Try to be clear about yourself and try to express those aspects of yourself that may interest readers to consider your writing in more detail.

Some useful questions to initiate your composing process are:

What can I say about being a student at SCSU?

What do I hope to learn in this course?

How can I describe my understanding of myself as a writer?

What do I like to know that may be of academic and personal interest to others?

What pictures or graphics might I include?

What links might I include as part of the text of my introduction?

A draft of your short essay will be due one week from today. You will receive comments on the draft from your professor, you will revise your text, and you will receive guidance about how to post it on our web page how to present yourself to cyberspace.