English 110 is designed to prepare students for entry into English 120. Students will practice the writing process by composing essays with an emphasis on effective expression through the study of appropriate language skills. Students will read critically, analyze, and evaluate expository, argumentative, and imaginative writing. By the end of the course, students will be able to write a position paper by using and acknowledging multiple sources.
Prerequisite
A “C” or “CR” grade or higher for English 098 or English as a Second Language 106 or equivalent, or completion of the assessment recommendation for English 110.
Textbooks
Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson. Doubleday: New York, 1997.
Joy, Anna. We Are America: A Thematic Reader and Guide to Writing. 5th Ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2005. (required)
Limon, Graciela. Song of the Humming Bird. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1996.
Nguyen, Kien. The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood. Back Bay Books: Boston, 2001.
Loose-leaf, 3-ring, 81/2" X 11", college-ruled paper for in-class writing, notes, and all out-of-class activities and assignments.
Manila tabbed folders for essays.
A 30 page notebook for in-class journal writing.
Entrance Skills
The ability to produce work substantially free of major spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage errors, i.e., errors which interfere with communication.
The ability to produce written assignments that include a variety of sentence patterns.
The ability to write clear, coherent paragraphs--of 150 to 200 words in length--controlled by topic sentences, developed with adequate supporting material, and closed with appropriate conclusions.
The ability to read texts at an English 110 level (10.0 grade level or above).
Course Objectives
The students will:
Use the various phases of the writing process (invention, writing, evaluation, revision, and editing).
Produce organized, coherent, and well-developed essays with effective introductions, clear thesis statements, sufficient support, smooth transitions, and appropriate endings.
Recognize and use in essays various rhetorical strategies (such as description, narration, process, definition, comparison-contrast, classification and division, cause and effect, and argument) to accomplish specific purposes with given audiences.
Apply strategies for producing in-class timed assignments.
Recognize and avoid cliché, jargon, colloquialisms, and sexist or obscene language; understand and demonstrate appropriate uses of first, second and third person point of view.
Incorporate a variety of sentence patterns into writing and demonstrate appropriate use coordination, subordination, and parallelism.
Compose a position paper citing multiple sources using MLA format.
Course Content
Practice writing expository and persuasive prose in at least five essays, one of which will be the position paper with research using MLA format.
Write an additional in-class multi-paragraph essay as part of the final exam.
Review briefly the structure of a paragraph and the concepts of grammar as needed.
Practice incorporating various rhetorical strategies, such as description, narration, process, definition, comparison-contrast, classification and division, cause and effect, and argument.
Practice using the stages of the writing process to produce assignments: invention, writing, peer evaluation, revising, and editing.
Read critically, analyze, and evaluate expository, argumentative, and imaginative writing.
Study plagiarism and the importance of properly crediting sources.
Practice the techniques of library research.
Discuss words and their meanings to enlarge students’ active vocabulary and enable them to avoid cliché, jargon, colloquialism, and sexist or obscene language.
Class Participation and Attendance
Active in-class participation encourages you and your classmates to whet your ideas and clarify any obfuscated course item and establishes you as a dedicated, responsible, serious, and positive contributor to the teaching-learning process. The constructive remarks and comments you make on your peers' written and oral presentations help both of you in developing your language skills. No doubt, your participation improves your grade.
Attendance is essential. Any student accumulating absences exceeding two class meetings (considered to be excessive absence) may be dropped from class (see page 17 of Grossmont College Catalog for 2006-07).Moreover, your absencedeprives you and your peers from a mutual exchange of ideas and skills generated from class meetings' dialogues, workshop participation, and lectures. Remember, neither absence nor tardiness shall fetch you a straight "A" grade.
Students' Responsibilities and Code of Conduct
No student shall interfere with another student's opportunity to learn (see pages 15-25 of Grossmont College Catalog for 2006-07). You will be dropped from class if you exhibit behavior that prohibits or impedes any member of the class from pursuing any class assignment's objective or learning opportunity within the classroom, or if you fail to demonstrate sufficient academic progress as specified at the beginning of the semester by the written grading and performance standards for the course. Notification of this failure may be through grading procedures, conferences or official letters.
