1. correct punctuation...check your commas!, apostrophes!, semi-colons, and colons.
2. formatting: margins, paper length, mla.
3. interesting and not robotic: not formulaic, but should be interesting and capture the reader's attention!!!
4. consistency...coherence of your argument...flow, make it all fit together.
5. thesis development: does it make sense and do you prove your argument?
6. citation format: mla
7. editing: spelling, confused words (their, there, they're)
8. grammar: subject-verb agreement, consistent tense, parallelism problems, pronoun agreement, fragment, run-on
9. wordiness...am I concise, to the point, on topic, or do I tend to ramble along aimlessly, making my point with far more words than is necessary; you know what I mean, right?
10. examples and details...use them.
11. remember the 2% bump...oasis
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
HARRISON BERGERON
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.
"Huh" said George.
"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.
"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer," said George.
"I'd think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds," said Hazel a little envious. "All the things they think up."
"Um," said George.
"Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?" said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. "If I was Diana Moon Glampers," said Hazel, "I'd have chimes on Sunday-just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion."
"I could think, if it was just chimes," said George.
"Well-maybe make 'em real loud," said Hazel. "I think I'd make a good Handicapper General."
"Good as anybody else," said George.
"Who knows better then I do what normal is?" said Hazel.
"Right," said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
"Boy!" said Hazel, "that was a doozy, wasn't it?"
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.
"All of a sudden you look so tired," said Hazel. "Why don't you stretch out on the sofa, so's you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch." She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked around George's neck. "Go on and rest the bag for a little while," she said. "I don't care if you're not equal to me for a while."
George weighed the bag with his hands. "I don't mind it," he said. "I don't notice it any more. It's just a part of me."
"You been so tired lately-kind of wore out," said Hazel. "If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few."
"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out," said George. "I don't call that a bargain."
"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel. "I mean-you don't compete with anybody around here. You just set around."
"If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away with it-and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?"
"I'd hate it," said Hazel.
"There you are," said George. The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?"
If Hazel hadn't been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn't have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
"Reckon it'd fall all apart," said Hazel.
"What would?" said George blankly.
"Society," said Hazel uncertainly. "Wasn't that what you just said?
"Who knows?" said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn't clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen."
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
"That's all right-" Hazel said of the announcer, "he tried. That's the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. "Excuse me-" she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
"Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen," she said in a grackle squawk, "has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous."
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen-upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison's appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever born heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H-G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.
"If you see this boy," said the ballerina, "do not - I repeat, do not - try to reason with him."
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have - for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. "My God-" said George, "that must be Harrison!"
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood - in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
"I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!" He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
"Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!"
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison's scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
"I shall now select my Empress!" he said, looking down on the cowering people. "Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!"
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
"Now-" said Harrison, taking her hand, "shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!" he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. "Play your best," he told them, "and I'll make you barons and dukes and earls."
The music began. It was normal at first-cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while-listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girls tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it.
And then, neutraling gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons' television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel.
"Yup," she said.
"What about?" he said.
"I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television."
"What was it?" he said.
"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.
"Forget sad things," said George.
"I always do," said Hazel.
"That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head.
"Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.
"You can say that again," said George.
"Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Harrison Bergeron" is copyrighted by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1961.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.
"Huh" said George.
"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.
"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer," said George.
"I'd think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds," said Hazel a little envious. "All the things they think up."
"Um," said George.
"Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?" said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. "If I was Diana Moon Glampers," said Hazel, "I'd have chimes on Sunday-just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion."
"I could think, if it was just chimes," said George.
"Well-maybe make 'em real loud," said Hazel. "I think I'd make a good Handicapper General."
"Good as anybody else," said George.
"Who knows better then I do what normal is?" said Hazel.
"Right," said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
"Boy!" said Hazel, "that was a doozy, wasn't it?"
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.
"All of a sudden you look so tired," said Hazel. "Why don't you stretch out on the sofa, so's you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch." She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked around George's neck. "Go on and rest the bag for a little while," she said. "I don't care if you're not equal to me for a while."
George weighed the bag with his hands. "I don't mind it," he said. "I don't notice it any more. It's just a part of me."
"You been so tired lately-kind of wore out," said Hazel. "If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few."
"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out," said George. "I don't call that a bargain."
"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel. "I mean-you don't compete with anybody around here. You just set around."
"If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away with it-and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?"
"I'd hate it," said Hazel.
"There you are," said George. The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?"
If Hazel hadn't been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn't have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
"Reckon it'd fall all apart," said Hazel.
"What would?" said George blankly.
"Society," said Hazel uncertainly. "Wasn't that what you just said?
"Who knows?" said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn't clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen."
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
"That's all right-" Hazel said of the announcer, "he tried. That's the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. "Excuse me-" she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
"Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen," she said in a grackle squawk, "has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous."
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen-upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison's appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever born heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H-G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.
"If you see this boy," said the ballerina, "do not - I repeat, do not - try to reason with him."
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have - for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. "My God-" said George, "that must be Harrison!"
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood - in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
"I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!" He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
"Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!"
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison's scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
"I shall now select my Empress!" he said, looking down on the cowering people. "Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!"
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
"Now-" said Harrison, taking her hand, "shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!" he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. "Play your best," he told them, "and I'll make you barons and dukes and earls."
The music began. It was normal at first-cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while-listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girls tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it.
And then, neutraling gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons' television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel.
"Yup," she said.
"What about?" he said.
"I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television."
"What was it?" he said.
"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.
"Forget sad things," said George.
"I always do," said Hazel.
"That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head.
"Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.
"You can say that again," said George.
"Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Harrison Bergeron" is copyrighted by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1961.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
FINAL ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
The final essay is 4 pages, typed, double spaced.
You must have at least three sources for this essay and cite these sources in MLA format.
11/17 Final Essay Revision—Bring an Edited and Revised Typed Rough Draft
11/22 FINAL ESSAY DUE IN MY OFFICE BEFORE 3pm...If I am not there, slip the paper under the door.
By midnight of 11/22, the essay must be turned in to turnitin.com. If you do not turn the essay in online, it will be an automatic F.
TOPIC:
What is the most pressing and serious problem facing the United States today?
You must have at least three sources for this essay and cite these sources in MLA format.
11/17 Final Essay Revision—Bring an Edited and Revised Typed Rough Draft
11/22 FINAL ESSAY DUE IN MY OFFICE BEFORE 3pm...If I am not there, slip the paper under the door.
By midnight of 11/22, the essay must be turned in to turnitin.com. If you do not turn the essay in online, it will be an automatic F.
TOPIC:
What is the most pressing and serious problem facing the United States today?
Friday, November 5, 2010
FRIDAYS ONLINE 1 OF 3 HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, REBA!!!
Happy Birthday Wishes...this one is inspired by your professor forgetting to bring cupcakes to celebrate Reba's birthday on Wednesday..fallable human! Sorry, Reba. So, for this post you get to do two things:
1. say Happy Birthday to Reba!,
and
2. Ponder a little bit why it is that we commemorate birthdays. If your answer is, cause it's a birthday, think some more. Only one hundred years ago almost noone even knew when their actual birthday was, so why do we now remember?
1. say Happy Birthday to Reba!,
and
2. Ponder a little bit why it is that we commemorate birthdays. If your answer is, cause it's a birthday, think some more. Only one hundred years ago almost noone even knew when their actual birthday was, so why do we now remember?
FRIDAYS ONLINE 2 OF 3
Continuing our discussion from Wednesday on the meaning of play, write one complete paragraph (at least 7 sentences)from your childhood in which you talk about playing...any context, just don't use the same story you wrote about on Wednesday.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Fridays Online 3 of 3: Mount Merapi
I have stood at the base of this volcano.
Write a series of "I have" statements regarding yourself and this volcano. (as usual, they do not have to be true or have to make sense)
Monday, November 1, 2010
Grading Standards for Writing Assignments
Department of English
California State University, Bakersfield
A. EXCELLENT - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment thoughtfully and analytically, setting a challenging task.
▪ Displays awareness of and a sense of purpose in communicating to an audience.
▪ Establishes a clearly focused controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates coherent and rhetorically sophisticated organization; makes effective connections between ideas.
▪ Provides clear generalizations with specific detail, compelling support and cogent analysis.
▪ Cites relevant sources and evaluates their validity, effectively integrating them into text when appropriate.
▪ Displays superior, consistent control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.
B. STRONG - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment clearly and analytically, setting a meaningful task.
▪ Addresses audience needs and expectations.
▪ Establishes a clearly focused controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates clear and coherent organization.
▪ Provides clear generalizations and effective support and analysis.
▪ Cites relevant sources, effectively integrating them into text when appropriate.
▪ Displays consistent control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.
