Rhetoric 105, Sections Q10 and S1, Spring 2004

Required Texts
Rosenwasser and Stephen, Writing Analytically, 3^rd edition

Hacker, Rules for Writers, 5^th edition

Baldwin, Collected Essays

All three texts are available at the three local bookstores.  Feel free to buy used editions of Writing Analytically and Rules for Writers.

You will also need to download, print out, and read a variety of materials presented online through the class web site (http://compass.uiuc.edu).  Please see the separate sheet of instructions about how to use this site.

Course Description
Like every other section of this course, this class will guide you through the principles of academic analysis and research-based writing, and by the semester’s end you will produce about thirty pages of formal, revised prose.  We’ll approach these goals, however, in an unusual way.  Rather than assign a series of scattered readings and topics, this course features concerted inquiry into a particular topic: the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, which is now being commemorated on this campus in a series of events, and its aftermath.  We’ll conduct our inquiry at both the national level, through the essays of James Baldwin, and at the local level, as we investigate how this campus responded, and continues to respond, to the challenges of equal access to education posed by the American Civil Rights Movement.

This course does not presuppose detailed knowledge of American history.  The perspectives of international students are particularly welcome, and likely in many circumstances to be especially valuable.  The course does assume that you’re willing to learn, that you’re willing to take on challenging and  (often) time-consuming tasks, and that you’re willing to share your work with your classmates (not only your work in process, so that you can get feedback and revise knowledgeably, but also your revised work, as part of our shared class inquiry).  Since this course is affiliated with the Ethnography of the University program, it also asks you to share your work with the larger campus community.

Expectations: The Class Contract
I have never seen a class that didn’t have some kind of contract of expectations operating; the only question is whether the contract is formally stated or something to be inferred.  I prefer an open statement.

In broad terms, I’m responsible for providing material, and ways of approaching that material, that stimulate interesting and productive ways of talking, thinking, and writing.  I’m responsible, in my design and conduct of the course, for providing focus and concerted inquiry without squelching initiative and independent thinking and writing.  I’m responsible for leading a classroom where everyone accords respect to others, and where what we say and do doesn’t exclude, or potentially exclude, others.  I look to create a collaborative classroom where we work through ideas and problems together rather than one where students compete with each other for the attention and approval of the instructor.

More specifically, I’m contracting that the course has the learning objectives listed here.  At the end of the semester, I’ll ask you to evaluate the course in terms of whether and how well it taught you, or developed your knowledge of:

• Analytical reading, thinking, and writing;
• Narrative writing, and when it is and isn’t valuable in an academic context;
• The relationship between narrative writing and analytical writing that makes an argument;
• How to write papers that are focused and coherent without sacrificing complexity;
• Research, with an emphasis on fact-finding and skepticism in response to sources;
• The value of revision, how to revise drafts, and how to allocate enough time to the process of writing papers;
• The relationship between individual research and collective inquiry;
• How this university (like any other institution of higher learning) constructs narratives of itself, and how each of us is implicated in these narratives;
• Prose style: recognizing the options available at any moment of prose construction, and consciously choosing among them.

The following sections state what I require of you in return.

Grading

I’ll determine your course grade as follows:

I will distribute each of the paper assignments in class, and post them online, well before their due dates.  Similarly, I will spell out requirements for the Narrative Report and the Group Research Projects in online documents.

Course Policies
You can and should expect me to be prepared for each class session, to have clear goals for the class, and to treat you with respect as a serious student who values education.  I enforce the following policies so that we can meet our goals both individually and collectively.

Attendance
I take attendance each time we meet.  You may miss four classes—the equivalent of two weeks of class—without penalty.  I deduct one-third of a letter from your course grade for each subsequent absence.  I excuse absences for religious holidays and (documented) campus-sponsored activities (band, athletics, etc.).  In the case of absences occasioned by emergencies, I adhere to written recommendations made by emergency deans.  Otherwise, I make no distinctions between excused and unexcused absences.  Each class session presents ideas and information relevant to your writing.

Paper Policies
Writers write to deadlines, and part of the course’s instructional mission lies in teaching you to budget enough time for writing, and to develop an internal discipline that enables you to meet deadlines.  Therefore, please note the following:

• Drafts are due at the beginning of class one week before the revised paper is due; you must upload a digital copy of the draft to your online folder no later than the start of class and you must bring two print copies of your draft with you as well.  Minimum draft page lengths are posted in each writing assignment.  Failure to meet these requirements lowers the revised paper’s grade a full letter.
• Peer readings are essential to the work of this class.  I will assign you to a group for each paper and ask you to respond to the drafts of two classmates, each of whom will respond to your draft.  Failure to meet this requirement lowers your participation grade one full letter grade for each occurrence.
• Failure to submit the revised paper at the beginning of class on the posted due date lowers that paper’s grade by a full letter for each calendar day it’s late.  I require both a print copy and a digital copy uploaded to your online folder.

