English 101i | Summer 2000

The goal of this section of English 101I is to help you become familiar with and capable of meeting the demands of the college community who will be reading your writing. To achieve these goals, you will be expected to write five essays during the semester that will focus on a single subject. Due to this focused study, the work done for each assignment serves as the basis for the next assignment, building your writing strategies. The design of this course permits the content of the your writing to build, thereby developing your knowledge base and and expertise in a particular subject. In addition, while writing these essays you will learn other writing related strategies that will help you fulfill the expectations of your academic audiences:

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Proposal/Current Knowledge (50 points): You will choose the topic that you will investigate throughout the semester. As you choose a topic, pick one that 1) can sustain your interest for eight weeks, and 2) that you have some personal experience with.

Annotated Bibliography (100 points): After finding five texts related to your topic, you will summarize each one, explain its relevance to your interests, and propose how you would use this text.

Survey (100 points): With this assignment you will 1) design a survey that will allow 15-25 people to openly articulate their perspectives about your topic, 2) analyze the data you gathered and draw some preliminary conclusions, think about changes you might make to your research design.

Interview with an Expert (100 points): You will conduct an interview with an expert on your topic and report your findings.

Final Report/Synthesis (150 points): In this assignment, you will 1) report what you have learned from your research giving equal weight to different perspectives, and 2) articulate your own informed opinion based upon this research.

In addition to the writing assignments, you will be asked to turn in a one page reflection. In this reflection you will discuss a topic related to this course. For example, you may want to explore an idea that you learned from your research, you may want to engage an idea that was raised in class, or you may want to clarify or revise an idea from a previous essay. These reflections will be turned in on the Friday of the second week (June 23), the fourth week (July 7), the sixth week (July 21), and the eighth week (August 4).

Also, throughout the semester you will be given ten to fifteen homework assignments and several in-class freewrites. Homework and freewrites are not busy work; they are opportunities to articulate your preliminary thinking on the essay you will be writing. Material in your homework and freewrites will be used for class discussions and most will be collected and commented upon. These comments should be used while drafting or revising your final essay. Because these homework assignments are meant to help you with writing your overall assignment, some assignments will not be accepted late.

+ = You demonstrated that you were engaged with the ideas, and turned it in on time.

– = Your work demonstrates minimal effort, shows that you did not do the assigned reading, or was not turned in on-time.

Your homework/participation grade is worth 100 points. Each student will start out with 85% of the total participation points. Earning +'s will raise this grade, while earning – and 0's will lower this grade.

Having an e-mail account is not required, but it is highly recommended. It will allow you to communicate with the instructor and your peers, as well as provide a possible means for submitting work.

I have set up a listserv for the class; use instructions for how to sign on to the listserv.

You have an obligation to yourself, your peers, and your instructor to attend and participate in class. If you are absent more than five times during the semester (excused or unexcused), you will fail the course.

Your overall grade will be determined by adding the five essay grades with the homework grade. Adjustments to this scale can be made at the instructor's discretion.