Dr. T. Giannotti • LCH A334 • MW 4:00-5:30
[email protected] • (310) 243-3930
MW 5:30-6:45 (20206)
LCH A230
Required Texts
Rose, Mike, and Malcolm Kiniry. Critical Strategies. 3rd ed. St. Martin’s, 1998. 0-312-11561-x.
Hacker, Diana. Rules for Writers. 7th ed. St. Martin’s. 9780312677350. (Other handbooks are OK.)
Course Description
Prerequisite: English 110 and 111 or equivalent. This is an advanced writing course, one that
assumes you’ve completed Freshman Composition and are ready to demonstrate graduation-level
writing skills. It has two primary objectives: 1) to help you achieve and maintain a level of
writing proficiency appropriate to a CSU graduate; 2) to help you certify that proficiency by
passing the campus-wide Coop Exam. Because the course is designed as a portfolio-system
workshop with a massive percentage of the work completed in class, attendance is essential: if
absence or lateness is going to be a problem, please don’t enroll in this section of 350.
Course Requirements and Grading
1) Online Participation. You’re required to access Blackboard for materials and announcements.
2) Nine Formal Essays (65%).
• Essays 1-6: Five Esssays and One Required Revision (45%). Most are essays of three pages,
typed, on articles/topics you’ll select from Critical Strategies, though Working Drafts will
be written in class. Essays 1 (5%) and 2 (10%) are letter-graded. Essays 3-5 are graded
CR/NC only, but you’ll select one of the three to rewrite later as Essay 6 for a letter-grade
(3-5 pages, 30%). Essays returned with an NC must be resubmitted by the next class , and all
CR/NC papers must receive a CR before the required revision is due: if required revisions
are not submitted when due, and all have not received a CR, the portfolio grade will be an
NC.
• Essays 7-8: Two Mock-Exam Essays. Written in class as preparation for the Comp Coop
and graded CR/NC. (Three pages is the target.)
• Essay 9: Final Paper (25%). A typed, 3 page (letter-graded) essay on a topic developed
from additional readings in Critical Strategies.
3) Supporting Work (5%). Total of 25 points assigned for supporting work (converted to 4.0
scale). Includes homework and in-class work such as prewriting exercises, drafts, and peer
responses. Sorry, these can’t be submitted late or made up.
4) Composition Coop Exam (25%). I’m required by University mandate to weight the Coop score
as 25% of the course grade. The exam is scored by campus-wide faculty committee.
Course Policies
1) I take roll. After three absences and/or “tardies” (5 minutes or more), your course GPA may be
lowered by .25 per subsequent absence/tardy. There’s also an online requirement (see above), and
your course GPA may be lowered by .25 per week if you are not online.
2) The drop deadline is Th of Week 3—I don’t normally approve drops after the deadline and require
documented “serious and compelling reason”: a medical emergency or permanent change in work
schedule is adequate reason; failing grades or frequent absences aren’t. Please be aware that
INC’s won’t normally be issued—only for medical or other documented emergency on the final, if
all prior work is complete. All work is due by x PM, xxx, xxx.
3) Please bring the course outline and Critical Strategies to class daily. FDs must be attached to a
Scoring Sheet and be typed, double spaced, and identified by essay number—please don’t use
folders. The FD is docked a letter grade if WD is not submitted on time. Letter-graded FDs
(Essays 1-2, 6, 9) are docked one letter per calendar day beyond the deadline and recorded as an F
if not received by the next class meeting; portfolio FDs (Essays 3-5) are not accepted late and
must be submitted in class or in BB Assignments by midnight of the deadline (then in hard copy);
late Rewrites are recorded as an NC if not received by the next class meeting after return. Please
read the attached plagiarism policy. Sorry, no voluntary revisions of letter-graded essays .
Course Learning Objectives
Means of assessment include Comp Coop, all essays, all exercises.
1) to compose sentences and to use diction appropriate to the purpose, occasion, and audience;
2) to write effective expository prose using modes such as definition, comparison, etc.;
3) to write two to three page papers which are virtually free from serious errors;
4) to explore style and rhetorical strategies, including those beyond the sentence level;
5) to employ strategies of editing and revising.
English 350 • Schedule *
Outside Work Due
Wk
Wk
Wk
1
2
3
4
In-Class Work
Points
M
W
Introduction
Write PW 2 (Summarizing)
Write WD 1 (Autoculture)
1
1
M
W
HOLIDAY • No class meeting
Write WD 2 (Summarizing)
Write FD 1, PR of WD 2
0
1, FD 1
M
Write FD 2 (Summary)
W
Wk
PW 3 (Classifying)
M
W
Write FD 3 (Classifying)
Wk
5
M
W
Wk
6
M
W
PR, discuss Essay
3(Classifying)
Start WD 3 (Classifying)
1, FD 2
Finish WD 3 (Classifying), PR?
