Course Schedule (subject to change)

English 109H:  Fall 2015

Section 029  MWF 8am-8:50am  

Modern Languages Bldg. 505

Instructor: Dr. Mary Bell

General Information

Office: Computer Center 236 (SW corner Highland/Speedway by the underpass)

Office Hours:   (Updated): Wednesdays from 9:30-11:00 AM OR by appointment

Telephone: 520-626-5325 (only during scheduled office hours)

E-mail:                     mebell@email.arizona.edu

Course Web Site:     http://d2l.arizona.edu

Course Description

• Goal 1: Rhetorical Awareness. Learn strategies for analyzing texts’ audiences, purposes, and contexts as a means of developing facility in reading and writing.
• Goal 2: Critical Thinking and Composing. Use reading and writing for purposes of critical thinking, research, problem solving, action, and participation in conversations within and across different communities.
• Goal 3: Reflection and Revision. Understand composing processes as flexible and collaborative, drawing upon multiple strategies and informed by reflection.
• Goal 4: Conventions. Understand conventions as related to purpose, audience, and genre, including such areas as mechanics, usage, citation practices, as well as structure, style, graphics, and design.

Supplemental Course Information: This section of English 109H focuses on how discourse occurs in public spaces (print, digital, physical, etc.). You will self-govern a semester-long exploration of how people and organizations within your discipline/major participate in ongoing public arguments, debates and disagreements. You’ll spend a lot of time thinking and writing about how writers/authors construct their arguments rhetorically, as well as how the arguments are rhetorically situated within mass media and culture.

This is all in the service of equipping you with concrete and transferrable skills that will benefit you in your college studies and your professional lives after college. By engaging in extensive and ongoing writing and reflection, you’ll gain the ability to assess writing situations and make strategic decisions about how best to adapt to those situations.

This means you’ll focus on how to assess the conventions of a writing genre, determine the needs of different audiences, think critically about the purpose of different genres and modes, and develop the ability to think on a metacognitive level about your own identity as a writer and the strengths and struggles of your writing process. You’ll practice being both an editor of the work of your peers and a self-editor of your own work by consistently engaging in public writing. You’ll do all of your work on a personal course blog that your instructor and peers will interact with on an ongoing basis - all of your work will be “public” within the context of the class. By making the practice of writing visible to your peers, hopefully you’ll gain confidence and come to understand that writing is just like physical exercise: the more you do it, the stronger you become.

Required Texts

1. Hacker, Diana, and Nancy Sommers. Rules for Writers, The University of Arizona Edition, 7th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. Print. ISBN 978-1-4576-5727-6.
2. Jacobson, Brad, Madelyn Tucker Pawlowski, and Emma Miller, eds. A Student’s Guide to First-Year Writing, 36th edition.  Plymouth: Hayden-McNeil Publishing, 2015. Print. ISBN 978-073807433-7.

Written Assignments

You’ll write in many different genres throughout the course, namely:

• The Quick Reference Guide, a post-Internet genre that breaks down complex controversies into an easy-to-follow narrative that provides readers not just with information, but a nuanced understanding of the context for that information.
• The College Essay, our most traditional genre, in which you’re asked to explain how a particular act of public speech in your discipline is both rhetorically constructed and situated.
• The Public Argument, in which you’ll author an act of public speech that participates meaningfully in an ongoing debate within your discipline. For this project, you’ll take ownership of identifying and writing within a genre that people in your field commonly use to make public arguments.
• An Open Letter to your peers and instructor about your experiences in the class and a reflective assessment of your past, present and future as a writer/communicator.

Required Course Work

Assignment	Due Date	Percentage
Project 1: The Controversy Analysis	Week 5	15%
Project 2: The Rhetorical Analysis	Week 9	25%
Project 3: The Public Argument	Week 13	35%
Final Project: Reflection	Week 16	15%
In-Class Work / Misc. Homework	Ongoing	10%
Total		100%

