Instructor: Adam Renchen
Office: 2244 Faner
Phone: 453-6826
Office Hours: M/W 11-11:50, T/TH 12:30-1:30
Mailbox: 2380 Faner
Email: [email protected]

Required Texts:

Aaron, Jane E. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. 4^th ed. NY: Longman, 2001.
Ede, Lisa. Work in Progress: A Guide to Writing and Revising. 5^th ed. NY: St. Martin's, 2001.
Goshgarian, Gary. Exploring Language. 9^th ed. NY: Longman, 1998.

Other Required Materials

A flat folder with prongs.
A manila folder.
An IBM compatible disk.

Course Description:
English 101 provides students with the rhetorical foundations that prepare them for the demands of academic and professional writing. The course will help students understand the strategies and processes that good writers use whenever they try to accomplish a specific purpose. In college, these purposes include writing to understand and to demonstrate that understanding; writing to teach, entertain, or persuade a reader; writing to pose or solve problems; and writing to explain or challenge existing knowledge. The course will also teach students to respond effectively to the writing of others, and to use the suggestions of their teacher and their peers to improve their own writing. Some class discussion and readings focus on the function and scope of language and communication in a variety of social contexts.

Student Learning Objectives
Upon completing English 101, students should be able to:

• Effectively use and analyze forms and conventions of academic writing; these forms include collaborative, research, argumentative, and analytical writing.
• Generate good writing using specific methods for inventing and elaborating ideas, for arranging these ideas to achieve a specific rhetorical purpose, for producing good style, for revising, and for editing � Write well in a variety of rhetorical contexts.
• Understand the ways that purpose, process, subject matter, form, style, tone, and diction can be shaped to address a particular audience in a specific situation
• Demonstrate understanding of the ways that language and communication shape experience, construct meaning, and foster community.
• Demonstrate understanding of the ways that language and communication shape experience, construct meaning, and foster community.
• Use Edited American English appropriately.

Coursework
Six Papers: Each involves invention, drafting, revising, and editing. (60% of course grade.)
Writer's Notebook (Journal): The notebook may include responses to readings, practice with invention and style, peer responses, and a variety of other types of writing that exercise students' abilities to write clearly and analytically and to read and think critically. (15% of course grade.)
Final Exam: Students will have two hours to write an essay on a topic to be announced. (10% of course grade.) Participation: Students will be expected to come to class prepared, to engage in classroom discussions, and to fully participate in collaborative work. In-class freewriting and brainstorming will also count toward this grade. Poor attendance and tardiness will affect your grade as well. (5% of course grade)

Attendance Policy
Students are required to attend all class meetings. Final course grades may be lowered by one letter grade for each unexcused absence over three. Excused absences may be granted for religious holidays, officially organized and documented university events, or documented illness/family emergency. In the case of religious holidays and university events, students must notify the instructor in advance and complete the required work ahead of time. In the case of illness or family emergency, students must make arrangements to make up missed work. Excused or unexcused, anyone who misses class is liable for any missed work or work not turned in on time.

Plagiarism
Each student will receive and is expected to abide by the English Department's official policy statement on and description of plagiarism, which can be found on the Internet at http://www.siu.edu/departments/english/writing/plagiarism.html. Essentially, plagiarism is the use of someone else's words or ideas as your own without giving the appropriate credit or without the person's consent to use his or her words or ideas without acknowledgment. The consequences of plagiarism can be serious. In the work world, it can result in legal action. For student writers, it can result in a failing grade, disciplinary reprimand, censure, probation, and even suspension or dismissal from the University.

Grading
The range of possible grades for the course is A, B, C, D, F, PR, INC, or WF. The PR ("Progress") grade will be given to those students who attend class regularly and attempt to complete the required work but who earn a D or an F. Once given a PR grade, the student must pass the course (with a C or better) within one year or else the PR> grade becomes an F. A student may only receive one PR grade in English 101. The grade is generally assigned to those students who do not make adequate progress and would benefit from additional writing instruction before progressing to English 102. The INC (Incomplete) grade is only given to those students making satisfactory progress in the course but who are unable to complete the coursework because of a documented illness or emergency. A grade of INC must be arranged with and approved by the instructor and then the Director of Writing Studies before the class is over. Students who do not officially withdraw from the course before the drop deadline yet stop attending class or completing work prior to the tenth week of class will be given a WF. (The WF grade figures as an F in the compilation of the GPA but will indicate when a student stopped attending.) Students who stop attending after the tenth week will receive an F. In the next few days, you will receive a handout explaining specifically how your papers and your performance in class will be graded. You will also receive the rest of the following schedule.