C. ADEQUATE - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment with some analysis.
▪ Addresses most audience needs and expectations.
▪ Establishes a controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates adequate organization.
▪ Provides support for and some analysis of generalizations.
▪ Cites appropriate sources, adequately integrating them into text.
▪ Displays adequate control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English; errors do not slow the reader, impede understanding, or seriously undermine the authority of the writer.
D. SERIOUSLY FLAWED - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment inadequately.
▪ Shows insufficient audience awareness.
▪ Strays from the controlling idea or the idea is unclear.
▪ Displays formulaic, random, or confusing organization.
▪ Lacks generalizations, or provides generalizations with inadequate support or analysis.
▪ Fails to cite sources or cites and/or integrates them inappropriately.
▪ Shows deficient control of syntax, word choice, and conventions of Standard English; errors impede understanding.
E. FUNDAMENTALLY DEFICIENT - a paper in this category
▪ Fails to address assignment.
▪ Demonstrates a lack of audience awareness.
▪ Lacks a controlling idea.
▪ Lacks organization or organizes illogically.
▪ Displays inability to generalize, analyze, or support ideas.
▪ Fails to use outside sources or misuses the texts of others.
▪ Shows inadequate control of syntax, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.
California State University, Bakersfield
A. EXCELLENT - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment thoughtfully and analytically, setting a challenging task.
▪ Displays awareness of and a sense of purpose in communicating to an audience.
▪ Establishes a clearly focused controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates coherent and rhetorically sophisticated organization; makes effective connections between ideas.
▪ Provides clear generalizations with specific detail, compelling support and cogent analysis.
▪ Cites relevant sources and evaluates their validity, effectively integrating them into text when appropriate.
▪ Displays superior, consistent control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.
B. STRONG - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment clearly and analytically, setting a meaningful task.
▪ Addresses audience needs and expectations.
▪ Establishes a clearly focused controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates clear and coherent organization.
▪ Provides clear generalizations and effective support and analysis.
▪ Cites relevant sources, effectively integrating them into text when appropriate.
▪ Displays consistent control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.
C. ADEQUATE - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment with some analysis.
▪ Addresses most audience needs and expectations.
▪ Establishes a controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates adequate organization.
▪ Provides support for and some analysis of generalizations.
▪ Cites appropriate sources, adequately integrating them into text.
▪ Displays adequate control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English; errors do not slow the reader, impede understanding, or seriously undermine the authority of the writer.
D. SERIOUSLY FLAWED - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment inadequately.
▪ Shows insufficient audience awareness.
▪ Strays from the controlling idea or the idea is unclear.
▪ Displays formulaic, random, or confusing organization.
▪ Lacks generalizations, or provides generalizations with inadequate support or analysis.
▪ Fails to cite sources or cites and/or integrates them inappropriately.
▪ Shows deficient control of syntax, word choice, and conventions of Standard English; errors impede understanding.
E. FUNDAMENTALLY DEFICIENT - a paper in this category
▪ Fails to address assignment.
▪ Demonstrates a lack of audience awareness.
▪ Lacks a controlling idea.
▪ Lacks organization or organizes illogically.
▪ Displays inability to generalize, analyze, or support ideas.
▪ Fails to use outside sources or misuses the texts of others.
▪ Shows inadequate control of syntax, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Fridays Online 2 of 3
Go to nytimes.com
Read any article of your choice.
Summarize the article…yes, just like last week.
Be sure to name the author and to put the title of the article in quotes.
Read any article of your choice.
Summarize the article…yes, just like last week.
Be sure to name the author and to put the title of the article in quotes.
Fridays Online 1 of 3
So, there were well over one hundred people at that fateful party last week. However, no one seems to be coming forward to offer information regarding the identity of this pathetic killer or his accomplices. Surely there are plenty of people who saw something, people who could help. Perhaps someone has come forward and we simply don’t know it yet. But it doesn’t seem that way. If that’s the case, that people who were at the party are withholding information, why?
Monday, October 25, 2010
VILLASENOR ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
5 pages,
double-spaced,
typed
Using the experience of Victor Villaseñor, how important is failure in defining a person's character and sense of self? You may use one personal example, or you may use other examples from history or other sources, but you must use Villaseñor's experience as a foundation.
ROUGH DRAFT: typed, complete draft, due in class, Monday, 11/1
NO ROUGH DRAFT IN CLASS FOR THIS REVISION=NO PASS THIS ASSIGNMENT
FINAL DRAFT: heavily revised, due in class, 11/3
double-spaced,
typed
Using the experience of Victor Villaseñor, how important is failure in defining a person's character and sense of self? You may use one personal example, or you may use other examples from history or other sources, but you must use Villaseñor's experience as a foundation.
ROUGH DRAFT: typed, complete draft, due in class, Monday, 11/1
NO ROUGH DRAFT IN CLASS FOR THIS REVISION=NO PASS THIS ASSIGNMENT
FINAL DRAFT: heavily revised, due in class, 11/3
Friday, October 22, 2010
FRIDAYS ONLINE 2 OF 3
Pablo Neruda(1904-1973), a wonderful poet from Chile, wrote a book called The Book of Questions in which he asked many strange and perplexing, often unanswerable questions. Read them, and then either respond with what you think of these questions or leave your own imponderable question:
Tell me, is the rose naked or is that her only dress?
Why do trees conceal the splendor of their roots?
Who hears the regrets of the thieving automobile?
Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?
Why don't the immense airplanes fly around with their children?
Which yellow bird fills its nest with lemons?
Why don't they train helicopters to suck honey from the sunlight?
Where did the full moon leave its sack of flour tonight?
If I have died and don't know it of whom do I ask the time?
FRIDAYS ONLINE 3 OF 3
1. Go to http://www.nytimes.com/
2. Read any article of your choice.
3. Write a brief summary of the article, being sure to include the author’s full name. Put the title of the article in quotes.
HERE’S AN EXAMPLE:
In an article entitled “Phillies Hang on For Another Game,” the author Mike Tanier writes that…
2. Read any article of your choice.
3. Write a brief summary of the article, being sure to include the author’s full name. Put the title of the article in quotes.
HERE’S AN EXAMPLE:
In an article entitled “Phillies Hang on For Another Game,” the author Mike Tanier writes that…
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
HOMEWORK DUE MONDAY
1. Burro Genius must be read by Monday...I WILL BE ASKING EACH OF YOU, DID YOU FINISH?
2. Also due Monday is a reflection piece (1-2 pages, handwritten or typed)on the following question:
Describe Villasenor's relationship with his father. How important is this relationship in defining who Villasenor becomes?
3. On Monday, we'll begin the essay on Burro Genius, and you won't be able to write the essay without finishing the book and writing the reflection piece.
2. Also due Monday is a reflection piece (1-2 pages, handwritten or typed)on the following question:
Describe Villasenor's relationship with his father. How important is this relationship in defining who Villasenor becomes?
3. On Monday, we'll begin the essay on Burro Genius, and you won't be able to write the essay without finishing the book and writing the reflection piece.
Monday, October 18, 2010
HOMEWORK DUE ON WEDNESDAY
handwritten or typed:
German Chancellor Says Multiculturalism Efforts Have ‘Failed’
By Marco’t HoenIn her latest comment on the German immigration debate—how to integrate second and third generation immigrants, especially those of Turkish background and Islamic faith—German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that the country's approach to building a multicultural Germany has “utterly failed,” due to a lack of effort from past decades, German media Deutsche Welle reported.
She made the statements during a speech to her party's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Her statement came on the heels of a similar statement made by Horst Seehofer, head of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, who said Friday, "Multiculturalism is dead," Deutsche Welle reported.
Merkel said that the millions of Muslims in Germany show that Islam is a part of the country. She illustrated the point by referencing Özil, a soccer player from Germany’s national team, who has Turkish roots, German media Spiegel reported.
Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Merkel during a visit in Germany, and said they would improve integration, and that Turks living in Germany should speak without a German accent, Deutsch Welle reported.
Merkel emphasized the importance of immigration—particularly for skilled workers—for the economy. The opposing side of the debate is that emigration may be a larger problem, as more people are leaving Germany than entering.
The country is currently stirred by debate. Spiegel reported receiving more than 4,000 comments on the issue in two days.
Comments on the issue vary. Some who support Merkel’s statement that multiculturalism has failed, stated that the problem is not just in Germany. Others argued that multiculturalism is already working in Germany.
1. In one sentence, summarize this article.
2. In a paragraph, assess the validity of Merkel’s statement:
German Chancellor Says Multiculturalism Efforts Have ‘Failed’
By Marco’t HoenIn her latest comment on the German immigration debate—how to integrate second and third generation immigrants, especially those of Turkish background and Islamic faith—German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that the country's approach to building a multicultural Germany has “utterly failed,” due to a lack of effort from past decades, German media Deutsche Welle reported.
