English 101c: English Composition I

Fall 2000/Section 12-01

T TH 12:00-1:15 p.m.

LAEB B274

 

Contact Information

Instructor: Samantha Blackmon

Office: 301C Heavilon Hall

Phone:  494-8122

Email: sblackmon@sla.purdue.edu                

Office Hours: T TH 10:30-11:30 a.m. and by appt.

Course Syllabus On-line at: http://www.sla.purdue.edu/people/engl/blackmon/f00engl101c/index.htm

Course Resources Available at:

http://www.sla.purdue.edu/people/engl/blackmon/101cresources/index.htm

(Syllabus and Calendar are tentative and subject to change. Please check on-line syllabus for latest changes. Any hard copy may be obsolete, so be sure to bring it with you to each class to record all changes.)

 

REQUIRED TEXTS AND MATERIALS”

1.     Holeton, Richard. Composing Cyberspace: Identity, Community, and Knowledge in the     

Electronic Age. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

 

2.     Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: Modern Language

Association of America, 1999.

 

3. Two (2) IBM Formatted Computer Diskettes (one for storage and one for backup).

 

COURSE EXPECTATIONS/PARTICIPATION

In order to accomplish the course goals, you must come to each class prepared.  This means coming to class on time, as well as completing your readings and outside assignments.  Active and informed participation in class discussions and collaborative work is also crucial. In terms of writing assignments, you will be required to complete one collaborative writing project (fifty points), an annotated bibliography (one hundred points), two proposals (two at twenty-five points each), two reading response/reaction papers (two at one hundred points each), two in class writing assignments (two at fifty points each), and three longer essays (three at one hundred fifty points each). I reserve the right to give unannounced quizzes at anytime to test the preparedness of the class as a whole, these quizzes will make up the remaining fifty points of the class total.

 

 

 

Grading Scale

Your points will be translated into percentages; your final grade will be calculated according to the following percentage scale:     

                                            

Although such instances are rare, I reserve the right to reward students who have shown dramatic progress with higher grades than the scale suggests. On the other hand, I will not give a student a lower grade if all projects are completed and absences do not exceed the maximum allowed.

 

Note about Incompletes:  The mark of ‘I’ is inappropriate if, in the instructor’s judgment, it will be necessary for the student regularly to attend subsequent sessions of the class. I will give an Incomplete only in cases of extreme emergency.

 

Class Participation & Assignments: This is one of the most important components to the success of the course. All reading and outside assignments are to be completed prior to class. This means reading carefully and critically, bringing materials to class, and coming prepared to engage with the ideas and your class. Class investigations are participatory assignments that include critical and active discussions as well as in-class collaborative work.

 

Attendance: Attendance is welcomed, expected, and mandatory. To best utilize our time, come to class on time. You are considered absent if 1) you are more than 15 minutes late and/or 2) you are unprepared for class. There will be regular in-class work to record your attendance and preparation for class. You may miss three sessions without penalty.  For every class after the first three, I will lower your final grade by fifty points. After three absences you must attend a conference with me to discuss whether you should continue in this course. Seven absences constitute automatic failure of the course.

 

Writing Deadlines & Submissions:  You are expected to submit assignments by the deadlines listed. All written work is due at the beginning of class unless otherwise noted. In order to be considered for a grade, all assignments are to be complete, of the minimum word count, and must conform to MLA documentation and format (word-processed, 12 point legible font, double-spacing, with one inch margins). No out of class papers will be accepted if they are handwritten and all assignments must be accompanied by your computer diskette. Late assignments will only be accepted with the specific, prior agreement of the instructor. No exceptions!!!

 

Conferences & Contact: I am open to discussing matters pertaining to the course, readings, and your writing; please feel free to contact me via email or phone as well as in person. I hope you will also take advantage of my office hours and email.

 

Peer Editing Workshops: Students will be responsible for participating in in-class writing workshops where they can benefit from the constructive criticism of their fellow students. Attendance and participation in peer workshops is mandatory and workshopped drafts of all longer papers with peer comments must be submitted with the final draft.

 

 

Revisions:  You may revise the three longer essays. I will return each assignment to you with comments, suggestions, and a grade. Works that are incomplete when originally turned in or papers not received by the deadline are not eligible for revision. Also, I will not accept revisions without your original graded project and all previous drafts. Revisions of the essays are due one week from the date they are returned in class.

