Teaching Materials: Syllabus: English 114

English 114 – First Year Composition

Syllabus

Instructor: Troy Croom Office Phone: TBD
Date and Time: To be announced. Office Hours: TBD
Email: tcroom@mail.sfsu.edu


Course Overview
Welcome to English 114!
This course is different from many typical writing courses. Where some writing class place the teacher at the center of the course, ours makes every endeavor to place you at the center, encouraging you to make meaning from the readings and to form meaning in your writings in your own way, developing your own voice as a writer. 
 
While the goal is to give you every opportunity to develop yourself as a writer in the academic community, thematically, the course is designed to generate discussion by examining the changing shape of the American family. The purpose of this thematic approach is two-fold: to connect you with writing through relevant conversations about yourself, specifically how family affects you, and how you connect to family. Also, this thematic approach provides access to critical thinking, asking you to look beneath the surface of things, possibly discovering, even questioning, values you weren't aware you had. Critical thinking leads to clear thinking, and clear thinking to clear writing.

Though, in some ways, this course adapts concepts from sociology, the goal in this course is to help you develop as a reader, writer and thinker.  For instance, you will be reading essays on the importance of audience and purpose while reading and discussing essays on the family as well. You'll be blogging each week on relevant subjects to give you a chance to speak your mind, and develop your confidence in your own writing, since we tend to speak most confidently about subjects that are most important to us. As your confidence grows, whole-class and small-group discussions will further help you develop the ideas you will defend in your writings. 
 
Crucial to improving your writing is learning to give and accept criticism in peer review. Each paper will go through two drafts – peer review draft and final draft. (Later, you will have the option of revising one paper yet again, potentially to better your grade.) To further encourage revision, I will occasionally select a student paper (anonymously) for class discussion and evaluation.

Writing Assignments

Unit 1: Media Analysis: How Popular Media Affect Our Views of the Family.

Your first writing assignment, a media analysis, requires a synthesis and interpretation of 2-3 pieces of media (film, TV, or popular song) which you will choose. You'll select a single family theme (roles of family members, family life, marriage, divorce) and select one film, one TV program and one song from the list of selections. In your writing, you will discuss how these three pieces of media portray this central theme, and what sort of emotional or cognitive impression you feel they convey. You'll need to discuss how the media pieces represent family, how they resonate with you and with the values learned from your family. Ultimately, you'll need to defend your position with information in the pieces you chose. To what extent have such media images shaped your personal image of the family? Finally, consider how the media have impacted what you call “family values.”

Unit 2: Cultural Analysis: How Society Affects the Family
In your second assignment, a cultural analysis, you will write an argumentative essay from interviews of one person from your grandparents' generation, one person from your parents, and one from your own. After examining the data, you will write about 2-3 themes common to the three interviews. The focus will be on taking a stand and supporting it with evidence you collected personally. How has the family changed over the last fifty years? What factors have influenced these changes? Would you say the family is more or less stable as a result of the changes? More or less happy? 
 
Unit 3: Argumentative Essay: How the Family Affects the Individual
Your third writing assignment, an argumentative essay, is the most rigorous. Where the first two units require analysis and support, in Unit 3 your argument is central to the writing, and you will be expected to anticipate and refute potential counter-arguments. You will choose a theme that you feel potentially threatens family or family values (for example, divorce or “coming out.”) Next, you will argue that a family member pursuing this issue poses a threat to the family or that, in this situation, the family poses a greater threat to the individual. Why is family important? How do we balance family membership and individuality? What are the repercussions when a family member rejects family values? When family rejects the “black sheep”?

Unit 4: Final Portfolio: Family Analysis +Revisions +Reflection Paper
This portfolio includes a Family Analysis, a Revision and a Reflection Paper. Here you'll examine and discuss family's importance to you. Consider: Why is family important? What price do we pay for family membership? What do we gain? How do family values shape our personal values? Also, you will have a chance to re-work one essay for a possible improved grade. Finally, you'll write a Reflection Paper discussing what you've learned, and to what extent the writing assignments complement each other. 
 
Grading Breakdown

• Unit 1: Media Analysis: How Popular Media Affect Our Views of the Family 15%
  
• Unit 2: Cultural Analysis: How Society Affects the Family 15%
  
• Unit 3: Argumentative Essay: How the Family Affects the Individual 20%
  
• Unit 4: Final Portfolio: Family Analysis +Revision +Reflection Paper 30%
  
• Blog 10%
  
• Participation 10%
  

For your blogs, I'll be looking at how you engage with the subject as well as your responses to classmates' blogs. Participation includes attendance, whole-class and small-group discussions and peer review.

Course Goals

• To organize your thoughts and reflect this organization with clear writing
  
• To read and think critically, and reflect this rigorous thinking with problematized writing
  
• To write with an understanding of audience and purpose
  
• To support your thinking with evidence, both in discussion and in writing
  
• To develop your own rhetorical style and voice
  
• To reflect on the your own writing and the writing of your classmates
  

Student Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Exercise critical thinking in both reading and writing.
  
• Understand that writing is a revisionary process developed through multiple drafts.
  
• Understand that writing has many styles, each with different conventions and audiences.
  
• Explore and engage with a variety of rhetorical approaches in reading and writing.
  
• Demonstrate control over rhetorical and grammatical features.
  
• Evaluate sources and arguments from multiple perspectives.
  
