ENGL 112: STUDIES IN COMPOSITION 2023-24 Winter Term 2

Java Python ENGL 112: STUDIES IN COMPOSITION

2023-24 Winter Term 2

ENGL 112 - 101, 102, 103

ACADEMIC CALENDAR ENTRY:

Practice-based approach to writing at the university level. Emphasis is placed on the processes of research-based writing. Credit will be granted for only one of ENGL 112, ENGL 109, or ENGL 114

COURSE FORMAT: This course will run online as an asynchronous delivery, which means it offers the exclusive use of self-guided materials. Asynchronous delivery of a course refers to course instruction  in the form. of learning materials and exercises that students will access and complete at their own pace.

Completing the practice exercises in the workbook in a timely manner reinforces the development of university-level skills in critical thinking, reading, writing, and documentation. You are expected to read the course texts, view the video-taped lectures, and complete the exercises and essay assignments in the  order they arepresented via Canvas. The learning materials, tools, and activities—recorded and written lectures, powerpoint demonstrations, practice-based learning exercises, and essay assignments—are provided in the Custom Course Materials and on Canvas. Thus, you must have an up-to-date computer that can run the Canvas tools. You must also have Microsoft Office 365, a Canvas-compatible word processor, to submit the exercises and assignments. (MS Office 365 is available free through UBC).

COURSE OVERVIEW, CONTENT, AND OBJECTIVES:

English 112 introduces you to the ways that scholars think about, undertake, and communicate the results of their research. The course is designed to help you develop the reading and writing skills you need to succeed in your university career. It is not a basic course in English language skills; thus, the expectation is that your level of competence will enable you to write academic papers that are significantly free of errors in basic grammar. The course covers the essay-writing process through close reading strategies, summary, analysis, persuasion, revision, research methods, and documentation. It also includes practice exercises designed to prepare you to construct essays that are appropriate for university-level research writing. ENGL 112 is not discipline specific. Its purpose is to increase your awareness of and familiarity   with the conventions of writing and documentation in several disciplines and help you build the skills you need to write and conduct research in your chosen discipline.

CLOSE READINGS OF COURSE TEXTS:

The course requires you to engage in active student-based learning to develop your skills in reading comprehension, critical thinking, and writing. You will study fiction, semi-fictional prose, academic and personal essays, and film. You will work through these texts employing “close reading tools” to foster your development of the critical thinking skills that are essential to good writing. You will develop your skills in a variety of activities such as informal writing exercises called inkshedding. See the next page for an explanation of this writing exercise.

COURSE DESIGN:

The design of ENGL 112 is scaffolded or laddered. There is a repeating sequence of exercises and inksheds that prepare you to write the formal assignments, and, as you will see, each assignment is a little more complex than the one before it. That is, the first assignments assist students in mastering simple tasks and then the tasks increase in complexity. In these exercises, you will learn how to write clear and concise sentences (using active voice), how to organize the essay in a logical sequence of ideas, how to lead the reader from one idea to the next with transitional sentences, and how to format quotes and citations to support your analysis with evidence. You will also learn how to create works cited lists.

Assignments 1 and 2 focus on quoting and citing prescribed primary and secondary sources. 1 and 2 are two-page summary exercises designed to assist you in developing skills in analysis, in documentation (quoting and citing sources), and in writing clear and concise sentences. 1 and 2 will also help you develop grammar skills regardless of the level of skill you have when you begin the course.

Assignments 1 and 2 also help you develop awareness of essay structure and create logical sequences of ideas and quotes. To help you acquire these basic skills, you will practice by quoting prescribed sources  (those in the coursepack). You will also learn how to write leading statements and transitional sentences. In Assignment 3, you will learn how to quote and cite speakers in a film (another prescribed secondary source) which adds a new level of complexity.

Assignment 5 builds on the skills you will have developed in Assignments 1, 2, and 3, but it adds yet another level of complexity in that it requires you to search the library catalogue and choose two scholarly secondary sources to support your discussion of your chosen topic. Assignment 4 requires you to summarize your chosen sources in annotated bibliographies before writing the research essay. Ultimately, you will learn how to design an argument and how to write a thesis statement. Assignment 5 invites you  to demonstrate the skills you have developed.

