Welcome to COM102. I’m Mike McGuire, your professor. This is the course syllabus, the most important document of this course. It is this document that lays out all the official policies and procedures of the course. You should really read this document carefully before continuing with this class, and if you cannot live by what is written here, you might want to reconsider taking this class. Having said that, though, I do hope you’re willing to ride along with me over the coming weeks. It’ sure to be a hoot.

What is this course about?

This course is about thinking and acting. While, yes, it is a writing course, I see writing and thinking as essentially the same thing, and neither of these activities mean much if they don’t result in some kind of real world impact (i.e. action). We write to figure things out, to make sense of things. Also, we write to communicate our ideas—our thoughts. If we can’t write clearly, we can’t really communicate our ideas effectively, and if we can’t communicate our ideas to others, what’s the point of even having them. Also, it’s one thing to have good ideas, but they mean very little if they don’t lead to real-world action. So, fundamentally, this course is about thinking that leads to acting. More specifically, I’d say this course is about critical thinking and action—doubting, questioning, and doing. In many ways, this course is also be about creative thinking–believing in what is possible and working towards it.

Ultimately in this course, you’ll discover ways to use writing as a tool for inquiry, to help you generate new knowledge about a subject and explore its complexities. Seeing writing as a means to learning (rather than just an end in itself) is a key factor in being a successful writer in college and beyond. In this course you will also learn to see writing as powerful tool to effect lasting change in our world. That’s the hope anyway.

Instructor Information

  • Mike McGuire
  • Office: D115
  • Hours: MW 4:00-5:00, TR 2:00-3:00
  • Mailbox: D108
  • Office phone: 708.974.5770
  • e-mail: mcguirem72@morainevalley.edu
  • Personal Web site: writing101.net
  • Course Web site: splatter.writing101.net

Course Identification

  • Sections: 033, 040 and 051
  • Credit hours: 3 semester hours
  • Total contact hours: 3 | Lecture: 3 | Lab: 0
  • Course meets: TR 11-12:15 and TR 12:30-1:45 in D233 (for sections 033 and 040) and A141 (for section 051)
  • Prerequisite: COM090 with a “C” or higher grade or appropriate placement score
  • Corequisite: none

Textbooks/Materials

The following reading materials are required for this course:

  • DeVillez, Eric, Thomas Dow, Michael McGuire, and Troy Swanson. Why White Rice?: Thinking through Writing. Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 2010.
  • Fister, Barbara. Working with Sources: Using MLA, Seventh Edition Style. [Boston]: Bedford, 2009. Print.
  • supplemental core readings made available electronically through class and/or through the reserve service at the MVCC library

You will also need the following materials:

  • working e-mail account
  • a willingness to use a computer with Internet access to retrieve course documents as needed, to submit work electronically when requested, and to participate in an online conversation forum as an extension of our class
  • an open mind, curiosity, and a desire to learn, to write, and to engage in “real-world” action
  • notebook, pens, etc. (the standard student stuff)
  • sturdy pocket folder to hold any paper work and everything I hand out in class
  • stapler, as when hard copies are requested, no loose sheets will be accepted (I don’t care if you actually own a stapler; just never turn loose sheets into me and never ask me if I have a stapler with me in class because I won’t. Give me the impression that you spent some time composing and and collecting your work for presentation to me. Not having it ready to give (with a staple) gives me the sense that you were putting it together at the last minute.)
  • some secure means to save and easily transport electronic copies of all your work (e.g. disk, jump drive, cloud computing…)
  • one more thing, I may ask on occasion that you bring photocopies of your work for the class on workshop days, so factor that in as part of the cost for this course.

Course Goals

The major goal for this course is to better your ability to use writing as a means of thinking, learning, communicating, and attending to the important work of our world. You should strive to improve your skills in writing while at the same time becoming a more discerning reader of and a more forceful writer about the world around you. All this reading, thinking, and writing should also lead to action. See the course expected outcomes for student learning for some specific official objectives.

