English 103 Syllabus

 

Santa Ana College’s Mission Statement

The mission of Santa Ana College is to be a leader and partner in meeting the intellectual, cultural, technological and workforce development needs of our diverse community. Santa Ana College provides access and equity in a dynamic learning environment that prepares students for transfer, careers and lifelong intellectual pursuits in a global community.

 

ENGLISH 103: CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING          SPRING  2018     

 

Instructor: Sarah E Corp

Section #: 46204

Days / Time: On-line (hours to be arranged)

Email: corp_sarah@sac.edu

Office:

Office Hours: By appointment

 

*I am on campus on Wednesdays from 5-10. I teach a class from 6-10 but can make arrangements to meet if necessary.

English Department’s Mission Statement

The Santa Ana College English Department provides numerous opportunities for our students to develop and improve the reading, critical thinking, and writing skills required to succeed at their chosen careers, to meet the rigors of the writing demands at four-year transfer institutions, and to foster lifelong learning and an appreciation of literature.

 

Required Texts

Critical Thinking (2nd ed.) by Jason McFaul

Between the World and Me by Ta’Nehsis Coates

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

Persepolis  by Marjane Satrapi

Fences by August Wilson

Course Objectives

English 103 provides means and opportunities for college students to develop critical reading, thinking, and writing skills that they will employ in a wide range of academic and professional settings. It is a course based on the idea that reading, writing, and thinking rationally, fairly, and objectively are interdependent activities all of which may be greatly improved with instruction and practice. “Critical” thinking relies on the judicious detection and evaluation of an argument, whether explicitly or implicitly made, and on the ability to construct a substantial argument and support it with well-documented and thoroughly analyzed textual evidence.

Course Requirements

Five Essays ……………………………………………………………………………….. 60%

Research Paper …………………………………………………………………………... 15%

Mid-Term Exam …………………………………………………………………………  5%

Discussion Board, Homework, and Quizzes …………………....….…………………….   10%

Final Exam (in class essay) ……………………………………………………………... 10%

Final Grades: 100%-90%: A; 89%-80%: B; 79%-70%: C; 69%-60%: D; 59%-0%: F.

 

You must submit the five essays and the research paper and take the mid-term exam and the final in order to be eligible to pass the class. All papers are due on the dates indicated on the syllabus.  

All papers written out of class must conform to the MLA style guidelines discussed in class. Supporting evidence (including any citations from the Internet) must be correctly documented according to current MLA standards.

You will submit all papers and homework via Canvas and Turnitin. You have one late pass for the semester.

English 103 Student Learning Outcomes

• Students will read and discuss critically in order to identify premises, syllogisms, deduction and induction; to evaluate evidence, examples, and arguments for soundness; to assess authoritative testimony; to draw inferences from statistics; and to recognize rhetorical devices.
• Students will synthesize information to produce academic argumentative and persuasive essays and a documented research paper by using resources ethically and MLA format, reflecting collegiate level writing standards and using proper MLA format.

 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious offense. A plagiarized paper automatically fails and could result in a failing grade for the course.  

What is plagiarism? Plagiarism is a direct violation of intellectual and academic honesty. Although it exists in many forms, all plagiarism refers to the same act: representing somebody else's words or ideas as one's own. The most extreme forms of plagiarism are the use of material authored by another person or obtained from a commercial source, or the use of passages copied word for word without acknowledgment.

Paraphrasing an author's idea or quoting even limited portions of his or her text without proper citation is also an act of plagiarism. Even putting someone else's ideas into one's own words without acknowledgment may be plagiarism. In none of its forms can plagiarism be tolerated in an academic community. It may constitute grounds for a failing grade, probation, suspension, or expulsion.

Class Participation and On-Line Rules

 

Class attendance and participation have a bearing on your grade.  

Some of the work for this class involves you posting information into the discussion board. It is imperative that we all adhere to a few simple rules of proper “netiquette” to ensure a course that runs smoothly. Your participation in the discussion boards will partially determine your grade for this class. The discussion board is very impersonal and does not require that we all adhere to formal writing guidelines. Do not be fearful within this area because you will not be graded for your spelling, grammar, syntax, etc., within the discussion board; instead, your focus should be on the quality and content of your dialogue. However, papers and other homework will be evaluated for spelling, grammar, syntax, etc. This is, after all, an English course.

When responding to a question or statement posted by a fellow classmate or me, do not merely make a statement of agreement or tell a person they did a “good job.” Instead, explain your agreement or disagreement with a statement. In your responses, tell your classmates or me exactly what you liked or disliked about something that was posted. Be specific using valid information to defend your position.

When posting to a discussion group, refrain from attacking an individual personally. Direct your comments in the direction of the statements made by the person, not at the person.

Please do not respond to the same classmate’s postings in the different discussion boards over and over again. Allow yourself the opportunity to become familiar with as many different members of the class as possible. To achieve this goal, pick different students each time to write your responses.

