Course: Honors English – English 129 F

Course: Honors English – English 129 Fall 2005

Instructor: Julie Barak Office: 446 LHH

E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 248-1072

Office Hours: 11:00-11:50 MWF, 9:000-9:50 TR

Home Page: http://www. mesastate.edu/~jbarak

General Education Requirements: This course has been accepted by the CCHE as a General Education Transfer course. To meet this requirement, the course must meet minimum reading and writing requirements, as well as address the following critical thinking skills: a) Identifying and differentiating questions, problems and arguments, b) Evaluating the appropriateness of various methods of reasoning and verification, c) Identifying and assessing stated and unstated assumptions, d) Critically comparing different points of view, e) Formulating questions and problems, f) Constructing and developing cogent arguments, g) Discussing alternative points of view, h) Evaluating the quality of evidence and reasoning.

General Education Objectives Addressed in this Course:

The following have been chosen from the list of General Education Objectives shown in its entirety in the Mesa State College Catalog:

OBJECTIVE 1—Students will be able to think critically and recognize issues across a broad spectrum of subjects.

OBJECTIVE 2—Students will be able to communicate effectively in the English Language.

Course Goals: The catalogue says we'll be doing an "[e]xamination of readings and creation of persuasive essays, research papers and critical analyses" as we plow through the semester. We will be doing all of this, but I think that underlying all of that is an exploration of a certain kind of writing -- researched writing. I'm making a distinction here between "researched writing" and writing "The Research Paper," because the latter is a uniquely academic genre, one that not many of you will use outside the college classroom. Researched writing, or writing based on research, however, no matter what form it takes -- essay, letter to the editor, business report, fiction or poetry, letter of compliment or complaint, memos to colleagues -- will be useful to you for the rest of your life in many situations. So, the goals for the course are centered on learning basic research skills, rather than on producing a certain type of essay or paper. In particular, we will focus on posing and refining interesting questions, problems and hypothesis; finding credible and useful sources; and evaluating the content of what we read. We will focus on writing as a process, so that you see the "finished” product as part of a continuing process of engagement with your ideas. We'll discuss the rhetoric of argumentation and evidence within your own process of researched writing, so that you can learn how to present your ideas powerfully and convincingly. Part of what this entails is developing a sense of audience reactions to your writing, enabling you to write with greater sensitivity to others. And, of course, we'll practice using the conventional spelling, punctuation, mechanics and documentation of formal, written discourse.

Course Description: The course is designed as a reading and writing workshop. We'll be reading and commenting on each other's work and relying on each others’ expertise as readers and writers as we move through the semester. We'll be sharing our writing with each other, commenting on what we read, and going beyond the classroom readings to research topics that we choose for ourselves. We'll be examining the works of other writers to see what makes them effective, to try to understand how and where they are most persuasive, how they develop and support an argument, how we can expand our own writing repertoire by observing and practicing what they do. We'll also be thinking and writing about our research and writing processes. How and why do you do what you do as a researcher and writer? What is effective in your process? Where do you "spin your wheels" or waste time and effort in your research and writing process? How can you learn more effective strategies and techniques for researching and writing?

Obviously, we're going to be asking a lot of questions of ourselves, of each other and of various texts. We're going to be examining our writing and reading lives. Most of our learning will be the result of sharing -- speaking, reading, responding to the thoughts of others.

Required Texts:.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Norton Critical Edition, 3^rd Edition: 1988.

Dyer, Richard. White. Routledge: 1999.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Bedford/St. Martin’s: 2000.

Course Requirements:

Daily in-class journals: Every day, for about the last 5-10 minutes of class, we’ll stop and reflect on what happened that day and write about our intellectual response to what we’ve read and discussed. (10% of your final grade.)
Three papers: One summary and response (4-5 pages), one position paper (5-6 pages), one research paper (7-9 pages). Descriptions and more information forthcoming. (10, 15, and 25% of your grade, respectively.)
Miscellaneous assignments, including, but not limited to 2 literature discussion guides, 2 summaries of critical articles, 2 chapter reports on Dyer, prospectus, and bibliography. (25% of your final grade.)
Various smaller in- and out-of-class writing projects. (15% of your final grade.)

