English 1B
Dave Holper: Office #: 707-476-4370
Email: david-holper@redwoods.edu
Website: http://www.redwoods.edu/departments/english/instructors/Holper/english_1b.htm
Office Hours in Life
Sciences 100:
SYLLABUS
"It is only the story
that can continue beyond the war and the warrior... It is only the story...
that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of
the cactus fence. The story is our
escort; without it, we are blind. Does
the blind man own his escort? No,
neither do we own the story; rather it is the story that owns us." Chinua Achebe
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¨ COURSE DESCRIPTION: A course using literature as a basis for critical thinking
and composition. Students analyze issues, problems, and situations represented
in literature and develop effective short and long written arguments (6000
minimum word total) in support of an analysis. This course is designed for
those students who seek to satisfy both the full year composition and the
critical thinking transfer requirements.
¨ COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES:
· Analyze and employ rhetorical uses of language such
as appeals to logic, emotion, and ethos.
· Identify and evaluate the issue, claim, and
assumptions in texts.
· Identify and evaluate author's use of literature and
literary devices as persuasive tools.
· Through inferential reasoning, develop judgments in
the form of thesis statements (which involves the ability to distinguish belief
from knowledge and fact from judgment) in response to questions of personal, cultural,
philosophic, religious, and social issues represented in literature.
· Write well-organized and logical argumentative
critical essays in response to issues raised by literary works.
· Use examples, details, and evidence from primary and
secondary sources to support or validate thesis and other generalizations.
· Evaluate essays for effective argumentation.
· Evaluate electronic and print sources and other
research materials for authority, credibility, relevance, and bias.
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PREREQUISITE: English 1A
with a C grade or better or assessment recommendation for English 1B
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REQUIRED TEXTS/MATERIALS:
1) Literature:
Compact 7th Edition by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia
(Please note, earlier editions don't work well—and there
are no reserve editions.)
2)
Required Materials (daily):
1) A binder (for the class booklet) and binder paper.
2) Pen, pencil, and hi-liter.
3) Some method of computer backup: flash drive, external
hard drive, etc.
Suggested Addition:
1) ½ credit of English 152 strongly recommended (for
tutorial help)
Welcome to English 1B! I'm excited to be your teacher and I hope
that each of us will enjoy and learn a great deal during this semester. This will be an intensive course because I
will ask a lot of each one of you, but in return, I hope you will find this to
be one of your most memorable reading and writing classes. The primary goals of this course are to help
you in preparing for a successful college transfer in English, particularly as
it applies to analysis of literature. Beyond that--and perhaps more
importantly--I want you to learn to write more powerfully, passionately, and
naturally.
Pet
Peeves:
1)
Turn off your cell phone in class.
2)
Don't get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the class, unless it is
absolutely necessary.
3)
Don't eat in class unless you're a diabetic.
4)
Don't crinkle up paper when the writing isn't going well.
5)
Don't come strolling in late or leave early; don't schedule appointments during
class sessions.
6)
Don't tell me you don't know what's going on in class when the syllabus
calendar is already posted with the details of what we've done or what we're
going to do.
7)
Don't ask me for information that is available by reading the syllabus.
Your Instructor: Dave has done a little of everything, including taxi driver, fire fighter,
cook, soldier, house painter, and teacher.
He earned his BA in English at
Dave’s Office: The office is in Life Sciences, #100. This building is the one before
Math/Science. Please knock before
entering. (Don't arm wrestle with a
rattlesnake!)
Dave’s
Mailbox:
The mailbox is in the 200 hallway of the
Class Participation: This class involves extensive reading, discussion,
and writing. If you sit back and leave
others to talk, you'll get a lot less out of the course. Therefore, in order to encourage you to
participate in every class, there is a 2.5 percent class participation score
out of your total grade, which equates to about 20 points—enough to make a
sizeable difference at the end of the semester.
Formal Essay Writing: three out-of-class, formal essays of approximately four-five pages on
assigned topics, the last of which will be the Research Paper, which will be
six-ten pages, plus a bibliography.
(Note: these essays will advance in point value from 50-100-200.) These essays will include an introduction
with a thesis at the end, body paragraphs governed by topic sentences, and a
conclusion. Thesis and topic sentences
must be underlined. Each essay must
include at least two drafts. Please save
all work that goes into papers! All papers (and all drafts) will be typed. The format will always be the same: use MLA
format as described in your Bedford
Handbook.
Draft
Workshops: These are required. In
order to make sure you understand how important these are, first drafts are
worth 25 percent of the value of each paper.
Thus, you cannot go higher than a “C” on a final draft of a paper if you
have missed the Draft Workshop or come with no work at all. Absences are not acceptable on Draft
Workshop days unless it is an emergency and you have a written note from a
doctor. Attendance is the only
dependable way I have of (a) helping you improve your draft; and (b) protecting
you against plagiarism. It is not
acceptable to bring handwritten drafts to draft workshops. Late paper coupons cannot be used to excuse
late first drafts!
Emailing Completed Work: Unless it's an emergency, I strongly discourage this, as it wastes my
printer cartridges and encourages students to wait until the last minute. However, if you cannot see me for a draft
conference and want input, you can email me the work as an attachment. I'll comment using the "insert
comment" feature in Microsoft Word, which will show up in your document as
yellow text: when you roll your mouse onto the yellow, a text window will
appear with my comment in it. Do note,
however, that face-to-face conferences work better than email feedback.