Expected Outcomes for Student Learning

By the end of the term the student should be able to employ the following techniques regarding critical reading and thinking:

  • Create connections among texts discussed and other texts;
  • Analyze a writer’s stylistic choices, such as the perspective or tone adopted for a particular audience.

By the end of the term the student should be able to employ the following techniques regarding source-based writing:

  • Construct an argument based on a text or texts;
  • Develop strategies for reaching more than one type of audience in a piece of writing;
  • Select source material (library, print, digital, or fieldwork-based) appropriate to a writing project’s purpose and audience;
  • Integrate research material from multiple sources into a piece of writing while maintaining one’s own voice;
  • Demonstrate ethical awareness in writing by incorporating and documenting source material responsibly according to a guidelines system (e.g. MLA, APA);
  • Correctly document sources through appropriate in-text citations and a Works Cited page;
  • Move beyond managing correctness in writing and toward making deliberate choices about stylistic elements such as clarity, concision, cohesion, and emphasis;
  • Demonstrate skill at the stylistic aspects of integrating sources, such as employing a variety of transitional effects or integrating a quote into the grammatical structure of a sentence.

Policies and Procedures

General Information: The General Information Sheet contains standard institutional policies, procedures, and key dates. (Click the link.)

Withdraw Policy: A student who does not withdraw officially from a course may receive a grade of “F,” depending on course progress or course attendance, which will become a part of the students permanent record. The official final withdraw date for this course is listed on the General Information Sheet.

Final Exams: The exam is taken during the final week of the course as listed on the course outline/schedule. It is schedule in accordance with the official Final Exam Schedule.

Attendance and Participation Policy: Students are expected to promptly attend, thoroughly prepare for, and actively participate in class meetings. If you are regularly absent, you are not taking the course and you should withdraw or you will earn a failing grade. Attendance and punctuality are mandatory for this course. The attendance policy is straightforward: if you miss 4 classes the highest grade you can hope to earn in the course is a C (see the grading contract below for more information); if you miss 6 or more classes you will not be able to earn anything more than a F for the course. As always, feel free to communicate with me regarding any extraordinary challenges you are having, but note that, barring extraordinary circumstances, there are no excused absences.

On time arrival is also required for this course. It is very disruptive to the learning environment when students come in late for class. It disrupts instruction, distracts other students, and creates unnecessary difficulties in trying to integrate late arriving students into the class activities already underway. Arriving late is disrespectful, disruptive, and immature. Late arrival will not be tolerated. Two late arrivals to class (less than 15 minutes) will count as one full absence. (Early departure will be treated like a late arrival.) If you miss more than 15 minutes of a class meeting, it will count as a full absence. Just don’t be late. Life is so much easier that way.

Academic Responsibility: Good academic work must be based on honesty. Students who are guilty of an act of academic dishonesty such as plagiarism or cheating will fail the assignment. A student is guilty of plagiarism, intentional or not, if he or she copies material from any source without identifying and acknowledging it. Plagiarism constitutes a major violation of the rules and conventions of academic writing; it will at the very least result in failure for the assignment and will quite likely result in failure for the course. The instructor reserves the right to deal with plagiarism and other acts of academic dishonesty on a case-by-case basis.

A Few Additional Notes on Plagiarism: One commits plagiarism whenever one submits a paper he or she has not actually written, or when the individual presents information that comes from a source without crediting it with both a in-text citation and a works-cited page entry at the end of the paper. Specifically, plagiarism occurs under the following five conditions:

  • When a paper written by someone else is purchased, borrowed or stolen and is submitted as the writer’s work.
  • When someone else is hired to write an assignment and then this purchased work is claimed as the writer’s.
  • When someone else writes the paper for no pay, and then the work is claimed as the writer’s.
  • When a writer copies specific words, sentences, paragraphs, and/or graphics, pieces them together without crediting the actual sources, and then submits this cut-and-paste exercise as a “researched” paper.
  • When the writer commits any of the shoddy documentation errors the umbrella term plagiarism is commonly considered to cover: uncredited factual detail, uncredited graphic aids, inadequate paraphrase, incorrect quotation technique, incorrect or improperly documented source, misrepresented or manipulated source.

