John Kissingford
e-mail: jkissingford@ouray.k12.co.us
Voicemail or Text: 970-325-3501
Office hours here.
Concurrent enrollment: Colorado Mesa University ENG 111 and ENG 112
Students who meet the requirements of the course earn six credits at Colorado Mesa University.
Course Description: This is a post-secondary level class that focuses on the skills of college level composition. The first semester treats writing as a rhetorical process, and the second focuses on college-level research. While the research will be inter-disciplinary, much of the instruction will build on the skills of literary analysis that other English courses have prepared students for.
Students enroll concurrently in Colorado Mesa University courses English 111 and English 112, so in addition to weighted grades at Ouray High School, they earn a total of six university credits.
Good high school writers have learned very well how to answer the prompts their teachers give them, using the scaffolding and process their teachers require to meet rigidly defined expectations. These are important skills.
But mature writers, scholars, go beyond this. They pursue open questions, imagine possible modes of response, consider audience, draft, seek response, revise, edit, tailor their expression to their purpose. They use writing as a process of thought, engaging in dialogue with their subject, learning from the interaction, and expressing those new understandings in ways that bring readers to exciting, unexpected places.
The purpose of this course is to facilitate this transition, to help the competent high school writer become a scholar.
Text Book and Materials: A Pocket Style Manual, Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
Fiction and non-fiction choice books
Model essays as assigned
Course Outcomes:
Objectives for English 111 (assessment in parentheses)
Students should be able to:
Understand the writing process as a recursive set of activities, including idea generation, pre-writing, drafting, revision, and editing (Portfolio will contain full process of various papers)
Adapt voice to accommodate a variety of audiences and purposes (Portfolio will contain a variety of experiments with voice)
Compose essays/texts around a significant point and central claim (Assessed by quality of final drafts in portfolio)
Organize and structure essays/texts effectively (Assessed by quality of revision process in portfolio)
Understand and apply grammatical conventions to enhance intelligibility and avoid ambiguity (Objective tests and editing tasks in class; quality of pieces in portfolio should reflect)
Recognize and avoid plagiarism (Class discussions, portfolio artifacts)
Apply the principles of documentation and citation (research aspects of papers in portfolio)
Course Outcomes: Objectives for English 112
Students should be able to
Read, think, and write critically, with an emphasis on logical reasoning, in response to a wide range of texts (class discussion, papers in portfolio)
Understand academic research as a process with rhetorical purpose (class discussion, papers in portfolio)
Summarize, paraphrase, quote, and cite source material without plagiarizing (quality of attribution in portfolio)
Recognize and follow grammatical conventions to enhance intelligibility and clarity (objective tests and editing tasks in class, quality of pieces in portfolio)
Employ the MLA and APA style of documentation for researched writing while recognizing the disciplinary value of other styles of documentation (class discussions and activities, research projects in portfolio)
Make informed choices about grammar and style as these impact rhetorical purpose (class discussions and portfolio)
Make appropriate rhetorical choices about the focus and organization of an academic essay (class discussions and portfolio)
Establish and extend one’s own thinking in response to the ideas of others (class discussions, quality of revisions in portfolio)
CMU Program Goals:
This course addresses the following critical thinking skills: identifying and differentiating questions, problems and arguments; evaluating the appropriateness of various methods of reasoning and verification; identifying and assessing stated and unstated assumptions; critically comparing different points of view; formulating questions and problems; constructing and developing cogent arguments; discussing alternative points of view; evaluating the quality of evidence and reasoning; evaluating the appropriateness of various methods of reasoning and verification; discussing alternative points of view.
CMU General Education Goals: Students successful in English Composition will be able to think critically and creatively, and will be able to communicate effectively in the English language.
CMU English Department Goals: Students will receive instruction and practice in: the writing process (including idea generation, pre-writing, revision, and editing); understanding audience and voice; composing an essay around a significant point; using specific details and examples to develop an idea; understanding the structure and organization of paragraphs and essays; writing good introductions and conclusions; summarizing articles and essays; producing essays free of distracting mechanical errors; and using MLA style.
Grading:
I do not grade individual pieces of writing. My feedback will give you guidance for revision and editing. We will correspond about each piece of writing you do, and you will collect them into a portfolio which will comprise 40% of your grade, determined each at midterm and end of semester.
You'll write each day in your journal. I will collect that and scan it periodically. It amounts to 10% of your grade.
We will respond regularly and thoughtfully to independent reading. This amounts to 10% of your grade.
The remaining 40% comes from tests and quizzes, homework and classwork.
Grades are determined on the conventional 100 point scale:
100 A 90 B+ 87 B 83 B- 80 C+ 77 C 73 C- 70 D+ 67 D 63 D- 60 F
Course Expectations:
This is a college-level course. The demands are great, and they are variable according to the fluency with which you read and write. The course demands a similar volume of work to that which you will encounter in a college course, a similar level of commitment. An average student should expect to put in an hour each night, sometimes more. Students who are not doing the work may be removed from the class at the discretion of the instructor. But you took this course, I assume, because you love to read and write and think... so, obviously, all of the work will be a pleasure.
Your grade makes very little difference in your life in the long term. Your integrity makes every difference. I take very seriously those rare instances when a student is not entirely honest with me. Academic dishonesty, cheating, plagiarism, cribbing from Cliff or Sparky or other simplistic resources—all these phenomena short-circuit your process of learning and sabotage our relationship. Do not compromise. Be scrupulously truthful.
Plagiarism means an automatic zero for the assignment, with possible further disciplinary consequences. In college a first offense can get you kicked out of school. We will certainly discuss how to avoid it.
Course Requirements 111: We will begin with an exploration of the writing process itself, and use it to create, refine, and complete personal essays in narrative and descriptive modes. We will devote the rest of the first quarter to rhetorical strategies, discussing how particular authors marshal the tools of language to achieve particular effect, and trying on different stylistic choices. The culminating activity will be an article in the style of a particular author, along with an analysis of the ways in which you applied that author's techniques in your imitation. In the last part of the semester, we will enter into the critical conversation that has raged around Hamlet for these past four hundred years. The final essay of the quarter will be literary criticism, synthesizing the thoughts of other critics as you formulate and defend your own thesis.
Course Requirements 112: Building on the work we did together in English 111, third quarter will lay the foundations for your independent research. We will continue our discussion of audience and purpose and our analysis of rhetorical strategies. The next two essays will explore the specifics of MLA and APA convention, with topics growing out an inquiry into Hamlet’s essential question: “Who’s there?” Meanwhile, your independent reading will be more and more focused on a particular topic. By the end of third quarter, you will have written an abstract of your final paper. The remainder of the semester will focus on your independent research, final paper, and final presentation.
Schedule:
Consult Schoology, which will be maintained with all assignments, resources, and due dates.