ONLINE COURSE DESCRIPTION
ENGLISH 190: COMPOSITION I FOR TRANSFERS
SUMMER SESSION I
KARYL GARLAND
Objective
Each student taking my section of English 190: Composition 1 for Transfers at the University of Hawai‘i, during Summer Session I will strengthen in his or her ability to write with strength, clarity, and confidence.
You will be invited, through major and minor writing assignments, to work with me as your teacher and editor to become the best writer you can be.
Through the process of writing and revision, my hope is that you will learn more about writing well than ever before. As your instructor, I will provide you with line edits so as to teach you, or remind you of, every element involved with writing well at the college level.
The style guide we will be using for formatting is that of the Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting.
To note: You will also have 2 quizzes based on grammar, punctuation, syntax, and usage for which I will prepare you with my classroom-based video clips.
Overview
Summer Sessions at UH are only 6 weeks long, so your instruction and learning will be intense.
As is the case during the semester, you should plan to spend at least 2 hours a week per class session. What that means is that you should set aside at lease 10 hours a week outside of class on English 190 reading and writing assignments.
I will ask that you create time in your schedule that will be sufficient for writing that is thoughtful, clear, and well revised and that you wholly commit to your personal development as a writer.
I promise to commit to helping you all along the way.
Student Learning Outcomes
The UH designated SLOs for English 190 are as follows.
- Compose a text to achieve a specific purpose and respond adeptly to an identifiable audience.
- Provide evidence of effective strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proofreading a text in order to produce finished prose.
- Compose a text that makes use of source material that is relevant and reliable and that is integrated in accordance with an appropriate style guide.
- Compose writing that expresses the writer’s viewpoint and is supplemented by outside sources.
- Produce at least 5000 words of finished prose, equivalent to approximately 20 typewritten/printed pages.
Course Goals
By the end of this Summer Session, you should be able to do the following regarding course goals.
- Understand and put into practice the basic concept of what makes strong writing (organization, complexity of thought, substantiality of development, facility with language, and strong grammar and usage) and how to achieve such writing through a process that has been carefully crafted and individualized for the particular writer.
- Apply these principles to the writing of essays that include the following elements: intriguing leads, purposeful transition sentences, strong thesis statements, clear topic sentences, and conclusions do not simply repeat what has already been stated but that end with strength and purpose.
- Understand how to conduct college-level research using scholarly sources and how to use and cite these sources accurately and appropriately.
- Understand general principles and practice regarding grammar, punctuation, and usage within the English language and apply these principles while learning how to use powerful, clear, and concise rhetorical patterns in your own writing.
- Develop greater confidence as a writer whose work is more reader-based than writer-based.
- Build on already established skills as a writer.
Student Requirements
You will submit all of your assignments through your Laulima Drop Boxes (using MS Word), and any discussion between you and me and your classmates in a conversational sense will be through the Laulima’s Chat Room or another designated online place to “meet.” In addition, you will find all important videos for English 190 in Laulima’s Resources.
Although you can use any word processing program to complete your writing assignments, you must save your files as a MS Word doc and submit each one as such. I will not accept documents produced in Google Docs or Pages or as PDFs.
My editorial comments and corrections will be made by my using the Track Changes feature within Word and my inclusion of Comment bubbles in the right hand margin of all your submissions.
If you do use a program other than Microsoft Word, learn how to convert your files to Word.
All assignments are due by 11:59 pm HST on the day on which they appear in the schedule. You must complete all 4 major writing assignments to receive a passing grade in this class. I will lower grades for late assignments by one letter grade for every 2 days past the due date.
I will not read and comment on drafts that are submitted more than 2 days past the deadline. What all this means, students, is that you will really need to be on top of things this summer.
Once I complete my editorial work on your rough drafts, I will return them as Word doc attachments through individual emails.
Your job will be to apply all my comments and corrections and resubmit a final draft per the deadline established for each assignment.
Your overall course grade will be based on the following.
Major Formal Writing Assignments (4 essays) 100 points each
Rough Draft for Major Formal Writing Assignments (3 of 4) 10 points each
Minor Formal Writing Assignments (2 writing assignments) 50 points each
Quizzes on Daily Language Exercises (2 quizzes) 25 points each
Class/Survey/Discussion Participation 50 points total
Face-to-Face with Instructor (2 per summer session) 35 points each
Total Points for Summer Session 1 = 700
Grading
The grading scale for major writing assignments is as follows.
A+: 98–100 A: 93–97 A-: 90–92
B+: 88–89 B: 83–87 B-: 80–82
C+: 78–79 C: 73–77 C-: 70–72
D+: 68–69 D: 63–67 D-: 60–62
F: 0–59
Please do not operate on the belief that completing an assignment “without errors” will get you an A.
Simply put, writing is subjective. That does not mean, however, that you will be at the mercy of your professor’s idiosyncratic tastes. For each assignment, we will discuss the assignment’s criteria, and you will be given a rubric explaining how I will be grading your final drafts.
An “A” text is exceptional. This is the kind of document that a magazine editor might give cover-story billing. It is professional and reflects the writer’s careful consideration of audience, purpose, and craft. It is developed well; it is constructed in an appropriate and engaging style; it is arranged effectively, and it will likely be visually appealing. It is free of errors, and it makes the reviewer/grader/reader think, “Wow!”
A “B” text is strong. This document would be considered good, solid work for a magazine. It, too, is professional and reflects consideration of the rhetorical situation. It is generally above average in terms of the criteria mentioned above, but it falls short of excellent in one or more category. It is generally free of mechanical errors.
A “C” text is competent. This is a document that “gets the job done,” but it may concern an editor because of the writer’s marginal awareness of the document’s rhetorical context. It would probably be returned for revision. It may have a few minor mechanical errors, but not many.
Low “C” or “D” work is weak. This document would get tossed back by an editor. It might meet all basic requirements, but it will do so poorly and with mistakes. It might be ineffective rhetorically, perhaps even negatively effective. It falls below average in one or more criteria
“F” work fails. One or more of the criteria is simply not met at all. It would probably get the writer severely reprimanded or fired.
General Information
Please feel free to contact me at any time to inquire about a grade you received on a particular assignment or your overall standing.
As needed, I will meet with you individually on Facetime or Skype, whichever is best for you. And you will be required to have 2 of these meetings each worth 35 points.
But I will also be available to meet with you in person throughout the duration of Summer Session 1 at a mutually agreeable time and place. We can also plan phone chats.
Finally, I wholly look forward to meeting each and every one of you.
Contact Information
Questions regarding this course can be directed to the instructor at the following email address: karyl8@hawaii.edu (noting that the letter before the 8 is a lowercase “L” and not the numeral “1”). But you can also call or text me any time at 808.349.5046.