She made the statements during a speech to her party's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Her statement came on the heels of a similar statement made by Horst Seehofer, head of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, who said Friday, "Multiculturalism is dead," Deutsche Welle reported.
Merkel said that the millions of Muslims in Germany show that Islam is a part of the country. She illustrated the point by referencing Özil, a soccer player from Germany’s national team, who has Turkish roots, German media Spiegel reported.
Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Merkel during a visit in Germany, and said they would improve integration, and that Turks living in Germany should speak without a German accent, Deutsch Welle reported.
Merkel emphasized the importance of immigration—particularly for skilled workers—for the economy. The opposing side of the debate is that emigration may be a larger problem, as more people are leaving Germany than entering.
The country is currently stirred by debate. Spiegel reported receiving more than 4,000 comments on the issue in two days.
Comments on the issue vary. Some who support Merkel’s statement that multiculturalism has failed, stated that the problem is not just in Germany. Others argued that multiculturalism is already working in Germany.
1. In one sentence, summarize this article.
2. In a paragraph, assess the validity of Merkel’s statement:
Friday, October 15, 2010
FRIDAYS ONLINE 2 OF 2
Moving sidewalks and flying cars, that's how everyone seems to envision the future. In this image, however, we see a different picture of a possible future. What do you think the world will look like in 100, 200, 300 years? Will we be more advanced, heading toward a utopia of sorts, as seems to be shown in this image? Or will we head in the other direction (have you seen Mad Max?), toward a dystopia, an ugly future?
FRIDAYS ONLINE 1 OF 2
GOLDEN AGE
My parents always complained that my brother, sister, and I never had to work for anything. When my parents were young, they had to walk five miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways. The funny thing is, when talking to my grandpa, he used to say the same thing, that he and his 7 brothers had to work hard for everything and that my dad never had to work for anything. I think the same thing about my children, that they have everything handed to them and never seem to have to work for it. WHY DOES EVERY GENERATION SEEM TO THINK THAT THE ONE THAT CAME BEFORE IT IS LAZY? DO YOU SEE EXAMPLES OF THIS FROM YOUR FAMILY? WHAT DOES IT MEAN, THAT PEOPLE FOR SOME REASON WANT TO SEE THEMSELVES AS HAVING HAD TO WORK HARDER THAN THE YOUNGER GENERATION? ANALYZE THIS STRANGE HUMAN PHENOMENON.
My parents always complained that my brother, sister, and I never had to work for anything. When my parents were young, they had to walk five miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways. The funny thing is, when talking to my grandpa, he used to say the same thing, that he and his 7 brothers had to work hard for everything and that my dad never had to work for anything. I think the same thing about my children, that they have everything handed to them and never seem to have to work for it. WHY DOES EVERY GENERATION SEEM TO THINK THAT THE ONE THAT CAME BEFORE IT IS LAZY? DO YOU SEE EXAMPLES OF THIS FROM YOUR FAMILY? WHAT DOES IT MEAN, THAT PEOPLE FOR SOME REASON WANT TO SEE THEMSELVES AS HAVING HAD TO WORK HARDER THAN THE YOUNGER GENERATION? ANALYZE THIS STRANGE HUMAN PHENOMENON.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
MULTI-GENRE WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Due Monday:
Typed, unless a genre requires otherwise (comic strip, for instance)
You must write about a topic in at least 8 ways. You may choose any genres you wish, but you should strive for a variety of types of writing.
This assignment will be complete when you hand in the final draft on Monday and when you do a short written piece about the assignment.
You may consult sources for this assignment, but ALL OF THE WRITING MUST BE YOURS.
AS WE HAVE A VERY FULL DAY PLANNED, THERE WILL BE NO TIME TO PRINT OUT THE ASSIGNMENT ON MONDAY. If you arrive late, your multi-genre assignment will not be accepted.
HERE'S AN EXAMPLE:
THEME: Memory
Haiku
Why do you leave me?
I need your help on this test.
Fleeting memory.
Scientific Report
Elephants do not have the greatest eyesight in the animal kingdom, but they never forget a face. Carol Buckley at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., for instance, reports that in 1999 resident elephant Jenny became anxious and could hardly be contained when introduced to newcomer Shirley, an Asian elephant.
As the animals checked one another out with their trunks, Shirley, too, became animated and the two seemingly old friends had what appeared to be an emotional reunion. "There was this euphoria," sanctuary founder Buckley says. "Shirley started bellowing, and then Jenny did, too. Both trunks were checking out each other's scars. I've never experienced anything that intense without it being aggression."
"They're long-lived animals, and memory would be a benefit to a long-lived animal, making it more adaptive to circumstances," Douglas-Hamilton says. "Clearly if elephants experience extremes of climate and they can remember where the food is during a year, they can survive."
So the next time someone says you have a memory like an elephant, take it as a compliment.
Typed, unless a genre requires otherwise (comic strip, for instance)
You must write about a topic in at least 8 ways. You may choose any genres you wish, but you should strive for a variety of types of writing.
This assignment will be complete when you hand in the final draft on Monday and when you do a short written piece about the assignment.
You may consult sources for this assignment, but ALL OF THE WRITING MUST BE YOURS.
AS WE HAVE A VERY FULL DAY PLANNED, THERE WILL BE NO TIME TO PRINT OUT THE ASSIGNMENT ON MONDAY. If you arrive late, your multi-genre assignment will not be accepted.
HERE'S AN EXAMPLE:
THEME: Memory
Haiku
Why do you leave me?
I need your help on this test.
Fleeting memory.
Scientific Report
Elephants do not have the greatest eyesight in the animal kingdom, but they never forget a face. Carol Buckley at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., for instance, reports that in 1999 resident elephant Jenny became anxious and could hardly be contained when introduced to newcomer Shirley, an Asian elephant.
As the animals checked one another out with their trunks, Shirley, too, became animated and the two seemingly old friends had what appeared to be an emotional reunion. "There was this euphoria," sanctuary founder Buckley says. "Shirley started bellowing, and then Jenny did, too. Both trunks were checking out each other's scars. I've never experienced anything that intense without it being aggression."
"They're long-lived animals, and memory would be a benefit to a long-lived animal, making it more adaptive to circumstances," Douglas-Hamilton says. "Clearly if elephants experience extremes of climate and they can remember where the food is during a year, they can survive."
So the next time someone says you have a memory like an elephant, take it as a compliment.
Monday, October 11, 2010
LIST OF WRITING GENRES
Historical fiction
descriptive
persuasive
informative
narrative
poetry:
tragic
humorous
romantic
comedic
haiku: 5-7-5
ballads
dirty
epic
lemeric (sp?)
solliloqouy
science fiction
mystery
drama...plays
biography
memoirs
murder writing
journals
diary
monologue...jay leno
romantic comedy
technical: manuals,fix it
how to writing
recipe books
resume
application letters
government documents:
fbi report
insurance report
bills
script for tv or movie
news article
inspirational writing
surveys
advertisements
billboards
signage
autobiography
novels
freewrite
lyrics
fantasy stories
adventure
horror
suspense
note to loved one
postcards
invitation
greeting cards
will and testament (I bequeath all my earthly belongings)
yearbook
hate mail
text talk: brb ily lol ttyl idk
fairy tale
MULTI-GENRE PIECE:
Write about one subject in 8 different genres:
EXAMPLE:
HIGH SCHOOL
fairy tale: once upon a time, we went to school on unicorns. There were chocolate waterfountains everywhere and the principal was a frog.
drama:
bill: "I'm breaking up with you."
jane: "well you smell like broccoli."
bill: "that hurts."
descriptive
persuasive
informative
narrative
poetry:
tragic
humorous
romantic
comedic
haiku: 5-7-5
ballads
dirty
epic
lemeric (sp?)
solliloqouy
science fiction
mystery
drama...plays
biography
memoirs
murder writing
journals
diary
monologue...jay leno
romantic comedy
technical: manuals,fix it
how to writing
recipe books
resume
application letters
government documents:
fbi report
insurance report
bills
script for tv or movie
news article
inspirational writing
surveys
advertisements
billboards
signage
autobiography
novels
freewrite
lyrics
fantasy stories
adventure
horror
suspense
note to loved one
postcards
invitation
greeting cards
will and testament (I bequeath all my earthly belongings)
yearbook
hate mail
text talk: brb ily lol ttyl idk
fairy tale
MULTI-GENRE PIECE:
Write about one subject in 8 different genres:
EXAMPLE:
HIGH SCHOOL
fairy tale: once upon a time, we went to school on unicorns. There were chocolate waterfountains everywhere and the principal was a frog.
drama:
bill: "I'm breaking up with you."
jane: "well you smell like broccoli."
bill: "that hurts."