PR,
discuss
Essay
4
(Comparing)
1
1, FD 3
PW 4 (Comparing)
Start WD 4 (Comparing)
Finish WD 4 (Comparing)
1
1
Write FD 4 (Comparing)
PR,
discuss
(Analyzing)
Essay
1
5
1
1, FD 4
Wk
7
M
W
Write PW 5 (Analyzing I)
Start WD 5 (Analyzing)
Write WD 5, PR
1
1
Wk
8
M
W
Write FD 5 (Analyzing)
Submit FD 5
PR, discuss Essay 6
1, FD 5
1
Wk
9
M
W
Last FD 3-4 REVISIONS DUE
Write WD 6 (Portfolio Revision)
Return graded FD 5, Editing
Peer Reading of WD 6
1
1
Wk
10
M
W
ALL REVISIONS FD 5 DUE
Write FD 6 (Portfolio Revision)
Conferences
1,
1, FD 6
Wk
11
M
W
Write PW 9; FD 6 “Drop Dead” Date
Write PW 9
PR, discuss Essay 9
Peer Reading of PW 9
1
1
Wk
12
M
W
HOLIDAY • No class meeting
Work on WD 9
WD 7 (Mock exam)
0
1
Wk
13
M
W
Work on WD 9
Finish WD 9
FD 7 (Mock exam)
WD 8 (Mock exam)
1
1
Wk
14
M
W
Finish WD 9
Submit WD 9
FD 8 (Mock exam)
1
1
M
W
SUBMIT FD 9
Comp Co-op
Comp Co-op, PR of WD 9
Scheduled Final Exam
Co-op Returned (my office)
Wk
15
Discuss Comp Coop, PR of WD 9
PW=Prewriting, WD=Working Draft, FD=Final Draft, PR=Peer Reading.
2
1, Co-op
1, Co-op
FD 9
Essay 1 • In-Class Coop-Style Essay • Two-three pages (5%)
Both the Working Draft (WD) and Final Draft (FD) of this essay will be written in class. You’ll have
two 45-minute writing sessions to write an essay in response to this prompt:
No city in the world has been designed for and by the automobile as has Los Angeles. This city has
developed and altered its very landscape to accommodate the private car. It may not be too much to
assert that the automobile plays some role in the aspirations, tastes, social class, work and recreation
of Angelenos. Los Angeles is not a city in the usual sense; it is an autoculture.
Write a well organized and fully developed essay in which you do the following:
•
•
Identify some of the signs of the automobile’s dominance in Los Angeles;
Explain how the automobile has shaped the way people live in Los Angeles.
Essay 2 • Summarizing • Two-three pages, typed (10%)
Prewriting
From “Chapter 2: Summarizing,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s), and
write a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “summary” essay, due at the
beginning of class. Bottom line question: what do we need to know are the article’s main ideas and
perspectives?
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•
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Anthropology: Kottak, “Rites of Passage” (99-100).
Biology : Morse, Stirring Up Trouble (100-03).
Anthropology : Groce, from Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language (110-13).
Working and Final Drafts
As you write your working and final drafts, please bear in mind these criteria for a summary:
•
Your first paragraph needs to tell us the basics: identify the author, title (article titles in quotations,
book title in italics), and thesis or main ideas at the beginning. Summary does just that: it
abstracts central ideas, definitions, and arguments from the source, includes detailed
information only when absolutely essential, and does not make a judgment of the source (that
is, your opinions are withheld). The purpose of a summary is to save readers from having to
read the original source, but without missing anything of importance. Objectives should include
these:
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Questions you might ask about your article are these:
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convey accurately the article’s thesis and supporting ideas and details;
define terms or ideas that the reader cannot be expected to know;
paraphrase and quote responsibly (see below and attachment on using sources).
Objectives. What is the writer trying to do? What questions or problems is s/he
addressing? Is there an explicit thesis statement that needs to be quoted and explained?
Findings. What are the major conclusions s/he draws (answers to the questions above)?
Methods. To achieve these objectives and findings, does the writer use special methods,
disciplines, or perspectives (e.g., statistics, lab results, sociological survey, historical
evidence, case study, journalistic interview, a particular theory or viewpoint)?
