Course Syllabus

Welcome to English 120!!

College Composition and Reading

Adelle Roe

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WELCOME TO ENGLISH 120!!  I AM SO GLAD TO HAVE YOU!

Please note: This syllabus is subject to change to better suit our class.  You will be notified of any changes.  Zoom and conference times will be posted after I get the class's Zoom preference survey results. You will NOT have to attend any Zooms "in real time;" you can watch them later.

Canvas provides 24/7 phone support for students: 1-844-600-4953

  • Question about the class?    Ask your peers a question or message me directly using Inbox (to the left of the screen on desktop, and at the bottom on the app).  

HOW TO CHAT WITH ME

  • Inbox me! Click on the icon on the left side of the screen that looks like a piece of paper in a box (on a computer) or click on the envelope icon at the bottom of the screen (on the app).  I check my messages multiple times a day, Monday through Friday, and will respond within 24 hours (maybe not on weekends, but usually).  
    Photo of Ms S

HOW TO ZOOM (VIDEO CONFERENCE) WITH ME

Here is a photo of me with a fat chihuahua so you'll what to expect when we Zoom (though my hair color changes often):

NAVIGATION

PLEASE use "Modules" (see left side of screen) to find each week's readings and assignments.  They are in a particular and important order.  Please do NOT use "Upcoming Assignments" or "Course Summary." 

DUE DATES/TIMES

Assignments will be due on Mondays and Wednesdays at any time; when peer responses are assigned, they can be submitted up to two days later.  You can work ahead, so if you want to complete assignments over the weekends, you can.  Each upcoming module will be posted at least one week in advance.  

PARTICIPATION

  • Attendance is demonstrated through submission of assignments (including quizzes, essays, etc).  
  • Remember that I have a generous late policy--it's better to submit late than not at all!  Inbox me if there's anything I can help with if you start to fall off track, or if you just want to discuss your options.  
  • Sometimes it will be necessary to meet with me via ConferZoom to discuss an assignment or general progress in the course. If I ask you to meet with me, I expect that you will work with me to find a time convenient for both of us within a few days. If the requested meeting regards a necessary revision, refusal to meet with me will mean a zero on the assignment. 
  • Those students who miss more than six assignments (six is an average number of assignments per week) may be dropped from the course, at the instructor’s discretion.  
  • If you stop participating in class or decide you do not want to complete the class, it is your responsibility to drop using WebAdvisor, as allowed by the college course calendar.

TEXTBOOKS

There is nothing to buy, other than printer ink. All of your readings will be available online to view and print on your own. Why, you ask? To save you money, period.  Not using a textbook requires a lot of extra work on my part (finding, reading, scanning, and organizing). However, the cheapest book I can use for 120 is $60, and that was a whole night's work for me when I was waitressing my way through college.

GLITCHES

With Canvas, it's almost a certainty that we'll face a few glitches here and there.  Please know that if I make any mistakes or there is a service interruption, I will do what I can as quickly as possible and provide you a reasonable amount of extra time.  Please NEVER PANIC!  :-)

LATE WORK

Late assignments will be reduced by 5% for each day late.  Late assignments will not typically be accepted more than a week past the due date.  

Peer reviews of essays are an exception--because they are so time sensitive, I will not accept peer reviews more than one day late.

EXTRA CREDIT

There will be opportunities for extra credit sprinkled throughout the class, and an assignment that is really fantastic (beyond what I've asked for) will earn extra points.  There will NOT be a big extra credit assignment at the end of the semester.  I am too busy for more grading as the semester wraps up.

DEADLINES for Finals/Last Week of Class

I can not accept late finals or final papers, as I have a hard grading deadline for those.  All work must be submitted on time during the last week of class.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students will:

  1. Demonstrate knowledge of important rhetorical concepts such as audience, purpose, genre, and context.
  2. Construct logically developed essays that synthesize, integrate, and contextualize multiple outside sources (through quotations, paraphrasing, and summary) with their own voice, analysis, or position, using appropriate documentation.
  3. Identify and analyze rhetorical and organizational strategies from a variety of texts and employ appropriate strategies to compose thesis-driven essays.