Assignments
Essays You will be required to write at least five essays and one mini research paper during this course; two of the essays will be prepared in-class. The remaining four will be on topics of your choice. You may employ the pre-writing technique/s you find most suitable to serve your purpose. The essays will be developed using a variety of rhetorical modes. The three novels may be used for essay writing.
Quizzes Several quizzes will be conducted during the semester.
Summaries You will be preparing summaries of the three novels: The Unwanted, Song of the Humming Bird, and Tuesdays with Morrie.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism occurs when you represent someone else's materials, ideas, or words as if they were your own. This may be intentional as when you are aware that some phrases, sentences, or even worse, paragraphs of another writer, whether professional or not, are copied, summarized, or paraphrased and appear in your essays without any quotation marks or appropriate acknowledgment that they are not your own. Plagiarism may be unintentional as when you forget to place the required quotation marks or when you do not actually know whether or not the borrowed material lies within a circle of knowledge considered "common knowledge". The life span of the famous novelist, James Joyce, (1882- 1941), for example, is an information shared by so many individuals and researchers alike. If you refer to Joyce's birth in any of your articles about him, you need not acknowledge that within quotation marks or a source citation parenthesis.
I strongly advise you to strictly avoid plagiarism. It deprives you of the healthy mental attitude you need to cultivate for your academic progress. In fact, when you do acknowledge in your work that you have consulted other writers' articles, essays, researches, or books, it will show to your audience how much effort you have exerted in preparing your own work.
How is plagiarism treated in this course?
The student caught plagiarizing will simply receive the "F" grade for the semester.
Important Note Five weeks before discussing writing the research paper, I will provide you with specific guidelines that will help you understand how to write a research paper.
Grade Distribution
Journal Writing................ 50 Three Essays ................ 300 Research Essay 200 One-in-class essay............. 100 Participation and quizzes .... 150 Summaries 100 Final in-class Essay Exam.......100
Grades' Award
Grades are awarded according to the following rubric:
Note: Below are descriptions of qualities most often associated with papers receiving different letter grades. Obviously, individual essays, like individual students, may manifest some but not all of these qualities.
In addition to content, language quality and mechanics, the grade on each of your writing exercises or essays will take into account (1) the complexity of your subject (the “difficulty factor”, (2) the care you take in the draft-version process, (3) the accuracy and thoroughness of your answers to self-evaluation questions, and (4) the physical appearance of the final copy.
A Applies to an essay that is clearly superior because of its compelling development, pattern of organization, and near-perfect mechanics.
Content/Development Presents a clear, forceful Topic Sentence or thesis Statement; offers a thoughtful exploration of the subject, developing points with specific, often unique details, examples and reasons; demonstrates an ability to introduce and conclude the paper effectively.
Organization/Logic Presents an orderly sequence of ideas and shows an effort to use a variety of transitions to establish relationships between ideas especially supported by specific details.
Language usage/ Grammar/Mechanics
Chooses words appropriately and often shows real flair with language; creates effective sentences, varied in structure (rather than stringing simple sentences); and demonstrates mastery of most grammar and usage conventions of Standard English.
B Applies to a good essay with only a few minor problems—not all parts of the paragraph or essay will be equally specific, some mechanical errors will be apparent (but will not seriously hinder the reader from understanding the writing).
Content/Development Responds adequately to the topic and presents a clear Topic Sentence or Thesis Statement, but paragraphs, including the introduction and conclusion, may not be consistently strong or equally specific.
Organization/Logic Presents an orderly sequence of ideas with some effort to use transitional devices apparent
Language Usage/Grammar/Mechanics
Chooses a general but appropriate vocabulary, uses sentences adequate for the development of ideas, though may miss opportunities for sentence combining; observes most conventions of written English, though may make minor errors in mechanics and usage (an agreement or possessive apostrophe problems and perhaps one or two more distracting errors in sentence structure (a clearly unintentional comma splice or run-on)
C Applies to an average essay. The C paper will offer a main idea and some sense of structure and development, but many areas will simply not demonstrate their full potential.
