English ENG 1121 Course Syllabus Spring 2020
Professor:Â Rebekah Coleman
Table of Contents
Office Phone: (718) 260-5392
Office: Namm 519
Office Hours: 11:30-12:30, P313 Desk 2
Email: RColeman@citytech.cuny.edu
Meeting Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:00 AM – 11:15
Classroom Location: Namm – 606
Online Location: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups/eng1121e106spring2018/
Readings / Text: The required textbook is Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide To Writing by Losh, Alexander, Cannon, and Cannon. Additional readings will be listed on the Open Lab website.
University Policies
Accessibility Statement
City Tech is committed to supporting the educational goals of enrolled students with disabilities in the areas of enrollment, academic advisement, tutoring, assistive technologies and testing accommodations. If you have or think you may have a disability, you may be eligible for reasonable accommodations or academic adjustments as provided under applicable federal, state and city laws. You may also request services for temporary conditions or medical issues under certain circumstances. If you have questions about your eligibility or would like to seek accommodation services or academic adjustments, please contact the Center for Student Accessibility at 300 Jay Street room L-237, 718 260 5143 or http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/accessibility/.
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism Statement
Students and all others who work with information, ideas, texts, images, music, inventions, and other intellectual property owe their audience and sources accuracy and honesty in using, crediting, and citing sources. As a community of intellectual and professional workers, the College recognizes its responsibility for providing instruction in information literacy and academic integrity, offering models of good practice, and responding vigilantly and appropriately to infractions of academic integrity. Accordingly, academic dishonesty is prohibited at New York City College of Technology and is punishable by penalties, including failing grades, suspension, and expulsion.
Sanctions for Academic Integrity Violations
In accordance with the CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity, NYCCT empowers its Academic Integrity Committee and Academic Integrity Officer to process violations of the CUNY Academic Integrity Policy. As stated in the student handbook, all instructors must report all instances of academic dishonesty to the Academic Integrity Officer.
Course Policies
 Word Count
All students in first-year composition are required to turn in a minimum of 6,000 finished words in order to successfully pass the class. Students who don’t meet the word count requirement will receive a grade of F. This is the English Department policy.
Final Portfolio / Reflection
At the end of the semester students will turn in a final portfolio. The final portfolio is a collection of your revised essays over the course of the semester. In addition, students will submit a final personal essay that is both reflective and argumentative in nature. In this essay, students will be asked to explain how the work they have done over the course of the semester has met the learning outcomes for the course. In developing this essay, students will argue that the work they have done in the course has met the learning outcomes and will show how that work meets the outcomes by using examples from their own writings that appear in the final portfolio. The final reflective/argumentative essay should be a minimum of 1100 words. Students who do not meet the 1100 word count for this reflection piece will not pass the class and will receive a grade of F. This is the English Departmental policy.Â
Attendance
This is a discussion-based class with daily writing assignment that are cumulative. The daily assignments build upon previous work and lead towards success in the major projects. Students who fail to attend class regularly will fall behind on the daily reading and writing assignments.
In order to succeed in the class, students will need to attend regularly and attend on time. Students who fall behind will likely have a difficult time catching up. If you are late to class or leave class early, it counts as a partial absence and it will impact your ability to complete assignments. If a situation arises that requires you to be absent from class, please come and speak with me.
Missed Work and Late Projects
All work must be submitted as a hard copy, by the start of class on the day they are due or it is counted as late. There will be no make-ups given for in-class work. You must hand in your projects on time or your final portfolio grade will be penalized. If outside circumstances make a deadline impossible to meet, it is your responsibility to contact me ahead of time to discuss a possible extension.
Missing class is not an excuse for late work. If an assignment is due on a day you will not be in class, you are still responsible for handing it in on time by emailing it to me by the beginning of the class period.
Because life can be unpredictable, each student will be allowed ONE “oops” assignment during the semester. Your “oops” assignment can be submitted up to 24 hours late with no penalty, but use this opportunity carefully because once you have used your “oops” assignment all other projects must be submitted on time in order to receive credit.
Please make sure to have at least one other student’s email address for missed work. You are responsible for finding out and catching up on what you missed. If you have further questions after getting notes from your classmate or classmates, come speak with me.
