ENG 1121 – Section D447

Writing Across Situations

Spring 2019

Instructor: Kim Liao

Class Time & Location: Tues/Thurs 11:30 – 12:45am; Pearl 504B

Office Hours: Thursdays 12:45 – 1:30 in Namm 529

Email: KLiao@citytech.cuny.edu

Texts

• To be handed out in class in a stapled course packet, and/or posted on the course website. If texts are available on the course website only, I’ll expect you download, print, and bring them with you when we discuss in them in class.
• Course website: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/eng1121d447spring19/
• For style, editing, and source citations, I recommend the Purdue OWL.

 

Description

As the second semester course in City Tech’s first-year writing program sequence, we’ll deepen our analytical understanding of writing and rhetoric by considering more rigorously how authors produce texts in response to a variety of situations. We’ll build awareness about how communities create their own discourses, explore how research of all kinds can help you build credibility and put texts into a conversation, and offer you opportunities to write in a variety of genres and forms across a wide array of situations. Throughout this journey, we’ll offer you tools to become more successful in your writing process, and more aware of why we make the choices we make when we write. The ultimate goal of ENG 1101 and ENG 1121 at City Tech is to provide you with the rhetorical awareness and tools to transfer your writing skills to any type of situation that requires a written response. So we’ll explore situations even beyond the scope of this class, and look outward at how you can become a successful writer throughout your college career and life beyond the academy.

 

Goals

After completing ENG 1121, you should be able to:

1. Read and listen critically and analytically in a variety of genres and rhetorical situations: Identify and evaluate exigencies, purposes, claims, supporting evidence, and underlying assumptions in a variety of texts, genres, and media.
2. Adapt and compose in a variety of genres: Adapt writing conventions in ways that are suitable to different exigencies and purposes in a variety of contexts, including academic, workplace, and civic audiences. When appropriate, repurpose prior work to new genres, audiences, and media by adjusting delivery, design, tone, organization, and language.
3. Use research as a process of inquiry and engagement with multiple perspectives: Learn to focus on a topic and develop research questions that lead to propositions and claims that can be supported with well-reasoned arguments. Persuasively communicate and repurpose research projects across a variety of contexts, purposes, audiences, and media. Demonstrate research skills through proper attribution and citation gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing both primary and secondary sources. Learn how to use appropriate citation styles depending on disciplinary and situational requirements (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.)
4. Use reflection and other metacognitive processes to revise prior assumptions about the writing processes and transfer acquired knowledge about effective reading and writing practices into new writing situations. Engage with reading and writing as a process including prewriting, writing, and continuous revision. Students write essays that demonstrate their reflection of their own writing process from the beginning and throughout the semester with the intention to transfer their acquired knowledge about genre and composing practices into new writing situations.
5. Demonstrate the social and ethical responsibilities and consequences of writing: Recognize that first-year writing includes academic, workplace, and civic contexts, all of which require careful deliberation concerning the ethical and social ramifications concerning fairness, inclusivity, and respect for diversity. Write and revise for academic and broader, public audiences accordingly.
6. Compose in 21st Century Environments: Learn to choose among the most current and effective delivery methods for different composing situations, including composing in new media environments, including alphabetic texts, still and moving images, sonic, and mixed media compositions. Use digital media platforms appropriate to audience and purpose.

 

Major Units of the Course

Below are your assignments for the semester, along with the weight each carries toward your final course grade, using a 100% standard grading scale. See the attached course schedule and individual Assignment Overviews for due dates of readings and writing deadlines. If a deadline changes, you will be notified in class or by email.