• Argue a point from particular perspectives with supporting evidence.
  
• Read with engagement and flexibility for various texts and genres.
  
• Provide mindful, constructive criticism and feedback.
  
• Accept and act on constructive feedback offered by peers.
  
• Reflect on your reading and writing process, gaining insight into your strengths and areas for improvement in reading and writing.
  
• Incorporate evidence from multiple sources while providing thoughtful analysis.
  
• Critically review yourself and the world, explore the nature of identities and cultures.
  
• Understand that strategic reading and effective writing is not only at the heart of academic work, but is a skill that you can depend on throughout your professional career.
  

Pre-requisites

The California State University Placement Test (EPT) is required for entry into English 114.

Course Texts

• Wardle, Writing About Writing
  
• Articles, essays and assorted media posted on Ilearn.
  

Tutoring Services
The English Tutoring Center (ETC) is located in HUM 290. I strongly encourage you to visit the center if you writing asssistance. The ETC offers drop-in tutoring as well as dedicated weekly tutoring sessions for charge. You can visit the Learning Assistance Center (LAC) and the Campus Academic Resource Center (CARP) for additional tutoring.

Plagiarism
“Plagiarism is a form of cheating and fraud; it occurs when a student misrepresents the work of another as his or her own. Plagiarism may consist of using ideas, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole text of another without appropriate acknowledgement, but it also includes employing or allowing another person to write or substantially alter work that a student then submits as his or her own.” – SFSU College of Arts and Humanities

Expectations
You'll be expected to take responsibility for your own education in a way that might be new to you. You'll be asked to read carefully and to respond to readings on your Ilearn blog. You'll be writing a diverse selection of essays (two drafts each) and you'll be increasingly expected to take a stance and argue claims by providing evidence. 
 
You'll be expected to arrive in class on time with the readings and writings complete because these will be the focus of whole class and small group discussions. Your participation in discussions will be vital to your success in the course, since you get out of it what you put into it. You should expect to be challenged to expand yourself as a reader, writer and thinker. As reading is crucial to developing as a writer, you'll be cultivating collaborative skills in peer review, learning to give and receive feedback from colleagues. 
 
Attendance Policy
Attenance is required. If you must be absent, please contact me prior to class about whether your absence will excused. Unexplained absences will be considered unexcused, and more than three unexcused absences per semester will result in failing the course.

Disability Access
“Students with disabilities who need accommodation are encouraged to contact the instructor. The Disability Programs and Resource Center (DPRC) is available to facilitate reasonable accommodations. The DPRC is located in the Student Service Building and can be reached by telephone (voice/TTY 415-338-2472) or by email (dprc@sfsu.edu).” – SFSU Disability Programs and Resource Center.


Course Outline

Week	Class Activity	Assignments
1	Unit 1: Media Analysis: How Popular Media Affect Our Views of the Family. Analyses of family in TV, film clips and popular songs. Introduce the media analysis paper.	Read professional critiques of film, TV programs, popular songs with family themes. Read socio-cultural analyses of the family in literature. Blog: How have media portrayals of family changed over time? Why?
2	The importance of the rhetorical triangle, audience, purpose. Introduce peer review. Taking a stance with writing.	Peer review draft of media analysis due. Rhetorical studies: I Say, They Say.
3	Analysis of anonymous student papers. Discuss how the medium affects the message (e.g., how portrayals in song differ from film).	Final draft of media analysis due. Read McLuhans' “The Medium is the Message”
4	Unit 2: Cultural Analysis: How Society Affects theFamily Course introduction. Active reading exercises. Discuss Friere, student-centered study and student agency. Introduce cultural analysis paper. Student-centered study.	Read “Parenting as an Industry.” Read “Shitty First Drafts” and “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” Students write questionnaire and prepare for interviews (one person from grandparents' generation, one from parents', and one from their own).
5	Focus on logos, ethos and pathos in the media. Peer review of second draft.	Peer review draft of cultural analysis due. Read “The Impact of Divorce on Children.”
6	Analysis of anonymous student papers. Tips on structure and transitions.	Final draft of cultural analysis due.
7	Unit 3: Argumentative Essay: How the Family Affects the Individual Introduce the argumentative essay. Claim, evidence, warrants, counter-arguments.	Read “Family Values,” “The Awakening,” and “Inventing the University.”
8	Introduce debate: point-counterpoint. In teams, students role-play arguments from readings, “husbands” vs. “wives.” Peer review.	Peer review draft of argumentative essay due. Read essays on academic discourse by Gee and Johns.
9 & 10	Analysis of anonymous student papers. Grammar mini-lessons.	Final draft of argumentative essay due. Read essays by Kantz and Porter on Textual Sources.
11	Unit 4: Portfolio: Family Analysis + Revision + Reflection Paper Introduce Family Analysis and Reflection Paper.; discuss Revisions.Grammar mini-lessons.	Reading on revision; “Writing Across the Drafts.” Revisions of previous works in progress.
12 & 13	Peer reviews of revisions. Teacher-student conferences. Analysis of anonymous student papers.	Read essays on the usefulness of proofreading and polishing. Revisions of previous works in progress.
14 & 15	Peer reviews of revisions. Teacher-student conferences.	Final Portfolio due. Blog: The Highs and the Lows: Which assignments worked Best, which the least? Why?