COURSE DESCRIPTION: ENGLISH 100 (SUMMER SESSION)–K. GARLAND
Objective
Each student taking my section of English 100: Composition 1 at the University of Hawai‘i, during the Summer Session 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 3 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 100 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 100 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
This class is designated as hybrid with UH’s Laulima online learning environment being the gateway for all course elements.
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.
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 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.
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.
- 4 major writing assignment = 100 points each
- 4 rough drafts of major writing assignments = 10 points each
- 4 minor writing assignments = 25 points each
- 3 sentence correction quizzes = 20 points each
Total Points for Summer Session 1 = 600
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.
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 in Laulima’s Chat Room or on Skype, whichever is best for you.
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.
In regards to the hybrid element of this course, you will be asked to attend at least 3 out of 6 real-time classes on the UH campus.
Our classroom will be designated once registration for Summer Session is complete. And each class session will be 50 minutes long.
This element of English 100 is pivotal for your overall learning and success as a freshman in Composition 1 and beyond.
However, I will need to wait for the completion of registration before setting the dates for these mandatory class sessions so as to accommodate the needs of all of my students.
Please be prepared to make time for these classes.
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”).