This is a writing course, so you should expect to write in it. It's also a course about writing, so you should expect to pay attention to the how-to, just as you would in a carpentry or cooking course. On the average, you'll do two pieces of assigned writing outside of class each week and several more, shorter writings in class. You'll also need to make a daily entry in a personal log. But before you panic about that, I'll assure you that if all goes as I expect, you'll find that you're not overworked and that you enjoy doing the writing.

     I won't grade any of your writing (except, possibly, for two or three essays toward the end of the course, to which I may assign grades if that will improve your grade for the entire course). However, I'll have to report a grade for you at the end of the course, so at that time I'll ask you to write an assessment of your own progress during the course, including your recommendation for your course grade. That means you'll need to keep track of how you're doing all along. It also means that you should be clear on the grading criteria right now at the beginning of the course. So here they are:

     If you--

do all of the writing assignments--

fully
in sequence
on time
clearly enough for readers to understand
in reasonably conventional, standard English

participate in the class discussions
attend at least 90% of the classes (online classes see attendance note below)
make a personal log entry every day (by personal log I mean your own daily record of your progress and development and anything else that you think relevant to this course)

     For an "A" you must satisfy the requirements for a "C," and in addition you'll have to consistently explore the writing assignments beyond the obvious. You'll have to think the assignments through; you can't be satisfied with easy answers or empty words. And you'll have to consistently write up your explorations of the assignments with obvious care, keeping in mind the special requirements of each assignment and the reading needs of your audience; in the process developing a clear writing voice of your own; writing simply and directly yet with full expression. In other words, you'll have to write elegantly.

     If you fulfill the requirements for a "C" on all of the assignments and the requirements for an "A" on about half of them (or between "C" and "A" on all of them), then your course grade should be a "B."
 

ATTENDANCE
     IMPORTANT:  Because participating in class and keeping up with the writing assignments are especially important in this course, regular attendance is essential.  Therefore, in order to pass the course, you must

• EITHER
• (On-campus classes) attend at least 90% of the class meetings--that means attending 26 class meetings of 30 or 39 of 45 class meetings, minimum.  (Those numbers are actually only 86.66%.)
• (Online classes)  log into the Discussion Forum on at least two different days each week (See separate schedule for more on this.)

 
• ORwrite an extra essay on a subject of your own choice for each class you miss beyond 10% and at the end of the semester demonstrate why irregular attendance should not detract from your course grade.  But the best thing is to come to class regularly.

ASSESSMENT
     Please keep everything you write during the course.I'll ask you to turn it all in to me as a book when you give me your self-assessment at the end of the course. (Turning in your personal log is optional, but you must keep it up daily, even if you don't show it to me.  Honor bright!)  We'll also have a smaller version of this assessment process around the middle of the course.
 

THEORY
     There's a principle behind all this: Writing is a form of thinking, a way of finding out what you know and what you want to say to your audience. A better term for "writing," when it's understood in this way, is "composing." It means PUTTING TOGETHER, the way you "compose your thoughts"--the way you put things together and make sense of them. Everything I ask you to do in the course will be based on this principle.

     Notice that the principle implies action--implies that writing doesn't just magically appear as a finished product, but instead is a process of thinking, or re-thinking, of adding and subtracting words and ideas, a process that may finally result in a finished product.

     For example, when I wrote the first version of this little introduction, several years ago, I did lots of crossing out. I moved whole sentences from one place to another by drawing arrows and even by cutting some of them out with scissors. I threw away several entire paragraphs that seemed important when I first wrote them but that later turned out to be redundant or misleading. I typed the whole thing four times, making improvements each time. And I read it aloud several times. And now I've just revised it again on a word processor. All that even though before I began I "knew" what I wanted to say. (I'm still not completely satisfied with it, by the way. In fact, you're seeing it as it is only because my deadline prevents me from refining it further.) With each improvement, what I have to say to you has become clearer to me, and by now I hope it's clear enough to share with you. (In case you're interested, this paragraph suggests some things about how to write--or at least how I write. Most of the instruction in this course will work a lot like this paragraph. It's generally called "the inductive method," although that name is too limiting to suit me.)
 

BOOKS
     What materials will you need for this course?

     You should have a good desk-size dictionary. If you don't think much of dictionaries, you might look into The American Heritage Dictionary. It has lots of pictures, and the full-size desk edition (not the college edition) contains most of the swear words there are in English, along with their etymologies.  There are now also several very good online dictionaries.  Just search the Web for dictionary.

     And if you're interested in punctuation, grammar, and other mechanical aspects of writing, most bookstores carry various kinds of grammar handbooks. Most are very very thorough. You'll find a good one in the campus bookstore, in the Eng 111 section. At the other extreme, a popular, small, excellent, light book on writing is The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, available in almost every bookstore in the U.S.A.

     You won't need the textbooks sold by the college bookstore; you'll have your own personal text completed instead by the end of the course. However, the bookstore's texts are good ones, so you might want to buy one for your own reference, even though we won't be using it in class.
 

PREREQUISITE
     The prerequisite for this course is a recommendation of "English 111" on the Writing Placement Test or at the end of English 01. Also, if your Reading Placement recommendation is "Eng 04" and you haven't already completed that course, you'll have to take it this semester (or before Eng 112).