Course Syllabus: ENGL 1301 Spring 2017
Instructor: Dr. Bill Franklin
Email: Use the Canvas INBOX. If it is unavailable, use wfranklin@nctc.edu
Phone: (940) 498-6240 Note: Quicker and more reliable communication via Canvas INBOX.
Office: COR 201 Office 207
On-Campus Office Hours:
Tuesday 10-11; 12:30-1:30; 5:30-6:30
Thursday 10-11
Online Office Hours:
24/7, with shortest response time between 7-11 a.m. and 7-11 p.m. I check Canvas INBOX frequently and prefer you contact me there. I am happy to set up a Skype or face-to-face appointment as needed.
Course Description
ENGL 1301 Composition I: Intensive study of and practice in writing processes, from invention and researching to drafting, revising, and editing, both individually and collaboratively. Emphasis on effective rhetorical choices, including audience, purpose, arrangement, and style. Focus on writing the academic essay as a vehicle for learning, communicating, and critical analysis.
Grades (Categories of Assignments)
- Discussions and Participation: 30%
- Major Papers: 30%
- Compilation of Course Notes and The Writing Journal: 40%
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Grades are holistic, based on the following rubric:
- A: Clearly superior
- B: Excellent
- C: Good
- D: Passable
- F: Not appropriate for a college level-writing course
Course Requirements
The course requires frequent participation in online discussions, with an expectation of at least three hours weekly, engaged in reading the materials, researching as necessary, and writing with the community.
Research and the writing of required papers is a separate block of time, easily equal to another three-to-six hours weekly. Be sure to plan enough time to stay current in the discussions as well as to produce the required compilations of notes and major papers.
Papers must be submitted in docx format. No other formats will be accepted. Regardless of your computer or word processor, always save course submissions as doc or docx files.
Tablets and smart phones are not sufficient as writing instruments. You should have full-time access to your own computer and internet. Do not contact the Professor for technical support of your tools.
Prerequisite(s)
Satisfactory placement test score or passing grade in ENGL 0305
Core Objectives
- Critical Thinking Skills (CT)- to include creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis, evaluation and synthesis of information
- Communication Skills (COM)- to include effective development, interpretation and expression of ideas through written, oral, and visual communication
- Teamwork (TW)- to include the ability to consider different points of view and to work effectively with others to support a shared purpose or goal
- Personal Responsibility (PR)- to include the ability to connect choices, actions, and consequences to ethical decision-making
Foundational Component Area: Communication. Courses in this category focus on developing ideas and expressing them clearly, considering the effect of the message, fostering understanding, and building the skills needed to communicate persuasively. Courses involve the command of oral, aural, written, and visual literacy skills that enable people to exchange messages appropriate to the subject, occasion, and audience.
Required Texts
All reading materials are available online.
For matters of style, grammar, sample papers, etc., we will use Purdue Online Writing Lab at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
Grading Policy
Grades will be weighted as follows:
30% Weekly Discussion Forums
30% Major Papers
40% The Book of the Course
An A requires 90-100 percent; a B, 80-89; a C, 70-79; a D, 60-69; an F, less than 60.
Academic Integrity
Scholastic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, cheating on a test, plagiarism, and collusion. See Student Handbook, "Student Rights and Responsibilities: Student Conduct [FLB- (LOCAL)]" #18. Anyone who commits such acts will fail the course and may be suspended from the university.
Plagiarism is the presentation of another person’s work as your own, whether intentionally or not. Plagiarism includes copying a passage from another writer’s work without acknowledging that writer. But it also includes not paraphrasing sufficiently, or even getting an idea from another writer without acknowledging the source of that idea.
Collusion is receiving unacknowledged help on an essay. If you get help on a particular assignment, you need to describe that help in writing and submit it along with the assignment. You can always discuss your ideas with others and even let them proofread your essays; however, the actual wording of the essays should be your own.
Disability Services (OSD)
The Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) provides accommodations for students who have a documented disability. On the Corinth Campus, go to room 170 or call 940-498-6207. On the Gainesville Campus, go to room 110 or call 940-668-4209. Students on the Bowie, Graham, Flower Mound, and online campuses should call 940-668-4209.
North Central Texas College is on record as being committed to both the spirit and letter of federal equal opportunity legislation, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, ADA Amendments Act of 2009, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (P.L. 93-112). http://www.nctc.edu/StudentServices/SupportServices/Disabilityservices.aspx
Support Services
Counseling and Testing staff offer a variety of services to current and prospective students, such as College 101, placement testing, academic advising and course registration, transfer assistance, and College Success seminars (Time Management, Study Skills, Test Anxiety, Choosing a Major, Learning Style Strategies, Career Exploration), and much more. http://www.nctc.edu/StudentServices/CounselingTesting.aspx
Student Success offers academic coaching, tutoring, including a Writing Center, a Math Lab, free 24/7 online tutoring through Grade Results and assist new students acclimate to college by providing computer lab services for prospective students. First generation students can also participate in TRIO which offers specialized support services.
http://www.nctc.edu/StudentServices/SupportServices.aspx
Financial Aid offers financial resources for students that qualify, visit the financial aid offices for more information. http://www.nctc.edu/FInancialAidHome.aspx
Early Alert/CARES
The NCTC Early Alert program has been established to assist students who are at risk of failing or withdrawing from a course. Your instructor may refer you to this program if you are missing assignments, failing tests, excessively absent, or have personal circumstances impacting your academic performance. If submitted as an Early Alert you will be notified via your NCTC e-mail address and then contacted by a Counseling and Testing advisor or counselor to discuss possible strategies for completing your course successfully.
