ENG1121: English Composition 2

Fall 2020 / August 26 – December 18

Syllabus

Instructor: Professor Jessica Penner

Email: jpenner@citytech.cuny.edu / eng1121.citytech2@gmail.com

Office: Online for Fall 2020

Office Hours: 1 to 2 PM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays

Course Description

Welcome to ENG1121! This course builds on its prerequisite, ENG1101. Together, we will explore and write within new genres, conduct research, and reflect on our writing practices. By the end of this semester, you’ll be able to analyze and participate in genres inside and outside of higher education. The aim is to build skills that will be useful in future coursework, the workplace, and in your personal lives. In other words, this course isn’t self-contained—we’re aiming to give you a toolbox of skills that you can apply to other classes and situations.

I have separated the one big document everyone gets at the beginning of the semester into two: the syllabus and the schedule.

This is the syllabus, which shares a lot of detail about the class. Questions about how the class is run, how you will be graded, etc., can be found here. The other document is the schedule, which shares assignments and due dates. Questions about what we will be doing each week can be found there.

Table of Contents

  1. Nuts & Bolts (pages 2-6)
    • How This Class Operates
    • Aspects of a Writing Class
    • Learning Outcomes
    • Required Material
    • Breakdown of the Final Grade & Grading Scale
  2. Details (pages 7-9)
    • Communication
    • Participation in an Online Course
    • Behavior
    • Office Hours
    • Late Writing Assignment Policy
    • Extra Credit
    • Formatting & Citation
  3. College Policies & Student Support (pages 9-10)
    • NYCCT Policy on Academic Integrity
    • Student Accessibility
    • A Note on Course Workload

I. Nuts & Bolts

How This Class Operates

Some of you may have taken online courses before, for others, this may be a new experience. Like a face-to-face class, every teacher runs their class differently. Read on for a guide on how this class will be run:

  • This is an asynchronous course, which means there is no specific time that this class will meet.
  • You’ll notice I have two emails listed. The first address is my general NYCCT email. The second is just for your class. Please use the second email! Because all my classes are online, I get a lot of email every day, so your message can quickly get lost. If you use the second email, my response time will be much quicker!
  • All activities/information will take place in OpenLab or Google Docs.
  • Each Friday, I will post an Announcement message in our OpenLab website. It will summarize what we’ll be working on for the following week.
  • I will also publish a weekly Agenda each Friday, which will provide a detailed guide on what is due throughout the following week, titled “Week 1,” “Week 2,” etc. There will usually be two sections: Read and Write, with links to the week’s reading assignments and instructions on what you need to write in response to the assignment.
  • There are deadlines noted in the schedule (the other document)throughout each week, marked in red. Most of the deadlines are on Mondays and Wednesdays, with a few exceptions. Some assignment deadlines are small (posts on the Discussion Board), some are large (major writing assignments). All of them count toward your final grade!
  • Be advised that if you do not log onto OpenLab and participate in the Discussion or other assignments, this will be noted by me. If you have not shown participation in this class within two weeks of the start of the semester, I will notify the administration and you will be dropped from the class. (Please note: If you wait until right before the end of the two weeks, you’ll discover that you’ve lost participation points!)
  • The responsibility to keep up with assignments rests on you. All the assignments in this class have specific due dates, which means once a date has passed, you cannot turn in the work and receive the points. I do not accept late work.

Aspects of a Writing Class

As you’ve probably guessed from ENG1101, a writing class isn’t like a mathematics or computer programming class. Here’s some details about what this class will be like. Throughout this semester, we will:

Discuss – Suzan-Lori Parks once told The New Yorker: “I love my lecture tours. I get up onstage. I have my stack of books and a glass of water and a microphone. No podium, no distance between me and the audience, and I just talk to people and get all excited and tell a lot of jokes, and sing some songs, and read from my work and remind people how powerful they are and how beautiful they are.”

Although this class is asynchronous, I may at times post short video discussions or link you to PowerPoints. I refer to my lectures as discussions, because that’s how I look at them. I’ll passionately “talk” at length at times, especially when I’m introducing a topic, but I’ll also prod you for your reactions to the information via Discussion Boards, because each of you have a point of view that is unique and needs to be heard.

Read/Analyze – William Faulkner once wrote: “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.”

You will be asked to read material, analyze the work, and think about how you can use the example to benefit your own writing. I recommend you read the assignment at least twice—once for basic comprehension, the second time for details. If English is not your first language, you may need to read the assignment three or four times.

