Instructor: Dr Leverett Smith

Office: Lea 180. Office hours MW 8 -- 9, TTh 9:30 -- 11:30 and by appointment.

Phone and E-mail: Phone 985-5193; email lsmith@ncwc.edu. You may leave messages for me at either of these at any time of the day or night.

Texts: Petracca & Sorapure, Common Culture, 4th edition

Hairston, et.al., The Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers, 7^thedition

A clothbound College Dictionary (recommended)

Objectives: English 111 offers practice in the expository essay. Basically, you will learn more bout how to read critically and write thoughtfully. More specifically, critical readers should be able to:

· Summarize accurately a piece of writing they have read;

· Locate its thesis or theme;

· Analyze and evaluate the strength of the evidence and the soundness of the reasoning offered in support of the thesis or theme;

· Analyze, evaluate, and account for discrepancies among various readings on a topic (for example, explain why certain facts are used or not used, why two sources might differently interpret the same facts).

Thoughtful writers should be able to:

· Imagine an audience, and write effectively for it (by such means as using the appropriate tone and providing the appropriate amount of detail);

· Present information in an orderly and coherent way;

· Incorporate sources into their own writing, not simply by quoting extensively or by paraphrasing, but also by having digested materials so that they can present them in their own words;

· Properly document all borrowings – not merely quotations and paraphrases but also borrowed ideas;

· Do all these things in the course of developing a thoughtful paper of their own.

Requirements: Four 750-word papers on topics to be determined by class discussion. The instructor will read each paper in draft and final form. The following rules apply to each paper submitted.

· It must by typed (this applies to both the first and the final draft).

· It must be kept in a manila folder, which is to be submitted to the instructor with all papers in it, each time a final draft is due. Your instructor will provide this folder.

· It must be submitted on the day due. The highest grade a late paper may receive is a “C.” Students who fall further than one paper behind are advised to drop the course.

· It must meet the assignment. It must be about the assigned topic and use the assigned methods. Papers that do not do this will fail.

The Conference: For each of the four papers, conferences are scheduled. Each student will meet with me for a reading of the first draft of his or her paper. I think you will find this meeting the most useful part of the course. A missed conference cannot be made up unless you make arrangements with me beforehand to meet at another time.

The Writing Lab: Using the Writing Lab will be a requirement in this class. Each of the four 750-word papers will be revised after a conference with the instructor and again after a conference with a tutor in the writing lab. After the instructor has evaluated the final draft, each student will return to the writing lab for more help with a specific weakness in his/her writing. In order to pass the course, each student will visit the writing lab at least seven times, as there will be no time to visit the lab after the final draft of the last paper has been turned in. The Director of the writing lab is Dr. Doug Enders, his phone is 985-5325, and his web address is http://annex.ncwc.edu/writing_lab.

Quizzes: There will be frequent quizzes on the writing assignments. Your performance on these quizzes will comprise at least a third and at most a half of your final grade.

Grading: Your final grade in this class 3will be computed as follows: 50% papers, 50% attendance and performance in class (including quizzes and final examination).

Attendance: Attendance is essential. Class participation will be fundamental to your progress in this course. The following is from the College catalogue: “All students are admitted to Wesleyan with the understanding that they are mature and responsible enough to meet their obligations for all class assignments, including attendance. Punctual attendance is required for every class and laboratory session except in the case of illness, unavoidable circumstances, or college extracurricular activities as approved by the Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Although individual instructors determine their own attendance policies for each of their courses attendance records are maintained and the following procedures will apply:

· After no more than three hours of absences, the instructor will speak to the student and determine the reason for the absences.

· Should additional absences occur, the instructor may withdraw the student from the course for the remainder of the semester by completing an Administrative Withdrawal/Course Drop form.

· The student may appeal to the Vice President for Academic Affairs who will determine whether the student has cause to petition the instructor for readmission to the course.”

Cheating and Plagiarism: The following is from the College catalogue: “Cheating means the giving or receiving of information illicitly with intent to deceive the instructor in his or her effort to grade fairly any academic work. Plagiarism is ‘to take and use as one’s own the thoughts, writings, or inventions of another’ (Oxford English Dictionary). It is plagiarism when one uses direct quotations without proper credit and appropriate quotation marks, and when one uses the ideas of another without proper credit.” Student would do well to read the entire section on Plagiarism and Cheating in the College catalogue.