The NCTC CARES (Campus Assessment Response Evaluation Services) Team addresses behavior which may be disruptive, harmful or pose a threat to to the health and safety of the NCTC community-such as stalking, harassment, physical or emotional abuse, violent or threatening behavior, or self-harm. As a student, you have the ability to report concerning behavior which could impact your own safety or the safety of another NCTC student. Just click the NCTC CARES Team logo posted on MyNCTC, or send an e-mail to CARESTeam@nctc.edu. As always, if you feel there is an immediate threat to your own safety or welfare (or to another student), please call 911 immediately.
CALENDAR OF THE COURSE
The following calendar is tentative and will change as necessary. Each current week will be shown on the Home Page of the course. Look there to see the current assignments, and read the discussions carefully for updates. Once I post it to the class, you are responsible for the updated information.
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Week 1 January 16-22
Tuesday Lecture: Rhetoric: Reading, Writing, Logic and its Fallacies
Listen, ask questions, take notes on paper, then file your notes in the folder. A good question might be "what if I need my notes?" Let's be sure to talk about that.
Reading for Thursday:
Leonard, Robert. "Why Rural America Voted for Trump." The New York Times. January 5, 2017.
Thursday Discussion:
Robert Leonard suggests a number of things that are important to us as writers. We'll talk about this in class in preparation for the Lecture and the Discussion Forum.
Thursday Lecture: "The Emergence of Human Communications in the Pre-literate Period (roughly 1,000,000 years ago through about 36,000 years ago)"
Research for the Discussion Forum:
The Naledi/Star Cave evidence.
Discussion Forum: This is a rhetorical inquiry into the logos, pathos, and ethos of the arguments about the Naledi/Star Cave findings and theories. As a place to start, you might consider the lack of a solid date. Or why these bones may or may not fit into theories of the emergence of humankind. Or what the location of these remains might indicate about the thought process of these people.
Week 2 January 23-29
Chauvet; Pech Merle
Week 3 January 30-February 5
Discussion Forum: Metanarratives and the Origins of our World Views
Problems of Plagiarism and their Remedies: The Annotated Bibliography
Readings for this Discussion:
There are a number of "master ideas" around which we organize our explorations of our universe, and these form the basis of our "master narratives," or "metanarratives." Some we've touched on so far include:
- Scientific metanarratives, revolving around the master idea that we observe the reality of our universe with our senses and can put those observations into words that accurately describe and predict these realities of the universe;
- Faith metanarratives,revolving around the master idea that we cannot directly observe the "divine" aspects of our reality, but instead must rely upon sacred stories and definitions and beliefs so as to understand certain mysteries of the universe;
- Historical metanarratives,revolving around the master idea of interpreting real events in the context of time;
- Literary metanarratives,revolving around the master idea of "letters" being used in a wide variety of forms to express all human ideas, ranging from realistic to wildly imaginative;
- Cognitive metanarratives,revolving around the idea that we know things within our minds, and that the actions of mind and knowledge are worthy of consideration through psychology and other cognitive explorations;
- Artistic metanarratives,revolving around the idea that abstract and realistic aspects of our experience of the world can be re-presented in two-and-three dimensional images, as well as through sound and movement.
These are limited and very simplistic definitions, and each and every part of these word constructions can be challenged and expanded, but the idea here is to learn to distinguish between the metanarratives.
Our topic this week is "Cave Paintings" in Europe in the period from about 36,000 BP to 12,000 BP. You are asked to write early and often to this discussion, and you are particularly required to explicitly identify the metanarrative within which you are writing. You will be graded not only on the accuracy of your use of information, but on your clarity in knowing the difference between science and faith and history and literature and psychology and art.
Start with a thorough investigation of the pages of these three websites, with a new record for your Annotated Bibliography and a complete set of notes for each of them.
Week 4 February 6-12
Discussion Forum: Emergent Archetypes of the Pre-literate Age
Assignment: The Book of the Course Setup
Week 5 February 13-19
Discussion Forum: The Agriculture Revolution and the Digital Revolution in Context
Assignment: Investigating the Great Stone Calendars
Week 6 February 20-26
Discussion Forum: Science and the Great Flood
Assignment: Research The Scientific Evidences
Week 7 February 27-March 5
Discussion Forum: The Oldest Literary Archetypes and the “Kesh Temple Hymn”
Assignment: Thesis Development from Archetypes and Metanarratives
Week 8 March 6-12 Midterms
Discussion Forum: The Dionysian Festivals
Assignment: Midterm Essay and The Book of the Course
Spring Break March 13-19
Week 9 March 20-26
Discussion Forum: Gilgamesh and the Archetypes of Ur
Assignment: The forms of the earliest letters and books
Week 10 March 27-April 2
Discussion Forum: Allegories, Parables, and Other Wisdom Traditions
Assignment: “The Allegory of the Cave” and others
Week 11 April 3-9
Discussion Forum: The History of Books and the Digital Revolution
Assignment: Setting up the final Book of the Course
Week 12 April 10-16
Discussion Forum: The Ruthwell Cross and “The Dream of the Rood”
Assignment: The Book of the Course: Preparing the “Galley Proof”
Week 13 April 17-23
Discussion Forum: Preparing a Major Thesis
Assignment: Preparing the Thesis
Week 14 April 24-30
Discussion Forum: Synthesizing the Topics of the Course
Assignment: The Major Paper
Week 15 May 1-7
Discussion Forum: The Exit Interview
Assignment: Introduction to your Book of the Course
Week 16 May 8-11
Final Exams