English 113B

                                             

Major Assignments
1. Project Space Assignment

2. Project Text Assignment

3. Text to Web Remediation Project

Course Calendar

 

 ENGLISH 113B: APPROACHES TO UNIVERSITY WRITING

Spring 2024              Instructor: Dr. Santosh Khadka

Email: santosh.khadka@csun.edu         Office: Sierra 834                  

 Course Description

Prerequisites: Successful completion of ENGL 113A. Expository prose writing with a focus on both content and form. Specific emphases shall include the exercise of logical thought and clear expression, the development of effective organizational strategies, and the appropriate gathering and utilization of evidence. Includes instruction on diction, syntax, and grammar, as well as the elements of prose style.

 Course Objectives

  • Demonstrate competence in university writing
  • Demonstrate the ability to use rhetorical strategies that include the appeal to audience, logic, and emotion
  • Understand writing as a recursive process and demonstrate its use through invention, drafting and revision (creating, shaping, and completing)
  • Demonstrate the ability to use conventions of format, structure, style, and language appropriate to the purpose of a written text
  • Demonstrate the ability to use library and online resources effectively and to document their sources.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

  • Students will gain the ability to read critically.
  • Students will gain the ability to write effectively.
  • Students will gain knowledge of the cultural diversity of literatures.

General Education Student Learning Outcomes

Students will analyze and reflect on complex topics and appropriately synthesize their own and others’ ideas in clearly written and well organized edited American English. They will:

  • Analyze and compare perspective, meaning, and style in different texts, including those that reflect multicultural images and voices;
  • Construct a theme or thesis and organize and develop a substantial, balanced and convincing defense of it in a voice, tone, language, and format (e.g., essay autobiography, report, editorial, case study, inquiry, and research) appropriate to the purpose of the writing;
  • Use logical support, including informed opinion and fact, as well as their interpretations, to develop ideas, avoiding fallacies, biased language, and inappropriate tone;
  • Demonstrate satisfactory competence in the conventions of Edited American English and the elements of presentation (including layout, format, and printing);
  • Select and incorporate ideas derived from a variety of sources, such as library electronic and print resources, books, journals, the Internet, and interviews, and document them responsibly and correctly;
  • Apply a variety of strategies for planning, outlining, drafting, revising and editing written work.

Our Method: The Projects
The Progressions brought us to the academic argumentative essay by way of an introduction to voice, genre, and scholarly research. The Projects ask that we continue there yet with greater emphasis on collaboration and a more sophisticated theoretical scope.

The Projects include  Project Space, Project Text,  and Project Web, and each entails critical reading, process work, and group work.  The Projects also require composing with new media, fieldwork, and class presentations.

PROJECT SPACE:  (Details of the Assignment Here) Project Space has individual and group project components, and in both configurations, you will  consider the socioeconomics and politics of space.  While space can be defined as urban, community, and personal, it may also be institutional (e.g., the university and hospital) or online (such as social media platforms), which often challenges the neat division between private and public space.  We’re interested in how space shapes our conception of world, self, and other.

Project Space requirements:

  • Critical reading
  • Fieldwork
  • Physical representation of your fieldwork, e.g., model, diagram, etc.
  • Group video project and presentation
  • Individual essays (@1,000 words) demonstrating good scholarly research

PROJECT TEXT:  (Details of the Project hereProject Text asks that you read a series of text on a current global crisis, and write an argument essay individually. Our class reading would also include a range of texts on global crises of different kind.

Project Text requirements:

  • Critical reading
  • Annotated bibliography of five texts (not included in class)
  • Individual essays (7-8 pages)

PROJECT WEB: Remediation of Project 2 Essay into Web Form, Presentation and Blog Post  (Details of the Project here)

You will remediate your project text  in a web form for two different target audiences–first for general American audiences, and second for the community of your peer. The assignment is intended to give you an understanding of relationship among audience, medium, content and style. Upon completing the assignment, you will see, learn and experience how audience and medium shape the content and style of presentation.