Give full bibliographic information for your article(s) at the end of your paper (see below and
attachment on source use), then cite a parenthetical page number when you paraphrase or quote
from it. Quotations from all sources must be copied exactly and enclosed by quotation marks;
when you quote or paraphrase any ideas or information from a source, you cite a page number
immediately after the quotation or borrowed ideas or info :
Morse explains that “germs do not discriminate” (102).
According to Kottack, Van Gennep’s concept of the “littoral” is accepted by most experts
(99).
The Works Cited at the end of your paper will have only one entry that looks like this (varying,
of course, with author and article title). See Rules for Writers for details:
3
Kottack, Conrad P. “Rites of Passage.” Critical Strategies . 3rd ed. Malcolm Kiniry and
Mike Rose. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1998. 99-100.
Essay 3 • Classifying • Three pages, typed (CR/NC)
Prewriting
From “Chapter 4: Classifying,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s), and
write a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “classifying” essay, due at the
beginning of class. Bottom line: what “stuff” are you classifying, and what classification scheme
are you using to classify it? (What categories are you putting the things into?) See below for more.
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Little Communities : Classification Scheme: Redfield, “Little Communities”; Materials:
“Summaries of Studies on Community”: Hualcan, Springdale, Vice Lords, Iks,
Hutterites (314-19).
Culture Shock: Classification Scheme: Brink and Saunders, “Phases of Culture Shock”
(331-33); Materials: Bentz, “New Immigrants; Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant
America; Santiago, When I Was Puerto Rican; Kessner and Caroli, Today’s Immigrants;
Steltzer, The New Americans (333-47).
Writers’ Metaphors : Materials: Tomlinson, Buried Life of the Mind (312-14).
Opening Paragraphs : Materials: “Selected Opening Paragraphs” (347-53).
Working and Final Drafts
As you write your Working and Final Drafts, please bear in mind these tasks:
•
Two of the options (“Little Communities” and “Culture Shock”) present you with a
ready-made classification scheme (Redfield’s four criteria for a little community and
Brink’s and Saunders’ four phases of culture shock). You’re being asked to apply
the ready-made classification scheme to the other articles (the five “community”
summaries or the five immigrant narratives ) and explain in detail how each of the
communities or immigrant experiences conforms to the criteria laid out in the
classification scheme. In other words, these options supply you with categories (the
four criteria of smallness and the four phases of culture shock), and your job is to
group similar communities or experiences together in one group or category, and
explain how and why each paragraph belongs to a particular category (or
categories).
•
Two of the options (“Writers’ Metaphors” and “Opening Paragraphs”) don’t furnish a
classification scheme: you have to design your own and apply it to the materials
you’re given. So for “Writers’ Metaphors,” you need to identify what kinds of
metaphors you see in the 18 writers’ statements, group similar metaphors together
as one group or category in your classification scheme, and explain how and why
each statement belongs to a particular category (or categories). For “Opening
Paragraphs,” you need similarly to identify what opening strategies (and purposes)
you see in the 29 opening paragraphs, group similar strategies together as one group
or category in your classification scheme, and explain how and why each paragraph
belongs to a particular category (or categories).
•
Classification works according to perceived similarities. To create a category, you need
to start small with a few of the variables you’re trying to handle and look for what
they have in common. (The purpose of a classification is to enable comparisons and
analysis, which you’ll be doing in the next essay.)
•
As before, give full bibliographic information for your article(s) in a Works Cited at the
end of your paper (see attachment), then just use parenthetical page numbers in your
text when you paraphrase or quote. Be sure to use quotations responsibly.
4
Essay 4 • Comparing/Contrasting • Three pages, typed (CR/NC)
Prewriting
From “Chapter 5: Comparing,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s), and
write a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “comparison/contrast” essay, due
at the beginning of class. Bottom line: what specific points of comparison and contrast do they
share?
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Anthropology : “Aranda Creation Story”; Abell, “Big Bang Theory” (450-52).
Education: Franklin, from Autobiography; Malcolm X, from Autobiography (452-61).
History : Morgan, “The American Revolution: An American View”; Trevelyan, “The
American Revolution: A British View” (461-69).
Literature : Chandler, The Big Sleep; Prucha, Murder Is My Business ; Mosley, Devil in a
Blue Dress (469-82). (You may use just two or all three.)
Working and Final Drafts
As you write your Working and Final drafts, please bear in mind these criteria for a
comparison/contrast, which for us includes discussion of both similarities (comparisons) and
differences (contrasts):
•
Comparison begins with an enumeration of similarities and of differences, and making a
list of those might be your best starting point. As you consider how to compare two
(or more) articles, consider not only what each writer has to say, but how he says it,
when and where he says it (i.e., contexts such as publication date or what culture the
writer comes from), why he says it (possible motivations).
