WRIT 1301 Sect.

027
Instructor: Joseph Bartolotta Office: 201-17 Wesbrook Hall Class Time: 11:15 A.M. - 12:05 P.M. (M, W, F)

Fall 2009
Office Hours: TBD Email: barto137@umn.edu Classroom: Lind Hall 340

Frank, Thomas and Matt Weiland, eds. Commodify Your Dissent New York: Norton, 1997. Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Venkatesh, Sudhir. Gang Leader for a Day. New York: Penguin, 2008.

Textbooks and Materials

Description

University Writing fulfills the freshman composition requirement. It involves critical reading, writing, and thinking as students practice the types of academic writing they may expect in their college career, such as summaries, essays, academic arguments, bibliographies, and research papers. The course is designed to help students develop a clear thesis in a written paper and support that thesis with appropriate, sources, evidence, and documentation. Time is spent discussing rhetorical elements of writing such as audience, purpose, and argumentative structure. In addition, students practice steps in the writing process such as invention, research, organization, drafting, revision, and editing. Students report, synthesize, and draw conclusions regarding the significance of what they read. Students to become aware of the linguistic and rhetorical choices they can make in their writing.

Outcomes

At the successful conclusion of University Writing, students will be able to do the following: communicate their ideas and those of others to specific audiences control prewriting and planning strategies to arrive at a focused topic produce an outline or prospectus for a researched paper craft thesis statements that indicate a clear position on a topic and tie the paper together develop a topic through clearly structured paragraphs and the whole paper so that ideas are fully explained, assertions are backed up, supporting evidence is sufficient and claims are credible through the sequence of assignments, develop a body of knowledge and growing perspective on a topic make choices in their own writing and articulate other options write in appropriate academic genres and computer media to communicate with different audiences identify an authors audience, purpose, argument, and assumptions (i.e., critical reading) in an analysis paper or class discussion locate and evaluate relevant scholarly and popular sources on a research topic using library resources; document sources ethically consistently follow standards of written, edited English

Assignments
In addition to major assignments, there will be shorter assignments. Shorter assignments serve different purposes: to plan or revise a major assignment, to practice strategies important to a major assignment, to examine issues relevant to a major assignment, or to explore communication. Therefore, failure to complete the smaller assignments on time may result in a failing grade for a major assignment. Shorter responses may not be graded if turned in late.

All work completed outside of class should be typed. Make sure you have a backup copy of all work before you turn it in to be graded. Major essays will be penalized one letter grade (e.g., from B to C) for each class period they are late. All major essays must be completed for you to receive a passing grade at the end of the semester.

Class Attendance and Participation

Much of our work will be in groups. You are expected to fulfill your share of group work and to interact courteously with your peers at all times. Classes are run in a discussion/workshop format; therefore, regular attendance and active participation are important. One of the strongest components of any democracy is an informed citizenry that is ready to participate civically. Not being prepared for class preempts your ability to participate and may impede the inquiry of others, and I may excuse students who I discover to not be adequately prepared. Attendance to me is more than simply filling a seatit is a demonstration of a willingness to engage in the days topics. Missing more than one weeks worth of class may result in a lower grade. Missing six or more class sessions may result in an automatic failing grade.

Grading and Evaluation

Units and Grade Distribution
Unit 1: Unit 2: Unit 3: Unit 4: Critical Personal Narrative of Place Critical Summary/Response Documented Essay Argumentative Essay 20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 10%

Shorter Assignments Participation

Grade Descriptions for Writing Assignments

A B C D F A AB+ Exemplary work; the qualities of a B paper, plus imagination and effective expression. Mature work; thorough analysis of the writing problem, appropriate and effective substance, good organization, and solid expression (style). Few problems in correctness. Competent, developing work; satisfactory analysis of the problem, organization, and expression, but nothing remarkably good or bad. Acceptable sentence structure; other problems in mechanics or usage may occur. Beginning-level work; presence of a defect in context, substance, organization, style, or delivery; inadequate treatment of the assignment. Possible sentence structure and other correctness errors. Basic-level work; lack of context, inadequate coverage of essential points, poor organization, 94-100% 90-93% 87-89% B BC+ 83-86% 80-82% 77-79% C CD+ 73-76% 70-72% 67-69% D DF 63-66% 60-62% 59% and below

What Do You Believe, Mr. Bartolotta?