Connected with the remediation project, you will also compose and post a 3-page long blog post on your own digital portfolio about the rhetorical situation and composition style; audience factor and source and language variety choice; audience and document or web design, and media and composition patterns or forms. You must consider how the media shape the messages/contents or more explicitly, you must talk about what changed or did not during your remediation of the project text into two different versions of websites, and why. In other words, in your blog post you must engage the dynamics of media and message, content and forms, audience and rhetorical choices. You should also explain your projects’ targeted audiences, contexts and their purposes. Your blog post should also talk about the differences in terms of site design, content or resources inclusion or exclusion, and language variety choice between your two projects (project text and two versions of web design). While explaining the differences in those rhetorical choices, you should also try to answer why you made some particular choices for project text and the first and second versions of the website.

Following the completion of The Projects:

Reflective Essay: you will review and reflect on all Stretch work (The Progressions and The Projects) @ 500-750 words. Assess your progress.

Participation
Class participation includes discussions, student-instructor conferences, and workshop activities.  Everyone has something to contribute to our class, and there is always an opportunity to learn from one another.  If you do not feel comfortable speaking in class you may participate in other ways.  Although participation grades will not be distributed, I will be happy to discuss any questions you have about your progress.

Papers
The bulk of your grade (see “Grades” below) will be based upon essays and exercises that you will submit over the course of the term.  Each item will be assigned a specific due date as well as instructions regarding drafting, conferences, peer group work, and use of the Writing Center.  Out-of-class papers must be composed and revised at the computer.  Please print a copy of each draft before you revise it.

All final written work will go in your final portfolio.

Note: late papers will not be accepted unless you have obtained an extension from me ahead of time. You must submit your essay even if you miss class on its due date.

Grades
I grade holistically, based in part on your progress over the semester.  A final grade will be given after your portfolio is assessed in its entirety, at the semester’s end.  Until then, I’ll write comments and suggestions on your papers and discuss your progress in person.  Feel free to come by my office, email, or phone me if you have questions and/or concerns.  To pass this course, you must complete all work in a timely fashion and receive a passing grade on your portfolio.

GRADING SCALE

1000-940=A 930-900=A- 890-870=B+ 860-830=B 820-800=B- 790-770=C+

760-730=C 720-700=C- 690-670=D+ 660-630=D 620-600=D- 590 or <=F

Participation (50 points)

Students are expected to fully engage in the course and to play an active role both in and outside the classroom. In order to earn full participation points, students will be evaluated on:

Regular and punctual attendance

Preparedness for class

Contribution to class discussions

In-class activities such as self-editing exercises, free-writes, etc.

Classroom conduct

Conferences/Tutoring (50 points total/25 points each)

Students are required to meet with the instructor at least once during the semester. Conferences will take place outside of class, at a mutually convenient time. Students are also required to visit the Writing Lab at least once during the semester (proof of visit).

Blog posts (100 points)

Students will blog regularly throughout the semester.

You will write a short response to the shared reading(s) for that week and post the response to your website. Your response should show your familiarity with the assigned readings and demonstrate your engagement with them either by drawing connections between the readings (and course themes), and/or by thoughtfully reflecting on the implications of the readings and discussions.

This assignment is intended to spark and expand on our class discussions, prepare you to engage in those discussions more fully and productively, enhance your understanding of the assigned readings, explore new insights about the assigned texts, introduce you to ways of using informal writing for invention, and provide you with ideas that you may later use to develop your major projects.

Each post should be between 200 and 300 words and is due before class each week. Generally speaking, your blog post should examine one or more of these issues:
• main issues, themes, or questions/claims in the reading
• language use in the select texts
• key texts cited (and intertextual relationships)
• major questions/challenges the text pose for you
• issues/questions from class discussions and texts under consideration
I want you to take this assignment seriously. Not only will these response prepare you for productive contribution to our discussions, they may also be the springboard for your longer projects.

Peer review (50 points total/25 points per each essay)

Students will be required to participate in a peer review session for each essay. If you are absent on the day of a peer review, or do not bring an essay draft to class on the day of a peer review, you will not receive credit. Missed peer reviews cannot be made up.

