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English 465/565 |
Research in Composition |
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Dr. E. Curtin |
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Office: HH 339 Phone: 410-548-5594 |
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Office Hours: MW 11a.m.- 1 p.m. T 11a.m. – 12:20 p.m. Other hours by appointment |
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Course Objectives:
1) to analyze and evaluate competing descriptions of the writing process;
2) to recognize and evaluate the range of approaches to teaching composition;
3) to examine assumptions underlying current theory and practice in writing instruction;
4) to explore assumptions and implications of composition and rhetorical research;
5) to identify key problems and issues surrounding current research in composition and rhetoric.
Texts:
Villanueva, Victor (ed.). Cross
Talk in Comp Theory, 2nd edition.
Graduate Students will be assigned some addition articles on reserve or in the library.
Requirements
1) 3 Papers (Undergraduate: two papers 2-3 pages, 1 paper 5-8), (Graduate: 2 papers 3-4 pages, 1 paper 10-15 pages)
2) Midterm and Final Exam
3) Homework
The two short essays will be reaction papers, basically analyzing personal experience in light of readings we will be doing. The longer paper will explore a problem in rhetoric or composition studies. It will require research into the scholarship that already exists on an issue you define as problematic.
You are expected to do all readings before class. Usually, you will have a brief writing assignment that relates to the reading and/or a short exercise at the start of class dealing with important issues in the readings.
Grading
Short papers 300 points
Longer paper 300
Midterm 150
Final 150
Homework and preparation 100
Undergraduate Graduate
A=900-1000 points A=900-1000
B=800-900 points B+=870-899 B=800-869
C=700-800points C+=770-799 C=700-769
D=600-700 D=600-700
F=below 600
Attendance
No class activities, homework or exercises can be made up. In many classes we will be examining techniques and strategies suggested by the research; you will have no other opportunity to try these strategies out. If you have to miss class, get in touch with me to see what you need to make up. Anyone who misses more than 10% of the classes (3 classes) is ineligible for an A; more than 20% of the classes (6 classes) ineligible for a B; more than 30% (9 classes) ineligible for a C.
Technology requirement
All students taking this course to fulfill their English/Secondary Education [or TESOL] requirement must begin a technology portfolio and must include at least one paper/project from this course in the portfolio.
Academic Integrity
The English Department takes plagiarism, the unacknowledged use of other people’s ideas, very seriously indeed. As outlined in The Student Handbook and Directory under the “Policy on Student Academic Integrity,” plagiarism may receive such penalties as failure on a paper or failure in the course. The English Department recognizes that plagiarism is a very serious offense and instructors make their decisions regarding sanctions accordingly.
Each of the following constitutes plagiarism:
1) Turning in as your own work a paper or part of a paper that anyone other than you wrote. This would include but is not limited to work taken from another student, from a published author or from an Internet contributor.
2) Turning in a paper that includes unquoted and / or undocumented passages someone else wrote.
3) Including in a paper someone else’s original ideas, opinions, or research results without attribution.
4) Paraphrasing without attribution.
5) Turning the same paper in for credit in more than one class.
A few changes in wording do not make a passage your property. As a precaution, if you are in doubt, cite the source. Moreover, if you have gone to the trouble to investigate secondary sources, you should give yourself credit for having done so by citing those sources in your essay and by providing a list of Works Cited or Works Consulted at the conclusion of the essay. In any case, failure to provide proper attribution could result in a severe penalty and is never worth the risk. Allowing another student to turn in your work as his or her own is also academic dishonesty.
Writing across the Curriculum
Writing Across the Curriculum requirements will be met with the short papers and the problem exploration paper.
Tentative Schedule
Unless noted, all readings are in Cross-Talk. Schedule is subject to change.
Aug 28 Introduction to Research in Composition and Rhetoric
30 How do we “know” and how do we write
Responses to two questions
Sept 5 The Composing Process and the role of the teacher.
Read Murray (3), Perl (17), and Sommers (43).
7 Post-process. Read Breuch (97)
Graduate Students read essay in Writing Teacher’s Sourcebook, 2nd edition TBA.
12 Read Kinneavy (129)
14 Workshop of Paper. Draft due.
19 Cognitive Research
Read Shaughnessy (311) and Lunsford (299).
21 First Paper Due
26 Cognitive Research cont’d
Flower and Hayes (273)
28 Rose (345)
Oct 3 Differentiating assumptions
Read Myers (437).
5 Critical Pedagogy
Read Bizzell (387) and Miller (655).
10 Context and social issues.
12 Midterm exam . Graduate students must read a debate between Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae in the first edition of Cross-Talk (on-reserve.)
17 Feminist Pedagogy
Read Flynn (571 ) . Draft of 2nd paper due.
19 Composition Study as exclusionary
Rose (547) Delpit (on reserve).
24 Second Paper due.
26 Read Kirsch and Ritchie (523)and Bartholomae (623)
31 Diversity V
Villaneuva (829).
Nov 2 ESL issues
Read Matsuda (773)
7 Community-Service Pedagogy.
Read Cushman (819)
9 Technology
Anson (797)
14 Ideology
Read Hairston (697).
16 Ideology’s role cont’d.
Read
21 Paper topic justification due
28 Current trends
Read Bizzell (479) and Flower (739).
30 Workshop
Dec 5 Final Paper Due
7 Troubleshooting. Where does research go from here?
Graduate students must read “summary and Critique: Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, “CCC 56 (June 2005): 654-687.
Final Exam, Tuesday, December 12, 7:00-9:45