Revisions: On papers one and two, you may revise your paper for a higher grade,
if you're not satisfied with the grade you received. However, in order to take advantage of this,
you must accomplish a significant revision, which means that once you receive your
paper back from you, you should revise and clean up the draft. Then you are required to see a tutor and get
his/her signature on the tutor sheet (you'll find this in the class
booklet). Also note that a significant
revision means more than simply correcting grammatical and mechanical errors: a
significant revision often means rethinking, rearranging, expanding, adding,
and rewording. You may not revise the
last paper, as there will not be time; thus, you should plan on drafting
several times before it's due.
Automatic D's: If I ask for a four-page paper (at a minimum), and you give me three
and 3/4 pages, I will give you an automatic D.
Always go beyond the minimum to be safe.
Reusing Stories: In order that you write about a range of stories and/or poems, you
will not be able to write about a story or poem twice, nor are you allowed to
use the midterm story for a paper.
Late Work/Freebies: You will be allowed one
late final draft for this course; however, you may not use this on your
last paper, nor is it good on any first draft.
There is a late coupon in your class booklet, and it will serve as your
cover sheet for your late paper. The
freebie is good to turn in a paper one week late; that's seven days. Again, this does not apply to the last paper
we do.
Plagiarism: If you copy someone else’s work, and I catch you, you automatically
will fail the course.
Turnitin.com: On all the out-of-class papers that we do,
you'll be responsible to turn in your paper to the turnitin.com website, which
helps all of us in insuring that all work done at the 1B level is
original. This must be done before the paper is turned in to me;
otherwise, you will receive zero points for the paper (until you do turn it in
to turnitin.com). Then you’ll need to return the graded paper to me (with
a note that it’s now turned in to turnitin.com). For your tardiness, you
will five percent off the final grade of the paper. Directions for how to
use turnitin.com can be found on the class website, along with a link that will
take you to turnitin.com. The class ID# and password will be posted on
our website for the first paper. (Once you’ve inputted the class ID# and
password, you don’t need to do it again.)
Required
Reading Quizzes and Exams: In order to improve our critical reading of the stories/ poems, as
well as other material we cover in class this semester, we’ll have quizzes and
exams to test your knowledge and skills. Reading quizzes will typically be 5-10
pt. quizzes on the day following your reading assignment and will focus on
character names, plot, setting, etc. If
you come in late, you'll miss the reading quizzes, so do be on time. Longer exam format will be introduced as we
cover this material. Also, do note that
I'll drop your lowest quiz score for the semester, so if you're absent on the
day of a quiz or you do poorly, you're covered for that one instance.
Make-up Quizzes/Tests: You may not make up reading quizzes.
You're given one freebie; beyond that, you lose points. With tests, if you're absent on the test day
and you don't have a doctor's note or an accident report, then you may make up
the test, but you lose 25% of the grade for your absence. In other words, be there on test days.
Journal Assignments: In order to help you prepare for discussions and writing, with many
of the readings we do, there will also be journal assignments. Your responses will be written in paragraph
format (with paragraphs of five-seven sentences). Be sure to restate the question
(single-spaced) in bold type—and follow it with your answer. Remember, journals should be a minimum of one
page. These journals are due at the next
class; however, if you do miss a journal assignment, you may turn it in to my
box no later than the Friday of that same week.
Beyond that, the journals have no point value.
Oral Presentations: During the course of the semester, once we have been introduced to how
to read and analyze a story or poem, I'll ask groups to lead a discussion on a
particular set of poems or a story, so that you will have practice in learning
what resources are available about authors and their works, as well as
developing skills in analysis of literature.
These oral presentations are worth a possible 20 pts. and may include
PowerPoint, handouts, discussion, short writing assignments, short lecture, or
other types of presentations to bring a work or series of works to life for the
class. Do note that if one member of the
group does not carry his/her weight, the group may let me know and prevent that
student from receiving any points or reduce the number of points in accordance
with his/her performance.
Attendance/Promptness: The CR policy allows for 85% attendance, which
means that after five absences that if you have six absences, you will lose 15
percent of your grade or 105 points, likely resulting in failure. If you miss a class, please remember, it
is your responsibility to find out from another student what you missed by
calling someone on the phone list.
If you come late (more than 10 minutes) or unprepared that will count as
½ an absence.
Study Groups: Right now, find two other people who are sitting near you and write
down their names, phone numbers, and times available. This will be your immediate study group;
however, do note that I encourage you to form other groups, as people form
friendships or drop out of the course.
Name: _____________________ Phone: _________________ Available: ___________________
Name: _____________________ Phone: _________________ Available: ___________________
Your Portfolio: Please save all your work this semester so that you can verify your
improvement, so that you're covered in case I accidentally do not record the
grade, and so that you will be able to choose one essay to rewrite at the close
of the semester.
Release from the Final: If you have a straight A at the end of week 15, I will release you
from the final. An A- is not sufficient
for release from the final.
Grading/Points:
370 pts.
formal essays
100 pts. final
(timed essay)
90 pts. tests (short answer
and written questions)
100 pts.
reading quizzes
100 pts.
journals
20 pts. oral
presentations
2.5 % of grade will consist of
class participation
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780 total
points
Dave does not
grade on a curve; he uses straight point tallies with 90 percent and above as a
A, 80 to 89 percent as a B; 70-79 percent as a C; 60-69.5 percent as a D; work
below this is usually so late or so poorly composed that is an obviously an
F.