Write/Revise – Octavia Butler once wrote: “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”

You will use what we have read as a jumping-off point for your writing. On a specific date, we will have a “peer review” (see below). After the peer review, you will be given time to revise, edit, and type a second draft. I will evaluate this draft. Be sure to keep the second draft once it’s evaluated! Don’t just delete it, because you’ll have an opportunity to revise that draft for your Writing Portfolio at the end of the semester!

Peer Review – Isaac Bashevis Singer once wrote: “The waste basket is the writer’s best friend.” I add: “The peer reviewer is the writer’s next best friend.”

The class will be divided into pairs or groups of three. Each student will receive another student’s essay and be given time to read, fill out a peer reviewer’s worksheet, and discuss the work over email or text. You may be tempted to be “nice” and write nothing but glowing reviews during this process—please ignore this temptation. This is a time for you to work together for your common goal for this class: to become better writers.

Learning Outcomes

These are the goals we will be working on in ENG1121:

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.)
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Required Material

Readings/Text

All course readings OER/ZTC (see below) and can be found on the course website in the schedule, in the weekly agendas, on the day that they are due. A list of readings is also available in the Course Resources.

Open Educational Resources/Zero Textbook Costs (OER/ZTC)

This course uses OER/ZTC materials, which means instead of buying a textbook, students will use materials that are freely or openly available. These OER/ZTC materials, available to students throughout the semester and remaining available after the end of the semester, can include:

  • Open educational resources that are Creative Commons (openly) licensed, including but not limited to open textbooks
  • Freely available web resources that do not violate copyright
  • Library licensed digital resources
  • Materials in the public domain.

Core Books at CUNY

Several of the books we’ll read in this course are part of Core Books at CUNY, a CUNY-wide Teagle Foundation grant. Reading these texts will help us engage with broad humanistic questions that we will use to inspire our writing.

Logistics of an Asynchronous/Online Course

  • First, make sure your email is one you check on a daily basis, because all announcements and email related to this class will go to the email address you have set in Blackboard. See this video for how to check/change your email address in Blackboard. Please be sure to check that email inbox frequently during the semester.
  • Make sure you have access to OpenLab.
  • Log in to your OpenLab account and follow these instructions to join this course. If you’re new to the OpenLab, follow these instructions to create an account and then join the course.
  • You’ll be posting assignments on OpenLab, so you need to have member status.
  • Make sure you have access to City Tech’s library. Beginning August 3, 2020, off campus users will access electronic resources from the library using their CUNYFirst credentials. Be sure your CUNYFirst log in and password are working. If you have questions about or problems with CUNYFirst, go here first.
  • We will be using Google Docs for some assignments. Here’s where you can get started if you’ve never used Google Docs before.
  • Have a notebook and a folder reserved specifically for this class, pens/pencils, and a laptop or tablet that has access to the Internet (since all reading material and other documents will be shared online).
  • A recent MLA guide. A hardcopy that is recommended is Rules of Thumb: A Guide for Writers (9th Edition), edited by Jay Silverman, Elaine Hughes, Diana Roberts Wienbroer. An excellent online source is Purdue Online Writing Lab.

Breakdown of Final Grade & Grading Scale

10% Participation

Completion of weekly homework assignments that will include participation in the Discussion Board, Micro-Activities, Peer Reviews, etc., by their due dates will earn these points. There will be 10 points possible for each week.

20% Micro-Activities

There will be various writing assignments, known as Micro-Activities, due nearly every week. These assignments are building blocks for the major writing assignments. There will be 10 points possible for each Micro-Activity.

20% Discussion Board

This will be an ongoing assignment where you will be asked to answer questions about the readings we’re discussing or your own writing. Not only will this contribute to your participation grade, it will be a place for us to “talk” to each other about what we’re reading and writing and will often serve as a jumping-off point for the major writing assignments. There will be 10 points possible for each Discussion Board post.

30% Writing

There are three major writing projects due; one for each unit. You will submit two drafts of each writing project. The first draft will be peer reviewed; you will receive 50 points if you turn in the rough draft with a Peer Review Sheet. The second draft will be evaluated by me; this assignment will have 100 points possible.

30% Writing Portfolio

This will be a significant revision of the three major writing projects, selections from your Discussion Board, and a Final Reflection Essay, all of which will be a total of at least 6,000 words. There will be 450 points possible for the Portfolio.

Grading Scale

A         93-100%

A-        90-92.9%

B+       87-89.9%

B         83-86.9%

B-        80-82.9%

C+       77-79.9%

C         70-76.9%

D         60-69.9%

F          59.9% and below

II. Details

Communication

I will be communicating via your City Tech email. Please check your City Tech email at least once a day. I check mine at least twice a day during the week. If you send me an email during the week, you can expect a response within 24 hours. If you write me on the weekend, I will respond within 48 hours.

