Schedule Spring 2020

Readings and commentary are due by the day under which they are listed. Do not print this syllabus. Small changes may occur. Follow it online.

We will be doing a project with Deep Run High School's Writing Center this semester.

Details TBA, but it will help you bridge an important gap for at least one group of college-bound students.

Focus: Your Own Style & Voice

Week of Jan 13

Day One: Policies, Procedures and orientation to syllabus; some discussions about "what is academic writing?"

Day Two: In class, we will consider a piece of student writing. Read "What if Drugs Were Legal?" (make notes about the writer's priorities for revision to bring to class, but there is no need for formal commentary yet).

Week of Jan 20

Day One: Glaser, Ch. 3. "Voices You Want to Listen To." Style presi

Consider T.S. Eliot's advice:

And every phrase

And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,

Taking its place to support the others,

The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,

An easy commerce of the old and the new,

The common word exact without vulgarity,

The formal word precise but not pedantic,

The complete consort dancing together)

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,

Every poem an epitaph. From part V. of "Little Gidding"

Day Two: We will discuss this piece, "Please, Stop Printing Unicorns," by visiting writer Fran Wilde, who held a workshop on voice last semester for a few Consultants. Make notes about her stylistic techniques.

Check the comments from readers, too...in on the joke and a refreshing change from the usually factious NYT commentary section.

Week of Jan 27

Day One: Eubanks, P and Schaeffer, J "A Kind Word for BS" (at our e-reserve). Be sure you begin doing journal responses weekly.

Day Two: Beyond what you do as a weekly, entry, make some notes in your journal about how this paper by "Terry Marksmith" illustrates ideas from Eubanks & Schaeffer. We will discuss this and workshop the essay in class. Also turn in, using our "The Art of Good Commentary" to guide you, a set commentary for Terry (printed with handwritten marginal commentary and typed final remarks). Don't vary even a little from the format given in that guide to commentary. You will make mistakes the fist time out. I will return them and allow you to revise before I assign a final grade. By the way, you can learn a bit about Hal Ashby's brilliant film here (a five-minute anatomy of how Chance works as a "holy fool").

Week of Feb 3 Sign up for observations at Writing Center to begin Monday, Feb 10

Day One: Class canceled. NO need to make you all ill!

Day Two: Glaser Ch. 4, "Voices That Put You Off," Glaser Ch. 5, "Two Common Problems," I will begin picking up a few journals.

Week of Feb 10 Begin observations at Writing Center

Day One: Ch. 6 "Finding the Right Words." & Ch. 7 "Finding Fresh Words."

Bring to class one page, photocopied and without the author's name, of an article or book you have read at UR. It should be academic, not creative writing (no fiction or poetry; creative nonfiction or feature journalism would be fine). Pick something with a use of language you REALLY like or dislike, but you won't tell your partner that.

In-Class Tasks: ID any cliches (Glaser 117-118) or figurative language (Glaser 123-127) in your partner's passage. If you don't like them, note why. Then see if you see undue repetition, consider how to make that fresh. If you spot quotations, note how the author does well with them--or doesn't (Glaser 121-122). For a few minutes after you have looked over the partner's passage, you will discuss the figurative language the authors employ. Find a favorite example from your pieces. When we convene we will make a list of these.

Day Two: Glaser Ch. 8, "Naming Definite Actors & Actions" & Chapter 9, "Cohesion." Revisions due for Commentary on Terry's essay.

Journal entry, special topic: Using specific ideas from Glaser, what have you learned about YOUR OWN stylistic habits? And if you were to describe your "personal voice" for academic writing, what would it be?

Focus: Helping Others with Academic Writing

Week of Feb 17

Day One: Review new policy on late work. (from A Tutor's Guide) Rafoth, B. "Helping Writers to Write Analytically" & Bartholomae, "The Study of Error" (at our e-reserve). Review the Deep Run Writing Task we'll discuss with students from the high school in the next class.

Day Two: Hjortshoj, K. Ch. 1. Visit by Deep Run High School Writing Center Folks (they'll be reading this chapter, too). Please do not skip class today, as you must be present to participate in the work for the Final Project (if you are ill and cannot attend, you'll be given an alternative topic for the final essay topic).

Week of Feb 24

Day One: No class meeting. I will be at Amherst college as an evaluator of their writing program. Focus your journal entry on Hjortshoj's readings for day two, and we'll discuss this in the next class.