SUMMARY VERSUS PARAPHRASE
Summarize the sludge article.
Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/01/
What’s the difference between a summary and a paraphrase?
Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.
Steps to Effective Paraphrasing
1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. Write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/01/
What’s the difference between a summary and a paraphrase?
Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.
Steps to Effective Paraphrasing
1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. Write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
Friday, October 8, 2010
FRIDAY ONLINE
WE HAVE TO HAVE LOTS OF ACTIVITY TODAY TO JUSTIFY BEING HERE. WRITE YOUR PARAGRAPHS AND THEN COME BACK LATER AND RESPOND TO OTHER PEOPLE'S COMMENTS.
Friday Writing, 2 of 2, TC Boyle
What do you think Boyle's purpose was in writing The Tortilla Curtain? What was the point of the book?
Write at least a paragraph on this topic.
Write at least a paragraph on this topic.
Friday 1 of 2
There's a war going on to our south, in Mexico. Thousands of people have been killed, and at least 40% of that nation, according to one poll, wants to move to the U.S. What do you think is the best policy approach to this problem? How should the U.S. react to this issue?
Write at least a paragraph on this topic.
Write at least a paragraph on this topic.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Friday Writing 3 of 3
If you could change one thing about being human what would it be?
No need for sleep?
No ability to lie?
No getting old?
Think about it awhile, and then come up with some way or ways that you would change the human condition.
No need for sleep?
No ability to lie?
No getting old?
Think about it awhile, and then come up with some way or ways that you would change the human condition.
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Friday Writing 1 of 3
Was the first big essay, the Restaurant Review, difficult to write, easy to write, fun to write, or something else? Describe the process of writing that first essay for this class.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Online Friday 3 of 3
Be sure to respond to each of the 3 prompts and then return later to respond some more.
There’s a woman in Virginia who was just executed for murdering her husband and his son. Do you think she should have been executed? Women and men are eligible for the death penalty in this country? Should we have a death penalty? If so, should women and men be eligible?
(write at least a paragraph in response to this one)
There’s a woman in Virginia who was just executed for murdering her husband and his son. Do you think she should have been executed? Women and men are eligible for the death penalty in this country? Should we have a death penalty? If so, should women and men be eligible?
(write at least a paragraph in response to this one)
Online Friday 2 of 3
Here’s a story from yesterday’s news.
Texting Taking a Deadly Toll on Roads
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter by Steven Reinberg
healthday Reporter – 46 mins ago
THURSDAY, Sept. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Distracted driving fatalities caused by cell phone use and texting soared in the space of three years, according to new U.S. government research released Thursday.
Texting alone caused more than 16,000 deaths in car accidents from 2001 to 2007, the researchers estimated. But auto deaths involving cell phones and texting while driving rose 28 percent in just three years, from 4,572 in 2005 to 5,870 in 2008.
CONSIDERING THAT STORY, WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO STOP PEOPLE FROM TEXTING IN SUCH STUPID AND DANGEROUS WAYS?
Texting Taking a Deadly Toll on Roads
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter by Steven Reinberg
healthday Reporter – 46 mins ago
THURSDAY, Sept. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Distracted driving fatalities caused by cell phone use and texting soared in the space of three years, according to new U.S. government research released Thursday.
Texting alone caused more than 16,000 deaths in car accidents from 2001 to 2007, the researchers estimated. But auto deaths involving cell phones and texting while driving rose 28 percent in just three years, from 4,572 in 2005 to 5,870 in 2008.
CONSIDERING THAT STORY, WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO STOP PEOPLE FROM TEXTING IN SUCH STUPID AND DANGEROUS WAYS?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Restaurant Review Help
http://www.menuism.com/blog/5-tips-towards-writing-a-great-restaurant-review/
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
What constitutes good writing?
Proper grammar
Creativity
Strong intro
Main idea/thesis
Transitions
Structure: organization
Staying on topic
No jumping around
Clarity
Tone/mood
Strong support
Examples
Rough drafts(process)
Point of view
Conclusion
Proper punctuation
Sophisticated/appropriate
vocabulary
Creativity
Strong intro
Main idea/thesis
Transitions
Structure: organization
Staying on topic
No jumping around
Clarity
Tone/mood
Strong support
Examples
Rough drafts(process)
Point of view
Conclusion
Proper punctuation
Sophisticated/appropriate
vocabulary
RESTAURANT REVIEW ASSIGNMENT
What constitutes a good restaurant review?
How do you write a good restaurant review?
--food/what you ate
--how the food tastes
--descriptive
Chicken burger was too
stretchy.
--five senses
Hearing, touching, seeing, smelling, tasting
--observations
Service…time, friendly?
--attentive
--smile
--attitude
--enthusiasm
--appearance
Cleanliness
Worker appearance
Bathrooms
Grade
--who eats there: loud environment?
--price?
For this assignment you need to go research a restaurant (meaning, eat there and take notes) and write a review of your experience. Your review should be creative, specific, and enticing.
You should use your writing to make your reader taste, see, and smell the food you ate. In other words, be descriptive. If possible, go with someone else so that you can experience (and even taste?) various dishes. However, try to avoid writing about restaurants that you think others in class might choose. If you choose a chain restaurant, be sure to tell your reader which one it is—i.e. not just “McDonalds” but “the McDonalds at the corner of Coffee and Hageman.” Also, if you choose to do a review of a chain, like Der Wienerschnitzel, you had better do something to make your review stand out. You may follow one of the samples we examine in class, create your own rating system, or follow any creative instincts that allow you to effectively convey the information on this restaurant.
Your review must comment on the ambiance, the food, and the service.
Your review should be around 1000 words. (approximately 2 pages)
How do you write a good restaurant review?
--food/what you ate
--how the food tastes
--descriptive
Chicken burger was too
stretchy.
--five senses
Hearing, touching, seeing, smelling, tasting
--observations
Service…time, friendly?
--attentive
--smile
--attitude
--enthusiasm
--appearance
Cleanliness
Worker appearance
Bathrooms
Grade
--who eats there: loud environment?
--price?
For this assignment you need to go research a restaurant (meaning, eat there and take notes) and write a review of your experience. Your review should be creative, specific, and enticing.
You should use your writing to make your reader taste, see, and smell the food you ate. In other words, be descriptive. If possible, go with someone else so that you can experience (and even taste?) various dishes. However, try to avoid writing about restaurants that you think others in class might choose. If you choose a chain restaurant, be sure to tell your reader which one it is—i.e. not just “McDonalds” but “the McDonalds at the corner of Coffee and Hageman.” Also, if you choose to do a review of a chain, like Der Wienerschnitzel, you had better do something to make your review stand out. You may follow one of the samples we examine in class, create your own rating system, or follow any creative instincts that allow you to effectively convey the information on this restaurant.
Your review must comment on the ambiance, the food, and the service.
Your review should be around 1000 words. (approximately 2 pages)
Friday Writing Part 3 of 3
3. Finish the following sentence:
After having endured one week of college, I feel that...
After having endured one week of college, I feel that...
FRIDAY WRITING #1 Part 1 of 3
Let's get this Friday Writing off to a good start. First, some ground rules.
1. EACH FRIDAY YOU MUST RESPOND IN DEPTH TO THE ONLINE TOPICS AT ANY TIME DURING THE DAY.
2. AT SOME POINT DURING THE DAY, YOU MUST RESPOND TO ONE OF YOUR CLASSMATE'S RESPONSES.
IF YOU REALLY WANT TO BE FANCY AND PRACTICE UBUNTU, YOU CAN RESPOND TO VARIOUS POSTS AND REPLY TO OTHERS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT YOUR POSTS. BE ACTIVE.
THAT'S IT...WRITE, RESPOND, REPEAT.
FRIDAY WRITING #1 Part 1 of 3
1. EACH FRIDAY YOU MUST RESPOND IN DEPTH TO THE ONLINE TOPICS AT ANY TIME DURING THE DAY.
2. AT SOME POINT DURING THE DAY, YOU MUST RESPOND TO ONE OF YOUR CLASSMATE'S RESPONSES.
IF YOU REALLY WANT TO BE FANCY AND PRACTICE UBUNTU, YOU CAN RESPOND TO VARIOUS POSTS AND REPLY TO OTHERS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT YOUR POSTS. BE ACTIVE.
THAT'S IT...WRITE, RESPOND, REPEAT.
FRIDAY WRITING #1 Part 1 of 3
1. In a paragraph, agree or disagree with the following quote:
:) Finally, here's the quote: "The height of American culture is Dora the Explorer." Anonymous
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT #1
THIS IS DUE WEDNESDAY. YOU MAY PRINT THIS OUT OR HANDWRITE YOUR OWN VERSION.
