COURSE DESCRIPTION

Advanced Composition aims to further students’ critical reading, writing, and thinking skills by emphasizing rhetorical strategies at all stages of the writing process. The course, by integrating critical reading and writing, challenges you to “read against the grain” and question your own assumptions and the assumptions of those you read, assumptions you bring to any reading/writing endeavor. The course is built around the notion that reading and writing are socially-constructed activities, and just as social interactions are sometimes easy, sometimes difficult, the essays you will read and write will also require a fair amount of “pushing and shoving with and against texts” (Bartholomae & Petrosky). With each act of writing and reading, you will be engaging in a dialogue with authors in texts as well as other authors in your class. The idea here is that by examining published examples of the writing you will be expected to produce, you will come to a clear understanding of how the different elements of the writing process (audience, self, perspective, argument, logical analysis, etc.) function together in an effective essay. In recognizing these standards, you should better be able to understand how to use effective rhetorical strategies in your own writing deliberately and consciously.

Class sessions will include lecture, discussion , workshops, peer groups, and conferences, all of which emphasize reading and writing as learning tools and means of expression/communication/

argumentation. By the end of the course, you will have compiled a writing portfolio that represents your work in this class.

REQUIRED MATERIALS

-- Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002, 6^th edition.

-- A writing handbook

-- A formatted disk on which you will keep all work. This disk will be turned in with your portfolio on the final day of class.

-- An active email account that you check regularly.

COURSE POLICIES

Attendance: Because our time is already limited by the summer session in this course, you should expect to attend every class. There is no way to make up class work, and your consistent and substantial contributions to our in-class activities is vital to the success of this course for every student. Expect your final grade in this course to drop one letter grade for every absence past one. Also, 2 tardies equates to one absence.

Portfolios: Drafts of your papers will not be considered FINAL until the end of the course. You will not receive individual grades on the written work you turn in in this class. Instead, you will choose two (2) of the three essays you compose and two (2) of the four summary/response papers to revise into final versions. These will be placed in a portfolio that is to be turned in on the final day of class. This does not mean, however, that you will not turn in all written work. All work must be turned in on time in order to receive credit. I do NOT accept late work. Also, all work MUST BE COMPLETED in order to receive a passing grade in this course. You will receive extensive feedback from both me and your classmates on your work. While portfolio grading makes it impossible for me to calculate a numerical grade during the course of the 8 week session, you should view it as an opportunity to continuously improve your work in this class.

Peer Reviews/Workshops: Peer review in this class will take place in peer review groups. You will be assigned to these groups directly before each peer review session. These groups will meet OUTSIDE of class in group conferences (about an hour long), and the peer review will be conducted during these conferences, for which I am present. You will exchange rough drafts with your group members at the class meeting BEFORE the scheduled conferences. So it is EXTREMELY important that you have your rough draft on the due date. Failure to bring a draft will count as an absence and will result in the substantial loss of participation points.

Your peer review of a classmate's paper will be a graded exercise. If you are not in class for a peer review, you may NOT make it up for credit, though I strongly urge you to have someone read your papers before turning them in. You will be responsible for reading and critiquing each of your group member's papers BEFORE you come to your conference. You will present your review to each of your group members during the conference. I will evaluate your review during the conference; thus, careful preparation is a must. I expect that you will come into the conference with notes that you have made to yourself for each person's paper. These aren't formal, but a way of reminding yourself of what you noticed in each person's papers.

Participation in these peer reviews is vital to your success in this class. While you may feel uncomfortable at first critiquing your classmates' papers (for several reasons including that you don't believe your own writing skills are advanced enough to help someone else), we will talk extensively about how to critique a paper constructively. Becoming skilled at analyzing and critiquing your classmates' papers will help you tremendously in your own writing. Not attending a peer review workshop or a draft exchange hurts you in numerous ways: you will not have the benefit of someone else reading over your paper before turning it in; you will not receive the participation points for the peer review workshop; you will not get the benefit of reading how your classmates have responded to the assignment. I will not comment on your paper if you do not attend your peer review group session.

Grading:

Portfolio (2 REVISED essays and 2 REVISED summary/response papers

and an introductory letter to your portfolio) …………………………………….……. 60%

Participation (includes attendance, class discussions, turning in work on

time, and peer review) ……………………………………………………………………..……. 40%

Students With Special Needs: In accordance with university policy, students with appropriately documented sensory, physical, and/or learning disabilities should inform me so that their special needs may be accommodated.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the attempt, deliberate or otherwise, to pass off another’s person’s words and specific ideas as your own. In academic terms, plagiarism is unethical and illegal; in layperson’s terms, it’s shady and wrong and belies an inherent lack of belief on your part in your ability to do college-level work. Beyond that, I view plagiarism as a serious breach of trust between student and teacher. Simply put, proven plagiarism will result in failure for the course. Keep in mind that instructors will automatically assume that plagiarism is a conscious attempt to deceive, even though students sometimes plagiarize unintentionally (believing they have made enough changes to claim some text as their own). If you have any doubts as to whether or not something you’re doing constitutes plagiarism, please ask the advice of an instructor, a tutor, or someone who can give you a knowledgeable response. We will cover how to integrate source material into your texts ethically and stylistically, and your efforts to advance your skills at summarizing and paraphrasing source material will be vital to avoiding plagiarism.