I have a zero tolerance policy on plagiarism. If you wish to avoid the severe penalties associated with plagiarism, you must properly handle and document any information that you quote, paraphrase, or summarize.

As your instructor, I also reserve the right to request that you present to me all source material that you’ve used for a given paper. Upon such request, if you fail to clearly present to me all source material by the next class meeting so that I can readily evaluate your handling and documentation of it, you may receive an F for the assignment. So, document your sources meticulously and be prepared to present them clearly for evaluation if asked.

If you have any concerns about your use of sources, ASK me right away. I am here to help. Ignorance is no excuse. If you don’t ask, you have only yourself to blame.

Code of Conduct: Each student is responsible for adhering to the Code of Student Conduct as stated in the college catalog.

Cell Phone/Pager Policy: Phones and hand-held gadgetry may not be used and must be silenced during
class. Any students who fail to adhere to this policy may be asked to leave the class. The college
policy regarding cell phones, pagers, SMS gadgetry is included in the General Information Sheet.

Policy Changes and Amendments: The instructor reserves the right to make changes to any of these course policies if needed. Such changes would be announced in class; the student is responsible for noting such changes and for seeking clarification in a timely fashion as needed.

Understanding How You Earn Your Course Grade

Grading is my least favorite part of this teaching gig–truly, as I think it has little to do with teaching and learning. I’ll spare you my philosophical turmoil on this matter (unless of course you want to talk about it), but suffice it to say I want to try to separate this notion of grading as much as possible from the writing, reading, conversation, and the important work I hope you all engage in through this class. I want you to be able to think, write, explore, and take necessary risks without worrying about how “good” you are. I want you to be immersed in authentic learning. (I’ll do my best here, but you’ll have to do your part too.)

So, I’ve come up with a way of dealing with the necessary business of grading that I can live with for the moment and that will hopefully be liberating to your learning. It is based on my firm belief that if you engage fully in the writing, reading, conversation, and the action of this course–if you give yourself fully to the process–your writing will improve and you will learn. With this in mind, much of your grade will be based on your level of engagement–of doing–not necessarily on how “good” of a writer you are. The grading system I’ve developed here rewards hard work (i.e. a strong work ethic) and your personal investment in your own learning and the learning of others in the class. Practically, this means two things: 1) You don’t need to be a natural born talented writer to do well in this course; you just need to engage fully and work hard. 2) Good writing alone won’t get you a strong grade in this course; you need to engage fully and work hard. The grading approach we’ll be using is a form of “contract grading,” which I have described below.

The Grading Contract: Your final grade for this course will be based on two things: your participation in class according to the contract outlined below, and the quality of the writing you include in your final portfolio. If you follow the contract for the entire semester, you will receive a B for the course. If, in addition to this, the writing you include in your final portfolio is exceptionally strong, your final grade may be higher. Contract grading is intended to shift your focus productively: it assures you that, if you work hard and complete the contract, you will receive a grade that is above the average. I hope this will permit you to concentrate on improving your writing and engaging fully in this course experience, rather than fretting about grades. Here are the contract details:

To earn a B in this course, you must do the following:

  1. Draft Work—Complete all draft work thoughtfully as assigned, on schedule, and to the minimum required length.
  2. Peer Review Commentary—Complete all peer review commentary thoughtfully and thoroughly as assigned, on schedule, and for at least three of your classmates’ drafts during each peer review week. Peer reviews should be polished, focused essays of no less than 500 words each.
  3. Splatter Contribution—Publish at least one substantial “Reading/Research Journal” post (250 words) to the Splatter conversation site each and every week as assigned. (These “Reading/Research Journal” posts should be focused on your reading for the course and do not include other postings you will make to Splatter, i.e. open conversation, work for review, peer review essays, and so on.)
  4. Personal Action Reports/Self-assessments—Complete all personal action reports and self-assessments as assigned, thoroughly and thoughtfully.
  5. Class Activities—Participate in all class activities as assigned beyond regular drafting/revision, peer review, and Splatter posts.
  6. Conferences—Schedule and keep at least two conferences with the instructor to discuss your writing one on one. One of these conferences must be completed by week 8, and the other by 14. These must be writing conferences, where you come prepared with a draft and are ready to discuss your writing. (Other meetings with the professor are welcomed but do not constitute a writing conference.)
  7. Attendance/Punctuality—Miss no more than three class meetings over the course of the entire semester.
  8. Revision—Use the feedback provided by your instructor and your peer review team to improve your writing. You do not have to make every change suggested by your readers, of course, as readers will sometimes disagree. But you must take all feedback seriously, and your drafts should show evidence of your careful consideration of your readers’ suggestions. In other words, revise thoroughly and thoughtfully. Revision means substantially clarifying your ideas, reorganizing your argument, rethinking your claims, strengthening your evidence, deepening your research, adjusting your style, and/or reimagining your relationship to your audience. Even if you have not received thorough feedback from others, make at least one substantial revision for each of your drafts before including the final version as part of your portfolio. This contract term will be assessed after you turn in your final portfolio.
  9. Proofreading/Editing—Proofread final drafts to eliminate distracting surface errors and typos. Final drafts do not have to be perfect, but you should learn any grammar rules that consistently cause you trouble, by talking with a classmate, using a writer’s handbook, and/or meeting with me. This contract term will be assessed after you turn in your final portfolio.
  10. Respect—Show due respect to your classmates and the instructor by using respectful language, taking each other’s ideas seriously, and engaging civilly in the conversation of the course.
  11. Leadership/Helpfulness—Demonstrate leadership and/or helpfulness in the course by offering support, answering questions, and/or providing insight that will help others improve their writing and better understand the course material. This kind of leadership and helpfulness can be demonstrated both in the classroom and through our Splatter conversation site.
  12. Final Portfolio—Submit a complete and revised course portfolio that meets all the outline requirements by the due date.

Thus you earn the grade of B entirely on the basis of what you do—on your conscientious effort and participation. The grade of B does not derive from my judgment about the quality of your writing (apart from an assessment of demonstrated revision and proofreading). Grades higher than B, however, do rest on my judgment of writing quality. To earn a higher grade you must produce writing—for your final portfolio—that I judge to be of exceptionally high quality (see the criteria below).

To earn an A in this course, you must do the following:

  1. Successfully meet all the terms of the B contract as outlined above
  2. Demonstrate exemplary writing in the final course portfolio, as described by the “A” criteria of the official Evaluation Criteria for written work in COM101/102. These “A” criteria are reproduced below:
For “A” quality writing: The assignment’s requirements are met. The writer is in command of the ideas; details to illuminate or support those ideas are specific, relevant and carefully crafted or presented.The work is tightly unified, and ideas are arranged logically with creative transitions. The introduction is original; it provides necessary context and engages the reader; the conclusion provides new insight and leaves a strong final impression.The writer’s sense of style is reflected in a variety of sentence constructions and sophisticated word choices; there are virtually no mechanical errors. Finally, if needed, MLA documentation rules have been applied precisely. The piece thoroughly satisfies, compelling the reader to think, reflect, or act.

To earn a C, D, or F for this course:

  • Fail to meet the “B” contract as described above (This will earn either a C, D, or F at the instructor’s sole discretion and professional judgment. I am being purposefully vague here, as I want your focus to be on the B. Everyone can earn it if they do the work. If you do the work, plus your writing is exemplary as defined above, you can earn an A. It’s pretty simple.) Having said this, however, if at anytime you fee unsure of your standing in the class, you are welcome to meet with me to discuss this. I will do my best to make things clear for you.

