English 092/093 –
Developmental English/Developmental English for Non-native Speakers
Fall Quarter 2013
Instructor: Kathleen White
(425) 564-2123
kwhite@bellevuecollege.edu
Office Hours: by appointment leave message on campus phone or via e-mail
This course is the training zone to get you into fighting
form for college writing. Students will write complete essays, both personal
and academic, composing them through drafts and tweaking them in editing
sessions. 092/093 will also address the basic grammar errors that cause
students injury: sentence structure errors, agreement problems, punctuation
mysteries. The goal is to write confident, grammatically correct work, and to
achieve an overall grade of C- or higher, to qualify the student for 101
placement.
This section of Developmental writing mixes both English 092 and
English 093, two different forms of the same class. There may be
slightly different supplementary grammar assignments and readings, so make sure
to note on the syllabus where your section asks for something different:
otherwise, the assignments posted below are required for both sections of the
course.
English 092/093 is taught completely on line; students are not
required to attend classroom sessions. However, this is not a correspondence
course, completed on your own timetable in isolation. Also, if you sign up for
this course thinking that it will have less work than a course in the
classroom, you will be unhappily surprised. On-line courses require the
student to be responsible for reading the syllabus, tracking the posted
deadlines, and proactively asking questions of the instructor through the appropriate
communication methods, for instance the website e-mail.
Finally, this is an English class, not a computer class. If
you are not comfortable on a computer, if you are not familiar with uploading
and downloading files, if the terms .doc or .rtf are unknown to you, seriously
ask yourself if an on-line class is a good choice for your education. The
website does present a brief overview of how to get around it, but beyond that,
students need to be willing to troubleshoot for themselves, or contact Distance
Education or the instructor as soon as concerns appear.
It's also worth remembering that in on-line classes the
instruction comes through written text, not verbal instruction. It is very rare
even to have occasional phone conferences or the odd, desperate office meeting.
Students should be prepared to read from the computer screen, or print
out lectures for home reading.
TEXTBOOKS
There is one textbook for this class: Real Writing with
Readings, (6th Ed) by Susan Anker. This book contains the materials
for studying essay form, readings to give us a sense of what works and what
doesn't in writing, and even grammar materials. If you feel you're going to
need added grammar work, start with the support links under the Course
Information icon on the home page of this course; there are several very
good on-line grammar sources and references, though you may have found others
on your own. If so, share them with the class!
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Throughout the quarter, English 092/093 will generate 4 essays,
2-4 pages long, uniformly double-spaced. These will be run through different
levels of development, and some drafts will be edited in group sessions.
Participation in the editing will factor in with the essays as part of the
quarter grade. Students will also write four shorter written assignments,
applying different methods of development and practicing issues covered in the
weekly readings.
Participation in threaded group discussion is also required. Topics
will be posted every week, and each student must make a minimum of one,
three-to-four line comment responding directly to each question in the topic,
and at least one further reply to another student's post. (More comments are
warmly encouraged.) The discussion topics are listed on the syllabus
and will be linked to the weekly modules.
Be sure to check this syllabus at the start of every week:
do not rely solely on the Canvas Calendar, as it only shows
due dates for graded writing assignments, and you will miss readings in the
text, and possibly other important requirements.
The largest part of a student's grade (80%) will come from
writing; however, the group editing and threaded discussion factor in 15%. That
leaves a 5% instructor slush fund reserved for crediting student progress.
Work turned in late will lose credit points every day it's past
the due date, roughly to one-third of the grade. No papers will be accepted one
week beyond the due date without prior agreement.
A FINAL WORD ABOUT HONESTY AND THE ON-LINE FORMAT:
This being an on-line course, we will never actually see each
other as a whole, trapped in a class room together on a cold winter evening or
fighting to stay awake on a sleepy, overheated afternoon. Be advised, though,
that teachers actually can pick up a student's individual style fairly quickly,
and therefore, can detect when essays come from sources other than the
student's own hand. We also now have software which runs checks on suspected
plagiarized essays, and I will run such a check at the slightest
provocation. If any work done for this course is plagiarized, the
student will receive a zero for the assignment with no chance of rewriting it,
and the episode will be reported to the Dean of Students. More than one such
episode, and the student will receive an F for the course. Do not be
tempted by on-line essays floating out there in the ether; to tell you the
truth, most of them aren't really all that good anyway.
SCHEDULE: (Note: All assignments due to
me via Canvas submission tool by midnight of the due date)
Week One: September 23rd-28th
Read Getting Started on the home page
Under Course Content, read Lecture One: How Did We Get
Here?
In Real Writing read pages 27-35
Begin Diagnostic Writing Assignment (description
posted under Assignments on the tool bar, or in the weekly module)
Post Comments and Follow Instructions on Beginning
Discussion Thread
Week Two: September 29th-October 5th
Discussion Thread
Lecture Two: Process Writing and the Writing Process
Real Writing: pages 6-12 Chapters 8, 9; 19-21
093 Read Also Chapter 30
"Fish Cheeks" 126 Amy Tan
"Weirdest Job Interview Questions" 144
Susan Adams
"Memories of New York City Snow" 164 Oscar Hijuelos
Diagnostic Essay Due Monday, September 30th
Week Three: October 6th-12th
Discussion Thread
Lecture Three: What do Teachers Want?
Real Writing
Chapters 3-5, 22, 23
Essays: "to Stand in Giants' Shadows" 629
"Why Are We So Angry?" 634
"Po-Po in Chinatown" 642
Short Writing Assignment One due 10/7
Week Four: October 13th-19th
Discussion Thread
Lecture Four: Examining Mechanical Issues
Real Writing Chapters 6, 7, 24, 26
Essays: "Passage to Manhood" 671
"What is Intelligence, Anyway?" attached to
weekly module
Essay One Due 10/14
Week Five: October 20th-26th
Discussion Thread
Lecture Five: A Brief Review
Real Writing: Chapters 11, 13; 27, 28
Essay: "The Ways We Lie" 661
"This I Believe" (attached to weekly module)
Short Writing Asst Two Due 10/21
Week Six: October 27th-November 2nd
Discussion Thread
Lecture Six: Punctuation
Real Writing: Chapters 12, 14; 34, 37
Essay: pg 657 "Pick up the Phone to
Call..."
682
"Don't Misread My Signals"
Essay Two Due 10/28
Week Seven: November 3rd-9th
Discussion Thread
Lecture Seven: Loose Ends
Real Writing Chapters 15,26, 36
Essays:
"Yes, Money Can Buy Happiness" 692
Movie Review attached to Weekly Module
Short Writing Asst Three 9/4
Week Eight: November 10th-16th
Discussion Thread
Lecture Eight: Tightening the Screws
Real Writing:
Essay: "Thinking as a Hobby" by William
Golding attached to weekly module
Essay Three Due 10/11
Week Nine: November 17th-23rd
Discussion Thread
Lecture Nine: Further Fine Tuning
Real Writing Chapter 16
Readings:
"Which are Smarter?" by Martha Brockenbrough attached
to weekly module
"Honest Look Reveals There Are No 'Others'" By
Donna Britt (attached to module)
Short Writing Assignment Four Due 11/18
Week Ten: November 24th-30th (Thanksgiving break
28th, 29th)
Discussion Thread
Lecture Ten: Can We Go Now?
Reading: (attached to weekly module)
Essay Four Due 11/27th
Week Eleven: December 1-7
Closing Thread discussions
BC Finals December 9,10
There is no final for English 092-093
Grades
will be available on the BCC Website no later than 12/16