Report Schedule

Class Attendance and Participation

Show up for class. You’ve got to come to class to do well in the class. In order to share your responses and to help us construct a shared meaning of the texts we’ll read and write, you have to be here to participate in the discussions. But, because I know that life can get complicated, everybody gets three free absences. After three, you lose a third of a letter grade for each absence. (For example, if you have a B for the class but you’ve missed 5 classes, your final grade will be a C+.) You will also be penalized for coming into class late – three “lates” equals one absence. There are no make-up assignments for any in-class work. In order to allow you to miss three classes with impunity, I’ll drop three of your lowest grades for requirement four above.

Turn work in on time. Late work will not be accepted. I'm adamant about this. There will be no exceptions to this rule. If you don't have the writing in your hand in class on the day we're going to be working with it, you don't get credit for it -- you will receive an "F" for that assignment. Do your work ahead of time. Print your essay or response out the night BEFORE it's due. Don't wait until the last minute to dash something off. Be sure you back up all the work you do on your computer so that you have a copy on your hard drive and a copy on disk. I will not accept excuses of ANY sort for late work – computer, printer, and disk problems included.

Policies and Procedures:

Academic Misconduct. Please read the section on cheating and plagiarism in the student handbook. The consequences for cheating and plagiarism are severe, including failure for the assignment, possible failure of the course, disciplinary referral to the dean, and possible expulsion from the college. If you have questions about these violations of academic honesty, please come and see me.

Disabilities. If you have any condition, such as a physical or mental disability, which will make it difficult for you to carry out the work for the course, please talk to me and we will work with the support services here at Mesa State to provide you with the necessary assistance.

Schedule Click here for Report Schedule

Week	Date	Reading Assignment	Due Dates/Quizzes/Exams
1	8/22	Introductions
	8/24	The Tempest – Act I	Lit.Discussion Guide
	8/26	The Tempest – Act II	“
2	8/29	The Tempest – Act III	“
	8/31	The Tempest – Act IV	”
	9/2	The Tempest – Act V and p. 91-108	“
3	9/5	Labor Day – No Class
	9/7	Takaki	Summary
	9/9	Kermode and Brower	“
4	9/12	Brown and Willis	“
	9/14	Barker and Hulme	“
	9/16	Workshop	Paper #1 Draft Due
5	9/19	Workshop
	9/21	Workshop
	9/23	Heart of Darkness p. 1-25	Paper #1 Due/Lit. Discussion
6	9/26	Heart of Darkness p. 25-50	Lit. Discussion Guide
	9/28	Heart of Darkness to end	Lit. Discussion Guide
	9/30	Achebee and Harris	Summary
7	10/3	Singh and Sarvan	“
	10/5	Stewart and McLaughlin	“
	10/7	Levenson and Kimbrough	“
8	10/10	Workshop	Paper #2 Draft Due
	10/12	Workshop
	10/14	Workshop
9	10/17	Fall Break – No Classes
	10/19	Out of Town for Conference
	10/21	Out of Town for Conference
10	10/24	Dyer – 1-18	Paper #2 Due/Reports
	10/26	Dyer – 18-40	Reports
	10/28	Dyer – 41-60	“
11	10/31	Dyer – 61-81	“
	11/2	Dyer – 82-102	“
	11/4	Dyer – 103-121	“
12	11/7	Dyer – 127-144	“
	11/9	Dyer – 145-165	“
	11/11	Dyer – 165-180	“
13	11/14	Dyer – 184-206	“
	11/16	Dyer – to end	“
	11/18	Modes – Comparison Contrast
14	11/21	Modes – Analysis
	11/23	Thanksgiving Break – No Class
	11/25	Thanksgiving Break – No Class
15	11/28	Modes – Process
	11/30	Modes – Evaluation
	12/2	Workshop	Paper #3 Draft Due
16	12/5	Workshop
	12/7	Workshop
	12/9	Workshop
17	12/12	Exam – 2:00	Paper #3 Due