REVISION:

An important goal of this course is to encourage you, through feedback on your writing, to engage in the practices of revision as essential components of the writing process. I use an editorial tool called Track Changes to respond to your assignments and to provide modeling. You are required to revise all assignments to increase the clarity of your ideas and to correct grammar and spelling errors. The revision process also offers you opportunities to increase your critical thinking skills. Your revised drafts should   indicate that you have read the comments I have provided in the sidebar (using Track Changes) and have applied my suggestions and modeling to the best of your ability. As you revise and develop your skills, the quality of your writing and presentation should improve, and your grade should increase.

INKSHEDS: Learning to write as you write to learn.

Developing writing skills requires practice. Inksheds are low-stakes exercises that invite you to write nonstop for 10 minutes on prompts based on the texts. Inksheds offer you time to practice writing and increase your knowledge of the texts. You should expect to write two inksheds each week. I grade inksheds on form. (writing quality), on content (the quality of ideas), and on length (quantity). The quality and quantity of inksheds should increase over the semester.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

After completing this course, students should be able to:

1.   Find, evaluate, integrate, and synthesize primary and secondary source material (including quotations, paraphrase, and summary), develop atopic into a thesis, and provide suitable  authority and context;

2.   Document sources fully and ethically according to a current scholarly documentation system (for  example, MLA and/or APA), informed by Indigenous Style. (e.g., per Greg Younging’s Elements of Indigenous style: a guide for writing by and about Indigenous Peoples, or some similar guide);

3.   Craft and revise sentences that are grammatically sound and use an appropriate level of diction;

4.   Practice a university-level writing process: prewriting, planning, multiple drafting, conferring, integrating research, revising, editing, and proofreading;

5.   Produce a substantial body of successful writing under time restrictions as well as out of class;

6.   Perform. a university-level critical analysis of texts by identifying and evaluating controlling ideas, supporting ideas, dominant rhetorical patterns, tone, context, and features of style;

7.   Construct logically argued, evidence-based, and persuasively organized paragraphs and essays, following academic conventions;

8.   Recognize and demonstrate a founding knowledge of verbal and written modes of scholarly discourse and of disciplinary distinctions within the academy.

EVALUATION CRITERIA AND GRADING:

	Description	Due date	Value %	L/O
Assignment 1	500-word rhetorical analysis of E.B. White’s essay	Jan 28	5%	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Assignment 2	500-word rhetorical analysis of Peter Singer’s essay	Feb 18	5%	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Assignment 3	500-word synthesis of White & Singer	Feb 25	10%	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Library Course	Library Orientation (online)	March 10	5%	8
Assignment 4	Annotated bibliography (2 sources)	March 17	5%	1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Assignment 5	1000 words on Singer, White & 2 secondary sources (see #4)	March 31	25%	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Final Exam	(Part A timed writing 5% and Part B 750- word essay 15%)	(April 15 – 24)	20%	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Participation: Grammar & documentation exercises, inksheds, the Close Reading questions for Robert Asher, and the Close Reading questions for Robert Kenner (which are worth 20% combined); and the Close Reading questions for Arthur Manuel (2.5%) and the Synthesis Exercise on Carter / Manuel & Posluns (2.5%). Combined total of 25% for participation.

Grading Practices

Faculties, departments, and schools reserve the right to scale grades in order to maintain equity among sections and conformity to university, faculty, department, or school norms. Students should therefore note that an unofficial grade given by an instructor might be changed by the faculty, department, or school. Grades are not official until they appear on a student’s academic record.

http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/okanagan/index.cfm?tree=3,41,90,1014

COURSE POLICIES:

Students must achieve 50% or above on the final exam and in-class exercises in order to pass the course. Moreover, your grade for participation must be at least 50% (for inksheds, exercises, worksheets, and/or  group discussions) for you to qualify to write the final examination.