Unit 1: Literacy Narrative – 10%

Unit 2: Rhetoric, Genre, and Discourse – 25%

Unit 3: Inquiry-Based Argument – 25%

Unit 4: Multimodal Translation – 15%

Unit 5: Final Portfolio with Reflection on Your Theory of Writing – 25%

 

Weekly Reading, Writing, and Peer Review

In addition to the major projects above, you’ll also have “low-stakes” writing assignments that ask you to respond to course readings and that will scaffold into (and even become part of) your major projects. You will also be responsible for writing peer review responses to your classmates and responding to peer review workshops. Grades from these writing assignments will be incorporated into the grades for each Major Unit. If you complete all of the short assignments, readings, and peer review, you can expect a boost to each major unit grade. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to revise any and all projects for a re-consideration of the grade in your Final Portfolio.

 

Participation  

What I Expect From You

Since this class will be a seminar that focuses on the effective expression of ideas, participation is very important. We will be reading a number of challenging texts, and your insights will be valuable to the entire class. You should be able to thoughtfully respond each other and give your full attention to the discussion. I expect that you will attend each class and complete the assignments due. Not only will your weekly writing grade suffer if you do not, but you will not get as much out of this class as you otherwise could.

Participation is just as much about listening as it is about talking, and it requires a respectful and open attitude. I ask that we all be respectful of one another and the wonderfully diverse opinions, ethnic backgrounds, gender expressions and sexual orientations, social classes, religious beliefs, and ethnicities among us. Language that demeans any member of our community will not be tolerated. Since it is assumed, no percentage of your final grade will be based on participation; however, consistent failure to participate appropriately may result in up to a 15% reduction in your final grade.

 

What You Can Expect From Me
I will treat you with respect and will spend a good deal of time this semester giving you feedback on your writing for your major projects, commensurate to the amount of time you spend on your writing. I will also provide feedback on your shorter assignments, peer review letters, and reflection writing. I will do my utmost to provide an encouraging environment in which you can take intellectual and creative risks in your writing and critical thinking, since these are the moments that I find most conducive to growth and transformation. I look forward to accompanying you on this journey.

 

Feedback

Instructor

You will have opportunities to meet with me about each project you’re working on during class time. If you ever have questions about your grade or progress in the course, or about an assignment you’re working on, please do not hesitate to ask me, either by emailing me or to make an appointment.

 

Peer Review

Before the completion of each final draft, you will break into small groups to conduct peer review. Your Peer Review letters will be graded and commented because they are such important components of the course. Becoming a sensitive and effective Peer Reviewer is an extremely valuable skill to develop as a writer, and these workshops will help you focus on responding thoughtfully to your peers’ writing, while also receiving valuable feedback of your own.

 

Writing Tutors

The Atrium Learning Center (ALC) has free writing tutors who can assist you at any stage of planning, writing, or revising any of the essays for this class. Call 1-718-260-5874 for more information, or visit the website at http://websupport2.citytech.cuny.edu/learningcenters/english.htm.

 

Policies

Attendance

Much of the learning in this course happens through your doing the writing and reading assignments for each class, showing up to class prepared, and engaging with me and others in the class through class discussions and work with your writing group. Your course projects will be sequential and in-class activities will build toward larger assignments. There is no busy work in other words; you will not do well if your plan simply is to show up to class from time to time and “write the papers.” Class time and online discussions will be highly interactive, requiring frequent participation, discussion, composing in and outside of class, and responding to your classmates’ work. For these reasons, I expect you to attend all class meetings. Having established this policy, note that you can miss class up to 3 times, no questions asked. Any absence, up to your third one, is excused with no questions asked. 

VERY IMPORTANT: At your 4th absence, and for each absence beyond it, your final course grade will be subject to a reduction by up to 1/3 of a grade per additional absence (from B+ to B, etc). Most importantly, failure to attend class with most likely affect your grade simply because of missing out on deadlines, peer review, and course discussions.

Only religious holidays or ongoing medical situations with appropriate documentation constitute excused absences.

If you are absent, you should consult a classmate for the notes and assignments from each class. Even in the case of an excused absence, you are still responsible for the work due during your absence and upon your return. For example, it is your responsibility to turn in working drafts or final copies of assignments to me, and to make sure that your classmates have copies of your work for peer review and group assignments. If you miss 6 or more class sessions (the equivalent of three weeks of classes or more), you could be subject to earning an F in the course.