Participation in an Online Course

Just because you’re logging in to OpenLab doesn’t mean you are “participating.” Just logging in every once in a while doesn’t guarantee you will pass this class or get the grade you desire. In order to pass or get the highest grade possible, you need to do the following:

Complete homework before the due date. As I mentioned above, I do not accept late work.

On a positive note, homework is graded upon completion. That means if you’ve obviously shown effort (answered the question, written the paragraph, etc.) you’ll get the credit.

How does a person show effort? For example, if I ask students to answer an open-ended question in a paragraph (How do you feel about your cultural identity? Why do people love or hate the Kardashians?), and one student writes a single sentence, they have not shown effort, while another student writes five to eight sentences, they have shown effort.

It’s been my experience (and I’ve been teaching for fifteen years) that those who do the homework fare better on the larger writing assignments than those who didn’t. If I’ve assigned something, I think it’s going to help you become a better writer, it’s not just “busywork.”

Finally, when we have first drafts due for Peer Review, be ready to present whatever you have on that date. Even if it’s incomplete, share what you have. If you don’t share what you have, your peer reviewers won’t be able to give you feedback on what’s good about your writing and what needs work before I evaluate it (this is invaluable information).

Behavior

Even though this is an online class and we won’t be physically together, it’s important to behave in a professional manner. As you’ve undoubtedly seen on social media, things can very quickly veer from joking to antagonistic if participants aren’t careful, or perhaps a way someone words a post may offend a reader (when there wasn’t an intent to offend). So, when you’re responding to another student’s post on the Discussion Board, a peer’s essay, or in email conversations, please remember the following:

Respect – Students are required to show respect to the professor and other students at all times. This includes carefully reading content the professor assigns or a post made by another student, asking questions about the topic at hand, and refraining from name-calling or using inappropriate language (ableist, racial, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ slurs, to name a few).

Participation – Students are required to participate actively in the class. This means doing all the homework assignments, connecting with your peers and instructor in a timely manner, and being prepared for each week’s assignments.

Office Hours

My office hours will be 1 to 2 PM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I’ll be available through Zoom and will send an invitation through email each week.Try to join my meeting at the start of the hour, not at the end—since I may be talking to other students or have another appointment after the hour is up.If those times don’t work with your schedule, we can schedule a different time. This means you’ll have to schedule an appointment in advance via email. In order to ensure we can meet, it’s important you contact me at least 24 hours in advance. For example, if you want to meet at 11 AM on Wednesday, be sure to email me on Tuesday morning; do NOT wait until 10:30 AM on Wednesday. I may have an appointment with another student or other responsibilities scheduled during that time. Please take advantage of this. It’s a time for me to help you with reading and/or writing issues or discuss any concerns you have. I really enjoy talking with students!

Late Writing Assignment Policy

ALL writing assignments not received by the due date listed on the syllabus will be recorded as an F. I do not accept ANY assignments after the due date (this includes the Writing Portfolio at the end of the semester).

Extra Credit

I do not offer extra credit. If you complete the assigned readings, and turn in ALL writing assignments that have been thoughtfully written and proofread, you will pass this class.

Formatting

Some of our assignments will have specialized formatting, but most typedworkshould be double-spaced, in 12-point, Times New Roman font, with 1” margins. The first page header (this is on the first page, NOT all pages) should look like this:

Your First and Last Name

Date

ENG1121

Word Count: XXX

Title

Page numbering: Last name and page number in upper right corner on all pages.

Citations

We will be using the Modern Languages Association (MLA) format in this course. An MLA guide is available in your textbook, Rules of Thumb. You can also find MLA format guidelines on the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

III. College Policies & Student Accessibility

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. For further information about plagiarism, cheating and academic integrity see page 57 of the City Tech catalog.    

You will earn a zero on a plagiarized assignment in my class. You will NOT be able to “make up” the assignment.  

Student Accessibility

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 718-260-5143. 

A Note on Course Workload                                     

Per CUNY guidelines, please calculate two hours of work per credit hour per week, exclusive of class time. This means that for a 3-credit course, you will need to budget 6 hours each week for independent study/class preparation. Taking into consideration other professional, educational, and personal obligations, please make sure that you have the time to do the work for this course and successfully complete it.

Writing Center: 

For one-on-one help with your writing assignments, send an email to CityTechWritingCenter@gmail.com requesting an appointment. You will receive an automatic reply with information about available tutoring sessions.

Schedule

Find a detailed schedule for this course on the Schedule page.

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