1English 1B-L04 & L05Fall 2017West Hills College LemooreJacqui Shehorn, instructorjacquelineshehorn@whccd.eduOffice phone: 559-925-3653Office hours: Mondays 1-3 & Tuesdays 12-1 in 455

I respond to email as quickly as I do to texts because I do not access email through the web. If you are accessing email through the web, consider adding your West Hills email to your smartphone for quick access. If you are not sure how to do this, contact the Help Desk.

Each semester when students complete the class evaluation, comments are made about things that are covered in this syllabus (“I had no idea what she expected from our essays,” “I didn’t know I wouldn’t get credit for a late discussion,” “I would have liked to meet in person,” and "I wish there was a part of the syllabus that showed what each assignment was and how many points it was worth."). READ THIS SYLLABUS CAREFULLY, MARK IT UP, AND REFERENCE IT WHEN YOU HAVE A QUESTION OR CONCERN. It doesn’t do either of us any good for you to be frustrated by something that is addressed here. I would much rather answer a question now or during the semester than discover that you were upset or confused about something at the end of class.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 1A or the equivalent. If you have not completed English 1A or its equivalent with an A, B, or C, you cannot take English 1B.

You will be assigned two timed essays in this class. Timed essays are a required component of English 51A, 1A, and 1B at WHCL. Timed writing is a skill that can be developed with practice. If you have not written timed essays, try to write an essay in an hour, and then ask someone to read and respond to your essay. I’m happy to send you a question to respond to. You may forward this practice essay to me for feedback (jacquelineshehorn@whccd.edu).

You are responsible for managing the technology necessary for this course. Contact the Help Desk with technical problems: 1-800-266-1114 ext. 2002 or helpdesk@westhillscollege.com. Problems with Canvas should be addressed to

the Canvas Help Line: 1-844-303-4502.

Course Objectives: Upon completion of the course the student will be able to A. make careful, accurate observations; B. choose precise words to record and describe observations; C. distinguish fact from judgment, belief from knowledge; recognize and identify assumptions, evaluations, and viewpoints in others’ thinking and their own; D. explain the meanings of literary elements and recognize their presence and function in literature; E. distinguish among literary genres, understand each form’s general characteristics and identify them in specific works; and F. analyze and evaluate literature in formal essays.

Course Learning Outcomes: A) Given a poem/short story/play/novel, student will write a timed essay that will demonstrate critical thinking, accuracy of quotation, and appropriate use of literary terminology; B) Given a poem/short story/play/novel, student will write an essay that will demonstrate critical thinking, accuracy of quotation, and appropriate use of literary terminology.

Important Dates: Make sure you feel confident in your grade before the Withdrawal date passes on Monday, November 13th. After this date you will be assigned a grade whether you continue to participate in class or not. It is your responsibility to drop yourself from classes.

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You must log in by the end of the second day of class or you will be dropped and a student from the Wait List will be automatically given your seat.

Required Purchases: There are no required purchases for this course.

Communication: Email is the best way to get in touch with me. I check my email at least once per day (but many more times than that on a typical day, though not in the middle of the night) when class is in session. That means that you should allow at least 24 hours for a response. Make sure that your inbox is not full, that you have addressed your email correctly (jacquelineshehorn@whccd.edu), and that you have labeled the subject line appropriately. Emails not formatted with a subject line that includes the section number and a reference to what you need may not be answered or may require more time to answer:

ENG 1B-L01 Question about Fiction Prompt is an example of how you might complete the subject line of an email in order to get a quick response. Another example might be:

ENG 1B-L01 Poetry Discussion Grade

Taking the time to do this allows me to quickly get the information I need to address your questions.

You must use your West Hills email account. I am not responsible for email that lands in my spam folder.

Late Work: Most assignments are due at midnight on Monday following the week they are assigned. So a discussion assigned in Week 4 is due Monday of Week 5, for example. Reading typically has to be done before discussion board assignments or timed essays can be successfully completed.

Late work will not be accepted. Late work includes any items not received on the date and time due in Lemoore and according to instructions given. It is your responsibility to keep track of when assignments are due.

How will I be graded?

Grades: My grading system is simple. At the end of the semester I will add up how many points you could have earned, then determine what percentage of those points you did earn. You will need 90% of those possible points for an A, 80% for a B, etc. If our work progresses as scheduled, there will be a total of 750 possible points. I reserve the right to make changes to our assignments if it proves necessary during the semester. Please note that there will be no “hail Mary” opportunities at the end of the semester. Keep track of your grade as the semester progresses so you do not find yourself wishing for last minute chances to improve your grade.

What kinds of writing will I have to do?

