ENG 100, Section 009: Composition I
The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Fall 2017 Semester
Class Time & Location: TR 12:00 to 1:15 PM, TBA
Instructor: Nicole Kurashige (I prefer being called by my first name, so it’s fine if you address me as “Nicole” in-person and via e-mail)
Office Location & Phone #: KUY 321, (808) 956-3036
E-mail (preferred mode of contact): nicolek4@hawaii.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Catalog Description
ENG 100 Composition I (3 credits)
“Introduction to the rhetorical, conceptual, and stylistic demands of writing at the university level; instruction in composing processes, search strategies, and writing from sources. Students may not earn credit for both ENG 100 and ENG 190. Pre-placement. Freshmen only. FW.”
Note: If you are unsure whether you have been cleared for English 100, you should go to the General Education office in Bilger 104, e-mail them at gened@hawaii.edu, or call them at (808) 956-6660. The English Department does not handle ENG 100 placement.
Expanded Course Description
What do Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram have to do with writing? In this course, we will examine how the continued development of social media and innovative technologies is used to communicate a variety of messages. We also will look at how writing is produced within these digital spaces and how it functions rhetorically. Because the way we connect with the world around us is becoming increasingly multimodal, it is important that you, as students and writers, be able to effectively compose thoughtful arguments within these online spaces.
Through a series of informal blog posts, in-class discussions, and four formal essay assignments, you will be challenged to apply what you know about social media and pop culture to your writing to create not only entertaining, but also engaging pieces for an appropriate target audience. During this course, you will conduct research on the topics that interest you the most in order to support your ideas/claims with concrete evidence. If you so desire, for your final essay, you will be given the freedom to share and present your work using whatever format—be it digital or “traditional”—you feel would best communicate your opinions and findings.
Learning to compose writing using various multimodal platforms is a skill that will benefit you beyond the English classroom, and will be useful in your everyday lives. Writing is a process, and I, therefore, encourage you all to explore and experiment as we progress through the semester. Ultimately, the activities, discussions, and assignments completed in this course should push you to become more critical, self-aware, and reflective writers.
Last but not least, this course will only be as good as YOU, the student, decide to make it. Many lifelong friendships can be formed in classes during your undergrad years (I still have a group of friends from undergrad that I talk to on a daily basis). Make the most of every day and come to class with a good attitude and willingness to learn. You don’t have to make friends during your time here, but it wouldn’t hurt to give your classmates a pleasant greeting or words of encouragement every now and then.
Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)
By the end of this FW course, students will be able to:
1. Compose college-level writing, including but not limited to, academic discourse, which achieves a specific purpose and response adeptly to an identifiable audience.
2. Provide evidence of effective strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proofreading a text in order to produce finished prose.
3. Compose an argument that makes use of source material that is relevant and credible and that is integrated in accordance with an appropriate style guide.
Access to Technology & Required Electronic Materials
In order to successfully participate in this class, you will be required to have access to reliable Internet/Wi-Fi sources and technological tools/devices (e.g. laptops, desktops, tablets, smart phones, etc.). More specifically, having regular access to a tablet or laptop is necessary for your success in the class, as you will be spending a good portion of your time completing homework assignments on our class website. While you are free to use your laptop and/or tablet to take notes or access our readings during class, you are also welcome to bring printed hardcopies of the materials to class (especially if you learn better by physically marking up your papers). You are responsible for downloading and/or printing out any materials posted to the course website for that day’s class. Unless otherwise noted or planned, I will not be providing you with handouts.
You are also responsible for regularly checking our class website for any updates to the course syllabus or schedule. You will need to make a free WordPress account to access this website. Furthermore, parts of our website are password protected for privacy. The URL and password for our class website will be given out during the first day. DO NOT share this password or any of the course materials posted on our website with anyone outside of our ENG 100 course.
Finally, if you haven’t done so already, I also strongly suggest that you download Microsoft Word to complete your assignments, as I will only accept Word.doc or Word.docx files. A free student version of Microsoft Office, which also includes Word, is offered to all UHM students (http://www.hawaii.edu/askus/575 or https://products.office.com/en-us/student/office-in-education). If you’re having trouble with downloading Microsoft Word, please contact the UHM ITS Department for more information (808-956-8883 or help@hawaii.edu).
Course Texts and Resources
You will be required to purchase one book, a young adult novel, for this course. You can purchase Parker Peevyhouse’s Where Futures End on Amazon as either a paperback (between $1.30 to $11.30, depending on the seller and condition of the book) or Kindle e-book ($8.99). If you choose to purchase the Kindle e-book version and do not own a Kindle, you will also need to download the free Amazon Kindle App to access your book through any synced electronic device (e.g. smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc.). You can look up the instructions on how to do so on Amazon’s Kindle page.
