1101 Writing/Grades Fall 06

Dr. Lori E. Amy
Department of Writing and Linguistics
Georgia Southern University

P.O. Box 8026

Statesboro, GA 30460

(912) 681-0625/fax (912) 871-1386

final project

ENGL 1102 Writing Assignments & Workshops

We will be doing a great deal of writing for this class.

Our informal writing, such as class E-mail, postings to the class Forum, and the Writing Workshop Wrap-ups, count as 30% of the course grade.
The bulk of the course grade, 70%, will be determined by the formal writing assignments.

You will keep an extensive writing log/journal that records the writing issues we define in class, your progress and process as a writer, your strengths and weaknesses and strategies for meeting the writing requirements of the class.

I expect active participation in class discussion. (This includes E-mail responses to the class list with ideas, thoughts, questions, emotions about the writing issues raised from our readings.)

You will do 3 short (2-3 pages) and one long (6-8 pages) formal writing assignments. These assignments will be determined partly by the context of class reading/thinking; in this sense, the class's responses to and evaluations of the readings are as important as the reading itself. Our discussion is, in fact, an important "text" of the class! These writings form an assignment sequence designed to help you progressively develop your writing voice, awareness of your own process as a writer, and your analytical and argumentative skills.

You will do a final project presentation.

All formal writing assignments will be revised several times before final grading; they must be submitted at the end of the term, with all pre-writing and draft work, in your Final Portfolio. Your portfolio must contain your ongoing writing logs. This is the place where you keep track of your writing progress.

Writing Logs: As you keep your writing logs, pay attention to how your writing is changing, how you as a writer are evolving. Towards the middle of the semester, you should find that you are making fewer of the errors that you were making at the beginning of the term.

Workshops: You are all intelligent and already know how to use language. This class develops writing skills from what you already know about your world and using language. We will be exploring how writing allows us to manipulate language, learn from our language, study and think and rethink our language use. As such, revision is a way of life in this class, and our workshops provide the opportunity to revise our writing. At the end of each workshop you will complete a workshop summary assignment which will count towards your informal writing grade.

Readings/Texts (Texts at the GSU bookstore)

Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the 21st Century. By Carolyn Nordstron
Pocket Style Manual by Diana Hacker (Or: you may refer to Purdue University's Online Writing Lab
You will need a college level dictionary. Online handbooks and dictionaries available at http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~lamy/tools.html

Attendance
I reserve the right to fail you if you miss more than five classes. I expect you to email me or call to let me know when you will not be able to attend class and to make arrangements with me for completing your work for classes that you miss. You have paid your money for this class; if you miss it, you waste your money. If you miss a class, you must email or call a classmate to get notes for that class's work BEFORE you ask me for help with the work from any class you missed.