SUPPORT/GETTING HELP

Writing is revision: re-seeing your work through multiple perspectives (your own and others). It will be helpful for you to write your paper a few days ahead of time so that you can review it after having a day or two to put it away. Always print it out, and read it aloud. Reading your own work right after writing it, and/or on the computer screen, and/or silently, is often unhelpful. 

Once you have revised the best you can, you have multiple avenues for more support.  Make an appointment to see me via Zoom, use NetTutor (in the Canvas menu), use the English Writing Center on campus, or ask for help from someone you know with strong English skills (such as a family member who majored in English). 

ARC

Students with disabilities who need accommodations in this class are encouraged to notify the instructor and contact Accessibility Resource Center (ARC) so that reasonable accommodations may be implemented as soon as possible. Students may contact ARC in person in room 110 or by phone at (619) 644-7112 (voice) or (619) 644-7119 (TTY for deaf).

STUDENT SAMPLES

One of the most valuable tools for learning is for current students to be able to review past student assignments.   I may use notable writing samples (as long as the samples are not at all personal, and always with your name removed) as a learning tool for others.  If you do not consent to this, let me know and I won't do so.  

GRADING

Your final grade will be determined by the following assignments. Your grade will be available to you throughout the semester.

It is your responsibility to check your grade on a weekly basis, and to email me directly if you note any errors. 

 

GRADING

Grading Components

Weight

Timed Writings—the last will be the final exam

5%

Peer Feedback

For each peer review, ten points (maximum) are earned by submitting a completed draft, and another fifteen points are earned by leaving substantive comments for two of your peers.  

10%

Revised Essays 

30%

Assignments

These are short writes due throughout the semester—examples include a brief response to an essay, a self-assessment, a group assignment, or an annotated Works Cited page in preparation for a paper. 

Your lowest score will be dropped.

20%

Discussions

Small group discussion boards

Your lowest score will be dropped.

15%

Quizzes 

Short quizzes will be assigned throughout the semester (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, and short answer)

Your lowest score will be dropped.

10%

Zoom Views and Embedded Questions

Your lowest score will be dropped.

10%

Plus/Minus Grading and GPAs

Unless you have submitted a request for credit/noncredit through Admissions and Records, I will be using a plus/minus grading system.  Your grade will be constantly available to you under "Grades" on the left side of the screen.

Please be sure to monitor your grade weekly in case of any errors.

SUBMISSIONS

All work will either be turned into Canvas. 

All essays must be saved as .DOC, .DOCX, or .PDF.

AVOIDING DISASTERS

Murphy's Law: If it can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible moment.

Back, Back, Back it up!

Please do not wait until the day your assignment is due to type it. Make sure that you save your work constantly, both on your hard drive and to a disk or flash drive, to be safe. If you don't have any back-up devices, email your work to yourself.  Computer problems will always happen at the worst possible moments.

If you are responding to an assignment, and you've just written a fantastic paragraph (that took you an hour) detailing the effectiveness of a counter-argument in an assigned essay, that is when Murphy's law will pop up again: your Internet browser will crash. If you type directly into Canvas/email, click “Save” often.  If you don’t have a “Save Draft” feature, type in a program that does (such as Word) and copy and paste it.

INTEGRITY AND PLAGIARISM

We will spend more time on this as we work through the semester, but let's start with the college's basics:

Academic Fraud

The college is an academic community with high standards, and its teaching, learning and service purposes are seriously disrupted and subverted by Academic Fraud.

All students at Grossmont College are expected to comply with the institution’s high standards of Academic Integrity and avoid instances of dishonesty at all times. Such acts of dishonesty include cheating, plagiarism, fraud, false citations or data, and the fraudulent use of Internet resources.