To guarantee yourself an F for this course:

  • Fail to complete your course portfolio in its entirety, including all required writing and research. All major portfolio work must be completed in order to qualify to pass the course. Any significant gaps in the Final Portfolio, will result in a grade of F for the course regardless of performance in other areas of the course. This is a Department rule.
  • Miss 6 or more class meetings.

Note that once you violate the terms of the “B” contract at any point during the semester, it is no longer possible to earn a B or higher in the course. The best you would be able to hope for at that point would be a C. When possible, I’ll indicate that the B is “slipping” from your grasp, but once it has fully slipped, you cannot earn it back because the contract is broken. To avoid the possibility of one moving continually in and out of a “slipping” status, I will use a three-strikes-you’re-out rule. At the instructor’s sole discretion, one can “slip” two times with minor infractions of the grading contract and still recover to stay on track for the “B.” A third “slip,” however, will result in a definitive break of the “B” contract. Again, what constitutes a “slip” or a full and immediate break of the contract terms is left up to the instructor’s professional judgment. Your best bet, of course, is simply to stay firmly on track throughout the whole semester.

Note also that continuing past the first week of this course constitutes your acceptance of these contract terms. If you cannot accept these terms, you should seek a different section of this course.

Getting Feedback on Your Writing

In this course, grades and feedback on your writing are not the same thing. In most cases, there is very little to learn from grades. The section above explains how grades work in this course. Feedback, however, is a different matter altogether. Writing is a social act. In many ways, it is about conversation. This is a major premise of this course in both content and structure. Feedback is a part of this conversation.

In this course, you will/can receive feedback on your writing in the following ways:

  • Periodically during this course, after each major draft due date, you will write and receive peer feedback on your draft work. This is a central part of our course experience.
  • There will be several opportunities throughout the course to participate in a whole class workshop experience, where your work will be the subject of the entire class conversation for about 15 or 20 minutes. This is a great opportunity for a lot of feedback if you want it.
  • The instructor is more than willing to offer feedback on your writing and to discuss it with you at length. However, to prevent the dangers of your adopting a passive stance on your learning and to avoid the possibility of my giving unsolicited feedback when you aren’t yet ready for it, I ask that you request such feedback from me if and when you want it. I will give you feedback in writing up to two times at your request, as long as my time allows. (Please note that if everyone waits to the last week or two of classes, it will be very tough to accommodate everyone). Of course more instructor feedback is possible–as much as you’d like in fact–if you want to seek it out in conference with me. (See below.)
  • By appointment, you can and should conference with the instructor to talk at length about your writing. I absolutely encourage this, as it can be very helpful to your growth as a writer. In fact, two such conference meetings are required as part of terms of the “B” contract.
  • As an option, you may visit the Writing and Speaking Center for readerly feedback on your writing. The Center is located A258 on campus. It’s a great resource with friendly and helpful people.
  • You can always seek outside readers to offer feedback on your work–either folks in our class but outside of your review team or trusted readers outside of our course entirely.

Miscellanea

Reading: This is a writing course. However, because reading and writing are inextricably connected with one another, we will be doing a great deal of both during our time together in this course. I have selected pieces from your text book, as well as other readings. It is required that you read (and re-read) all of these works. We may spend a substantial amount of time in class discussing them. Your writing for this course may be connected to these readings. You may be tested on any of the assigned readings. As a student committed to your own learning and responsible for your own education and the education of your classmates, it is your job to read widely, think deeply, and engage seriously in the dialogue of this class. You won’t regret the hard work you do here.