Where Futures End can also be found at the Ala Moana Shopping Center Barnes and Nobles, but be warned that the prices at the store may be higher than the ones listed on Amazon (the choice is yours on how you want to read this text).
Where Futures End is the only book you will be required to purchase for this course. All other supplemental reading and resource materials will be provided as PDFs or online links via the course website (See the “Supplement Readings & Videos” tab for more info). One resource we will be using is Purdue OWL: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/.
Your discussions on these readings and resources will be vital to your development as a writer and are also part of your class participation grade for each day. Therefore, should I feel that the class, as a collective, is not keeping up with the readings, I will begin giving graded pop quizzes, which will later be factored into your final grades.
Course Assignments
To pass the course, you must complete all of the following assignments:
Four Major Essays (70%)
Throughout the semester, there will be four major essay assignments to complete (10% for Essay #1, 15% for Essay #2 and Essay #3, and 30% for the final research essay and presentation). To pass this course, you must complete all essay assignments and receive a grade for them—there is no such thing as passing the course by “cherry-picking” and “skipping” essays. If you “skip” an essay, you will fail the course.
Essay Submission & Formatting Guidelines
To help you understand that writing is a process, you will turn in multiple drafts for each essay assignment. For every essay, you will first turn in a complete rough draft via e-mail by the designated deadline, which will later be workshopped during our in-class peer review groups. Please see our course schedule and the individual essay tabs for more information about the assignment requirements, points/percentages, and due dates.
When you submit your first drafts, your e-mails should have a proper subject line, include a short message to me in the body section, and have your draft attached as a Word.doc/Word.docx file. Submitting your final drafts pretty much follows the same process, although there are some changes. In addition to your final draft, you will also attach a 300 to 500 word Grade Justification to your e-mail. Please see the “Grade Justification” tab on our course for more information.
You will usually have about one week to revise your rough draft on your own and during in-class peer review activities before turning in a final draft to me via e-mail. Please see the course schedule and individual essay tabs on our class website for more information about the assignment requirements and due dates.
All essays will follow MLA guidelines and include a Works Cited page when necessary. Your name, class information, title, and Works Cited page will not count towards your word count. Your work should be formatted as a Word.doc/Word.docx file, double-spaced, and written in either Arial or Times New Roman font with 1-inch margins all around. I will not accept essays saved as any other file type, unless otherwise noted (NO PDFs, NO TextEdit, NO Pages, NO Google Docs, etc.). Please see the “Essay Submission & Formatting Guidelines” tab on our course website for more information.
Essay Drafts & Student Conferencing
For every paper, you are required to turn in a complete rough draft by the designated deadline. You will then meet with me for one-on-one conferencing during designated peer review and workshop days so that we can discuss your work together in class. If you are not in class on the days that I conduct these conferences, you will be responsible for rescheduling your meeting with me to a time during my office hours. If you do not schedule a make-up meeting with me or do not show up for your scheduled make-up meeting, you will receive a 2.5 point penalty to your final draft grade for that essay assignment. If you are more than 5 minutes late to your meeting, I will mark you as a “no show” and the aforementioned penalty will be applied.
I am more than happy to meet with you during my office hours if you wish to discuss your progress or performance in the course. If you need to schedule a meeting with me outside of office hours, please make sure you e-mail me beforehand with a set time and date for your intended meeting, so that I may make the necessary adjustments on my end.
Blog Posts (20%)
You will write 300 to 500 word semi-formal responses to various prompts pertaining to our class readings and/or discussions every other week. These blog posts are intended to help you explore, summarize, analyze, and synthesize course material so that these ideas may be incorporated into your major essay assignments. Individual blog posts are graded on a credit/no credit basis. These blog posts will be submitted to the class website by 6 PM every other Sunday. Please see the class website for due dates and assignment guidelines under the “Blog Post Requirements” tab.
Participation, Discussion Facilitation, & Attendance (10%)
As mentioned previously, your discussions on the readings and resources will be vital to your development as a writer and are also part of your class participation grade for each day. I will be keeping track of everyone’s participation in the class. I do understand, however, that we all have “off” days and may not feel like speaking in class during such a time. You are, therefore, allowed one free “pass” per week to use during discussions. For example, if you use your “pass” on Monday during a discussion, you cannot use it again for Wednesday or Friday and must speak on those following days.
Your free “pass” is only applicable for large group discussions and does not extend to other in-class activities such as peer review workshops, freewrites, brainstorming sessions, small group assignments, etc. Failure to individually participate in any class activities for an entire week will result in a 2.5 point penalty to this portion of your final course grade.
Attendance is mandatory and will be a vital part of your grade (see Attendance Policy below for more information).
Extra Credit
There may be extra credit opportunities, but this will ultimately depend on the work ethic of the entire class. We can, and will, discuss these opportunities more seriously around the middle of the semester.