WRT 109-260 Syllabus, Fall 2004

Rebecca Moore Howard
Office: 237 HB Crouse
Office hours: Mondays 1-3 p.m.; Thursdays 2:30-4 p.m.; and by appointment
Telephone: 443-1620
E-mail: rehoward@syr.edu
Home page http://wrt-howard.syr.edu

Syllabus
Writing 109, Section 260
Studio I:
Practices of Academic Writing


  • Assignment schedules
  • Attendance policy
  • Class blog
  • Course description
  • Extra help
  • Grading
  • Late papers
  • Plagiarism
  • Public writing
  • Required texts
    		•
    Fall 2004
    Time: TTh 1-2:20
    Place: 213B HB Crouse
    Course website: http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Syllabi/109F04/Syl109F04.html



    Course description

    WRT 109 is an introduction to academic writing that focuses on the practices of analysis and argument, practices that carry across disciplinary lines and into professional and civic writing. These interdependent practices of critical inquiry are fundamental to the work you will do at Syracuse University and later in your careers and civic engagements.

    In this section of WRT 109, you will learn and practice these techniques of writing and critical inquiry. The major focus of inquiry in this course will be representations of student authorship: we will look at the ways in which universities and the media represent students as writers, authors, error-makers, plagiarists, and learners. You'll be reading plagiarism policies, media stories, scholarly reports, and government and NPO documents about student writers. You'll also be interviewing SU students, faculty, and administrators. Working individually and as a group, class members will form their own arguments about student authorship. Toward the end of the semester, we'll work together to build a website that offers individual and collaborative arguments from this class.
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    Required texts

    1. Glenn, Cheryl, et al. The Writer's Harbrace Handbook Brief. 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2005. This book is available at the SU and Follett's bookstores.
    2. Howard, Rebecca Moore. Writing Matters: A Handbook for Writers. New York: McGraw-Hill, forthcoming. I'll make chapters available from this book as PDF files. There will be no charge for the chapters, but it will be your responsibility to print them out.
    3. Jamieson, Sandra, and Rebecca Moore Howard. Argument in a Culture of Information. I'll make chapters available from this book as PDF files. There will be no charge for the chapters, but it will be your responsibility to print them out.
    4. Additional assigned readings, some available on the Web and others in PDF. There will be no charge for these readings, but it will be your responsibility to print them out.
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    Grading

    Grading in this course will be on the basis of my judgment of the quality of your assigned writing. You'll have three major papers; smaller writing assignments that build up to these major papers; and a collaborative web project. Each of the four major writing assignments will constitute approximately 25% of your course grade; together we'll work out the exact percentages as we go along.
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    Attendance policy

    Our class convenes 28 times, including individual and small-group conferences. You should plan to attend all class meetings and conferences. You will not succeed in this class if you do not attend faithfully, and I will reduce your final course grade by as much as a full letter grade if you are not regularly in attendance, on time and prepared.
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    Important notes

    Public writing: All the writing you do for this course will be public within the classroom. I will often make copies of class members' writing and distribute them for analysis. This analysis will never be critical in the sense of "tearing up the paper"; instead, we will approach class members' work in a spirit of inquiry, asking what options for revising the author has at his or her disposal. If you hand in work that you specifically do not want me to make public, please write a note at the top of the page to that effect--something like "private" or "confidential" will do.

    Plagiarism: Work you submit for this course must have been written by you for this course. You may not submit work in this course and in another, and you may not submit under your name work written entirely or in part by someone else. These are ethical issues whose violation could result in disciplinary action against you.

    Late papers: Your successful completion of this course depends upon your submitting assigned work on schedule. Late papers are a problem for your learning process and for my time management. I will accept late papers, but I may not return them until the end of the semester, and when I do return them, it will be with a grade but no comments. Still, if you find yourself in a situation in which a paper is due but you haven't finished it, come to class anyhow; don't penalize yourself.
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    Getting extra help

    My office hours are listed at the top of this syllabus, and you should feel free to drop in during these hours to ask questions and get advice on work in progress. I will also be happy to consult with you on writing you are assigned in other courses. Let me know if you'd like an appointment outside office hours. And feel free to ask questions over email; I'm online a lot and will usually be able to respond fairly quickly.

    Also avail yourself freely of the resources provided by the Writing Center (101 HB Crouse Hall), which is open from 9-9 Monday through Thursday, and 9-5 Friday. The Writing Center offers an online description of the range of its services. To make an appointment, log on at the Writing Center website.

    Whenever Bird Library is open, its reference librarians are on duty to help you choose, narrow, and develop a topic and to help you locate and evaluate sources. Online assistance is also available, and the library's homepage provides a list of "research tools" that may be useful for your work in a variety of courses.
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    Assignment schedules

    Unit 1, August 30-September 23, "Student Writing: Local and Media Representations"
    Unit 2, September 23-October 12, "Scholarly Representations of Student Writing"
    Unit 3, October 14-November 11, "Presidential Politics in Blogs and the Mainstream Media"
    Unit 4, November 16-December 9, "Going Public on Student Writing"

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    Back to Rebecca Moore Howard's homepage

    http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Syllabi/109F04/Syl109F04.html