Writing Projects:

Discussions:

Each discussion board assignment is worth up to ten points (up to five points for your initial response and five more for your responses to your peers) if they are submitted on time, at least five complete sentences in length (both your initial response and your response to peers), thoughtful, original, and grammatically well-written. I encourage you to ask questions to encourage your peers to think more deeply about their posts. You may write a response to one peer or respond to more than one. Your responses must be posted as replies to your peers rather than new posts. Your responses must total a minimum of five sentences, not

3including “Good job!,” “I agree!,” etc. Feel free to include these encouraging remarks, but from there you should engage with what your classmate has written.

I grade your discussion posts primarily on quality versus quantity. This five sentence guideline is to provide you with an idea of the minimum quantity I have seen from good responses in the past.

Additional responses can add to your total points or make up for brief responses.

Your discussion board entries must be academic and well-written. Read and revise them carefully before you submit them. Errors will cause your posts to earn less than full credit.

You will have the opportunity to complete fourteen discussion board assignments for a total of 130 possible points. The initial Welcome discussion is for practice and to get to know each other.

Assignments: There are two written assignments that are worth up to ten points each, one each in Weeks 3 and 4.

Essays: During the semester you will write two drafted essays. Each essay should be a minimum of 1500 words, though your grade will not be based on a page or word count. If your essay is not approximately 1500 words, you have likely not developed your arguments thoroughly enough to satisfy the prompt. You will only submit one draft, the final one, to Canvas.

Each polished, final draft is worth up to 200 points. You will be assigned two drafted essays this semester for a total of 400 possible points.

Final drafts must be submitted through the class site, which runs it through Turnitin, which will compare your essay to online sources and essay databases to look for plagiarism. I will not read your essay unless it has been submitted through the class site by the deadline. Your essay must be submitted in a format Turnitin can assess. These formats include:

Microsoft Word™ (DOC and DOCX)Corel WordPerfect®HTMLAdobe PostScript®Plain text (TXT)Rich Text Format (RTF)Portable Document Format (PDF)Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX, and PPS)Hangul (HWP)

Essays are due Week 10 and Week 14; specific due dates are on the schedule and the essay prompts. I do not require the submission of drafts prior to this final due date. You will have two weeks to work on each essay.

How can I get help with an essay?

I am available via email to help you with your draft. Have your draft read by one of our Supplemental Instruction Leaders in ACE (459) if you can. I strongly encourage you to take advantage of NetTutor, which is free and can be accessed from our course menu. NetTutor requires a bit of turnaround time, so don’t wait until the last minute to send your essay for review.

What happens if I don't turn in an essay?

4If you fail to submit your essay in one of these formats by the due date it will be considered late. Emailing me your essay does not negate the need to get it turned in to our class site. Late essays will receive a zero. Failure to submit one of these essays will lead to failing the course.

When you submit your essay, you will receive confirmation. Download the Submission Receipt from Turnitin. If you do not, contact both me and the Canvas Helpline (1-844-303-4502) immediately and try to resubmit you essay. It is your responsibility to ensure that your submission is successful. Submitting your essay at the last minute negates your ability to deal with unexpected issues. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that there are no exceptions to this.

In choosing to take an online class you are accepting responsibility for having access to the technology and a back-up plan for if things go wrong. Where can you go if your internet goes down? If your computer crashes? Are you saving your work in One Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, or something like it that allows you to access your work from any device?

If you do not submit something for each of the drafted essay assignments you will not pass this class. A bad or incomplete draft is better than nothing and may allow you to still pass the class. Failure to submit something will put you in a position in which you cannot earn enough points to pass.

Timed essays: Each timed essay is worth up to 100 points. These assignments will be available for an entire week; however, you will need to do the assigned reading first and you will be able to access each timed writing only once. When you are working on a timed essay, do not click outside of the writing space or you may be locked out.

The clock runs out at 23:59 on the day the test is due, so don’t wait until the literal last minute to complete and submit your essay!

If you encounter a technical problem, you will need to contact me and complete a make-up timed essay; there are no exceptions to this. I cannot accept timed essays via email. You must contact me before the timed essay is due in order to qualify for the make-up timed essay. The make-up will be available at the end of the semester.

The make-up timed essay is not an option for students who fail to attempt the timed essays in Weeks 6 and 17. Nor is it an option for students who receive poor grades on either of these essays. It is only for students who contact me regarding technical problems.

There are no extensions on the timed essays. You have a week to find two hours with which to complete each one. Plan accordingly.

You will have the opportunity to do two timed essays for a total of 200 possible points.

Timed essays should be well-developed (no fewer than 500 words) and well-organized. If you cut and paste, be sure that your essay’s formatting (paragraphs breaks in particular) copies correctly. All work, including cutting, pasting, and formatting, must be done prior to the clock running out. Give yourself a cushion of a few minutes prior to the clock running out.

