ENC 1102 Syllabus
Course Section
Instructor
Department of English
Office Location
Phone Number
Office Hours
E-mail Address
Internet Messaging ID: (not required)
Web Site Address: (not required)
ENC 1102 offers instruction and practice in the skills of writing and reading. More specifically, ENC 1102 emphasizes argument, research, and style. This course also introduces students to the foundations of knowledge and learning, following USF's General Education Plan. This is a Gordon Rule course, so all students must write at least 6000 words over the course of the semester.
Through its emphasis on thinking rhetorically, providing evidence for assertions, creative thinking, and writing as a process, this course will prepare you for argument and research-based writing in all academic settings. Students will compose multiple drafts with careful revision and editing. Students will complete numerous style exercises to sharpen their editorial skills. Students, as writers, will be encouraged to develop their own unique voices and personas.
This course is not a correspondence course; it is not the traditional 1101 course put online: This course is every bit as rigorous but unique in its structure, form, and content. The ultimate goal is certainly to improve your writing but this goal is held in the broader context of the information revolution that is transforming academe, business, and society. While you may already understand computers in instrumental terms, by meeting and composing online you will be encouraged to situate technology in broader terms. In other words, the writing projects in this course go beyond the traditional "student or professor as audience" and challenge authors to write for a much broader readership: particularly readers of various online, Internet communities. Ultimately, this course will prepare you to analyze and participate in the creation of new online writing genres--to read, interpret and write in the multiple literacies life requires today in both academic and workplace environments.
This course will meet exclusively online and requires users to negotiate various writing interfaces: email, Microsoft SharePoint Team Services, Blackboard, blogs, and an online textbook. To help you determine whether this course is right for you, we encourage you to review the following resources:
Requirements
ACCESS REQUIREMENTS AND RESPONSIBLITIES
Meeting or surpassing these standards will result in full credit for various aspects of the course. It is essential that you understand that:
- By choosing to enroll in an online course, you certify that you have access to a computer and possess the basic computer skills necessary to do the work of the class.
- Additionally, you make a formal commitment to be online consistently throughout the semester. Specifically, you should login to Blackboard at least once every three days and plan to make a significant contribution to ongoing discussions each time you do login.
In addition, you must:
- Possess decent keyboarding skills. This means you must know basic typing and data entry on the computer. You should be able to type at least 40 wpm.
- Possess a USF Net ID. This can be obtained by visiting the Academic Computing Net ID Sign Up Page. If you are unable to acquire a USF Net ID, you must contact your instructor immediately.
- Meet all assignment due dates. Our deadlines are firm. Your writing projects will be lowered one letter grade for each day they are late.
- Respond within 48 hours to instructor emails.
- Sign and submit an Academic Honesty Statement.
TEXTS
ONLINE TOOL REQUIREMENTS
- Email - Attach and send documents in Word or RTF (Rich Text File)
- Share Point - Document exchange, Portfolios
- Blackboard - Email, Grading, Discussion Boards
- Blogs > Writing Blog - Developing ideas, commmenting on other students' writing
- Wikis > Writing Wiki - Collaborative writing
- Internet Access - Access course text, access course assignments
This course requires you to publish your work online. Before publishing a work, always take a moment to reflect on its quality, ensuring the word represents your best effort. You should also keep in mind to review the suggestions at Publishing Online Writing
Projects
MAJOR PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
Schedule
Review the schedule of assignments here
Grading
Your project grades will be posted on the course Blackboard site. You and your instructors will be the only ones who see your grades.
Homework exercises will be assigned using the following four point system: 0 (for not being completed), check minus, check, and check plus, which basically equates to an F, C, B, or A.
See Blackboard_Grading for the mathematical breakdown on a 100 point scale.
Letter grades, including plus and minus grades, will be given on major writing projects. To determine final grades, the individual grades will be converted to points according to the Grade Point Average grading system as follows:
| A+ 4.00 |
B+ 3.33 |
C+ 2.33 |
D+ 1.33 |
| A 4.00 |
B 3.00 |
C 2.00 |
D 1.00 |
| A 3.67 |
B- 2.67 |
C- 1.67 |
D- 0.67 |
For final grades, averages within the range between these points will go to the higher grade (e.g., 3.68-4.0 = “A”; 3.01-3.33 = “B+”; etc.).
A final grade of C- satisfies specified minimum requirements for grades of C (e.g., Gordon Rule and Composition I requirements). Student exemptions for the writing portion of CLAST require a 2.5 combined GPA in Composition I & II.
The grade of “I” (Incomplete) will be given for only very compelling reasons. (USF Undergraduate Catalog, 2002-2003, pages 43 – 45: An “I” “may be awarded to an undergraduate student only when a small portion of the student’s work is incomplete and only when the student is otherwise earning a passing grade.”) Assigning a student the grade of “I” for Composition I or II must be approved by the instructor and the Director of Composition.
