English 112

Fall 2009

Class Meetings

Section 53:  Wednesdays 4-6:45 at Reston

Section 8:  Thursdays 4-6:45 at Loudoun

Instructor: Bridget Robin Pool / bpool@nvcc.edu / 703.450.2513

www.nvcc.edu/home/bpool

Office Hours at Loudoun (LR 217):  Mondays 12:15-2:15, Tuesdays 2-4,

Office Hour at Reston:  Wednesdays at Reston 3-4. 

Other times available by appt.

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“Luke, you’ll find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi in Return of the Jedi

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it"

Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

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COURSE DESCRIPTION:

English 112 is designed to continue the development of your critical reading, thinking, and writing skills from English 111.  Our overall theme is point of view and perspective.  For each assignment, I will ask you to consider the subjective or objective, biased or unbiased way that information is presented.  The course focuses on studying film, fairy tales, and essays as a way to develop your reading and analytical abilities.  For these assignments, you will read closely, ask critical questions, and synthesize information. You will develop your own opinions and learn to express your understanding and appreciation of the works we study in creative writing, personal writing, and a formally documented research paper. 

REQUIRED TEXTS AND SUPPLIES:

• Rules for Writers, Hacker  http://dianahacker.com/rules/
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
• This I Believe:  The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women, Allison and Gediman
• A good college dictionary
• A three-ring binder to hold notes, handouts, response papers, quizzes, etc.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING:

35%        Response Papers and Class Participation

• Response papers are due at the beginning of class.  These assignments are detailed on the calendar.  They should be 1-2 pages long and are due at the beginning of class.  I will not accept these late.  Think of them as take home quizzes.  These short essays and creative writings are designed to help you understand and analyze the reading, prepare for class discussion, and develop ideas and skills for your longer pieces.  They should be thoughtful and well-organized.  Please note that each of these individual writing assignments is not heavily weighted, but this section of the course will ultimately have a large effect on your grade.

·         Preparation, attendance, and participation are also part of this grade.  You must also attend every class to receive the full credit in this category.  Tardiness does count against you.  Contributing body heat is not adequate to earn a good class participation grade; I expect you to share your ideas.  This class will be much more interesting and educational for everyone—including me—if we regularly hear the voices and views of everyone in the class.  In a student-centered environment like this one, it is as much your responsibility as mine to make our time together worthwhile.  I’ll do my best to facilitate discussion, but you must do your part as well.  You should always come to class prepared to discuss the reading assigned for that class period.  

10%        Miscellaneous Research Paper Pre-Writing Requirements

You must complete the miscellaneous preparatory assignments (research question, library assignment, film segmentation, annotated bibliography, comparison/contrast worksheet, thesis, outline, and drafts) satisfactorily and on time.  Please note that students must complete all of these assignments before submitting their research papers to the instructor for grading.  Research papers for which students have not completed all of the pre-writing assignments will not be accepted.

25%        Film and History Research Paper

Write a research paper (5-7 pages) in which you will apply both your library skills and your critical analysis skills.  I’ll provide more details about this assignment later in the semester.

15%        Fairy Tale Essay

Retell your chosen story from a first person narrative point of view, similar to the Wolf’s retelling of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.  You will be provided with a list of stories to choose from.  Your final essay has two parts:  1) your retelling and 2) your own analysis of your retelling.

·         Be sure to use this shift as a means of analyzing the original story.  If you change the facts of the story, you must do so for a particular and justifiable reason.  Consider carefully what the motivation is for making those changes.  How is it consistent with your revised telling?

·         Also, remember that you must be concerned with altering the way the reader perceives the story.  You should use the new perspective to reveal a new and different angle of the story, perhaps even changing the theme entirely as a result. 

·         While changing the POV, you should maintain a tone/voice that is consistent with the original story or relevant to your new approach. 

·         To complete the assignment, you must append an explanation and analysis (about 2 pages) in which you describe your intentions in recrafting the story and discuss how the revised point of view helps communicate a central theme of the tale.  Have you altered the original theme?  What were you trying to demonstrate or reveal about the story by changing the point of view?  Were you successful?  This last page is crucial to your success in completing this essay.  Essays submitted without this page of analysis will be reduced a full letter grade.

·         Please submit all drafts and pre-writing with the final.  To receive full credit for this assignment you must be present and prepared for the in-class workshop.  If you are not, you will receive a full letter grade deduction on your final grade.

15%        This I Believe Essay

·         You will prepare a submission to This I Believe:  www.thisibelieve.org  I’ll give more thorough information on this later in the semester.

SUBMISSION OF FORMAL ESSAYS:

·         Keep copies of all assigned drafts.  You may be asked to submit them with your final. 

·         Be ready to hand in your essay at the very beginning of the class when the paper is due.  I will not accept or read e-mailed deadline drafts. 

·         All formal writing for this course should be submitted in MLA format with proper MLA documentation.  Essays not in the proper format will lose points.  All papers must be typed in a reasonable 12 point font, be double-spaced, and use the proper heading and page numbering system.  Paragraphs should be indented, and there should be no extra space between them.  Every essay needs a creative and relevant title.  For a sample of the proper format, please refer to pages 71 and 463 in Hacker.  Essays not in the proper format will need to be revised and resubmitted. 