I believe that the classroom is a sort of sacred space where we come together to ponder and discuss our world and our place in it. I believe that one of the most important parts of our understanding of our world and our place in it is by understanding how and why we communicate. Through this inquiry, we can come to realize our own strengths and weakness, and how messages, no matter how small, are transmitted to us. I find this type of inquiry extremely fun, but I also take it very seriously. These two sentiments may seem to conflict, but I believe that this inquiry, even at its most confusing or discouraging points, is still a celebration of the faculties of the human mind, and ultimately helps people appreciate themselves and others in a new dimension. By taking this class with me, you are agreeing to engage yourself and your world fully and critically. This class is a mature class for a mature audience and language may represent that. Academic work should not be divorced from the rest of our lives, and in this class, we will be examining materials from advertisements, film and other media that some may include language or themes some find offensive. The important idea to keep in mind when examining these materials is to be constantly thinking about how the material works rhetorically, and how the vocabulary or presentation of the material moves the audience to react to it. I believe in a democratic classroom where discussion is encouraged and everyone feels comfortable participating. Racism, misogyny, misandry, homophobia and other ideologies that are fueled by gross generalizations do not contribute harmoniously to my idea of a truly democratic classroom and will not be tolerated. I believe that labels we are assigned seldom touch the essence of our being, and that each individual, no matter what he or she has been labeled, is more complex than a single word can represent. Therefore, in our classroom, we will respect each others individual uniqueness and complexity by abstaining from generalizations.

Disability Accommodation

Any student with a documented disability condition (e.g., physical, learning, psychiatric, systemic, vision, hearing, etc.) who needs to arrange reasonable accommodations should contact the instructor and Disability Services (626-1333) at the beginning of the semester.

Academic Dishonesty

The University Student Conduct Code defines scholastic dishonesty as follows: Scholastic Dishonesty means plagiarizing; cheating on assignments or examinations; engaging in unauthorized collaboration on academic work; taking, acquiring, or using test materials without faculty permission; submitting false or incomplete records of academic achievement; acting alone or in cooperation with another to falsify records or to obtain dishonestly grades, honors, awards, or professional endorsement; altering, forging, or misusing a University academic record; or fabricating or falsifying data, research procedures, or data analysis. (http://advisingtools.class.umn.edu/cgep/studentconduct.html) Plagiarism, can result in a grade of F for the assignment, and may result in a grade of F for the course. Plagiarism can include submitting a paper: -written by means of inappropriate collaboration; -purchased, downloaded, or cut and pasted from the Internet; -or that fails to properly acknowledge its sources through standard citations. 3

Understanding what constitutes plagiarism and academic dishonesty will help prevent you from committing these acts inadvertently and will strengthen your communication. Plagiarism is a serious legal and ethical breach, and it is treated as such by the university. If you have any questions about documentation, see me before you turn in an assignment.

Computer Ethics
All workshop and revised drafts of major assignments must be done on a word-processor. Because wordprocessors are powerful writing tools that can save time and greatly aid the processes of revising and editing, preliminary drafts are best done on a word-processor as well. Students can use the University's public computer labs, including the ones in Wilson, Walter, and McGrath Libraries. No fee is charged, except to use lab printers. Students may also use one of the 16 Macs in the Center for Writing in 15 Nicholson. University Technology Training Center http://uttc.umn.edu/training/ schedules regular training sessions. Students who think that computer access will present a serious difficulty should talk to me immediately. Save everything. I cannot stress this point enough: purchase a small thumb drive if you need toyou will not need to use more than a gigabyte for this classand backup your material there.

Student Writing Support

While I am always available for conferences about your writing, I know many students sometimes like to work with peers first. Students can get one-to-one-consultations on any course paper or writing project at Student Writing Support. Student Writing Support has several campus locations, including the main location in 15 Nicholson Hall. See http://writing.umn.edu/sws/ for details about locations, appointments, and online consultations.

WRIT 1301 Tentative Schedule

CYD: Commodify Your Dissent GLfaD: Gang Leader for a Day NOTE: The syllabus is subject to change and does not list all shorter assignments.

Date
W 9/9 F 9/11 M 9/14 W 9/16 F 9/18 M 9/18 W 9/23 F 9/25 M 9/28 W 9/30 F 10/2 M 10/5 W 10/7 F 10/9 M 10/12 W 10/14 F 10/16 M 10/19 W 11/21 F 10/23 M 10/26 W 10/28 F 10/30 M 11/2 W 11/4 F 11/6 M 11/9 W 11/11 F 11/13 M 11/16 W 11/18

Come Prepared With:

Vonnegut (Handout/Moodle) CYD 209-215 GLfaD 1-26 "Two Ways of Seeing a River," "American Heartworm" (Moodle) GLfaD 27-65 CYD 216-233 Mischke Marshalling into Lake Street and This American Life 24 Hours at the Golden Apple Peer Response Turn in Assignment 1 (Online) CYD 81-98 GLfaD 67-111 Milgram Readings (Moodle) CYD 112-126 GLfaD 113-143 Conferneces CYD 164-176 Peer Response Turn in Assignment 2 CYD 127-142 GLfaD 145-183 CYD 46-56, 62-71 CYD 145-161 CYD 31-45 Conferences TBA GLfaD 185-212 CYD 234-246 TBA Peer Response Turn in Assignment 3

The rest of the schedule will be provided at the beginning of November