The UBC Okanagan calendar stipulates that “regular attendance is expected of students in all their classes (including lectures, laboratories, tutorials, seminars, etc.). Students who neglect their academic work and   assignments maybe excluded from final examinations.” To promote the timely submissions of

assignments. I reserve the right to impose a penalty of 5% deduction for each week that an essay is late unless you provide adequate written proof of illness, injury, bereavement, etc., to demonstrate why you were unable to submit the assignment on time.

Email Policy: All emails to the professor must be professional, courteous, and concise. Identify the topic in the subject line and sign the letter. Responses can be expected within 24 hours during weekdays.

A 80-100% Excellent

• Content: This paper intelligently and thoughtfully answers the question posed by the

assignment. It develops and narrows the topic using analytical processes and advances an “original” thesis/ argument.  It includes both high-level or abstract ideas and supportive,   specific details.

• Research: It demonstrates thorough and comprehensive research and smooth integration of both primary and secondary sources. It includes critical analysis of all sources and

complete and accurate citations.

• Organization: Its paragraphs are unified and coherent; it is clearly and logically organized with smooth transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

• Writing:  The language of the paper is clear and precise with next to no sentence-level, spelling, or format errors. Overall, this paper demonstrates a sophisticated and sustained engagement with scholarly style.

B 68-79% Good

• Content: This paper adequately answers the question posed by the assignment. It

advances a reasonable thesis. It maintains a reasonable and analytic balance of high-level ideas and specific details.

• Research: It incorporates adequate evidence from primary and secondary sources

(although the evidence may not be as effectively integrated as in an A level paper) and complete and accurate citations. Organization:  Paragraphs are reasonably unified and  coherently organized; transitions between paragraphs are acceptable.

• Writing:  The language of the paper is generally clear, with only occasional sentence

level, spelling, or formatting errors. Overall, this paper demonstrates above average work and a serious if not thoroughly consistent engagement with scholarly style.

C 55-67% Satisfactory

• Content: This paper partially answers the question posed by the assignment.  Its topic

may not be narrowed or is only partially developed. There is little analytical integration of high-level ideas and specific details.  It maybe predominantly descriptive or

generalize instead of analyzing or persuading.

• Research: It cites primary and secondary sources as evidence, but that evidence is often simply dropped into the body of the paper and not critically evaluated. Citations are

present but not necessarily complete or accurately formatted.

• Organization: Paragraphs are not strongly unified and transitions are unclear.

• Writing: The language of the paper includes regular and substantial sentence-level, spelling and formatting errors. Overall, this paper shows an effort to engage with scholarly style, but does so inconsistently.

D 50-54% Poor / Minimal Pass

• Content: This paper does not clearly answer the question posed by the assignment. It

lacks a clearly stated thesis/ position and is often either predominantly descriptive with little to no analysis or overly general, relying on personal opinion rather than scholarly concepts.

• Research: It does not cite adequate primary or secondary evidence and often uses non- scholarly, web-based sources. Citations are incomplete or inaccurate.

• Organization: Its paragraphs lack unity and there is no clear order or smooth transition between them.

• Writing: There are recurring and significant sentence-level, spelling and formatting errors (ie. little evidence of editing / revision). Overall, this paper does not engage the language  and practices of scholarly style. effectively.

F 0-49% Failure

• Content: This essay does not answer the question posed by the assignment nor does it

meet the minimum standards for a university assignment.  It does not advance a position/ thesis. There are few logical connections between high-level ideas and specific details;

there is no evidence of critical analysis and the paper relies on broad generalizations.

• Research: It does not provide adequate research in the form of primary or secondary

sources, nor does it integrate any sources it does use (often little or no scholarly research supports this essay).**

• Organization: Its paragraphs lack unity (with no clear topic or logical order).

• Writing: There are consistent and copious sentence-level, spelling, word choice, and formatting errors.  Overall, this paper offers no evidence of scholarly research and ignores the practices and style. of scholarly writing