PEER GROUPS: 

A portion of our work will be dedicated to cooperating as a community of writers.  You will work in writing groups of three or four students who will read one another’s work and provide feedback, encouragement, criticism, and support.  The purpose of this group is to help you be a better writer through the advice of your peers and the analysis of your classmates' writing.  You should have an early draft of each assignment reviewed by your group, so you need to bring enough copies for each group member.  We will discuss the format for conducting these groups early on in the semester.  Please note that if you come to class unprepared to participate fully in the peer groups, I will ask you to leave, and you will not receive credit for that draft.

THE WRITING PROCESS:
In this class I hope to help you improve your writing by emphasizing and practicing the writing process for the essays that you complete for this class.  We will work through the writing process (including pre-writing techniques, thesis and outline, the rough draft, the peer critique/conference, and the final draft) for each formal essay.  It will be vital that you complete each step of the writing process for each essay.  Though you will be required to turn in all steps of your writing process for each essay, this class is partially designed as a writing workshop.  You will evaluate and discuss each other’s work thoroughly as each essay is written so that you can improve your essay as the class progresses.  Failure to turn in any part of the writing process with an essay will result in a 10% deduction from your final grade on the assignment. 

THE WRITING CENTER:

I strongly recommend that you visit the Writing Center for help.  For your research paper, you will earn 5 extra points on your final grade if you meet with a writing consultant.  The Writing Center is staffed by students who are trained work with you on your drafts.  They are there to offer you feedback at any stage of the writing process, but they will not edit your essays for you.  It is a good idea to make an appointment in advance because the WC gets quite busy.  Call 703-450-2511, or go there to schedule an appointment. 

PLAGIARISM:

I do not tolerate academic theft in my courses.  In the first assignment where I find plagiarism, I will give you an F in the course for failing to meet the course requirements, and I will notify the school’s administration.  Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s writing in your paper without proper acknowledgment of the source. Plagiarism is an extremely serious offense because you are stealing someone else’s thoughts and writing and representing these as your own work.   You must submit only your own work in this class.  If you use outside sources, be sure to properly document them using MLA format.  Learning to do so is one of the most important aspects of this course.  If you neglect to document properly, you are guilty of plagiarism.  This is an extremely serious offense because you are stealing someone else’s thoughts and words and representing them as your own work.  If you are uncertain of what constitutes plagiarism, please consult with me, the Writing Center, and/or Hacker. 

ATTENDANCE:

• All students have competing responsibilities and complications in their lives, and all students are expected to complete the same work in the same amount of time.  Understand that these rules exist in the interest of fairness to all individuals.  If you have legitimate extenuating circumstances, please discuss them with me.

·         Do not arrive tardy.  It will negatively influence your grade if you do.

·         If you must miss class:

1.       Please send me an e-mail to notify me that you will not be there.

2.       Contact another student to find out what we did in class.  I will not inconvenience the rest of the class by reiterating what you missed while you were absent.  Please exchange phone numbers with two other students early in the semester so that you can pair up and collect handouts, share notes, etc. 

(Name)_____________________________________________

(Phone)  _____________________________________________

(Email)    _____________________________________________

(Name)_____________________________________________

(Phone)  _____________________________________________

(Email)    _____________________________________________

·         Students in this class do much better if they attend regularly.  Plan to be present and prepared for every class.  If you exceed 3 absences, you will earn an automatic F in the course.  If you have multiple absences, I encourage you to communicate with me privately regarding your progress in the course.

LATE WORK:

All assignments are due at the beginning of class unless you have made other arrangements with me in advance.  These policies are divided into two parts—informal assignments and formal assignments.

• Informal Assignments:  I do not accept response papers late and do not offer make-up quizzes.  Peer reviews may not be made up. 
• Formal Assignments:  I will deduct 5% for every calendar day that a major assignment is late.  If you submit a deadline draft of a major paper more than two days late, you will earn a 0 for the assignment and the process work.  Furthermore, you may not revise late papers for a better grade.   If you have extenuating circumstances that prevent you from turning your deadline draft in on time, please contact me immediately.

INCLEMENT WEATHER AND FLU PANDEMIC POLICY: 

·         If class is cancelled, please refer to Blackboard for details.  Unless otherwise indicated, you should prepare your reading and writing assignments according to the syllabus even if we miss a class.

·         The decision to close or delay classes at Northern Virginia Community College due to bad weather or flu pandemic is made independently of the decisions about public schools. Information about inclement weather closings is available online at the college website www.nvcc.edu.  Night classes may be cancelled separately from evening classes.  A longer statement concerning the rules of weather closings at NVCC is available here: http://www.nvcc.edu/depts/homepage/closing.htm#9 

·         You will find instructions on how to subscribe to a text messaging or email alert system here:  https://alert.nvcc.edu/index.php?CCheck=1

COUNSELING SERVICES (LC 253) (703.450.2571):

Professional counselors are on duty from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 to 5 on Wednesday to assist you with personal, academic, and career matters.

SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS:

If you have a disability of which I need to be aware (for classroom and/or testing accommodations), please meet with me early in the semester to discuss it privately.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T:

Please be considerate of your classmates and me.  Don’t arrive late or leave early.  Don’t wander in and out of class while it is in session because it distracts the other students and me.  For the same reason, don’t whisper to your classmates.  Always turn off your beepers and cell phones before entering the classroom.  Finally, and most importantly, please be sensitive to the ideas and opinions of other students.  In particular be aware that it is often scary to share one’s writing with others.  The class will be successful if each of us strives to be open-minded and gentle with each other while offering our honest reactions to what we are reading.  This includes me.   

FALL 2009 CLASS ACTIVITIES AND ASSIGNMENTS:

subject to change