Day Two: Hjortshoj, K., Chs. 3-6

Week of March 2 Review Deep Run Writing Task as writers will be contacting you.

Day One: (from A Tutor's Guide) Macauley, J. "Setting the Agenda." and Trupe, A. "Organizing Ideas,"

Workshop applying lessons from Trupe and Macauley to an essay from a Junior/Senior seminar at UR. Bring to class a list of priorities to share with peers about where you'd begin with this essay. You are also to prepare separate set of formal commentary; use our "The Art of Good Commentary"). You will turn this commentary in for grading.

Day Two: (from A Tutor's Guide) Zemliansky, P. "A Balancing Act." Workshop with a paper from an earlier section of my FYS 100 class. I have changed texts & assignments, for their first analysis paper, but it was (more or less) this:

Identify what you see as Michael Neufeld's most important claim about Wernher von Braun. Do you disagree or agree? Why? In your essay, explore the reasons for your answer, using specific examples from Neufeld's text.

Bring to be turned in a typed set of priorities (NOTE: NO formal commentary this time) for the paper and conference. Also in a few paragraphs after the priorities, state how Zemlianky's ideas influence what you would and would NOT do. You will turn this in for grading.

Spring Break: March 7-15

Week of March 16

Day One: Graff, G. & Birkenstein, C., Chs. 1-3.

Day Two: Writing Workshop about Elbow's "Believing Game." Also read Littman’s “ ‘Rise of the Machines’ is Not a Likely Future” (starting on Graff & Birkenstein p. 256). Exercise we'll do together is here.

Week of March 23

Day One: Graff, G. & Birkenstein, C., Chs. 4-7.

Day Two: (from A Tutor's Guide) Cooper, G. et. al "Protocols & Process in Online Tutoring."

Pick an essay from earlier in the term (but NOT Nancy's about drug legalization), download it to your computer (File-->Download As), and embed new commentary in MS Word or Google Doc.

For those who have never done this, instructions are here for Word (Mac OS and Windows), and here for Google. Put your final commentary in after the last page. If you want to redo some of what you did before, fine, but...

Week of March 30

Day One: Graff, G. & Birkenstein, C., Chs. 8-10. In class, we will apply their ideas as we discuss a few anonymous FYS body paragraphs and conclusions .

Day Two: Writing Workshop for advanced ELL writer (a preview of what we'll do at the end of the semester). We will workshop (no commentary due) "Lisa Liu's" essay (Assignment is the final part of Project 3 here). Just add notes about priorities in your journal.

Week of April 6

Day One: Hjortshoj, K. Ch. 7, and (from A Tutor's Guide) Greiner, A. "Tutoring in Unfamiliar Subjects" & Dossin, M. "Using Others' Words."

Day Two: Writing Workshop. Read this paper for SPCS work (there's an entire project related to this, here, with videos featuring our writer--click on the image map to view each segment; you can learn about the assignment in the segment "Good Response.").

Write a short response in which you apply principles from Greiner's and Dossin's pieces about how to help writers juggling sources & concepts unfamiliar to you. Talk about any new approaches you have learned. No commentary due this time.

After class: Drafts available by e-mail for FYS meetings. Conferences with FYS students on their research proposals begin Sunday

Week of April 13

Day One: Sabes, S. "Why the French Love to Say 'No.' " and (from A Tutor's Guide) Severino, C. "Crossing Cultures with International ESL Writers."

Day Two: ESL workshop in class. Your task: read essay 1 and essay 2 and in your journal (tip it in later if you not have your journal back) , do a short narrative (200 words or so; this is in addition to your weekly journal entry) explaining your priorities for each writer (audience is yourself and me, not the writer). Do not do full commentary.

Week of April 20

Day One: (from A Tutor's Guide) Ritter, J. "Recent Developments in Assisting ESL Writers" and Moser, et. al "Creating a Common Ground with ESL Writers" (at our e-reserve).

Day Two: Bring your laptops! Final Project Workshop: bring your introduction and outline of ideas (in any form you wish). You will submit this for feedback and a grade from me and, in class, explain your ideas and get feedback from classmates. Link to Feedback Form here.

Journals (drop at my office) and Final project due by e-mail (Word or Google Doc, PDF) by noon, Monday April 27. E-mailed or print is fine. Please bring journals to my office (International Center 326) as well. Late? See class policies.