Projects (600 points total/200 points each)

Students will compose and revise three formal essays (one for each Progression)

Reflective essay: (50 points total)

Students will write a reflective essay that will address their writing progress during the semester. The reflective essay will be included in your portfolio.

Final Portfolio (100 points total) – REQUIRED FOR COURSE CREDIT

Students will submit a final portfolio at the end of the semester. Your portfolio will include your final “polished” formal essays and your reflective essay. For that reason, you might choose to revise two of earlier essay drafts significantly to get the maximum points in portfolio. Save all your work. You must submit a final portfolio in order to pass the course. You will NOT earn a final grade in the course without submitting a complete final portfolio. Late portfolios will NOT be accepted – NO EXCEPTIONS! All portfolios are examined and assessed by a panel of English Department faculty. Portfolio readers will evaluate each portfolio as representative of students’ ability at the end of the semester.

Students will NOT be eligible to submit a final portfolio for any of the following reasons: Missing any of the Project essays (final draft)

You have to complete all 3 project essays in order to submit your portfolio to pass the class!!!

COURSE POLICIES

Attendance

Attendance will be recorded at the start of each class. Missing more than 2 class meetings will result in you failing the class–regardless of the reason. I do not respond to emails asking what you missed in class; it is your responsibility to find out from a fellow classmate.

Tardiness/Leaving Early

Arriving to class late and leaving class early is rude and disruptive. Please take parking conditions and traffic into consideration when commuting to campus. Two events of tardiness and/or leaving early will equal one absence. As with absences, please inform me if there is an emergency.

Classroom Conduct

Each student is expected to conduct themselves in a respectful manner. If you are disruptive or inconsiderate in any way (talking, texting, doing work for another class, etc.) you will be asked to leave. Dismissal from the class will count as one absence.

Turn off ALL electronic devices (cell phones, i-Pods, etc.) at the start of class. Laptops or electronic notebooks/tablets may only be used in the classroom for note-taking or research, if appropriate – not for email, Facebook, etc. Students using laptops may be asked to show me class notes at anytime. You will lose the right to use your laptop and will be docked Participation points if you don’t have notes to show me and/or you use the internet/email during class time.

Submitting Assignments

Post (or embed) all your home works and projects to your site. A section on your site should serve as your final portfolio. We will discuss how you can create final portfolio in your site.

E-Mail Policy

You must have a working CSUN email address to be able to send and receive class emails. Please check your email frequently, as well as our course site, for updates and reminders about the class. You are welcome to email me regarding questions or concerns about the course; however, no emailed assignments are accepted.

Please put the name of the course (ENGLISH 113B) in the subject heading of your email; any other subject line may cause your email to be mistakenly deleted. Also, keep in mind that emails to your instructors should be respectful and appropriate.

Student Hour Policy

Although I have a set time for student hours, I can also arrange appointments. If you need to visit me at a time that is not within my scheduled office hours, please email me or talk to me after class.

Plagiarism

Simply put—don’t do it! Plagiarism is the act of “intentionally or knowingly representing the words, ideas, or works of another as one’s own in any academic exercise” (CSUN catalog 553). Specific forms of plagiarism include:

Turning in material that was written for any other class (high school included). Offering a restructured, reworded, version of someone else’s text as your original work. Downloading essays from the Internet, or purchasing papers, and offering them as your own work. Practicing any variation of not turning in original work for grades.

If you do plagiarize it will result in a failing grade on the plagiarized assignment and is grounds for disciplinary action by the university. Any instance of plagiarism will be reported to the Assistant Vice President for Student Life. If you are unsure how to avoid plagiarism when incorporating other sources into your writing, please meet with me. We will spend time in class reviewing how to properly cite sources. Remember, when in doubt, don’t do it! You cannot become a better writer if you don’t do the writing yourself. Furthermore, I check for inconsistencies and if I feel that your paper may be plagiarized I may ask you to submit your work electronically to www.turnitin.com (a website that checks for plagiarized material).

 

 

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