 

To assist you in revising, please remember that revision is an active rethinking/reworking process. Papers which only correct surface errors are unacceptable, as are papers which don’t consider feedback. Revision is not a guarantee of a higher grade.

 

Portfolio:  Please keep a folder with all written work for the course.  Bring this folder with you when you attend conferences.  You will submit this at the end of the semester with all major work, rough drafts, revisions, an evaluation letter, and a computer disk. Be sure you keep your copies of all written work with my original comments on them.

 

PLAGIARISM

Academic Dishonesty

Cheating:  All written work submitted for a grade in this course must be the product of your own composition. Ideas generated due to reading and group discussion may provide the inspiration for your work, but should not be the sole ideas represented. With collaborative projects, of course, ideas should be representative of the group’s work.

 

Plagiarism is the act of presenting as your own work another individual’s ideas, words, data, or research material. The concept applies equally to written, spoken, or electronic texts, published or unpublished. All ideas and quotations that you borrow from any source must be acknowledged: at a minimum, you should give the name of your author, the title of the text cited, and the page number(s) of the citation. The only exceptions to this requirement would involve what is familiar and commonly held (e.g. the fact that the earth is round). You should know that penalties for plagiarism are severe and can entail suspension from the University. Students are responsible for reading and understanding the University policy on Cheating and Plagiarism set forth in Purdue University’s Academic Integrity: A Guide for Students available at http://www.purdue.edu/odos/admin/bacinteg.htm.

 

CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR: Insults, slurs, or attacks of any kind will not be allowed in my class. Any student who engages in this type of behavior in the classroom will be permanently removed from the class.  In other words, forced to drop the course, in addition to other possible punishment given by Purdue University (See the Purdue University Student Code of Conduct Available at http://www.purdue.edu/odos/admin/ccode.htm). In order to have an effective teaching and learning environment we must practice both respect and tolerance, without question.

 

RESOURCE LINKS FOR HELP WITH COMPUTER QUESTIONS:

Your Purdue Career Account information page (available at http://www.purdue.edu/CareerAccount)
PUCC Lab Information page (available at http://labinfo.cc.purdue.edu/)
Directory Services (available at http://directory.purdue.edu/)

 

Academic Schedule

 

 

 

WEEK ONE:  August 21-25     

T    Course Introduction; Syllabus Overview; HW: Composing Cyberspace (CC): Chapter 1 “Thinking Forward” p.3 (photocopy) (Remind students to purchase the books and obtain their career account logins and passwords.)

 

R    Diagnostic Writing- In-Class (Choose one set of questions from p.4 to facilitate a written response.) HW: (CC) “Identity in the Age of the Internet” Sherry Turkle

 

WEEK TWO:  August 28-September 1

T    Discussion (Turkle); Using E-mail (Choose one idea that comes up in the discussion of Turkle and allow students 15-20 minutes to write about this idea in an email message that will be sent to your email address upon completion.) HW: “Come In, CQ” Ellen Ullman & “Johnny Mnemonic” William Gibson. Response to Reading Assignment/Using summary and analysis (Write a 2-3 page typed response that considers the positions that Turkle and Ullman take on life and social interaction in the virtual realm. Bring both a hard (print) copy and the file on diskette to the next class meeting.)

 

R    Response to Reading Due; Discussion of Responses; Using E-Mail Attachments (Have students send responses files to your email address using email attachments.) HW: (CC) Chapter 2 “Forward Thinking” and “Gender-Bending” Dale Spender

 

WEEK THREE:   September 4-8

M    Labor Day; NO CLASS

T    Discussion (“FT” and Spender); Navigating Hypertext (Students practice navigating the on-line journal Kairos http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/2.2/index_f.html) HW: Reading Online “Speaking of the MOOn: Textual Realities and the Body Electric” Sandye Thompson http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/2.2/coverweb/sandye/tunnel1.html, {You make me feel like} A Virtual Woman” Jesse Kornbluth, and “Put Your Pants On, Demonboy” Barbara Ehrenreich

 

R    Discussion (Thompson, Kornbluth, & Ehrenreich) (Opportunity to talk about personal experiences with gender in the virtual realm) HW: “A Rape in Cyberspace” Julian Dibbell & Construct a 1 typed page proposal for a 4-5 page argumentative paper dealing with gender representation in the virtual realm. Use one personal account as the basis for your argument and use it to argue for and against the arguments that are posed in the essays that were read for this week. Bring both hard and disk copies to the next class meeting.

