COLLEGE COMPOSITION II English 112-K6 Spring 2003

COURSE MATERIALS

• Phillips, Charles Ed. Primis English for College Composition II New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000. (ISBN 0-390-15861-5)
• Fowler, H. Ramsey, Jane E. Aaron, and Rebecca Brittenham. The Little, Brown Handbook. 8^th ed. New York: Longman, 2001.
• Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. Handbook to Literature. 9^th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.i>

NOTE: This book may be found in the reference sections of some libraries. Earlier editions will be equally useful for most course assignments.

NOTE: You may order your texts from the SVCC college bookstore and have them mailed to you for an additional charge of $5.00.

You Will Also Need The Following

• Access to Internet
• E-mail account
• Microsoft Word. I will not accept work in other word processing formats.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ASSIGNMENT

To introduce ourselves, the first assignment of the semester is to write a short autobiographical sketch. Click on the link below for further explanation.

DESCRIPTION OF COURSE

This Internet course will have the following components:

1. Reading assignments in the Primis anthology
2. Weekly journals on the reading assignments.
3. Essays related to the reading assignments.

GOALS OF THE COURSE

METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

This is an Internet course. We will communicate using E-mail and a program called "Blackboard. " On the Blackboard Assignments page, I will post reading assignments and questions for you to answer in essays. On the Blackboard Discussion Board, I will post questions on the reading that you will respond to on the Discussion Board.

You are responsible for understanding the requirements of the course, including the correct way to name your documents and to communicate using email. Read my directions and follow them, or confusion and delays will occur. If something is unclear after you have read the instructions, ask for an explanation, but I expect you to read the instructions first. Click on the button below to read important instructions.

During the semester it may be necessary to change course assignments or procedures. If this becomes necessary, you will be notified. I will do this by posting a message in the Announcements section of Blackboard. Changes may involve modification or substitution of assignments or changes in due dates. No change will increase the work load or reduce the amount of time allowed for an assignment.

BACK-UP COPIES

You should be careful to maintain back-up copies of your work. Copies should be saved to a floppy disk and to the hard drive of your computer if you are working at home. You cannot save files to the hard drive of a computer in the SVCC labs. Your Independent Service Provider (ISP) should provide you with space on their server where you can create a mirror directory for your home computer and then use a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program to send your files to the server. If an assignment is lost and cannot be recovered by means of a back-up copy, the assignment must be rewritten.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Your reading assignments in the Primis anthology for each week will be posted on the Blackboard Assignments page.

JOURNALS FOR THE DISCUSSION BOARD

Each week I will post a question in the Blackboard Discussion Board on your reading assignment. After reading the assigned pages, you will write a journal response to the question. For instructions on how to submit your journals, click your mouse on the "Discussion Directions" button below.

LENGTH REQUIREMENTS FOR JOURNALS

Each journal must be at least 400 words which is about one page of single spaced text. Microsoft Word will tell you how many words there are in a document.

ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS

Essay assignments based on your reading are posted on the Blackboard Assignments page. These assignments may focus on an author's ideas, language, or a literary form or device. For example, if a poem contains examples of metaphors, I may ask you to define the term and to point out the metaphors in the poem. In doing research to define a literary or rhetorical term, use the sources listed on my Links page as well as A Handbook to Literature or similar books from the library.

The schedule for your essay assignments is given below. This schedule is designed so that the three Internet classes I am teaching will submit essays alternately on a three week rotation. On the week that your essays are due, I will concentrate exclusively on them and will return the graded work within seven days unless something unforeseen occurs.

Late essays will incur a grade penalty.

• Assignment 1 -- Autobiographical Sketch. Everyone is required to complete this assignment. Due date -- January 20.
• Assignment 2 -- Symbols or Irony. You get to choose. Due date -- January 27.
• Assignment 3 -- Informal Essay, Character, Point of View. You get to choose. Due date -- Feb 17.
• Assignment 4 -- Argument, Autobiography, Metaphor and Simile. You get to choose. Due date -- March 10.
• Assignment 5 -- Foreshadowing, Satire, Concrete Language. You get to choose. Due date -- March 31.
• Assignment 6 --Conflict, Setting and Atmosphere, Dramatic Monologue. You get to choose. Due date --April 21.

LENGTH REQUIREMENTS FOR ESSAYS

Each completed essay must be more than 500 words but no more than 1000 words. Microsoft Word will tell you how many words there are in a document.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ESSAYS

You may write your essays using Microsoft Word. You will submit your essays as email attachments. Click on the button below for important directions.

GRADING OF WORK

Each essay assignment will carry equal weight. I will grade each assignment by giving it a number from 1 to 100 using a ten-point scale. The essays will count 70% of your final grade.

The journal grade will be determined by dividing the number of journals you actually write by the number required. For example, if 50 journals are required, and you write 50 journals, 50/50 = 1 or 100% which would give you an "A." Any number less than 50 would reduce your grade. The journals will count 30% of your final grade.

In order to receive credit for a journal, it must be at least 400 word long, be a direct response to the question, and show that you have read and thought about the reading assignment. The Discussion Board is checked weekly. You are given two weeks to respond to a question; then, the topic is removed and you will no longer be able to submit your work or get credit for it.

READTHE FILES I RETURN TO YOU

When you send me a essay assignment as an email attachment, I will read it, insert comments, give it a grade, and return it to you. In order to understand the basis for the grade you receive, you should open the file and read the comments. Use this feedback to improve your next paper. This is critical since I cannot accept revisions. Click on the button below to see the criteria I use in grading essays.