Hey Dr. Schmoll,
I have read the whole syllabus for English 100. I understand all the policies therein.
Signed _____________________ Date:
Hey Dr. Schmoll,
I have read the whole syllabus for English 100. I understand all the policies therein.
Signed _____________________ Date:
COURSE SYLLABUS
Fall 2010 English 100 Section 03 (80331)
Mo 09:30 - 10:50 Classroom Bldg 101
WeFr 09:30 - 10:50 Classroom Bldg 105
Dr. Schmoll
Office Hours: MWF 11-12, TTh 8:30-9:30, or by appt.
bschmoll@csub.edu
661-654-6549
SYLLABUS
The blog name for this class is http://english100fall2010.blogspot.com/
Dear Class,
Welcome to this course. This quarter, we will enjoy numerous experiences together, traveling on countless mental journeys. To start things off, I have constructed a syllabus that will guide the class, hopefully answer many of your questions, and become the official constitution and law of this course.
Attendance:
Just to be clear, to succeed on tests and papers you really should be in class. That’s just common sense, right? To pass this class, you may not miss more than two classes. Why is that? Does it sound harsh? Every class meeting matters. If you miss two classes that’s bad; how can you expect to do well doing that? Certainly your participation grade will suffer if you do that, but we’ll talk about that later. For now, if you miss that third class meeting, you are missing 10% of the quarter. You cannot do that and pass. So, here’s what we do. Do your darndest to not miss any class unnecessarily. Let’s say your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife calls and wants to take you to Tahiti this weekend, but you won’t be back until late Tuesday night. Here’s what you say: “Honey, I love you, but Dr. Schmoll seems to value my education more than you do, so we are breaking up.” Ok, that may be harsh, so don’t do that, but just make sure that you do not miss any class until the 8th week. What I’ve found is that it seems inevitable that those who miss two classes early for pathetic reasons like doctor’s appointments that should have been more carefully scheduled get to the 8th week and then have to miss for a legitimate reason (like a surprise meeting at work, a sick child to take care of, or a flat tire). If you get to that 8th week and then have to miss your third class, it’ll be bad. By that point, I’ll be kind, compassionate, a real shoulder to cry on, if you want, when telling you that you’ve now failed the course. Now, if you make it to the 8th or 9th week and you have not missed those two classes, then you have some wiggle room, so that if, heaven forbid, your cat Poopsie gets pneumonia and you have to sit up all night bottle-feeding her liquid antibiotics, you and I don’t have to have that ugly conversation where I tell you that Poopsie gets blamed for you failing the course. Let’s put this another way; do you like movies? No way, me too! When you go to the movies do you usually get up and walk around the theatre for 15% of the movie? Let’s say you do decide to do that, out of a love of popcorn and movie posters, perhaps. If you did that, would you expect to understand the whole story? Okay, maybe if you are watching Harold and Kumar, but for anything else, you’ll be lost. So, please, get to class.
Being Prompt:
Get to class on time. Why does that matter? First, it sends the wrong message to your principal grader(that’s me). As much as we in the humanities would like you to believe that these courses are objective (at what time of day did the Battle of the Marne begin?), that is not entirely the case. If you send your principal grader the message that you don’t mind missing the first few minutes and disturbing others in the class, don’t expect to be given the benefit of the doubt when the tests and papers roll around. Does that sound mean? It’s not meant to, but just remember, your actions send signals. Being late also means that someone who already has everything out and is ready and is involved in the discussion has to stop, move everything over, get out of the chair to let you by, pick up the pencil you drop, let you borrow paper, run to the bathroom because you spilled the coffee, and so on. It’s rude.
So, what are the consequences of persistent tardiness? What do you think they should be? Remember that 10% participation? You are eligible for that grade if you are on time. Get here on time. And no, I’m not the jackass who watches for you to be late that one time and stands at the door and points in your face. One time tardiness is not a problem precisely because it is not persistent. It’s an accident; maybe Poopsie turned off your alarm.
The Unforgivable Curse:
Speaking of one time issues, there is something that is so severe, so awful, that if it happens one time, just one time, no warning, no “oh hey I noticed this and if you could stop it that’d be super,” you will automatically lose all 10 percent of the Participation grade. Any guesses? Cmon, you must have some idea. No, it’s not your telephone ringing. If that happens, it’ll just be slightly funny and we’ll move on. It’s a mistake and not intentional, and the increased heart rate and extra sweat on your brow from you diving headfirst into an overstuffed book bag to find a buried phone that is now playing that new Cristina Aguilera ringtone is punishment enough for you. So, what is it, this unforgivable crime? Texting. If you take out your phone to send or receive messages you will automatically lose 10% of your course grade. That means, if you receive a final grade of 85%, it will drop to 75%. If you receive a final grade of 75%, it will become a 65%. Why is that? The phone ringing is an accident. We laugh at it; we move on. Heck, my phone my even go off during class. Texting is on purpose and is rude. It, in fact, is beyond rude. It wreaks of the worst of our current society. It bespeaks the absolutely vile desire we all have to never separate from our technological tether for even a moment. It sends your fellow classmates and your teacher the signal that you have better things to do. Checking your phone during class is like listening to a friend’s story and right in the middle turning away and talking to someone else. Plus, the way our brains work, you need to fully immerse yourself, to tune your brain into an optimal, flowing machine (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s incredible book Flow) that can grasp and can let itself go. Students now tend to see school as a stopover on their way to a career. Brothers and sisters, that’s deadly! I wish that I could pay for you all to quit your jobs and just focus on the mind. I can’t yet do that but if I could I would, because it’d be worth every penny. Devoting time to the mind and to thinking deeply about your world will change who you are and how you approach your future, your family, your job, and your everything. Is that overstated? I believe it to be true. So, until my stock choices really take off so that I can pay all of your bills, promise me one thing. When you are in class or preparing for class, you have to be fully here. Oh crap, now it’s going to sound like a hippy professor from the 1960s: “I mean, like, be here man, just be here.” Maybe the hippies had something. Devote yourself fully to your classes by unplugging from the outside world for awhile.
Laptops:
The same principal goes for laptops, too. Remember, if you are taking notes on a laptop, something I think is great, you may not be on the internet at the same time. Yes, you may go to the course blog for the outline or to a document we are using in class, but you may not check email or facebook, or access anything else online. The reason why merits repeating; devote yourself fully to your classes by unplugging from the outside world for awhile.
Class Climate:
No, I don’t mean whether it’s going to rain in here or not. Sometimes I’ll lecture at you, but even then, your participation is vital. How can you participate when someone is lecturing? Any ideas? Turn to a neighbor and tell them the story of your first day at school in kindergarten. Now, if you are the one listening to the story, right in the middle look away, look at your watch, sneer at them, roll your eyes, yawn, wave to someone across the room, nudge a person next to you and tell them a joke, all while the other person is telling about his or her first day of kindergarten. If this happens in social setting we call it rude, and we call the people who listen in that way jackasses. They are not our friends precisely because we deeply value listening and do not put up with those who do not listen well. Right? So, there will be lecturing, and if you abhor what we are doing, then fake it. I used to do that sometimes too: “oh no, professor, I love hearing you talk about President Reagan’s supply side economics.” If we listen to psychologists, by faking interest you’ll be learning much more than if you show your disinterest. The next time you are sad force yourself to smile and you’ll see what I mean. So, sometimes there will be lecture. At other times there will be discussion of short readings that we do in class. During these times, it’s crucial that you do the silly little exercises: turn to a neighbor; find someone you don’t know and discuss this or that; explain to your friend what we just went over in lecture; pick something from the reading to disagree with; find two people on the other side of the room; throw cash at your professor…ok, maybe not that last one. This class is a bit unique in that it violates the normally accepted activity systems of college history classrooms. What we do in discussion will help solidify the concepts of each section of this course in your brain. If you are active in class, you will have to study less, and you’ll find yourself remembering much more.
Mining:
Have you ever wanted to be a miner? They do have those cool helmets with the lamp on top. Think about what miners do. They dig and dig, into the earth, looking for gold, coal, silver, or other valuable rocks. Sometimes all their digging amounts to nothing. They have to stop, change directions, and dig again. But sometimes they hit a productive vein. Our class will be a little like that. We’ll do some exercises that will amount to nothing and go nowhere. Who is the best judge of that? That’s right; you are! Sometimes we’ll do a written piece that will be fabulous and will produce beautiful golden prose. You will want to polish those pieces with your writing group and turn them into even more brilliant and shining jewels.