Content/Development Often states a major idea clearly but may miss opportunities to narrow the focus and create a Thesis appropriate to the assignment; may develop the thesis with skimpy, clichÈd or inadequate details; displays some ability to introduce and conclude the paper effectively.
Organization Shows some sense of organization though it may break down at various points in the essay; lacks transitions; uses mechanical or awkward transitions.
Language Usage/Grammar/Mechanics
Chooses vocabulary that is clear but may be too general or elementary for the intended college audience; relies on simple sentence structure and therefore often misses opportunities for subordination and parallelism; makes enough errors in usage and sentence structure (errors in agreement, apostrophes, punctuations, fragments/comma splices/run-on, etc.) to cause a reader serious, if occasional distraction.
D Applies to an unsatisfactory essay, which does not meet the goals of the assignment; presents material in a confusing manner and demonstrates significant grammatical errors in such numbers that the reader will have serious difficulty.
Content/Organization Distorts the topic or presents a vague, confusing, or ineffective thesis; lacks sufficient details or support to explore the subject.
Organization Presents a confused sense of organization; paragraphs do not relate to or build upon one another; lacks transitions; uses mechanical and tedious transitions.
Language Usage/Grammar/Mechanics
May rely on simple sentences or on sentences that coordinate excessively (and, and, etc.) or subordinate illogically; may contain sentence structure confusing enough to cause the reader considerable difficulty; contains far too many distracting grammatical errors and usage problems, in some cases suggesting an oral rather than an written style; consistently displays misspelled words, fragments, run-ons or spliced sentences, missing apostrophes, and noun-pronoun and noun-verb agreement problems.
F Applies to an essay that clearly fails to meet the requirements of the assignment for a variety of reasons.
Content/Development needs a thesis; presents ideas randomly and chaotically; may be very brief and undeveloped.
Organization Lacks patterns of organization; contains markedly incoherent paragraphs; provides no transitions.
Language Usage/Grammar/Mechanics
Displays incoherent sentences with few successful links between them; demonstrates countless errors in diction/idiom; contains consistent, egregious grammar and usage problems, serious enough to hinder the reader’s best efforts to understand what the writer might be trying to convey.
Important Remarks
Strictly avoid plagiarism. It is a literary theft.
Always make additional copies of all the essays you write. Never hand over an essay for which no copy is left with you.
Late work will adversely affect your grade. You will be allowed only one late, penalty-free paper during the semester. Any second delay will reduce one full letter grade from the final grade that appears on the delayed essay.
It is your responsibility to observe all the important dates including the drop date (Nov. 9).
Students with disabilities who may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to notify the instructor and contact Disabled Students’ Programs and Services DSP&S) early in the semester so that reasonable accommodations may be implemented as soon as possible. Students may contact DSP&S in person in room 110 or by phone at (619) 644-7112 voice or (619) 644-7119 (TTY for deaf).
Supervised Tutoring Referral
Students requiring additional help or resources to achieve the stated learning objectives of the courses taken in English are referred to enroll in English 198W, Supervised Tutoring, for assistance in the English Writing Center (70-119). The department chair or coordinator will provide Add Codes.
Students are referred to enroll in the following supervised tutoring courses if the service indicated will assist them in achieving or reinforcing the learning objectives of this course:
IDS 198, Supervised Tutoring, to receive tutoring in general computer applications in the Tech Mall;
English 198W, Supervised Tutoring, for assistance in the English Writing Center (70-119); and/or
IDS 198T, Supervised Tutoring to receive one-on-one tutoring in academic subjects in the Tutoring Center (70-229).
To add any of these courses, students may obtain Add Codes at the Information/Registration Desk in the Tech Mall.
All Supervised Tutoring courses are non-credit/non-fee. However, when a student registers for a supervised tutoring course and has no other classes, the student will be charged the usual health fee.
G O O D L U C K!
Last Updated: 10/01/2014
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