 

Lateness and Early Departures

I begin class promptly each day. If you arrive after I shut the door, you are late. If you leave before class is over, that is an early departure. Frequent and repeated late arrivals will be subject to being tallied as 1/3 of an absence. Frequent lateness will also reflect poorly on your participation, since it is disruptive and ultimately disrespectful. If you are late, you should check in with a classmate after class about what you have missed.

 

Withdrawing from the Course

If you fall behind in the class for any reason, I encourage you to talk to me or see an academic counselor. If you feel you must drop or withdraw from this course (and I hope you don’t find yourself in that situation), you must do so by the dates on the academic calendar. Merely ceasing to attend class is not the same as withdrawing from the course. (You will not be dropped automatically if you stop coming to class; you still will receive a grade for the course if you do not drop.)

Late Work

Turning in late work hurts everyone: it hinders my and your peers’ abilities to give you feedback and it compromises your ability to complete the next assignments.

Since a late working draft will exclude you from participating in peer review, any late working drafts will be subject to a full letter grade deduction from the final essay grade.

Since I recognize that emergencies do happen, a late final draft will be subject to a full letter grade deduction for every class period it is late.

Please note that technology issues, including files that cannot be opened, do not constitute an excuse for late work. Part of becoming a responsible academic scholar at entails safeguarding against accidents and maintaining the tools to participate in our intellectual community.

 

Email

You are welcome to email me in an appropriate manner with appropriate course-related questions or comments. I typically respond to email within 48 hours, but please leave a few days for response time (I don’t respond to email on weekends). In-depth questions about assignments will usually receive the response to set up an appointment to discuss your work.

 

Disability Accommodations

City Tech is committed to making individuals with disabilities full participants in the programs, services, and activities of the college community through compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. It is the policy of City Tech that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability will be denied access to any program, service, or activity offered by the university. Individuals with disabilities have a right to request accommodations.

If you require any accommodation, please contact the Center for Student Accessibility at (718) 260-5143, and let me know as soon as you can, ideally during the first two weeks of class. I encourage you to meet with me to co-design accommodations. The Center for Student Accessibility provides support to enrolled students who have documented permanent or temporary disabilities. The Center’s primary mission is to support the educational goals for enrolled students with disabilities through access, empowerment, resources, advocacy, collaboration and outreach throughout the College, the University and the community at large. The Center provides assistance in the areas of enrollment, academic advisement, tutoring, assistive technologies and testing accommodations. http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/accessibility/

 

Academic Integrity & Plagiarism

I’ll expect you to compose your projects ethically, meaning that if you use the work of others you cite that work, and that all work in this course is original, composed for the first time for this course, and is entirely your own, to the degree that anything we write is entirely our own.

In her article entitled “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty,” Rebecca Moore Howard describes plagiarism, particularly in writing courses, as “the representation of a source’s words or ideas as one’s own” (799)[1]. In this course, we will discuss plagiarism in terms of using sources and considering intentionality. Unintentional plagiarism, which can manifest itself as “non-attribution” or as “patchwriting,” may result from either “a student’s inexperience with conventions of academic writing,” or even from “a student’s unfamiliarity with the words and ideas of a source text” (799). We will address ways to avoid these kinds of unintentional plagiarism that sometimes play a substantial transitional role in developing as a writer.

Intentional plagiarism is a serious offense that will not be tolerated. This could include buying, borrowing or otherwise obtaining written materials and submitting them as your own; or it could also include forms of non-attribution that use others’ words with the intent to deceive.

The New York City College of Technology Policy on Academic Integrity:

“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 in The City University of New York and at New York City College of Technology and is punishable by penalties, including failing grades, suspension, and expulsion.”

[1] Moore, Rebecca Howard. “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty.” College English 57.7 (1995): 788-806.