Reading:
How many of you love reading? I did not read a book until I was 18, so if you have not yet started your journey on this ever widening path, it’s never too late. In any course, there’s no substitute for reading. Jim Moffett says that “all real writing happens from plentitude,” meaning that you can only really write well about someone once you know about it. Reading is one way to know—not the only, by any means! I want you to have experiences with great texts. I can show you voluminous research proving why you nee to read more, but then if I assign a stupid, long, expensive textbook you probably will end up not reading, or only reading to have the reading done, something we have all done, right? The economy now requires much high literacy rates (see The World is Flat), and even though reading levels have not gone down in the last 40 years, it is crucial that you start to push your own reading so that your own literacy level goes up. For these ten weeks, diving wholeheartedly into the course reading is vital. Remember to read in a particular way. As reading expert and UCSB professor Sheridan Blau has argued, “reading is as much a process of text production as writing is.” Reading involves revision? Does that sound silly? As you read, think about the different ways that you understand what you read. Most importantly, when you read, think about the words of E.D. Hirsch, who says that we look at what a text says (reading), what it means (interpretation), and why it matters (criticism). Hey, but if you are in a history course, aren’t you supposed to be reading for exactly the number of miles of trenches that were dug in World War One, how many railroad workers died from 1890 to 1917, or what the causes of the Great Depression were? Anyway, the answer is yes and no. There are two types of reading that you’ll do in college. As the literary goddess theorist Louise Rosenblatt explains, there is aesthetic reading, where you are reading to have an experience with the text, and there is efferent reading, where you are reading to take away information from the text. You do both types all the time. Think about a phone book. You have probably never heard someone say of a phone book, “don’t tell me about it, I want to read it for myself.” Reading a phone book is purely efferent. In this course you will practice both types of reading. I have chosen texts that you can enjoy (aesthetic) and that you can learn from(efferent). I want to see and appreciate the detail in our reading, but in this course I’ll give you that detail in class lectures. In the reading, it’s much more important that you read texts that will live with you forever and to inspire you to think more thoroughly about your world. As you read, you should be working hard to create meaning for yourself. As Rosenblatt asserts, “taking someone else’s interpretation as your own is like having someone else eat your dinner for you.” Please, don’t let the numbskulls as wikipedia or sparknotes eat your dinner for you.
Rough Drafts:
To receive credit for any of the out of class essays this quarter, you must have a complete, typed rough draft in class for revision. If you are absent on the day we revise, you will not receive credit for the essay. Why is this? While many college writers see writing as something done at the last minute and only when the due date is imminent, the only way to improve as a writer is to put your writing through numerous revisions. That is why you must bring a complete typed rough draft to class.
GRADED BUSINESS
My Writing Lab: (10%)
This is a computer-based program that will help you tackle your writing problems with exercises. While the best way to learn to write better is to write and read more, this program will give you specific assistance in your areas of greatest need.
Burro Genius Essay (10%)
This will be an essay based on your reading of this fine book. It is also the FirstYear Experience reader.
Participation: (10%)
You do not need to be the person who speaks out the most, asks the most questions, or comes up with the most brilliant arguments to receive full credit in participation. If you are in class and on time, discuss the issues that we raise, avoid the temptation to nod off, to leave early, or to text people during class (the three easiest ways to lose credit), and in general act like you care, then you will receive a good participation grade! Just being here does not guarantee a 100% participation grade, since you must be regularly actively involved for that to be possible.
Restaurant Review: (15%)
Do you love to eat as much as I love to eat? Good. Go to a restaurant and take notes on the ambiance, the service, and the food. Write a review and post it to the website Bakersfield.com.
Multi-Genre Writing: (10%)
Multi-Genre Writing: For this assignment you must complete a writing topic in five different genres. The theme of your multi-genre assignment will be up to you, but I would strongly suggest using some of the writing that you have already completed this quarter. Use something that you or your writing group valued.
In-Class Essays: (10%)
We will write two essays in class. You will choose which one you want to have graded and recorded.
To be eligible to pass this course you must earn a C- or higher on one in-class essay.
Final Assignment: (25%)
The culminating written work of the quarter, we’ll discuss this in class.
Friday Writing: (10%)
This course is partly being run as a hybrid, meaning that for the first few Fridays of the quarter we are going to meet online rather than face-to-face.
DEPARTMENTAL POLICY STATEMENTS:
To advance to English 110, students must earn a grade of C- or higher in English 100. To be eligible for a C- in English 100, students must earn a C- or higher on at least one in-class writing assignment and a C- average on all other course assignments.
Writing Workshop
You are responsible for completing 15 MyWritingLab topics in conjunction with your English 100 class. This requirement is worth 10% of your overall English 100 grade. To receive full credit, you must (1) take the pre- and post diagnostics (Sentence Grammar and Basic Grammar) and (2) master approximately one and a half of the below assigned topics per week, for a total of 15 topics by the end of the quarter. To master a topic, you must earn a score of 80% or higher on both the Recall and Apply sections for each of the following MyWritingLab topics.
Note that topics mastered through the pre-diagnostic will not count towards your 15 topics. You must master the below 15 topics through the Recall and Apply sections.
Prewriting
Thesis Statement
Essay Organization
Developing and Organizing a Paragraph
Parts of Speech, Phrases, and Clauses
Fragments
Run-On Sentences
Subject-Verb Agreement
Pronoun Agreement
Misplaced or Dangling Modifiers
Commas
Apostrophes
Semicolons, Colons, Dashes, and Parentheses
Parallelism
Easily Confused Words
You will be held responsible for these new skills every week in your writing. Since this is an online workshop, you can work on these topics outside of class at your convenience, so long as you master approximately one and a half topics per week, for a total of 15 topics. This means that if you wait until the end of the quarter to complete all fifteen topics, you will not receive full credit and your essay grades may suffer.
You will need an access code, which is packaged with your Quick Access text and the following course identification number:
Course ID#--####
A time will be scheduled during your first or second week of class to help you register to the site and create your user profile, and you will need your MyWritingLab code and course identification number to do this. If you have already registered to the site in a previous class, you do not need to register and create a new user profile. Instead, you will need to login to the site, click on “join a different class,” and follow the directions from there.
For additional information on MyWritingLab, view the power points at the following Web sites:
How to register for MWL
http://www.csub.edu/mwl/updated mwlreg.ppt
How to switch classes in in MWL
http://www.csub.edu/mwl/mwlswitchclass.ppt
How to get around MWL for English100
http://www.csub.edu/mwl/mwleng100.ppt
Note: If you exhaust a topic before mastering it, let your instructor know, and he or she will have it “unlocked” for you.
Note: Please let your instructor know if you are enrolled in Humanities/Behavioral Sciences 277, which also uses MyWritingLab, while enrolled in English 80 to avoid any confusion.
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK ONE
9/13 Go over syllabus; assign reading; assign homework
9/15 Signed Syllabus Statement Due
Make a List of what makes good writing
9/17 FRIDAY WRITING #1 (ONLINE)
WEEK TWO
9/20 Focusing Exercise (list memorable moments: choose one, the only rule is this, you must
Start in the Middle)
Stories and Meaning Exercise:
Meeting with Writing Group
9/22 Working with They Say/I Say
Assign Restaurant Review:
9/24 FRIDAY WRITING #2 (ONLINE)
WEEK THREE
9/27 Typed Complete Rough Draft of Restaurant Review Due
9/29 Restaurant Review Final Draft Due (due to Turnitin by midnight)
George Hillocks Exercise on Analyzing Evidence: Slip or Trip?
10/1 FRIDAY WRITING #3 (ONLINE)
WEEK FOUR
10/4 Tortilla Curtain Reading Due
IDIOMS EXERCISE
10/6 Neighborhood Map
Creation Stories:
10/8 FRIDAY WRITING #4 (ONLINE)
WEEK FIVE
10/11 IN CLASS ESSAY (COMMON ESSAY)
10/13 Start Multi-Genre Piece
10/15 FRIDAY WRITING #5
WEEK SIX
10/18 Quite Addicting Process Analysis Writing/Multi-Genre Writing Due
10/20 Write Around with Quotes
10/22 FRIDAY WRITING #6
WEEK SEVEN
10/25 BURRO GENIUS ESSAY ROUGH DRAFT DUE
10/27 BURRO GENIUS ESSAY FINAL DRAFT DUE
10/29 FRIDAY WRITING #7
WEEK EIGHT
11/1 In-Class Essay #2
11/3 Dan Kirby Exercise:
_____ at your age.
_____ at half your age.
_____ at twice your age.
11/5 FRIDAY WRITING #8
WEEK NINE
11/8 Individual Writing Conferences
11/10 Individual Writing Conferences
11/12 Individual Writing Conferences
WEEK TEN
11/15 Final Essay Revision—Bring an Edited and Revised Typed Rough Draft
11/17 Final Essay Revision—Bring an Edited and Revised Typed Rough Draft
11/19 Final Essay Revision
REMEMBER, although this syllabus is the “law” of the class, I reserve the right to change it at any time to suit the particular needs of our class. If I must do so, it will always be in your best interest, and I’ll always advise you as soon as possible.