 

 

WEEK FOUR:    September 11-15

T    Proposal Due; Proposal Peer Review (Using MS Word Comment/Annotations); Discussion (Dibbell) HW: “Women and Children First” Laura Miller

    

R    Rough Draft of Paper 1 Due; Peer Editing of Rough Draft of Paper 1

             

WEEK FIVE:    September 18-22

T    Revised Version of Paper 1 Due; Discussion (Miller); Introduction to MOOs (Pro-Noun web interface) HW: (CC) Chapter 3 “Forward Thinking”, “Cyberfaith” Charlise Lyles, and “We’re Teen, We’re Queer, and We’ve Got E-Mail” Steve Silberman.

 

R    Discussion (“FT”, Lyles, & Silberman); Investigating Virtual Communities (MOOs- Connections & LambdaMOO HW: (CC); “Affirmative Access” Max Padilla Online Reading: “Access Denied” http://www.glaad.org/org/press/index.html?record=186 (read pgs. 1-47). (Write a 2-3 typed page response to reading that discusses community building and the Internet. Think about how these virtual communities differ from the real life ones and how filtering can affect these communities.)

 

WEEK SIX:     September 25-29

T    Response Due; Discussion (“Access Denied” & Padilla) HW: “Internet Indian Wars” Glen Martin & “Wolves of the Plateau” John Shirley

 

R    Discussion (Martin & Shirley) HW: Chapter 4 “Forward Thinking” & “The Heart of the WELL” Howard Rheingold. (Investigate the sense of community/community building that goes on in online communities like MSN, Delphi, and others. Suggest that they post in an area that they have interest in order to see the actual process of interaction.)

 

WEEK SEVEN:   October 2-6

T    Discussion (“FT” & Rheingold) HW: (CC) “Finding One’s Own in Cyberspace” Amy Bruckman Write a 1 page typed proposal for a 4-5 page paper on virtual communities (difference in, homogeneity, exclusion/inclusion, etc.) and email it to instructor by 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

 

R    In-Class Writing Assignment; Using Newsgroups (set-up, reading, & posting) (Schedule mandatory conference appointments for next week).

 

WEEK EIGHT:   October 9-13

S    Proposals due via email

 

M    Octoberbreak; NO CLASS

 

T    Conferences; NO CLASS

 

R    Conferences; NO CLASS (Discuss student progress, paper proposals, and address questions and concerns)

 

WEEK NINE:    October 16-20

T    Peer Editing (Rough Draft of Paper 2)

 

R    Presentation of Community Papers (Short informal presentations that give students a chance to share ideas with the entire class and get constructive feedback)

 

WEEK TEN:     October 23-27

T    Paper 2 Due; Finish Presentations; Discussion HW: Online Reading: “Evaluating Web Sites” http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-49.html (Students choose 2 sites to read.)

 

R    Collaborative Groups (In small groups have students work together to find sites (1 per student) on the same topic that the consider credible/non-credible and have them support their claims using information that they have found in the evaluation sites. Have them work together on a document to submit. HW: (CC) “Into the Electronic Millennium” Sven Birkerts

 

WEEK ELEVEN:  October 30-November 3

T    Evaluation Group Exercise Due; Discussion 

 

R    Using Search Engines and THOR; See Utopia Page HW: Read "A Modest Proposal" & Construct a bibliography (MLA format) of 10 sources for your research topic.

 

             

WEEK TWELVE:  November 6-10

T    Annotated bibliography due; Discussion See Utopia Page HW: Refine thesis statement and look at sources in detail.

 

R    Group planning and drafting (Workshop thesis, brainstorm, workshop ideas, and sketch outlines.) (Schedule conference times for next week). See Utopia Page

             

WEEK THIRTEEN: November 13-17

T    Conferences

 

R    Conferences HW: Online Peer Editing of Paper 3 (Drafts must include editing comments from at least 2 other students.

 

WEEK FOURTEEN: November 20-24

T    Paper 3 Due; Discussion (research strategies and catch up) HW: See Utopia Page

 

R    Thanksgiving Recess; NO CLASS

 

WEEK FIFTEEN: November 27-December 1

T    Discussion See Utopia Page

 

R    In-Class Writing; Discussion HW: See Utopia Page

 

WEEK SIXTEEN: December 4-8

M    Discussion

W    Discussion Wrap-Up

F    Discussion Wrap-Up & Course Evaluation

 

Syllabus Is Tentative And Subject To Change!