ASSIGNMENTS

During the course of the semester, you will write THREE (3) full-length essays and FOUR (4) one-page summary response papers. Below you will find general guidelines for each of the major assignments. We will discuss these in more detail in class.

Readings: The material for your essays will be found principally in the four major essays we will examine in your text:

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin (pp. 73 – 103)

“Ways of Seeing”, John Berger (pp. 104 – 137)

“Hunger as Ideology”, Susan Bordo (pp. 138 – 171)

“The Photographic Essay: 4 Case Studies”, W.J.T. Mitchell (pp. 508 – 551)

Summary/Response Papers: These assignments are designed to prepare you for our class discussions of the readings for this course, to encourage you to use writing to explore your own responses to and ideas about the material contained in those readings, and to hone your skills of summary, paraphrase, and synthesis. These short papers should be NO MORE THAN ONE PAGE, should always be typed, and should be brought to class on the day we discuss the assigned readings. You will read these short papers aloud in class as a means of generating dicussion of the readings. Do not expect that you will have grasped everything – in fact, to try to capture a reading’s every point and nuance is impossible in this assignment. Instead, you should work toward summarizing the argument as a whole and the major reasons and evidence the author uses to support his/her claim. The first half of your summary/response should be, as the title of the assignment suggests (duh!), a summary of the author’s argument. The second half should demonstrate your understanding of the material, extensions and applications of the material beyond the text, and/or your questions about particular points made by the text.

Essays: The assignments for the three major essays in this course can be found on the following pages in your textbook:

Essay #1: page 877 #3

Essay #2: page 870 #2

Essay #3: page 874 #6

TENTATIVE DAILY SCHEDULE (subject to change)

Week 1

M 6/2: Introduction to course/Icebreakers/In-Class Writing

HW: Read: Introduction to text (pp. 1 – 18)

Write S/R #1, bring 2 copies to class on Wednesday

W 6/4: DUE: S/R #1/Discuss reading, integrating source material, and

assignment for essay #1

HW: Read Benjamin and Berger; Write S/R #2; Read assignment for Essay #1

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Week 2

M 6/9: DUE: S/R #2/Discuss readings and Essay #1; Workshop

HW: Be working on Essay #1; Bring all materials to class on Wednesday

W 6/11: Workshop for Essay #1

HW: Write first draft of Essay #1 – Bring 5 copies of essay #1 to class with you

on Wednesday (include name, email address, and phone number in heading); Bring

a pair of scissors and scotch tape to class with you.

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Week 3

M 6/16: DUE: First draft of Essay #1 – Draft Exchange and Peer Review Sign-Up/Cut-up exercise/Working with transitions

HW: Peer review your group members’ papers. Come to your peer group session

prepared to contribute constructively and substantially to discussion of each paper.

W 6/18: NO CLASS – PEER REVIEW of Essay #1 (Meet in classroom for your group session.)

HW: Read Bordo essay; Write S/R #3; Read assignment for Essay # 2

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Week 4

M 6/23: DUE: S/R #3/Editing Skills Checklist/Discuss reading and essay #2

HW: Do Editing Skills Checklist; Bring into class on Wednesday the collection of

images you will use for essay #2.

W 6/25: Workshop for Essay #2/Individual conferences with me for which you must have

your collection of images

HW: Compose draft of Essay #2 and bring 5 copies to class on Monday

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Week 5

M 6/30: DUE: First draft of Essay #2 – Draft Exchange and Peer Review Sign-Up/

Workshop: Revision

HW: Peer review your group members’ papers. Come to your peer group session

prepared to contribute constructively and substantially to discussion of each paper.

W 7/2: NO CLASS – PEER REVIEW of Essay #2 (Meet in classroom for your group session.)

HW: Read Mitchell Essay; Write S/R #4 and assignment for Essay #3

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Week 6

M 7/7: DUE: S/R #4/Discuss readings and Essay #3; Workshop

HW: Be working on Essay #3 – bring all materials to class on Wed.

W 7/9: Workshop for Essay #3

HW: Compose draft of Essay #2 and bring 5 copies to class on Monday

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Week 7

M 7/14: DUE: First draft of Essay #2 – Draft Exchange and Peer Review Sign-Up/

Portfolio Workshop

W 7/16: NO CLASS – PEER REVIEW of Essay #3 (Meet in classroom for your group session.)

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Week 8

M 7/21: NO CLASS – BE WORKING ON PORTFOLIO

W 7/23: PORTFOLIOS DUE