OpenLab
You will need to register with the City Tech Open Lab and join our course immediately. It will be your responsibility to learn the navigation of the class website during the first week. After the first week, we will be using the Open Lab. Any work that you fail to post after the 3rd class meeting cannot be made up. If you need help with this, see me immediately, and make sure to come to the second and first class meetings.
Course Load Expectations
A full time course load for a college student is 4 classes. At forty hours per week, that breaks down to 10 hours per class. You will be in class and online for 2.5 hours a week. Plan to spend 7.5 hours on homework for each week on average. Some weeks will be more. Some less.
Major Projects and Assignments
    *Project 1: Discourse Communities
    *Project 2: Research and Inquiry
    *Project 3: Multimodal Project
    *Final Portfolio
    *Reflective Personal Essay
    *Other graded projects: Throughout the semester there will be multiple readings,    short and long writing assignments, discussions, and a larger group presentation.
Grading Policy
Grade Calculation
Participation    20%
Homework      20%
Final Portfolio 60%
Participation
Twenty percent of your grade will be based on the quantity and quality of your participation in class. Reading the assigned texts, completing any informal or formal writing assignments in class, and bringing the necessary materials to class are all crucial to effective participation. Moreover, your opinions matter and the more we are involved in class, the more we can get out of it. Participation means being actively involved in class, not just being physically present. There will be periodic quizzes that will also count toward your participation grade.
Homework
Homework will consist of readings, written responses to readings, postings on Open Lab, and a compilation of short writing assignments. Homework must be turned in on the day it is due. Why? Because it is preparation for what will be done in class that day. For that reason, I do not accept late homework. Homework with graded either satisfactory (credit) or unsatisfactory (no credit).
Final Portfolio
This course is a portfolio-based writing course, meaning that where you end up is more important than where you start, at least in terms of grading. In other words, 60% of your grade is based on your final portfolio. This is an opportunity for you to collect and showcase how your writing has grown and developed over the semester. The final portfolio will include the final revision of Projects 1, 2, and 3, the reflective personal essay and any other pieces from the semester that you feel demonstrate your growth as a writer.
The portfolio grade will include the final project grades, the credit for submitting drafts of the projects, and a grade for your final reflection. You will be graded on the final version you submit of the project, so if you submit a revised version of your second project that incorporates the feedback given to you, the grade will reflect your improvements! The break down is as follows: Project 1: 10%, Project 2: 15%, Project 3: %15, Reflective Personal Essay 10 %, Drafts, Additional Writing, Presentation, Formatting: 10%)
Formatting
All formal assignments should be typed and formatted according to MLA guidelines. Use 12 point, Times New Roman font with a one-inch margin on all sides. We will review the MLA guidelines in class. There are several great websites to use as a guide: Purdue’s Online Writing Lab found at https://owl.english.purdue.edu or Excelsior Owl’s Writing Lab found at https://owl.excelsior.edu and the MLA site at https://style.mla.org.
Plagiarism
I expect the words and ideas that you hand in to be your own or else properly cited. Plagiarism is when you copy specific information from a source or take someone else’s original ideas and do not give credit to the source. Even when you paraphrase someone’s original ideas, it is still considered plagiarism if you do not credit the author for their word. In class we will discuss exactly what constitutes plagiarism. Please come and speak to me if you have any questions about how to incorporate ideas from a source or how to credit a source. Plagiarism will result in an automatic F grade for the assignment. (See additional information under University Policies section).
Expectations and Materials
To become strong and proficient writers we must write and write and write. We will write both during class and outside of class. You will have writing to completely every class. The writing will vary in length and genre and will cover a range of topics.
It is very important that you come to class with writing utensils, your homework, any necessary materials (for example research, writing drafts, etc.) and ready to read and write. There are NO cell phones, smart phones, laptops or electronic devices of any kind allowed in this class during group discussions, lectures, or exams. You may use a laptop to write during any quiet writing or workshop time, with the instructor’s permission. If you use electronics during class, I reserve the right to confiscate them until the end of the day’s class session. In-class and informal homework assignments may be hand-written or typed. All final projects must be typed.
It is highly recommended that you visit me during office hours at least once over the course of the semester. This visit will count toward your participation grade. Our office visits will be much more effective if we can look at past assignments together to find patterns in your writing, so please bring your folder of past assignments with you to this visit. We will use the time to discuss your progress in the course and address any particular writing challenges or goals you may have. Of course, please feel free to talk with me as many times during the semester as you like!