Feel free to use emoticons, e.g., :-) or :-o in your postings as these help students interpret the tone of your written communication.

Please do not use all capital letters as this indicates that you are screaming or yelling, unless, of course, that is your intention.

Points for posting and responding to the discussion boards will be subjectively assigned by me. The criteria for a quality posting is that it must be thorough, substantive, demonstrate a degree of learning or understanding, and offer evidence to support statements when necessary.

Even though you are taking this class on-line, you are still a student of Santa Ana College and are subject to all applicable rules and regulations. Any improper use of the discussion boards, Blackboard, etc., will result in a loss of privilege in using these communication tools and possibly other disciplinary action.

Class Attendance

Check the Blackboard site regularly. Ideally, you should check Canvas at least three to four times per week. While I may not post announcements every day, you will want to look at the discussion board and respond when needed or required.

Since this is a hybrid class, there are four mandatory on-campus meetings. They are February 5, March 19, April 30, and May 28, 2018. They will take place from 5:00-6:50 P.M. in D-302. Since these meetings are mandatory, if you miss one of them, you will be dropped from the class. When in these class meetings, please turn off pagers and phones while in class. Anyone caught talking on a cell phone, text messaging, or tweeting during class will be asked to leave the classroom for the remainder of the class.

 

Disabled Student Programs & Services Statement

Your success in this course is important to me. Santa Ana College and I are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all individuals with disabilities. If you have a disability that may have some impact on your ability to do well in this course, I encourage you to speak with me as soon as possible. Also, please contact Disabled Student Programs & Services so that we can all collaborate on your classroom accommodations in a timely manner. DSP&S is located in VL-203, and their phone number is 714-564-6264. TTY: 714-564-6384. Video Phones: 714-660-3075 or 657-235-2999. The DSP&S office requires documentation of your disability in order to receive reasonable accommodations. If you do not have documentation, they will work with you to acquire it. I look forward to supporting you to meet your learning goals.

Rewrites and Extra Credit

There are three rewrites in this class, and there is no extra credit in this class.

Technology Issues

From time to time the technology used to deliver the online courses or the mail server which handles the e-mail will fail. In some instances the technology used by the student to take an online course will fail; for example, a student’s computer may crash, the ISP will not stay connected, etc.  Knowing this is a possibility and devising a contingency plan is essential to avoid devastating results. Therefore, here is the contingency plan for some possible technology problems.

• If you are unable to access Santa Ana College’s Blackboard site, please contact the Distance Education Office at (714) 564-6725 immediately, and notify them of when you first experienced the problem. Currently, Santa Ana College does not have technical support on the weekends, holidays, or evenings; as a result, please be patient as the situation will be rectified as soon as possible.
• If you are attempting to send me an e-mail and the e-mail is returned to you as undeliverable, please re-check the e-mail address and resubmit it. If it is returned as undeliverable once again, save the undeliverable message and wait until Monday after 9:00 A.M. (assuming the issue occurred over the weekend) to resubmit the e-mail. Please include as an attachment the undeliverable e-mail message along with the content of your e-mail.
• If you are taking a quiz and the time expires before you submit your answers or if your ISP disconnects you during the test, please send me an e-mail notifying me of this occurrence. I will reset one quiz for you during the semester.  However, if this is a recurring problem, you will need to use a computer at Santa Ana College or a public/private facility with Internet access to log onto Blackboard and take future quizzes.
• If your computer crashes and you will not have access to the course for a prolonged period of time, it may be best for you to drop the course and retake it when you have access to a reliable computer; however, if you can gain access to the Internet at work, school, or wherever, you may continue on with the class.

Finally, please do not panic. It is my goal to make this a learning experience and not a technology struggle. However, please do not falsify information and blame the technology when you fail to complete an assignment in a timely manner or if you are not adequately prepared to take a quiz and you purposefully quit the quiz because you will not be successful due to your lack of preparation. My assumption is that you are honest and you are attempting to put forth your best effort. Please do not give me a reason to think otherwise.

The online learning environment is similar yet much different than the traditional classroom experience for students. You will be required to send e-mail, send e-mail with attachments, navigate the World Wide Web, download browser plug-ins to view multimedia enhanced web pages, and be able to participate in threaded discussions and chats. If you do not possess most or all of these skills, you may want to drop this course immediately and complete a course on Internet basics (Santa Ana College offers a course—Computer Science 100, The Computer and Society—that may prove useful to you) before enrolling in another online course.

Points to Ponder

“The function of a great university is to ask right questions, not to give right answers.”

Cynthia Ozick

“Imagine that you enter a parlor.  You come late.  When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is all about.  In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before.  You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar.  Someone answers; you answer him or her; another comes to your defense; another aligns herself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent . . . however, the discussion is interminable.  The hour grows late; you must depart.  And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.”
The Philosophy of Literary Form by Kenneth Burke