Disruptive and Inappropriate Behavior: Disruptive and inappropriate behavior may include rude or inappropriate submissions on our discussion board or via e-mail. Imagine talking to your classmate or teacher in person as you craft your post or email. If you would not say it that way to someone’s face, don’t put it in print. Be respectful and thoughtful. If something someone has posted seems abrupt or offensive, assume that your classmate meant well rather than responding with anger. That does not mean that you cannot ask for clarification or explain how the post or email sounds to you; in that way we all learn to communicate more effectively. Please contact me via email immediately if you feel someone has posted anything inappropriate. Continued disruptive behavior may result in a student being dropped from class.

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READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY:

An assignment with any evidence of plagiarism in it will result in a failing grade for that assignment. Plagiarism includes any writing done by anyone but you, including well-meaning friends and family, and, of course, people on the internet. Any material that you include in your essay, even if it is only a sentence or two, that is not thought of and written by you must be cited. Paraphrased work must be cited, as well. All work must be created for this class. Submitting writing created for another class, even a previous version of this class, and even if you have revised it for ours, is not acceptable for this class.

Repeated acts of plagiarism, however minor, are grounds for failing the course, so don’t plagiarize. There is no acceptable excuse for plagiarism, including ignorance. If you’re not sure if something is allowable, don’t do it.

Read Board Policy 713, Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources and West Hills College’s Academic Honesty policy. By remaining in this class you are verifying that you have read and accept these policies.

If you have a verified need for an academic accommodation or materials in alternate media (i.e. Braille, large print, electronic text, etc.) per the Americans with Disabilities Act or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, please contact me as soon as possible. If you believe you are entitled to accommodations, please contact Maria Gonzalez at 559-925-3244 or at MariadelaluzGonzalez@whccd.edu .

If you need help managing depression, stress, relationships, or any other issue, you are entitled to free confidential counseling through our DRAW (depression reduction achieving wellness) program. For a referral, you can contact your academic counselor or advisor or Seng Leang (DRAW counselor) at 559-380-6690 or at sunshineleang@gmail.com .

WHCL is committed to eliminating all forms of unlawful discrimination and sexual harassment. If you feel that your Title IX rights are or have been violated by anyone on campus, please contact Sylvia Dorsey-Robinson at 559-925-3331 or at sylviadorseyrobinson@whccd.edu . For more information on Title IX, visit http://www.westhillscollege.com/lemoore/about/campus-safety/index.asp .

6Essay Basics

Apply these rules to every essay:

Do not make announcements. For example, “In this essay I am going to compare how the song and the poem tie together in three literary elements.” A statement like this does not say anything. Do not tell your readers what you’re going to do, simply do it. You could simply say “The song and the poem tie together theme, tone, and . . .”

Refer to authors appropriately. Authors should be referred to by their last names after you have introduced them by their full names (Chopin, Giovanni, etc.).

Do not write in first (“I,” “me,” “my,” we,” “our,” etc.) or second (“you”) person. Refer to “the reader,” instead.

Write about all art, including literature and other texts, in the present tense, which is referred to as the literary present.

Avoid evaluation: “Chopin wrote two great stories . . .” We are analyzing, not evaluating.

In A Little Argument, Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer say that, “The thesis can make or break your paper. If your thesis is too broad, you cannot do justice to the argument;” also, “stating something obvious to everyone isn’t an arguable thesis. Don’t settle for easy answers. When a topic is too broad, a predictable thesis often results. Narrow your focus and concentrate on the areas where you have the most questions” (68). A working thesis should be arguable, specific, manageable given your length and time requirements, and interesting (69). Once you have settled on a working thesis, consider what else should be a part of your introduction: a question, an anecdote, an attention-getting fact, a contradiction, or something else to grab the reader’s attention.

Every essay should include an introduction and conclusion.

Punctuate titles correctly. The titles of stories and poems go in quotation marks. The titles of books and plays go in italics.

Use a handbook or web resource to create Works Cited entries. A Works Cited page should be titled Works Cited for more than one source. Use “Work” if you have used only one source. This page should be double-spaced with no additional spaces on either side of the title or between entries; if you make the Works Cited page the final page of your essay versus a separate document, you can simply continue the formatting of the essay, including the font. You may use a citation machine like the one available on the WHCL library site or within many of the databases like EBSCOHOST, but review the entries carefully. The citation machine can only process what you enter. Citations often need to be reformatted in terms of font style and size, as well.

Work that is paraphrased must be cited. It is not enough to put it in your own words. If the ideas belong to someone else, cite them.

