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English 114: Language, Culture, and Self Instructor: Collin Ludlow-Mattson | Email: collinludlowmattson@gmail.com Office: Humanities 128 | Office Hours: Friday 10-11am and by appointment Course Website: eng114fall2013.wordpress.com Semester: Fall 2013 | Time: MWF 8:10-9:00 | Location: Humanities 111 ________________________________________________________________________

Course Description English 114 has two overarching goals: to increase students’ fluency in active, integrated reading, writing, and rhetoric and to accustom students to thinking critically and reflectively about issues, ideas, and concepts of global and local importance. These transferrable skills and habits of mind are key to one’s success in the academy and beyond. Course texts will come from a variety of media: the printed word, web sites, films, television shows, etc. We will be turning the same critical eye on our own texts that we turn on professionally-written texts. This is a writing-intensive course. The focus of English 114 is student writing. While we will be discussing various topics, the true course topic is student-written texts. Prepare to examine your writing and reading in great depth and to stick with a piece over many drafts. Required Texts

• Sugie Goen-Salter, Tara Lockhart, Sara Fama, and Andrea Schriner, Student Guide to First-Year Composition  

• Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, “They Say / I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing

• Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian • PDFs (Available on iLearn, PDFs must be printed out and brought to class.

For information on iLearn, please consult chapter 8 of the Student Guide to FYC.) • All other texts are available on the internet and should be printed out and brought to class.

Links will be provided.

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Writing Assignments

• Essay #1: Literacy narrative of 4-6 pages. • Essay #2: Critical literacy analysis of 5-7 pages. • Essay #3: Source-based argumentative essay of 5-7 pages. • Essay #4: I-Search essay of 6-8 pages. • Midterm Assignment: On-line portfolio (a final draft of essay #1 and a statement that

reflects on your writing process and your progress in the course at the midpoint). • Final Assignment: On-line portfolio (final drafts of essays #2, #3, and #4 and a

statement that reflects on your writing process and the semester-long progress you made in the course).

Portfolio Grading This is a portfolio-based course. Essay drafts (three for each paper) will not receive letter grades. However, each draft counts towards 2% of your final grade. A √ above the instructor’s end comments indicates that the student has received credit for the draft. This is not an invitation to slack on your drafts but an invitation to work as a professional writer does, undertaking substantial revisions after taking into consideration the feedback of careful readers (your instructor and your peers). You will not be penalized for trying things that don’t work out. Drafting is all about experimenting—seeing what works and what doesn’t. You are encouraged to take chances and ask difficult questions. Do not phone it in. You must revise substantially. A second draft is not a second draft (and a third draft is not a third draft) if it is not revised. The essay in your midterm portfolio and the essays in your final portfolio will receive letter grades based on an evaluation of content and form (of your ideas, organization, wording, style, clarity of construction, and how all of these elements work together). Your reflective statement will also receive a letter grade, which will be based on how completely and how well you fulfill the criteria explained below (under the heading “Midterm Portfolio”). The grades for both portfolios will be determined by averaging the reflective-statement grade with the essay grade(s), weighted as follows: reflective statement 25%, essay(s) 75%.

* First and third drafts will be commented on by the instructor. Second drafts will be commented on by your peers. On peer-response days, bring a hard copy of your essay to class for each of your group members.

* Drafts will be submitted on iLearn at least one hour before class on the date they are due. All third drafts of essays must be accompanied by a reflective cover letter expressing your thoughts about the piece and the process of composing it thus far.

* The midterm portfolio is due an hour before class on its due date. The final portfolio, which will be due after the last day of class, is due by 11:59pm on its due date.

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Grading Breakdown Attendance/Participation……………………………………………...11% Blogging………………………………………………………………25% Literacy Narrative Drafts…..…………………….……………………..6% Critical Literacy Analysis Drafts...…………...….……………………..6% Source-Based Argumentative Essay Drafts..….….…...………………..6% I-Search Essay Drafts…...............………………….…………..……….6% Midterm Portfolio……………..…………………….…………………15% Final Portfolio………………………………………………………….25% Total………………………………………………………….……….100%

*Blogs will not be graded. You will receive full credit for writing the blogs. * The grading in this course is A B C / NC. If your final grade is below a C-, you will receive a grade of NC (no credit), and you will have to re-take first-year composition in the spring.

Personal Blog: You will be asked to create your own WordPress blog. Please give it a personal touch. Give it a name and a background image that reflect your identity. You will be writing regular informal blogs, the purpose of which is invention—the generation of ideas, analysis, information, and connections for your essays. The blogs will be written in response to prompts posted on the class website under the link “blog prompts.” The prompts will relate to assigned readings until we reach the I-Search portion of the course. When you begin working on your I-Search paper, your blogs will record and reflect on your research. Do not worry about writing in a formally correct way in your blogs. Get your ideas out in any way that feels right. Feel free to use pictures, audio, and video. Literacy Narrative: In your first essay, you will be asked to recall moments that have been important in making you the literate person you are today and to tell the reader why these moments matter. Our discussion of literacy is not limited to reading-and-writing literacy, though that is a big part of it. Also essential are introspective and cultural literacy—knowledge of yourself and of your relationship to your social environment. Critical Literacy Analysis: The critical literacy analysis is closely related to the literacy narrative. In the literacy narrative, you interpret your own ideas and experience in light of the ideas and experience of others. And in the critical literacy analysis, you interpret others’ ideas and experience in light of yours. You will be asked to engage with at least two texts (I recommend at least one theoretical and one narrative text), to make an argument about what your chosen authors are saying (your interpretation of their ideas given your experiences and point of view), and to explain why it matters.