Mo 09:30 - 10:50 Classroom Bldg 101
WeFr 09:30 - 10:50 Classroom Bldg 105
Dr. Schmoll
Office Hours: MWF 11-12, TTh 8:30-9:30, or by appt.
bschmoll@csub.edu
661-654-6549
SYLLABUS
The blog name for this class is http://english100fall2010.blogspot.com/
Dear Class,
Welcome to this course. This quarter, we will enjoy numerous experiences together, traveling on countless mental journeys. To start things off, I have constructed a syllabus that will guide the class, hopefully answer many of your questions, and become the official constitution and law of this course.
Attendance:
Just to be clear, to succeed on tests and papers you really should be in class. That’s just common sense, right? To pass this class, you may not miss more than two classes. Why is that? Does it sound harsh? Every class meeting matters. If you miss two classes that’s bad; how can you expect to do well doing that? Certainly your participation grade will suffer if you do that, but we’ll talk about that later. For now, if you miss that third class meeting, you are missing 10% of the quarter. You cannot do that and pass. So, here’s what we do. Do your darndest to not miss any class unnecessarily. Let’s say your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife calls and wants to take you to Tahiti this weekend, but you won’t be back until late Tuesday night. Here’s what you say: “Honey, I love you, but Dr. Schmoll seems to value my education more than you do, so we are breaking up.” Ok, that may be harsh, so don’t do that, but just make sure that you do not miss any class until the 8th week. What I’ve found is that it seems inevitable that those who miss two classes early for pathetic reasons like doctor’s appointments that should have been more carefully scheduled get to the 8th week and then have to miss for a legitimate reason (like a surprise meeting at work, a sick child to take care of, or a flat tire). If you get to that 8th week and then have to miss your third class, it’ll be bad. By that point, I’ll be kind, compassionate, a real shoulder to cry on, if you want, when telling you that you’ve now failed the course. Now, if you make it to the 8th or 9th week and you have not missed those two classes, then you have some wiggle room, so that if, heaven forbid, your cat Poopsie gets pneumonia and you have to sit up all night bottle-feeding her liquid antibiotics, you and I don’t have to have that ugly conversation where I tell you that Poopsie gets blamed for you failing the course. Let’s put this another way; do you like movies? No way, me too! When you go to the movies do you usually get up and walk around the theatre for 15% of the movie? Let’s say you do decide to do that, out of a love of popcorn and movie posters, perhaps. If you did that, would you expect to understand the whole story? Okay, maybe if you are watching Harold and Kumar, but for anything else, you’ll be lost. So, please, get to class.
Being Prompt:
Get to class on time. Why does that matter? First, it sends the wrong message to your principal grader(that’s me). As much as we in the humanities would like you to believe that these courses are objective (at what time of day did the Battle of the Marne begin?), that is not entirely the case. If you send your principal grader the message that you don’t mind missing the first few minutes and disturbing others in the class, don’t expect to be given the benefit of the doubt when the tests and papers roll around. Does that sound mean? It’s not meant to, but just remember, your actions send signals. Being late also means that someone who already has everything out and is ready and is involved in the discussion has to stop, move everything over, get out of the chair to let you by, pick up the pencil you drop, let you borrow paper, run to the bathroom because you spilled the coffee, and so on. It’s rude.
So, what are the consequences of persistent tardiness? What do you think they should be? Remember that 10% participation? You are eligible for that grade if you are on time. Get here on time. And no, I’m not the jackass who watches for you to be late that one time and stands at the door and points in your face. One time tardiness is not a problem precisely because it is not persistent. It’s an accident; maybe Poopsie turned off your alarm.
The Unforgivable Curse:
Speaking of one time issues, there is something that is so severe, so awful, that if it happens one time, just one time, no warning, no “oh hey I noticed this and if you could stop it that’d be super,” you will automatically lose all 10 percent of the Participation grade. Any guesses? Cmon, you must have some idea. No, it’s not your telephone ringing. If that happens, it’ll just be slightly funny and we’ll move on. It’s a mistake and not intentional, and the increased heart rate and extra sweat on your brow from you diving headfirst into an overstuffed book bag to find a buried phone that is now playing that new Cristina Aguilera ringtone is punishment enough for you. So, what is it, this unforgivable crime? Texting. If you take out your phone to send or receive messages you will automatically lose 10% of your course grade. That means, if you receive a final grade of 85%, it will drop to 75%. If you receive a final grade of 75%, it will become a 65%. Why is that? The phone ringing is an accident. We laugh at it; we move on. Heck, my phone my even go off during class. Texting is on purpose and is rude. It, in fact, is beyond rude. It wreaks of the worst of our current society. It bespeaks the absolutely vile desire we all have to never separate from our technological tether for even a moment. It sends your fellow classmates and your teacher the signal that you have better things to do. Checking your phone during class is like listening to a friend’s story and right in the middle turning away and talking to someone else. Plus, the way our brains work, you need to fully immerse yourself, to tune your brain into an optimal, flowing machine (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s incredible book Flow) that can grasp and can let itself go. Students now tend to see school as a stopover on their way to a career. Brothers and sisters, that’s deadly! I wish that I could pay for you all to quit your jobs and just focus on the mind. I can’t yet do that but if I could I would, because it’d be worth every penny. Devoting time to the mind and to thinking deeply about your world will change who you are and how you approach your future, your family, your job, and your everything. Is that overstated? I believe it to be true. So, until my stock choices really take off so that I can pay all of your bills, promise me one thing. When you are in class or preparing for class, you have to be fully here. Oh crap, now it’s going to sound like a hippy professor from the 1960s: “I mean, like, be here man, just be here.” Maybe the hippies had something. Devote yourself fully to your classes by unplugging from the outside world for awhile.
Laptops:
The same principal goes for laptops, too. Remember, if you are taking notes on a laptop, something I think is great, you may not be on the internet at the same time. Yes, you may go to the course blog for the outline or to a document we are using in class, but you may not check email or facebook, or access anything else online. The reason why merits repeating; devote yourself fully to your classes by unplugging from the outside world for awhile.
Class Climate:
No, I don’t mean whether it’s going to rain in here or not. Sometimes I’ll lecture at you, but even then, your participation is vital. How can you participate when someone is lecturing? Any ideas? Turn to a neighbor and tell them the story of your first day at school in kindergarten. Now, if you are the one listening to the story, right in the middle look away, look at your watch, sneer at them, roll your eyes, yawn, wave to someone across the room, nudge a person next to you and tell them a joke, all while the other person is telling about his or her first day of kindergarten. If this happens in social setting we call it rude, and we call the people who listen in that way jackasses. They are not our friends precisely because we deeply value listening and do not put up with those who do not listen well. Right? So, there will be lecturing, and if you abhor what we are doing, then fake it. I used to do that sometimes too: “oh no, professor, I love hearing you talk about President Reagan’s supply side economics.” If we listen to psychologists, by faking interest you’ll be learning much more than if you show your disinterest. The next time you are sad force yourself to smile and you’ll see what I mean. So, sometimes there will be lecture. At other times there will be discussion of short readings that we do in class. During these times, it’s crucial that you do the silly little exercises: turn to a neighbor; find someone you don’t know and discuss this or that; explain to your friend what we just went over in lecture; pick something from the reading to disagree with; find two people on the other side of the room; throw cash at your professor…ok, maybe not that last one. This class is a bit unique in that it violates the normally accepted activity systems of college history classrooms. What we do in discussion will help solidify the concepts of each section of this course in your brain. If you are active in class, you will have to study less, and you’ll find yourself remembering much more.
Mining:
Have you ever wanted to be a miner? They do have those cool helmets with the lamp on top. Think about what miners do. They dig and dig, into the earth, looking for gold, coal, silver, or other valuable rocks. Sometimes all their digging amounts to nothing. They have to stop, change directions, and dig again. But sometimes they hit a productive vein. Our class will be a little like that. We’ll do some exercises that will amount to nothing and go nowhere. Who is the best judge of that? That’s right; you are! Sometimes we’ll do a written piece that will be fabulous and will produce beautiful golden prose. You will want to polish those pieces with your writing group and turn them into even more brilliant and shining jewels.