All assignments must be completed on time. Your instructor will not accept late in-class assignments or late out-of-class homework assignments. Your instructor will accept late Projects (for a list of Major Writing Projects see above); however, late projects will be penalized. For each school day that the report is late, its final grade will be dropped one level.
Instructors
The course will be co-taught by three instructors: Daisy Pignetti, Matt Barton and Patricia Remmell.
As is consistent with current online educational practice, the instructors will serve primarily as guides for you as you complete the various writing assignments and participate in the various discussions that this course requires. That is, the instructors will be grading your work and making certain all educational objectives are obtained, but at the same time, the instructors will be working alongside you and participating in all aspects of the course.
To communicate with your instructor, post a message to the discussion forum in Blackboard as this is the primary space you will meet as a class. Please understand that instructors are not available 24/7. Online office hours may be made by appointment; otherwise, you can expect to receive a response within 48 hours of your post.
Plagiarism and_Intellectual Property
Cheating, Plagiarism, and Disruption of Academic Process Policies
At the beginning of the semester, you must review Responsible Resource Use, which you can access at http://www.2learn.ca/mapset/SafetyNet/plagiarism/current.html
After reading Responsible Resource Use, you will be asked to print and sign an Accountability form which your instructor will keep on file.
Your work will be checked for plagiarism using the Internet, the gated web, and Turnitin.Com. The University of South Florida has an account with an automated plagiarism detection service which allows instructors to submit student assignments to be checked for plagiarism. Your instructor reserves the right to submit assignments to this detection system. Assignments are compared automatically with a huge database of journal articles, web articles, and previously submitted papers. The instructor receives a report showing exactly how a student’s paper was plagiarized. For more information, go to http://www.turnitin.com/.
Instructors of ENC 1101 and ENC 1102 will follow USF policies regarding plagiarism, cheating, or disruption of academic process outolined in the USF Student Handbook at http://www.ugs.usf.edu/catalogs/0304/adadap.htm
Evaluation
Because this course is online, it will be evaluated differently than you may expect. Rather than just completing an end-of-semester evaluation, you are invited to share an ongoing dialogue with your instructors about how the course is going. Your teacher(s) will conduct ongoing surveys to gather input on what is working well, what isn't working as well and might be adapted, etc. Your participation in this dialogue will help ensure you have the best possible learning experience, which is our goal.
If you have any issues that cannot be resolved via direct conversation with your instructors, then please contact Interim Director of Composition Dr. Joseph Moxley at moxley at taa dot usf dot edu.
Below is a summary of expected outcomes for 1101 Online. Note that the conceptual landscape of a computer multiliteracies program includes functional, critical and rhetorical literacies.
By writing, researching, and engaging in a workshop environment where you will work collaboratively, you will learn analyzing, evaluating skills as well as text interpretation skills. You will be expected to improve your critical reading, creative thinking, and reasoning skills. These outcomes are adapted/quoted in part from the WPA Outcomes Statement. In addition, as users, questioners, and producers of technology, you will be expected to employ, inform and reflect upon your use of computers to read, write, and learn.
Rhetorical Knowledge
- The understanding of rhetorical principles that shape the design and development of all writing. How do we use language (including images), for example, to influence a particular audience for a particular purpose?
- Conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation. Is this project going to be visual? An e-document (Power Point, Blog, Wiki, Web page), or a traditional research paper using MLA, APA, Turabian or Chicago Style?
Writing in Several Genres
- Writing and reading as methods of inquiry, learning, thinking, and communication. Learn to ask pertinent questions and where to find the answers. How do other ideas challenge your beliefs? What can you learn from the process of inquiry?
- Evaluating the work of peers. You will share work with others and write page-length commentaries to learn important critiquing and editing skills.
Process Knowledge
- The understanding and application of diverse writing strategies to discover, create, and communicate meaning, including understanding writing, thinking rhetorically, managing, collaborating, inventing, organizing, designing, revising, editing, and publishing.
- Finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources. Students also learn what constitutes a valid Web site as a research tool, where one would find a subject-specific database, and other valuable knowledge.
Knowledge of Conventions
- The use of common formats for different kinds of texts, particularly texts that attempt to create an objective tone/voice/persona such as those seen in traditional research texts. This will prepare you for writing projects in other disciplines.
- Gaining knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics. In this manner, you will gain an understanding of the "personal voice" as opposed to the "public voice" or even the "academic voice." Each genre requires the use of an appropriate voice or tone.
- Documenting your work using a bibliography tool such as Refworks.
- Demonstrating the competent use of syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Knowledge of Information Technologies
- Facilitating writing by the use of software tools, including, for example, annotation tools such as Microsoft Word's track changes and comment functions and other web-driven annotation tools.
- The rhetoric of visual language. Signs, symbols, audio, and video are increasingly becomeing the ways to order information today, when in the past we predominantly conveyed messages through writing. These multimedia are carefully crafted to either supplement or replace written messages. You will learn to analyze how these methods work and create and publish your own such texts online.
- Advanced search methods which locate information via the Gated Web, Open Web, and Hidden Web.
