WR121: ENGLISH COMPOSITION Fall 2016
CRN 20677 | IA 224 | 11:00-11:50 p.m. MWF
CRN 20519 | MKH 118 | 12:00-12:50 p.m. MWF

Instructor: Suzi Steffen
Office: SSH 210
Office Hours: 9-10:40 am MF; by e-mail appointment after class MW  
Office Phone: 541-917-4525
 	I listen to voice mails during office hours only. 
Cell phone: 503-451-0228 
You may call or text this number if you need to get in touch with me. I will try to reply as soon as I can! Please include your name/class (I’m Marta from 11 am 121) 
E-­mail: steffes@linnbenton.edu or suzi.steffen@linnbenton.edu
I check e-­mail at least once every weekday between 8 and 5 and will do my best to respond within 24 hours. I do not check e-­mail on weekends or holidays. 

This is an introductory course meant to both expand your knowledge of good essay form and your confidence in your ability to create concise, clear, and cohesive college essays. We’ll look at several different forms of essays and destroy many great pieces of writing in order to learn how the heck we can do that stuff ourselves. 

Please expect to do up to 6 hours of work outside of class each week. 
 
COURSE OBJECTIVES: At the completion of WR121, successful students should be able to:  
	1.	Analyze the rhetorical needs (the needs of their audience in relationship to the assignment) for academically-­‐oriented writing assignments. 
	2.	Apply appropriate levels of critical thinking strategies (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) in their written assignments, with a focus on factual, analytical, and evaluative writing. 
	3.	Implement appropriate rhetorical elements and organization (introduction, thesis, development and support, definition, narration, comparison, conclusion, etc.) in their written assignments. 
	4.	Locate, evaluate, and integrate high-­‐quality information and opinion appropriate for college-­‐level informational, analytical and evaluative assignments. 
	5.	Craft sentences and paragraphs that communicate their ideas clearly and effectively using words, sentence patterns, and writing conventions at a college level to make their writing clear, credible, and precise. 

PREREQUISITE: Placement in WR121 is determined by pre-­enrollment testing or by passing WR115 with a grade of 'C' or better. Students may challenge their mandatory placement, with an advisor's approval, by signing a self-­‐placement form through a counselor. Before entering WR121, students are assumed to have basic competence in grammar, mechanics, sentence structure and in developing related ideas in a unified, coherent paragraph and/or short essay. These skills may be reviewed in WR121, if needed.

MATERIALS: Our required textbooks are available for purchase (new or used) or rental in the LBCC bookstore at both centers and in Albany. The book is also available for short-­‐ term loan on reserve at the LBCC library and is available in the main campus Writing  Center; they may also be available in the writing center at the satellite campuses
	•	Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. Third Edition. Norton: New York, 2012.  This should be the black-­covered textbook.
	•	Bullock, Richard, Michael Brody, and Francine Weinberg. The Little Seagull Handbook with exercises. Second Edition. Norton: New York, 2014.
Other Materials: 
Paper and pen/pencil  Stapler and staples (yes, it is a very good idea to buy your own mini-stapler and carry it) LBCC (or OSU) e-­mail account Regular access to a computer with a writing program and internet access. NOTE: A smartphone does not qualify as a computer for WR 121 purposes.
A jump drive/memory stick and/or a Dropbox account  ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY: All work submitted must be your own and must be original to this class. If you copy OR paraphrase from an outside source without citation, copy from or collaborate with a classmate on an explicitly individual assignment, ask anyone else to complete your written work for you, or recycle old work of your own to complete a new assignment, this is a violation of academic honesty. Violations of this nature and plagiarism will result in failure of the assignment and possible failure of the entire course. I will pursue every case of plagiarism to the fullest extent.

I will use software called TurnItIn to check for plagiarism. All of your major essays will be submitted using this online tool, and both you and I will be immediately alerted to any passages that are taken directly from other sources. The process for using TurnItIn will be discussed in class early in Week 2.

Most plagiarism and cheating occurs because a student is pushed against a deadline and turns to a quick, dishonest solution instead of being honest about his or her problem with the instructor. Please talk to me if you find yourself in such stress that cheating seems like a solution.

COMMUNICATION WITH INSTRUCTOR: Contact me immediately if you are having difficulties in class. I check and respond to my LBCC e-­mail at least once a day, every weekday, and I will reply to your message as soon as I am able. I check my LBCC voice mail only during office hours, but I will also reply to messages left there as soon as I can. Any changes in assignments, due dates, class meeting schedule, etc., will be announced via e-­mail and on our class Moodle page (when it gets built), in addition to being announced in class (when possible). Please make sure that you either regularly check your linnbenton.edu email or have forwarded that e-­mail address to an address you use. Note that LBCC policy, for your security, is for instructors to respond only to LBCC e-mail addresses, not Gmail or Yahoo or MSN or your own server addresses. (This has one exception: OSU e-mail addresses are also acceptable.)

When writing an e-­mail to any instructor, please include your name and the time/days of your class (Dear Suzi or Dear Ms. Steffen, this is Tobin from your 11 am WR121). 

E-mail sent without a signature and with textspeak most likely won’t receive a response via e-mail; in addition, messages without text that are sent with attachments will most likely end up in my spam filter. You might try texting if you have a short message. Always ID yourself in a similar way. Hi Suzi this is Allie from 11 am WR121, for instance.

Please remember when you’re writing an e-mail to any instructor that you’re often dealing with people who love the English language (and other languages as well!). Punctuation, even when used incorrectly, and capitalization, plus a slightly formal tone for most instructors and professors, will get you far.