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Source-Based Argumentative Essay: In this essay, you will be considering an issue of central importance in the academy and in society at large—that of intellectual property. In the academy, a punishable violation of the rules of intellectual property is called plagiarism, and in society at large it is called copyright infringement. These are two related but distinct concepts. Your essay will consider the consistency and validity of the current rules of intellectual property and will involve dialogue with numerous sources. You must go beyond reporting the opinions of others. In conversation with them, you will form opinions of your own. You are not required to use any sources beyond those supplied by the course. However, you are certainly not discouraged from conducting your own research. I-Search Essay: An I-Search essay is a research paper written about something that you genuinely care about, which, as well as presenting your research findings, presents the story of your research and your reflections on the research process. You will be spending a lot of time on this paper, so it is essential that you pick a topic that truly engages you. Pick something that you would gladly watch a documentary about even if you didn’t have to write a paper on it. Midterm Portfolio: Putting together your midterm portfolio is the first step in compiling your total portfolio for the course. Your midterm portfolio will be located on your blog page and will contain a final draft of your first essay, linked to using Scribd, and a reflective statement. The essay and the reflective statement will be located on separate pages. The final draft will be prefaced by a brief introduction that explains the assignment and your paper’s particular subject. The reflective statement should do three things: 1) Explain how your work should be approached, 2) Consider your work’s strengths, and 3) Consider the growth process that allowed you to arrive at your finished piece. The reflective statement will discuss and link to at least two pieces of work that had a significant impact on the direction your writing process took (e.g., blogs, peer review sheets, freewrites, drafts with feedback from the instructor, etc.). Final Portfolio: Your final portfolio follows the same format as your midterm portfolio. It will contain essays #2, #3, and #4, prefaced by introductions, and a reflective statement discussing all three essays. This reflective statement will discuss and link to at least six pieces of work—that is, at least two for each essay. You will make a separate page for each essay and link to it using Scribd.

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Student Learning Outcomes (Taken from SFSU’s Lower-Division Written- Communication I Course Outline) After completion of any one of SFSU’s three First-Year Composition options, students will be able to: 1. read actively and effectively and use information acquired from readings, research

and other sources critically in their own writing; 2. use writing processes and strategies for generating, revising, editing, and

proofreading their work; collaborate with others during the writing process, developing ways to offer constructive criticism and accept the criticism of others;

3. reflect on their reading and writing processes as an avenue to achieving greater control of these processes and increased effectiveness as readers and writers;

4. demonstrate a basic familiarity with rhetorical conventions, composing effective expository prose with regard to purpose, audience and genre;

5. create and apply a research plan to locate, use and evaluate information from a variety of sources, including library resources;

6. use evidence and analysis to successfully support the central purpose of their writing; demonstrate ethical conduct in their writing and the appropriate use and citation of the works of others;

7. develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics; control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling;

8. gain and use knowledge of the academic community to support their development as learners, readers and writers.

Course Policies Attendance You are expected to attend class regularly and punctually. Much of the work of the course takes place in class. If you miss more than three sessions, your grade may suffer. If you miss more than six sessions, you may fail or be dropped from the course. Three latenesses equal one absence. If you arrive late, please remind me after class to mark you present. Even if you miss a class, you are still responsible for that day’s class work and homework. Participation Participation includes in-class activities (such as group work and in-class writing) as well as taking part in full-class discussions—which means both listening respectfully to your classmates and voicing your own ideas.

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Communication Whenever you have a question or concern about the course, please email me or visit me at my office during office hours. If you do not get a response to your email after two days, assume that I did not get the message and send another. Plagiarism and Academic Honesty The College of Arts and Humanities defines plagiarism thus: “Plagiarism is a form of cheating or fraud; it occurs when a student misrepresents the work of another as his or her own. Plagiarism may consist of using the ideas, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole text of another without appropriate acknowledgment, but it also includes employing or allowing another person to write or substantially alter work that a student then submits as his or her own.” Using the words or ideas of another without attribution subverts the academic conversation, and it robs you of the opportunity to enter the academic community. Any paper that evinces plagiarism is a failing paper. Electronic Devices Cell-phone use is not allowed. Your phones must be set to silent when you come to class—no ringing and no vibrating. You can use smartphones for looking things up, and you can use tablets and laptops for looking things up and for writing. However, if I see that you are using your laptop, tablet, or smartphone for anything not associated with class, it will be back to pen and paper for you. Late Work Late work will not be accepted—no exceptions. Observance of Religious Holidays If you need to miss class at any point in the semester because of a religious holiday, please notify the instructor via email during the first two weeks of the semester. If the holiday takes place during the first two weeks of the semester, please notify the instructor via email at least three days before the absence. This will not be marked as an absence on your record, but you are responsible for any missed work.

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Accommodations Students with disabilities who need reasonable accommodations are encouraged to contact the instructor. The Disability Programs and Resource Center (DPRC) is available to facilitate the reasonable accommodations process. The DPRC is located in the Student Services Building and can be reached by telephone (voice/TTY: 415-338-2472) or by email: dprc@sfsu.edu.