Students are not to commit academic fraud, which is a form of cheating, lying and stealing. It is a serious violation of the Student Code of Conduct, as published in the catalog. This intent of this document is to increase student awareness as to what Academic Fraud is, to provide strategies to avoid the situations, and to explain the consequences of committing

Academic Fraud. The Faculty and Administration expect students to have a responsible and sincere commitment to Academic Integrity during the performance of their instructional activities and completion of assignments or requirements.

Academic Fraud includes, but is not limited to, the following situations:

  1. Plagiarism is using someone else’s ideas or work without proper or complete acknowledgement.

Plagiarism encompasses many things, and is by far the most common manifestation of academic fraud. For example, copying a passage straight from a book into a paper without quoting or explicitly citing the source is plagiarism. In addition, completely rewording someone else’s work or ideas and using it as one’s own is also plagiarism. It is very important that students properly acknowledge all ideas, work, and even distinctive wording that are not their own. Students who are unsure of how or when to properly acknowledge sources are encouraged to consult their instructor.

  1. Cheating is the copying of any test or quiz question or problem, or work done in a class that is not the student’s own work. It also includes giving or receiving unauthorized assistance during an examination whether it was intentional or not.

Obtaining or distributing unauthorized information about an exam before it is given is also cheating, as is using inappropriate or unallowable sources of information during an exam. To avoid unintentional copying of work, students should cover their own exams and quizzes, and not leave a test or quiz on the desk where another student may be tempted to look at it.

  1. Multiple Submission is the use of work previously submitted at this or any other institution to fulfill academic requirements in another class.

For example, using a paper from an English 126 Creative Writing class for a Sociology 138 Social Psychology class is Academic Fraud. Slightly altered work that has been resubmitted is also considered to be fraudulent. With prior permission, some professors may allow students to complete one assignment for two classes. In this case, prior permission from both instructors is absolutely necessary.

  1. False Citation is falsely citing a source or attributing work to a source from which the referenced material was not obtained. A simple example of this would be footnoting a paragraph and citing a work that was never utilized.
  2. False Data is the fabrication or alteration of data to deliberately mislead. For example, changing data to get better experiment results is Academic Fraud. Instructors and tutors in lab classes will often have strict guidelines for the completion of labs and assignments. Whenever in doubt about what may be considered Academic Fraud, students should immediately consult with the instructor.

Plagiarism via the Internet is occurring with more and more frequency, and takes a number of different forms. As should be obvious, purchasing research papers on the Internet and submitting them as a student’s own work constitutes a gross case of plagiarism. Cutting and pasting from a website without putting the text being used in quotation marks and/or without properly citing the source also constitutes plagiarism. Posting stolen tests online and/or accessing such tests is cheating. Also students should be aware that while many websites provide reliable information, others may not include well-documented research. Students should be sure to check facts using a variety of different types of resources in order to ensure accuracy.

Intentional Deception is the submission of false documentation (absence excuse, proof of attendance, volunteer hours, etc.) for falsifying any official college record. A student who misrepresents facts in order to obtain exemptions from course requirements has committed an act of intentional deception and may also be subject to the consequences listed below. It is best for a student to do the work as required in a course or speak to the instructor about circumstances that may cause problems in completing forms correctly or honestly.

Students who engage in Academic Fraud will be subject to authorized penalties at the discretion of the instructor of record in the class. Such penalties may range from an adjusted grade on the particular exam, paper, project, or assignment to a failing grade in the course at the discretion of the instructor. The instructor may also summarily suspend the student for the class meeting when the infraction occurred as well as the following class meeting.

In addition, “Academic Fraud” can result in a suspension or expulsion as stipulated by the District’s Student Disciplinary Procedures administered by the Vice President of Student Services and Assistant Dean of Student Affairs.

It is worthwhile to note the California Education Code Section 76224(a) states:

“When grades are given for any course of instruction taught in a community college district, the grade given to each student shall be the grade determined by the faculty member of the course and the determination of the student’s grade by the instructor, in the absence of mistake, fraud, bad faith, or incompetency, shall be final.”

WELCOME TO 120!!!  We are in for a fantastic semester.  

Remember that I am here to support you; please reach out whenever you have any questions or concerns!