Jeremy T.
Mumford
Division:
Humanities
Department:
English/
Developmental
Contact Info:
Phone: (209) 384-6178
mumford.j@mccd.edu
Currently (*) and Previously Taught Courses:
English 80
English 81
English 84*
English A
English 1A Online*
English 1A Online Short
Term
English 41
English 1B*
English 12
Useful Student Links (includes links to online writing centers, communities, resources, class PowerPoint presentations, and supporting sites for class content and themes)
Useful Teacher Links (includes online composition studies, teaching resources and development, and links to scholarly journals)
Clubs:
Phi Theta Kappa
Students for Social
Justice
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English
1A, Online
Composition and Reading
Schedule Number 2507
Fall 2010
4 units
Professor: Mumford
Office: Interdisciplinary Academic Center (IAC) 238
Office Hours: MW 11-12 and by appointment
Phone: (209) 384-6178
Email: mumford.j@mccd.edu (USE INTERNAL WEB-CT EMAIL FOR ALL
CORRESPONDENCE UNLESS AN EMERGENCY ARISES.
Webpage: http://www.mccd.edu/faculty/mumfordj
Course Introduction
English 1A is
a workshop class in college essay writing and reading. This class will help
sharpen your conceptual, analytical, and interpretive skills as you learn
processes and strategies that will help you to improve your ability to
critically read and write English. As you become more proficient readers and
writers, you will also learn rhetorical skills like the ability to develop
and support a main idea, claim, or set of assertions for an audience using
both your own experiences and the words and ideas of other writers. You will
also practice developing your ideas with evidence, and revising and editing
to strengthen your writing and clarify your style.
You will do so as we look at the community of our United States and the
issues that pertain to us. For example, in the first essay you will look at
your personal sense of being American, in the second being American for
recent immigrants and refugees, in the second and third essays you will
examine official and unofficial stories pertaining to the discovery of
America, first peoples, current events, political and social issues. For
the final research project, you will apply your developing research skills
and ever widening sense of community to a local community organization of
your choice, under my guidance. Be advised that the content of this course
deals with a wide assortment of potentially controversial political and
social issues. I expect you to approach these issues objectively, keeping
in mind the necessity of free speech and critical thinking in a democracy.
If you do not wish to be in this type of class, please consider taking
another section of the class.
We will read many types of writing and learn how to discuss and use the
issues and ideas we find in these writings for different ends. As you do
so, you will develop an understanding that writing is for reading and
reading leads to writing.
Course Description
English 1A is a course that stresses critical readings, scholarly composition, and research applications at the college-level. You will write expository and argumentative essays—including one annotated research project—based on class reading and discussions. You will be expected to understand and apply basic English skills upon entering the course and will be expected to acquire more sophisticated reading and composition skills throughout the semester. You will apply critical thinking skills to all of your assignments.
Expected Student Outcomes
a. Compose clear and logical prose at the college level.
b.
Analyze and evaluate college-level texts.
Required Texts and Materials
The Late
Comer: A Hmong Family Memoir
by Kao Kalia Yang
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
Better Together : Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam
The Concise Wadsworth Handbook by Kirszner and Mandell
Email account and internet access
A college dictionary
Printouts and copies of book excerpts and articles, online and newspaper, as required.
Course Policies
Preparedness and Participation
By preparedness, I mean posting all required materials and work in a timely
fashion. Every absence will lower your preparedness grade by half a grade
level. Thus, you may post two assignments late and get an A in
participation, albeit a lower A grade than a student who has posted on time
for every assignment. After four late submissions, you may be dropped from
the class. Thus, excessive late submissions will result in failure of the
course.
A portion of the preparedness grade will be
based upon your participation in discussions and chatroom groups. This
grade is given holistically and is based upon my observations of your
contributions over the course of the semester. Discussions and chatrooms
will be a primary collaborative activity in our class. It is imperative that
each person participates.
Writing work
Pre writing will include a variety of exploratory writings done in response
to texts we have read, each other’s writing, and various prompts, which I
will assign. The pre writing we do will be the foundation for longer writing
assignments you will complete. Save all of the writing you do for the
whole semester.
Group work
Group work will consist of small group chatroom discussions that lead to
whole class discussions in which your participation or lack thereof will be
noted. You are expected to participate to the best of your abilities. A
successful participant in this class will generate questions, identify
problems, infer, elaborate on texts using personal experience, and will make
predictions about the overall class meaning.
Journals and Quizzes
There will be weekly reading journals. Journals should be one, full, typed,
single spaced page. Journals should be included in the essay submission
packets. Topics for the journals will be given in the week prior to their
being due. Emailed pop quizzes will be given if the reading is not being
completed.
Essays
The writing assignments will ask you to provide effective analysis of and argumentation based on material covered in class. When you turn an essay in, it will need to have all the appropriate supporting documents and have been submitted to the online tutorial service at least twice per essay. The comments you receive from the tutors must also be included. There will be four (4) formal essays 1,400 words in length. Lastly, there will be one annotated research project 2,500 words or eight to ten (8-10) pages in length. All drafts will need to be typed, double spaced, and formatted in MLA format with 1 inch margins and a 12-point font (Times New Roman, Courier, or Arial). Essays not turned in with this format will not be read; I will send them back to you without responding. All materials should be saved in a single document with the final draft of the essay first, followed by all other supporting documents.
The final portfolio will include two of your lowest scoring essays revised and the final research project. Each essay needs to be accompanied with all previous drafts, grade sheets, revisions and a letter stating what specific revisions were made to the essays.
Course Grading
Your final grade will be based on the following:
Journals
and Participation (30%) 30 points
Final essays 1,2, 3, and 4 (40%)
40 points
Final Research Project (10%)
10 points
Final Portfolio
(20%) 20 points
____________________________________________________
Total points possible (100%) 100 points
The grading scale is as follows:
A: 100-90 of total points possible
B: 89-80
C: 79-70
D: 69-60
F: 59 and below
Plagiarism Policy
Cheating is the actual or attempted practice of fraudulent or deceptive acts for the purpose of improving one's grade or obtaining course credit; such acts also include assisting another student to do so. Typically, such acts occur in relation to examinations. However, it is the intent of this definition that the term 'cheating' not be limited to examination situations only, but that it include any and all actions by a student that are intended to gain an unearned academic advantage by fraudulent or deceptive means. Plagiarism is a specific form of cheating which consists of the misuse of the published and/or unpublished works of others by misrepresenting the material (i.e., their intellectual property) so used as one's own work. If I suspect you of plagiarism, I will give you an oral and written examination on the material to be evaluated by the English Department chair and myself. Penalties for cheating and plagiarism range from a D or F on a particular assignment, through an F for the course, to expulsion from the college.
Instructor's Disclaimer
I reserve the right to make changes and additions to this schedule as I see
fit through the semester. You, the student, are responsible for any and all
changes to the syllabus, should they occur.
Updated 8/15/10 by Jeremy Mumford