If you foresee a scheduling conflict that will prevent you from attending class on peer reading dates or due dates for revised papers, please inform me at least one week in advance.  On rare occasions, I will grant paper extensions if asked to do so well in advance of the due date, but I do this only if the student can present compelling reasons and only if the student has established credibility in prior class performance.

Participation and Homework
I lecture very rarely; while I have a good idea of some of the questions to be asked in this course, I am not an expert on the course topic; class learning and discovery take place through open discussion, and our inquiry depends crucially on each person’s participation.  I will ask you to come to each class with at least one question or issue you want us to discuss.  From time to time I may ask you to participate in online discussions.  I will require short written homework assignments throughout the semester: these assignments are to be typed and uploaded to your online student folder by the beginning of the next class.  I do not read late homework; you receive a zero for the assignment if you don’t meet the deadline.  I respond to homework assignments online, as a way of cutting down the traffic in paper.  I give homework assignments a plus grade if they’re exceptional, a check if they’re satisfactory, a minus if they just barely persuade me you’ve read and thought about the assigned material, and a zero if they’re late or fail to persuade me you’ve thought about the assigned material in any meaningful way.

Succeeding in this Class
You’re likely to succeed in this class if you:

·        Allocate enough time to read the assigned materials carefully, and enough time to do your best work as a writer (you should figure that for each hour of class you’ll need to budget three hours of study outside of class);

·        Participate in class discussions, and take notes during discussion (keep track of what your classmates contribute, because their ideas will help you develop your own);

·        Start work on the assigned papers well before their due dates and take on the challenge of revising extensively, rather than hoping to skate by on a few surface changes;

·        Talk to me about any problems, questions, or concerns you have about this class (but please talk with me face-to-face, rather than send me email; if you can’t meet me during my office hours, see me after class to arrange a time that works for both of us);

·        Recognize that this syllabus is indeed a contract, and that I won’t retreat from the requirements stated above, just as you should expect me to meet my responsibilities.

Behaviors that Don’t Succeed

I dislike spelling these out, but I’ve learned that I need to do it.  Please don’t:

·        Bring food or drink into the classroom—since we’ll be meeting in a computer classroom, we need to be careful;

·        Make a habit of coming late: this puts me in a quandary (do I repeat what I said at the beginning of class—the time when I’m most concerned about imparting necessary information and ideas—or do I let you suffer the consequences?) and, even worse, it’s rude to your classmates;

·        Interrupt a classmate who’s talking, or rudely dismiss a classmate’s ideas;

·        Ask me questions related to your personal needs (requests for extensions, explanations for why you missed a quiz, etc.) during or before class; instead, please talk to me about such matters after class, privately, outside the classroom;

·        Plagiarize (the course offers specific coverage of this topic), since the penalties for plagiarism can range from failing a paper to failing the course;

·        Email me after you miss a class to explain why you missed and/or to ask me what you missed (or, even worse, to ask me if you “missed anything”).  If you miss a class, I assume you have good reasons for doing so (I assume you’re a serious student, and value your education).  You should ask a classmate for notes on what was discussed; you should check the syllabus and online calendar for assignments.

Please do talk with me if you’re experiencing legitimate long-term problems (illness, a family crisis) that may necessitate extended absence, or if you require DRES-certified accommodations for learning.

Key Due Dates

For each paper unit, I will post a detailed daily schedule accompanying the writing assignment.  Below is an overview of key due dates that you can post in your calendar:

Last Notes
I will require that you meet with me in conference at least once during the semester.  I encourage you to see me during office hours to discuss anything related to the course; I am more than glad to look at drafts and talk about ideas you want to work out in your writing, though I will never tell you what you should write, and I will never tell you what grade I think a draft might merit.

I highly recommend the Writer’s Workshop, a free service, as a resource for all writers on this campus.  Experienced writing tutors will work with you individually in one-hour sessions on any element of the writing process.  They won’t write for you, or edit for you, but they can show you how to accomplish things for yourself as a writer.

This course relies on the newly-acquired Illinois Compass software.  We may encounter down time or an occasional glitch along the way.  I will not penalize you for the failure of this software.  If you encounter problems using Compass, it is more likely that I can help you (or, more accurately, the people who maintain this software can help you) if you provide an exact description of the problem you encountered.  Please follow instructions from Cites (see separate handout) before deciding the problem lies with the software.  I’m still learning the instructor’s interface with this software, and at the beginning of the semester my online presentations may be crude and unattractive.  Please be patient with me, and with the software, as this course and others work out the kinks that come with any new application.