Use 1” margins on top, bottom, left, and right. No exceptions.

7 Use a simple 12-point font (Times Roman, Ariel, and Verdana are good examples.) for everything,

including titles and headers. Do not underline or italicize the titles of your essays.

Use the insert page number function to put your last name and the page number on the top right corner of every page.

Put your name, my name (Jacqui Shehorn), the course (English 1B-L01, for example), and the date (day month year-no commas! For example, 10 Jul. 2017) on the top left corner of the first page.

Everything should be double-spaced, including the information on the top left corner of the first page

and the Works Cited page. There should be no extra spaces before or after your title or between

paragraphs.

8English 1BJacqui Shehorn, instructor

This rubric should serve as a guide for your writing. If you have questions about any of the following expectations, please ask me. Points are for drafted essays. The rubric is the same for timed essays, but the points are halved.

Critical Thinking _____/25

• The writer demonstrates critical thinking, consistency in view, and confidence • The writer avoids making assumptions• The writer avoid fallacies

Focus _____/ 25

• Thesis is clear and has one very specific claim regarding the piece(s) of literature • All main points relate back to the thesis • All examples clearly support the writer’s main points

Organization _____/30

• Essay includes a clearly defined intro, body, and conclusion • Each main point gets its own paragraph(s) • Main points with more than one idea are separated into subpoints (1 idea per paragraph) • Ideas follow one another logically from paragraph to paragraph (cause and effect, chronologically) • Ideas follow one another logically within paragraphs

Development _____/45

• Essay includes a well-developed introduction and conclusion • Writer has a clear and effective thesis that responds to the prompt• Writer has enough main points to substantiate thesis • Main points are fully developed (specific examples, direct quotes/use of and reference to the

literature, explanations, reflection) • Essay exhibits a clear understanding and usage of appropriate literary terminology• When relevant to the prompt, essay effectively incorporates appropriate literary criticism

Style _____/20

• Ideas are not repetitive or formulaic • The writer does not make references to his/her intentions (“In this essay, I am going to…”) • Connections between ideas are clear • Writer has not used first person (“I,” “me,” “we,” “us,” etc.) • Writer stays in the literary present (present tense)

MLA Guidelines _____/30

• In-text citations are done according to MLA documentation guidelines • Works Cited page correctly follows MLA documentation guidelines • Writer effectively integrates quotes, avoiding dropped quotes

Language Use _____/25

• Problems with language usage do not distract from the writer’s ideas

9Week Dates To do (in addition to readings, videos, etc. found in

modules)Points

Week 1 Fri., Aug. 11-Mon., 21

Welcome discussion 0

Week 2 Mon., Aug. 21-Mon., Aug. 28

CT discussion 10

Week 3 Mon., Aug. 28-Mon., Sep. 4

LF discussion 10

Week 4 Mon., Sept. 4-Mon., Sept. 11

Research discussionMLA assignment

20

Week 5 Mon., Sept. 11-Mon., Sept. 18

Why read lit discussion 10

Week 6 Mon., Sept. 18-Mon., Sept. 23

Timed essay discussionFirst timed essay

110

Week 7 Mon., Sept. 25-Mon., Oct. 2

Lit crit discussion 10

Week 8 Mon., Oct. 2-Mon., Oct. 9

Fiction essay discussion 10

Week 9 Mon., Oct. 9-Mon., Oct. 16

Reed discussion 10

Week 10 Mon., Oct. 16-Mon., Oct. 23

Fiction essay due 200

Week 11 Mon., Oct. 23-Mon., Oct. 30

Poetry discussion 10

Week 12 Mon., Oct. 30-Mon., Nov. 6

Poetry essay discussion 10

Week 13 Mon., Nov. 6-Mon., Nov. 13

Neruda discussion 10

Week 14 Mon., Nov. 13-Mon., Nov. 20

Poetry essay duePlays discussion

210

Week 15 Mon., Nov. 20-Mon., Nov. 27

Trifles discussion 10

Week 16 Mon., Nov. 27-Mon., Dec. 4

Theater discussion 10

Week 17 Mon., Dec. 4-Mon., Dec. 11

Second timed essay 100

Week 18 Mon., Dec. 11-Mon., Thurs., Dec. 14

Make-up timed essayClass evaluation

0

10This schedule is designed to give you an overview of the requirements of the course. You must access the weekly Modules in Canvas for the actual assignments and submission information.

*The Make-up timed essay is for students who encounter technical problems with the first or second timed essays and contact me.

You are welcome to access our class and complete assignments on holidays; however, it is college policy that assignments not be due when school is not in session, so discussions will be due on Tuesday when Monday is a holiday.

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