English1130Winter2012

Dr Peter Wilkins

Sections 007 (Tuesdays) and 012 (Thursdays)

E-mail: wilkinsp@douglas.bc.ca

Office: 2657

Office Hours:


 * In person--Tuesday and Thursday 12:30 to 13:30
 * Online--Tuesday and Thursday 13:30 to 14:30 (or by appointment)

Course Description
English 1130 is an academic writing course that introduces you to, and builds upon, the writing skills that you will need to succeed at the College and or university. Most of your work in this course will be centred on texts and topics that you choose. To begin, you will select a Ted Talk that strikes your imagination. Its subject will be the basis of your research and writing for the rest of the semester. Much of your research will be web-based and will require that you familiarize yourself with conducting academic work on the internet. You will find academic articles, websites, and discussions that will amplify the subject of the Ted Talk that you choose. These sources will become the material for your term paper

This version of English 1130 is presented in "hybrid" mode, which means that half of the class is held online and half face-to-face. Hybrid courses work well for engaged, motivated students. However, they are not for everyone. If you are not good at working independently with self-discipline, you will find this course difficult. You also need to be able to work well with others because a lot of the work is collaborative.

English 1130 is not a remedial writing course, and students are expected to be able to write grammatically correct sentences and competently developed paragraphs before the course begins. If you do not possess fundamental writing skills in English, you are not likely to succeed. If you have doubts about your abilities, English 1099 is a good course to take before English 1130.

Resources
TED


 * TED will be where you find your writing subject for the term. TED is a nonprofit organization that supports public intellectual activity.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue (OWL)


 * Useful for MLA formatting rules and writing tips of all sorts

Mendeley

Zotero

RefWorks

Douglas College Library


 * Articles and Databases

Assignments
Please note that assignments linked below are posted to let you know what to expect. They are not necessarily in their final form and are subject to change up to the point that I assign them in class. However, any changes to the assignments will not change their basic shape or percentage value.

Papers
TedTalk Summary and Analysis Paper (Essay 1) 15%

Manifesto (Essay 2--In-class) 20%

Term Paper (Essay 3) 25%

Other Assignments
Brief Annotated Bibliography 10%

Research Curation Podcast 20%

Online Work 10%

File Drop for Section 007 (Tuesday Mornings)
Post your assignments here

File Drop for Section 012 (Thursday Mornings)
Post your assignments here

Some Guidelines
I encourage you to bring to the face-to-face meetings some means of connecting to the Douglas College WiFi system. These means could include a laptop, an iPad or other tablet, or a smartphone. Laptops are the best option as mobile devices must be regularly re-connected to the system. Be aware that WiFi at the College is unreliable at the best of times. Please make sure that your device is set to silent and that audible alerts are turned off. You are permitted to use your devices for class-related work only.

All final out of class assignments should be submitted via the appropriate file drop above in PDF file format if possible. Be sure to include your last name, section number, and the assignment name in the file name.

Editing drafts should be submitted to group members in editable .doc or .docx format. Please to not use Microsoft works (.wps) format.

For all email correspondence, include "English 1130" and your section number in the subject line.

You must complete all of the assignments to pass the course.

Attending class is highly recommended, particularly because the face-to-face sessions are fewer than those of a normal class and much of the in-class work is collaborative. If illness or work requirements cause you to miss class repeatedly, you should drop the course. According to College policy, you must attend 70% of classes to receive a grade.

Rewrites of assignments are not permitted.

No make up assignments or grade enhancement assignments are permitted.

If you receive a grade on an assignment that you believe is unfair, you may re-submit it with a one-page, single-spaced argument about why you think the paper should receive a higher grade. If we still disagree after that, you can submit the assignment to the English Department for an informal review. Two other instructors will review and grade a clean copy of your assignment, which will receive the average of the two grades they come up with. The grade on your paper can be lowered by this process.

Web Tools and Privacy: In this course I will be discussing using web tools that involve you signing up for an account that will ask for personal information such as an e-mail address. It is possible that this information will be stored on a server in the United States, which would make it subject to the Patriot Act, meaning that US authorities could get access to that information without a warrant. The same is true if you sign up for a Facebook or other social media account. It is your choice whether to use these tools or not. If you do not wish to use them, please see me about alternatives.

All Douglas College policies apply in this course; in particular, I draw your attention to the Academic Dishonesty policy and the User Conduct policy.

Syllabus
If you are in section 007 (Tuesday Mornings), click on this link to see the week by week breakdown of class activities in a Google Calendar.

If you are in section 012 (Thursday Mornings), click on this link.

The calendar works best in "Agenda" format.

Click on the event to see its details. The "description" of the event for each class meeting sums up the online work for the coming week.

Please note that the syllabus provides only a basic outline; I will giving more detailed explanations of each week's online work during class.

Links
Section 007 (Tuesdays) TED Talk Spreadsheet

Section 012 (Thursdays) TED Talk spreadsheet

Follow @1130hybrid on Twitter for course announcements.

Notes from January 17, Section 007

Notes from January 19, Section 012

Manifestos

Annotated Bibliography on OWL at Purdue

Sequencing the Research Paper

Worked Over Analysis Paragraph

Grammar and Mechanics Videos
Fragments Fused Sentences Comma Splices Relative Clauses Apostrophes The Semi-colon

Podcast Links
You can listen to your podcast here