Reading:
How many of you love reading? I did not read a book until I was 18, so if you have not yet started your journey on this ever widening path, it’s never too late. In any course, there’s no substitute for reading. Jim Moffett says that “all real writing happens from plentitude,” meaning that you can only really write well about someone once you know about it. Reading is one way to know—not the only, by any means! I want you to have experiences with great texts. I can show you voluminous research proving why you nee to read more, but then if I assign a stupid, long, expensive textbook you probably will end up not reading, or only reading to have the reading done, something we have all done, right? The economy now requires much high literacy rates (see The World is Flat), and even though reading levels have not gone down in the last 40 years, it is crucial that you start to push your own reading so that your own literacy level goes up. For these ten weeks, diving wholeheartedly into the course reading is vital. Remember to read in a particular way. As reading expert and UCSB professor Sheridan Blau has argued, “reading is as much a process of text production as writing is.” Reading involves revision? Does that sound silly? As you read, think about the different ways that you understand what you read. Most importantly, when you read, think about the words of E.D. Hirsch, who says that we look at what a text says (reading), what it means (interpretation), and why it matters (criticism). Hey, but if you are in a history course, aren’t you supposed to be reading for exactly the number of miles of trenches that were dug in World War One, how many railroad workers died from 1890 to 1917, or what the causes of the Great Depression were? Anyway, the answer is yes and no. There are two types of reading that you’ll do in college. As the literary goddess theorist Louise Rosenblatt explains, there is aesthetic reading, where you are reading to have an experience with the text, and there is efferent reading, where you are reading to take away information from the text. You do both types all the time. Think about a phone book. You have probably never heard someone say of a phone book, “don’t tell me about it, I want to read it for myself.” Reading a phone book is purely efferent. In this course you will practice both types of reading. I have chosen texts that you can enjoy (aesthetic) and that you can learn from(efferent). I want to see and appreciate the detail in our reading, but in this course I’ll give you that detail in class lectures. In the reading, it’s much more important that you read texts that will live with you forever and to inspire you to think more thoroughly about your world. As you read, you should be working hard to create meaning for yourself. As Rosenblatt asserts, “taking someone else’s interpretation as your own is like having someone else eat your dinner for you.” Please, don’t let the numbskulls as wikipedia or sparknotes eat your dinner for you.
Rough Drafts:
To receive credit for any of the out of class essays this quarter, you must have a complete, typed rough draft in class for revision. If you are absent on the day we revise, you will not receive credit for the essay. Why is this? While many college writers see writing as something done at the last minute and only when the due date is imminent, the only way to improve as a writer is to put your writing through numerous revisions. That is why you must bring a complete typed rough draft to class.
GRADED BUSINESS
My Writing Lab: (10%)
This is a computer-based program that will help you tackle your writing problems with exercises. While the best way to learn to write better is to write and read more, this program will give you specific assistance in your areas of greatest need.
Burro Genius Essay (10%)
This will be an essay based on your reading of this fine book. It is also the FirstYear Experience reader.
Participation: (10%)
You do not need to be the person who speaks out the most, asks the most questions, or comes up with the most brilliant arguments to receive full credit in participation. If you are in class and on time, discuss the issues that we raise, avoid the temptation to nod off, to leave early, or to text people during class (the three easiest ways to lose credit), and in general act like you care, then you will receive a good participation grade! Just being here does not guarantee a 100% participation grade, since you must be regularly actively involved for that to be possible.
Restaurant Review: (15%)
Do you love to eat as much as I love to eat? Good. Go to a restaurant and take notes on the ambiance, the service, and the food. Write a review and post it to the website Bakersfield.com.
Multi-Genre Writing: (10%)
Multi-Genre Writing: For this assignment you must complete a writing topic in five different genres. The theme of your multi-genre assignment will be up to you, but I would strongly suggest using some of the writing that you have already completed this quarter. Use something that you or your writing group valued.
In-Class Essays: (10%)
We will write two essays in class. You will choose which one you want to have graded and recorded.
To be eligible to pass this course you must earn a C- or higher on one in-class essay.
Final Assignment: (25%)
The culminating written work of the quarter, we’ll discuss this in class.
Friday Writing: (10%)
This course is partly being run as a hybrid, meaning that for the first few Fridays of the quarter we are going to meet online rather than face-to-face.
DEPARTMENTAL POLICY STATEMENTS:
To advance to English 110, students must earn a grade of C- or higher in English 100. To be eligible for a C- in English 100, students must earn a C- or higher on at least one in-class writing assignment and a C- average on all other course assignments.
Writing Workshop
You are responsible for completing 15 MyWritingLab topics in conjunction with your English 100 class. This requirement is worth 10% of your overall English 100 grade. To receive full credit, you must (1) take the pre- and post diagnostics (Sentence Grammar and Basic Grammar) and (2) master approximately one and a half of the below assigned topics per week, for a total of 15 topics by the end of the quarter. To master a topic, you must earn a score of 80% or higher on both the Recall and Apply sections for each of the following MyWritingLab topics.
Note that topics mastered through the pre-diagnostic will not count towards your 15 topics. You must master the below 15 topics through the Recall and Apply sections.
Prewriting
Thesis Statement
Essay Organization
Developing and Organizing a Paragraph
Parts of Speech, Phrases, and Clauses
Fragments
Run-On Sentences
Subject-Verb Agreement
Pronoun Agreement
Misplaced or Dangling Modifiers
Commas
Apostrophes
Semicolons, Colons, Dashes, and Parentheses
Parallelism
Easily Confused Words
You will be held responsible for these new skills every week in your writing. Since this is an online workshop, you can work on these topics outside of class at your convenience, so long as you master approximately one and a half topics per week, for a total of 15 topics. This means that if you wait until the end of the quarter to complete all fifteen topics, you will not receive full credit and your essay grades may suffer.
You will need an access code, which is packaged with your Quick Access text and the following course identification number:
Course ID#--####
A time will be scheduled during your first or second week of class to help you register to the site and create your user profile, and you will need your MyWritingLab code and course identification number to do this. If you have already registered to the site in a previous class, you do not need to register and create a new user profile. Instead, you will need to login to the site, click on “join a different class,” and follow the directions from there.
For additional information on MyWritingLab, view the power points at the following Web sites:
How to register for MWL
http://www.csub.edu/mwl/updated mwlreg.ppt
How to switch classes in in MWL
http://www.csub.edu/mwl/mwlswitchclass.ppt
How to get around MWL for English100
http://www.csub.edu/mwl/mwleng100.ppt
Note: If you exhaust a topic before mastering it, let your instructor know, and he or she will have it “unlocked” for you.
Note: Please let your instructor know if you are enrolled in Humanities/Behavioral Sciences 277, which also uses MyWritingLab, while enrolled in English 80 to avoid any confusion.
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK ONE
9/13 Go over syllabus; assign reading; assign homework
9/15 Signed Syllabus Statement Due
Make a List of what makes good writing
9/17 FRIDAY WRITING #1 (ONLINE)
WEEK TWO
9/20 Focusing Exercise (list memorable moments: choose one, the only rule is this, you must
Start in the Middle)
Stories and Meaning Exercise:
Meeting with Writing Group
9/22 Working with They Say/I Say
Assign Restaurant Review:
9/24 FRIDAY WRITING #2 (ONLINE)
WEEK THREE
9/27 Typed Complete Rough Draft of Restaurant Review Due
9/29 Restaurant Review Final Draft Due (due to Turnitin by midnight)
George Hillocks Exercise on Analyzing Evidence: Slip or Trip?
10/1 FRIDAY WRITING #3 (ONLINE)
WEEK FOUR
10/4 Tortilla Curtain Reading Due
IDIOMS EXERCISE
10/6 Neighborhood Map
Creation Stories:
10/8 FRIDAY WRITING #4 (ONLINE)
WEEK FIVE
10/11 IN CLASS ESSAY (COMMON ESSAY)
10/13 Start Multi-Genre Piece
10/15 FRIDAY WRITING #5
WEEK SIX
10/18 Quite Addicting Process Analysis Writing/Multi-Genre Writing Due
10/20 Write Around with Quotes
10/22 FRIDAY WRITING #6
WEEK SEVEN
10/25 BURRO GENIUS ESSAY ROUGH DRAFT DUE
10/27 BURRO GENIUS ESSAY FINAL DRAFT DUE
10/29 FRIDAY WRITING #7
WEEK EIGHT
11/1 In-Class Essay #2
11/3 Dan Kirby Exercise:
_____ at your age.
_____ at half your age.
_____ at twice your age.
11/5 FRIDAY WRITING #8
WEEK NINE
11/8 Individual Writing Conferences
11/10 Individual Writing Conferences
11/12 Individual Writing Conferences
WEEK TEN
11/15 Final Essay Revision—Bring an Edited and Revised Typed Rough Draft
11/17 Final Essay Revision—Bring an Edited and Revised Typed Rough Draft
11/19 Final Essay Revision
REMEMBER, although this syllabus is the “law” of the class, I reserve the right to change it at any time to suit the particular needs of our class. If I must do so, it will always be in your best interest, and I’ll always advise you as soon as possible.
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