ENG109H Section 029

Schedule of Weekly Meetings

Module 1: Getting Started
Week 1
Monday 8/24	Course introductions
Wednesday 8/26	Discussion of public speech and Internet comments threads
Friday 8/28	Discussion of civility and public discourse - introduction to the National Institute for Civil Discourse http://nicd.arizona.edu/
Saturday 8/29	Deadline #1 Due 11:59PM
Module 2: The Controversy Analysis
Week 2
Monday 8/31	Examining public arguments in three contexts: general popular media, scholarly media, & social media
Wednesday 9/2	Talking ideology, unpacking speech for values
Friday 9/4	The rhetoric of citation, the politics of summary
Saturday 9/5	Deadline #2 Due 11:59PM
Sunday 9/6	Last Day to Drop without a “W”
Week 3
Monday 9/7	LABOR DAY – NO CLASS
Wednesday 9/9	New media: Reddit, Youtube, NPR & podcasting, the blogosphere, etc. Analyzing genre and conventions: the Quick Reference Guide
Friday 9/11	Library research skills
Saturday 9/12	Deadline #3 Due 11:59PM
Week 4
Monday 9/14	The politics of quotation (authority, context, format) Processing the genre as we work within in it
Wednesday 9/16	Constructing arguments exercise
Friday 9/18	The politics of peer review
Saturday 9/19	Deadline #4 Due 11:59PM
Week 5
Monday 9/21	Politics of revision; grammar breakout exercises
Wednesday 9/23	More on controversy, new media, public genres
Friday 9/25	Module 2 postmortem; looking ahead to Module 3
Saturday 9/26	QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE DUE 11:59PM
Module 3: The Rhetorical Analysis
Week 6
Monday 9/28	Cultural context and personal bias
Wednesday 9/30	The politics of identity
Friday 10/2	Thinking through rhetorical strategies
Saturday 10/3	Deadline #6 Due 11:59PM
Week 7
Monday 10/5	Rhetorical situations: Audience, Purpose, Context, Message, Genre
Wednesday 10/7	Rhetoric roundtable
Friday 10/9	Clarity roundtable
Saturday 10/10	Deadline #7 Due 11:59PM
Week 8
Monday 10/12	More on the politics of peer review
Wednesday 10/14	Introduction autopsy
Friday 10/16	Conclusion dissection
Saturday 10/17	Deadline #8 Due 11:59PM
Week 9
Monday 10/19	No class meeting: Individual conferences
Wednesday 10/21	More work on clarity
Friday 10/23	Module 3 postmortem; Looking ahead to Module 4
Sunday 10/24	RHETORICAL ANALYSIS DUE 11:59PM
Module 4: The Public Argument
Week 10
Monday 10/26	New media, new genres: Thinking outside the box for public argument
Wednesday 10/28	Identifying a rhetorical situation: Audience, Purpose, Context, Message, Genre Using rhetorical strategies: an experiment
Friday 10/30	More on rhetorical strategy The five types of public arguments - thinking them through
Saturday 10/31	Deadline #10 Due 11:59PM
Sunday 11/1	LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW WITH A “W” (UA ACCESS)
Week 11
Monday 11/2	Paraphrase vs. summary
Wednesday 11/4	Technology workshop
Friday 11/6	Revisiting genre conventions via technology
Saturday 11/7	Deadline #11 Due 11:59PM
Week 12
Monday 11/9	Punctuation breakouts; More on the politics of peer review
Wednesday 11/11	VETERAN’S DAY – NO CLASS
Friday 11/13	Open workshop and critique
Saturday 11/14	Deadline #12 Due 11:59PM
Week 13
Monday 11/16	Public argument colloquia part 1
Wednesday 11/18	Public argument colloquia part 2
Friday 11/20	open workshop
Saturday 11/21	PUBLIC ARGUMENT DUE 11:59PM
Week 14
Monday 11/23	Public Argument postmortem
Wednesday 11/25	Looking ahead to the course final
Friday 11/27	THANKSGIVING BREAK – NO CLASS
Module 5: Reflection
Week 15
Monday 11/30	The politics of reflection
Wednesday 12/2	Revisiting the writing process; Talking trash about blogging
Friday 12/4	Workshop
Saturday 12/5	Deadline #14 Due 11:59PM
Week 16
Monday 12/7	Course evaluations; Victory lap
Wednesday 12/9	Looking to the future
Friday 12/11	FINAL EXAM (Portfolio/Reflection Due) 7:59AM