TECHNOLOGY and MOODLE: This class will make extensive use of computer writing programs and internet research. In addition, I will communicate with the class via e-­mail and Moodle, and I may require response or submission via these media. Familiarity with and access to a reliable e-­mail address and the internet is required to succeed in this class. 
Knowledge of a computer writing program is required for success in this class. Microsoft Word is the supported word processing program at LBCC, and you may use it at any of the library or lab computers. If using a word processor may be a challenge, consider taking one of LBCC’s five-­week Business Technology courses before/during Writing 121. You must use your linnbenton.edu e-­mail address for this course; you can either check it regularly or you can forward it to an address that you do use. Our Moodle should be set up early next week, and then we will use it intensively. Until then, please rely on the Weeks One and Two calendars, e-mail and, of course, class attendance, for information about what’s coming next.
 COURSE OUTCOMES READ CAREFULLY! You will be evaluated on each of these categories for major writing assignments. In addition to these broader course outcomes, you will be expected to demonstrate competence in a range of more specific course objectives.
	1.	Analyze the rhetorical needs (the interaction of audiences, purpose/outcome, and subject) of a variety of academic and practical writing assignments.)
	2.	Apply appropriate levels of critical thinking strategies (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) in response to the rhetorical needs of the assignment.
	3.	Implement appropriate rhetorical elements and organization (introduction, thesis, development and support, rebuttal, visuals, narration, conclusion, etc.) in response to the rhetorical needs of an assignment.
	4.	Locate, evaluate, and integrate high-quality information and opinion in response to the rhetorical needs of an assignment.
	5.	Craft sentences and paragraphs that communicate their ideas clearly and effectively using words, sentence patterns, and writing conventions to make your writing clear, credible, and persuasive.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
The following class-related activities and assignments make up 70% of your final grade: 
Essay #1:
Informal outline (or prewriting)		 5 points
First full draft				 	10 points
Peer responses (2)				10 points
Final draft					200 points
Essay #2:
Graphic organizer or outline		 5 points
First full draft				 	10 points
Peer responses (2)				 10 points
Final draft					200 points
Essay #3:
Graphic organizer or outline		10 points
Annotated bibliography			15 points
First full draft				 	15 points
Peer response (1)				10 points
Final draft					200 points
(Please note: First drafts and graphic organizers must be submitted on the due date to earn full credit.)
Summary assignment			 50 points
Practice final					100 points
Daily work-hw; in-class activities	100 points	
Commitment grade			 	40 points

Total = 1000 points (A = 900-1000, B = 800-899, C = 700-799, D = 600-699)

The above assignments make up 70 percent of your final grade, and the final exam (taken on Monday and Tuesday of finals week) is the other 30 percent.

THE FINAL EXAM will be explained in class. It will require you to complete an assigned reading and respond in writing during the first two days of Finals Week. You will be required to cite provided sources within your paper. We will discuss the time and location in class.
FORMATTING: All assignments must be typed and submitted using MLA format. An example of this appears in the Little Seagull textbook in the MLA section (p. 109).
Rough drafts are unacceptable for classroom submission. The draft should be at its polished best before you present it to your peers or your instructor. I will discuss papers and assignments before their due date, in class.
LATE WORK: Late papers and assignments receive an automatic one-­letter grade deduction. No assignments will be accepted after one week. Computer failure is never an excuse for a late paper. Plan ahead and save often. If you are in many classes with written assignments, please consider investing in an off-­site backup program (like Dropbox.com, which allows 1GB of free space online) that will protect your work against crashes, viruses, fire, and theft. I have sympathy for many things; computer trouble (and by extension, printer trouble) is not one of them.
  ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION: Your attendance and participation in our class is vital not only to your own learning but to that of your classmates, who will benefit from your input. In-­‐class work, including quizzes and peer editing, that you miss while absent cannot be made up. Those students who do not bring a complete draft to peer editing days may be asked to make better use of their time by completing their paper elsewhere during our class time. Exception: Please don’t come to class sick!  When you have missed class, it is up to you to obtain the notes and assignments handed out that day. Work due must be submitted at the beginning of class to be counted “on time.”

THE LBCC LIBRARY 
The LBCC library is located on the first floor of Willamette Hall. We will have a class visit within the first few weeks of class so you can get to know the library better. The library has several databases for research articles that you can access both on and off-campus. Get more information here: http://library.linnbenton.edu/home

THE CENTER FOR ACCESSIBILITY RESOURCES 
Speak with me during the first week of class if you have a documented disability and need accommodations, your instructor needs to know medical information about you, or you need special arrangements in the event of an emergency.  If you think you may need accommodation services, please contact the Center for Accessibility Resources at (541) 917-4789..  WRITING CENTER: From initial ideas to final drafts, the LBCC Writing Center can help you take your writing to the next level. The Writing Center is on the second floor of Willamette Hall in the Learning Center. Please feel free to drop in during regular hours to work one-­on-­one with one of the supportive Writing Assistants or to make 30-minute appointments (those are limited in number). In addition to your draft, please bring your assignment and any questions you have. You may also submit your work to the Writing Center online.  The Writing Center is open 9 am-5 pm M-F.  You can find info about the Online Writing Lab here: https://www.linnbenton.edu/current-students/study/learning-center/writing-assistance/online-writing-lab-owl

LBCC COMPREHENSIVE STATEMENT OF NON-­DISCRIMINATION: LBCC prohibits unlawful discrimination based on race, color, religion, ethnicity, use of native language, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, veteran status, age, or any other status protected under applicable federal, state, or local laws. (For further information http://po.linnbenton.edu/BPsandARs/) Board Policy P1015