•
Since this essay builds on earlier ones, you’ll be using other critical strategies that we’ve
used already (summary, classification, etc.). A crucial question in this essay, as in
others, is how much you need to summarize: and the answer here, as in others, is
only to the extent that summarizing helps you to achieve your present purpose of
comparing articles. So summarize and classify only insofar as they help you make
useful comparisons. Don’t paraphrase for the sake of paraphrase.
•
The simplest way of organizing a comparison is graphed below. Your essay will have
to modify this basic structure in some ways, but here’s a glimpse:
Comparison A
Article 1 says . . .
Article 2 says . . .
Discussion of similarities/contrasts
Comparison B
Article 1 says . . .
Article 2 says . . .
Discussion of similarities/contrasts
Comparison C
Article 1 says . . .
Article 2 says . . .
Discussion of similarities/contrasts
•
As always, give full bibliographic information for your article(s) at the end of your paper
(see attachment), then just use parenthetical page numbers in your text when you
paraphrase or quote.
Essay 5 • Analyzing • Three pages, typed (CR/NC)
5
Prewriting
From “Chapter 6: Analyzing,” please choose one of the following options, read the article(s),
and write a ½-page (100 word minimum) statement of topic for your “analysis” essay, due at
the beginning of class. Bottom line: what idea or theory from the “perspective” article are you
using to explain (that is, analyze) the “stuff” (the data or experience or behavior or text) of the
“materials” article? Explain.
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Psychology : Perspective: Seligman, “On Learned Helplessness”; Materials: Wallace
and Waters, “Gunman Kills Himself” (583-86).
Education: Perspective: Graff, “Moral Basis of Literacy Instruction”; Materials:
Two Literacy Lessons: Vocabulary Lesson, Penmanship Lesson (586-89).
Economics: Perspective: Farrell, “Decolonization”; Materials: Pattullo, Last Resorts
(589-98).
Sociology : Perspective: “Perspectives on Violence”: Freud, Moyer, Bettelheim,
Sneider and Spreitzer, Girard; Materials: Tough, “Into the Pit (616-23).
Working and Final Drafts
As you write your Working and Final Drafts, please bear in mind these criteria for an analysis:
•
•
•
As always, give full bibliographic information for your article(s) at the end of your
paper (see attachments), then just use parenthetical page numbers in your text
when you paraphrase or quote.
Analysis uses all the strategies that we’ve rehearsed up to this point, and a few more
—summarizing, classifying, comparing, and defining—so be prepared to use all
and any strategies that work.
The one factor that analysis adds is a particular perspective or slant on the material
that helps us to evaluate it (i.e., you need a thesis of some kind).
Essay 6 • “Portfolio” Revision • Four-five pages, typed (30%)
Prewriting and Writing
Please choose Essay 3, 4, or 5 as the “Working Draft” for this paper and rewrite it for a letter
grade that will represent all your work on Essays 3-5. Normally, you’ll need to expand it to a
slightly longer 4-5 pages. (Remember, the letter-grade on this one will represent all your draft
work on the “portfolio” essays and thus carries a heavy grade percentage, so make it your
strongest effort.) If it was perfect the first time, then you may have little or no revision to do;
most mere mortals, though, will want to reread the sources, rewrite extensively, and be sure
that the mechanics and surface presentation are as close to flawless as possible. P.S.: You can
ask me anything about this paper, except which essay to select or what the grade would be.
Essays 7-8 • Mock Exams • Two-three pages, in class (CR/NC)
Prewriting, Working, and Final Drafts
6
No outside preparation is necessary for these. I’ll give you a topic similar to the Comp Coop
question, and you’ll have two 45-minute sessions to write a working and final draft of each.
In responding to the prompt, be sure above all that you perform the writing “tasks” that it asks
for. Most questions will ask you to perform a series of operations, such as describing,
explaining, evaluating your own response or thinking, or analyzing a “why” question of some
kind. Be sure that the reader can distinguish clearly between each of the tasks you’re
performing (that is, knows when you’re going on to perform a new task) and that all of them
are performed completely, especially the last one. For instance, if the question asks you to
identify a certain kind of event or experience, explain your reaction to it, and then explain why
you react(ed) that way, give as much attention to analyzing the final why question as to the
earlier parts of your discussion.
In all cases, try to allow at least five minutes at the end of the second session to proofread for
grammatical correctness. You should concentrate on: 1 ) clarity and directness in word choice
(i.e, using words that come naturally to you and get your point across simply, not words that
will impress the readers); 2) catching sentence-level errors like fragments, comma splices (i.e,
fused sentences or RTS’s); 3) word endings such as -ed’s and -s’s on verbs.