Splatter Posts: Writing and thinking are connected. In fact, writing can be used to engage in a deeper kind of thinking on paper—to engage in a process of discovery through writing. Through the act of writing, you can make progress in sorting out ideas and in reaching a clearer and deeper understanding of something. In this course, you will be asked to play with this writing-thinking connection by participating in an online writing space (a kind of group microblog) that I call “Splatter”. Sometimes I will give you a prompt to respond to, but mostly you will use the Splatter space to think (through writing) about what you are reading. You will use it as an online reading log to capture your notes/thoughts, especially as it pertains to your ongoing research this term. You can also use Splatter to test ideas or prewrite in preparation for writing your formal pieces and research work for this course. Furthermore, Splatter will be a place for us to connect beyond the classroom, to continue our conversations. Basically, Splatter is your space to write what’s on your mind and to connect with your classmates, but you must write at one substantial “Notes and Quotes” entry per week. (See the Grading Contract above for more info.) Participation on the Splatter site is one of the terms of the “B” contract.

In addition what is described above, we will also be using Splatter on a very practical level to exchange (and respond to) each other’s writing in the course. This will be very helpful and it will minimize wasted paper as a result of excessive printing. (We all need to be thinking about a sustainable future :-) Note that publishing your major written assignments, your peer review essays, and your general conversation posts are not counted as your weekly “Notes and Quotes” post to Splatter.

Portfolio Assessment

In this course, we will use a portfolio approach to writing, learning, and to the assessment of your work. What is a portfolio? Well, it can mean different things depending on who you ask. For our class it is a way to truly incorporate several important aspects of writing—choice, revision, progression of thought, and reflection. Ok, so what does all that mean in practical terms?

What You Need to Know Now About the Portfolio Approach. The portfolio in this course will include the following.

  • Choice: The portfolio, the way we are using it in this course, involves choice on your part. This is important, because fundamentally, writing is all about making choices. As we progress through the course, you will work in teams to research and address important issues affecting our world today. While some basic assignments will be shared by everyone in the class, there will be a great deal of choice involved on how you approach any given assignment, and some assignments will require that you in fact work to define the task itself. So, you will have a good deal of choice with regard to which assignments you will pursue and include in your portfolio. The result, then, should be a portfolio of work that is different from everyone else’s in the class. The hope is that through this choice you become really interested and invested in your own work, so that it’s not a mere exercise but rather something that is important and means something to you and to others.

  • Revision: Revision is the most important part of the writing process. Real revision, where thinking evolves and discovery happens, takes time. Unfortunately, though, we usually don’t have much time in a semester-long course to really dig into revision. Typically, the experience is getting an assignment and turning it around in about a week’s time for a grade. This is called the “one-and-done” approach. The portfolio approach is the exact opposite of that. Because the entire body of work won’t be due until nearly the end of the semester, you will have as much time as possible to keep working on a piece before it is submitted for grading. During these weeks before the portfolio is due, you will have opportunities to have your classmates respond to your work, to get written feedback from me, to meet with peers in the Writing Center on campus, to sit down one-on-one to discuss your writing with me, to write and rewrite, to read, and to deepen your thinking on the subject.

  • Progression of Thought: Writing a portfolio gives you the chance to engage in authentic scholarly (and “real-world” practical) work. This is what professional writers do. They don’t write one paper and then discard it in the trunk of their car never to really think of it again. Rather, they build on their own thinking and writing. They engage in sustained writing over the course of time and, often across several works of writing to really make progress on a line of thought and a course of action. Your portfolio work should all hang together to develop an overarching theme, idea, or line of thought. This will prove to be much more rewarding and interesting to you than if you were to just write one brief paper and never really think about it again.

  • Reflection: A big part of effective learning is taking time to think about the experiences you’ve had, the work you’ve attempted, and so on. Reflection is key to learning and, as such, is a central part of portfolio work. Within your portfolio, you will be asked to engage in specific reflection on why you made the choices you did in the portfolio, what you learned through the process of creating it, why it is significant to the larger body of work, to bigger issues at hand, and so on. Portfolio work gives us the chance to take stock of what we’ve done and to benefit from the lessons learned along the way.