Essay 9 • Classifying/Comparing/Analyzing • 3-5 pages, typed (25%)
Prewriting
Please choose one of the options below, read the articles, and write a ½-page (100 word
minimum) statement of topic , due at the beginning of class. Your essay must perform (at least)
one of the critical tasks we’ve practiced recently: it must classify, compare, or analyze the
article sources and/or what’s discussed in them . Do NOT summarize the articles. Remember,
this essay must have a thesis statement that tells us what it’s going to classify, compare, or
analyze and how: your essay will classify (as we did in Essay 3), or compare (as we did in
Essay 4), or analyze its materials (as we did in Essay 5 by applying one reading to another). It
can’t just summarize or paraphrase the articles. You have two major things to specify in this
Prewriting: 1) Are you classifying, comparing, or analyzying? 2) What or how ?
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Readings: Reconsidering Intelligence . Read Harper, Franklin, Rose, Hutchins, Haugeland. (54-75)
Readings: The Dimensions of Child Poverty . Read Sherman, Lindsey, Katz, Scheller, Schorr. (14468).
Readings: U.S Immigration Patterns . Read Ueda, Jones, Ewen, Sanchez, Portes and Rumbaut
(356-417).
Readings: Methods of Inquiry in Primate Research . Read Terrace, Lewin, Cheney and Seyfarth,
Mitani (506-554).
Working Draft and Final Draft
Once you’ve selected a topic and know what your purpose is (classifying, comparing, or
analyzing), please be sure to discuss how to narrow your topic with me if it seems a problem.
You may use as many or as few of the articles as you like, as long as your final draft has some
documented sources. This paper, like all the essays we’ve written since the summary, is a
critical analysis—that is, it should take a distinct perspective on the subject and have a thesis to
advance and develop. Please see Prewriting above for more direction on this.
English 350 • Working With Sources
Plagiarism Policy
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At the heart of any university are its efforts to encourage critical reading skills, effective communication
and, above all, intellectual honesty among its students. Thus, all academic work submitted by a student as his or
her own should be in his or her own unique style, w ords and form. When a student submits work that purports to be
his/her original work, but actually is not, the student has committed plagiarism.
Plagiarism is considered a gross violation of the University’s academic and disciplinary standards.
Plagiarism includes the following: copying of one person’s work by another and claiming it as his or her own, false
presentation of one’s self as the author or creator of a work, falsely taking credit for another person’s unique method
of treatment or expression, falsely representing one’s self as the source of ideas or expression, or the presentation of
someone else’s language, ideas or works without giving that person due credit. [Plagiarism] is not limited to written
w orks.
Source Documentation:
MLA Style
You won’t need to go to the library to dig up any outside sources for your papers, but since all except the in-class
essays will be based on your readings from Critical Strategies , you’ll have to document any paper that refers to,
quotes from, paraphrases, or borrows ideas from the articles you’re reading—which is to say, all of them, really.
You’ll want to follow the new MLA format for documentation, which does away with footnotes and bibliography
and replaces them with a system of in-text parenthetical citation keyed to a "Works Cited" list at the end of the
paper. Read Chapter 50 of The Bedford Handbook if you’re unfamiliar with the system or need information on
details, but here’s a crash course in MLA documentation that should tell you all you need to know.
At the end of your paper, give a “Works Cited” list (also called a “Reference List”) that cites all of your sources
alphabetically (though you may only have one in some papers). When you’re citing only one article from Critical
Strategies in the whole paper, it’ll look like this:
Works Cited
Giannotti, Thomas J. “My People, My Pasta, My Patrimony: The Italian Heritage.” Critical Strategies for Academic
Thinking and Writing. 3rd ed. Malcolm Kiniry and Mike Rose. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1999. 17-31.
When you’re citing more than one article from Critical Strategies , provide a separate entry for Critical Strategies,
then give a cross-referenced and shortened entry for each article you refer to:
Works Cited
Giannotti, Thomas J. “My People, My Pasta, My Patrimony: The Italian Heritage.” Kiniry and Rose 17-31.
Kiniry, Malcolm, and Mike Rose. Critical Strategies for Academic Thinking and Writing . 2nd ed. Boston: St. Martin’s,
1999.
Pomodori, Salsa di. “Plum Tomatoes and Your Health.” Kiniry and Rose 17-31.
Once you’ve cited the source in your reference list at the end, you have only to document quotations, paraphrases,
and directly borrowed material with a parenthetical page reference in your own text. If citing the mythical article
above, for instance, you’d produce something like this:
Gi..