English 201-011
Strategies for Academic Writing
Instr: Alice Gillam
Office: CRT 427; 229-6879
e-mail: agillam@uwm.edu
Office hours: MW; 1:00-3:00pm
Course Information: MWR; 9:00-11:05am; CRT 321
Course Description
English 201 is an intermediate-level writing course designed to enhance your critical reading, writing, and research abilities. As the catalog description suggests, the course aims to build on the skills of "already proficient writers."
The thematic focus of this English 201 course is literacy, an elusive term whose meaning is widely debated. For some, the term simply means the ability to read and write at a functional level. For others, like Cy Knoblauch, the meaning is much more complicated: "Literacy is one of those mischievous concepts, like virtuousness and craftsmanship, that appear to denote capacities but that actually convey value judgments" (The Right to Literacy 76). I chose this theme because concepts of literacy and established literacy practices shape your current academic work as a college student and will shape your future work as a professional. My intent, like that of the editors of Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook, is to "enable a richer, more nuanced understanding of literacy" (2).
During the first three weeks of class, we will read, discuss, and write about a set of common readings on literacy; during the last three weeks, we will discuss strategies for academic inquiry as you investigate a particular topic related to literacy.
Prerequisites:
A score of C or better in English 102, a score of 637 or higher on the EPT, or permission of instructor.
Course Goals:
This course is designed to enable you to
- Complicate your understanding of literacy through reading, writing, and thinking critically about the topic.
- Understand academic literacy practices in relationship to other forms of literacy-home, civic, cultural, electronic, visual, etc.
- Relate these more complicated views of literacy to your work as a college student and your future work as an educator or other professional.
- Acquire specific strategies for academic reading, writing, and research.
- Become familiar with disciplinary-specific and genre-related academic writing conventions.
- Develop strategies for using electronic media for research, learning, and teaching.
- Use writing for critical self-reflection on your own academic literacy practices.
Course Texts and Materials:
Photo- or electronic copies of your writing assignments and papers upon request (according to Donald Murray, the main text of a writing course ought to be the students' own writing).
Lives on the Boundary, Mike Rose, Penguin Books, 1989
Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook, Ellen Cushman et al. editors, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001
Reading Rhetorically, Brief Edition, John Bean et al., Longman, 2002
Course packet available at Clark's Graphics on Oakland
College dictionary.
Looseleaf notebook for reading responses, class notes, in-class writing assignments, etc. (A looseleaf notebook, unlike a spiral notebook, allows you to remove and reinsert entries easily.)
Assignments and Grading:
Journal assignments - You will be asked to write responses to the reading assignments, your classmates' writing, and your own writing on almost a daily basis. Your journal entries will often form the basis for class discussion. At the end of the course, you will turn in your journal for evaluation. (15%)
Analytical Literacy Narrative - A literacy narrative is a story of language learning (or if you'd prefer Discourse learning). It can be book length as is the case with Rose's Lives on the Boundary or Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory, or it can be a brief essay like Gloria Naylor's "The Writing Life" in Reading Rhetorically. It may, like Rose's narrative, mix in other kinds of information-statistics, historical information, psychological theory-or it may, like Naylor's "The Writing Life" include just narration. Finally, literacy narratives may or may not make an explicit argument or point about the meaning or significance of the story. However, even if the point is not made explicit, as is the case in Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl," there is clearly an implicit larger point to the narrative.
The difference between literacy narratives in general and the analytical literacy narrative assignment is you are being asked to stand back from the story and analyze or interpret it using the key terms and/or concepts of literacy drawn from class readings. While your essay may not reach a simple conclusion about the meaning and significance of your experience (or set of related experiences), it should have a central focus and point.
The aim of this assignment is to apply what you've been learning to deepen your understanding of your own literacy learning and thus attitudes and values toward literacy. Further, your purpose is to offer the reader a new perspective on literacy learning. As you consider your purpose, ask yourself questions such as the following: What new insight or new understanding is offered by these theoretical concepts and terms? How do they enable me to see my experience differently or in more complicated terms? How might my analysis of my experience help other readers understand what literacy means? What are the consequences or implications of this new understanding? In short, your analytical narrative should answer the "so what" question. The paper should be 4-6 double-spaced pages (12 pt. font, regular margins). (30%)
Critical Review of the Literature - This assignment is a variation on the frequently assigned "review of the literature" paper. Reviews of the literature, as the title suggests, summarize key scholarly articles or research pertaining to a particular topic or research question. Often reviews of the literature form an introductory section of a longer scholarly article or research paper. These reviews offer a context for the researcher's new insights, conclusions, or argument.
In other words, this section allows researchers to position their ideas in relationship to the ideas of others and in relationship to previous knowledge and debates about the topic. In academic assignments, a review of the literature paper is often a precursor to a separate research paper that will present the writer's own argument or conclusions regarding the topic. Because of the limitations of time, however, you are being asked to write a critical review and not two separate papers.
This critical review of the literature assignment requires you not only to summarize the pertinent sources you discover but also to analyze, evaluate, and inter-relate the ideas in these sources. That is, you will consider the authors' explicit and implicit assumptions about the topic, the adequacy of their research methods and argument, their attitude toward the topic, the implications or consequences of their ideas, the values entailed in their texts, their points of agreement and disagreement, and so on. In class, we will discuss and practice summarizing and critiquing sources, and we will discuss various sample review essays.
For this assignment, you will choose a research topic related to literacy and formulate a research question about the topic. Here are just a few suggested topics: the ebonics debate, standardized testing, certification requirements for teachers, the English Only Movement, bilingual education, computer literacy, cultural literacy, whole language, phonics, early childhood literacy acquisition, censorship, the canon debates, visual/media literacy, etc. Your research question will, of course, focus on some narrow aspect of your topic. For example, if your general topic is computer literacy, you might ask "What ideologies and values are implicit in grammar- and style-check software?" or "How has email affected written communication and what are the implications of these effects?" You will then search for sources that address your research question. We will discuss methods of not only finding relevant sources but also of evaluating their credibility. Finally, you will write a paper that summarizes, critiques, and inter-relates these sources.
Your research must include both Internet and library research, and your review must include a minimum of six sources, at least two of which must have been retrieved electronically and at least two of which must have been retrieved from the library.
Your critical review of the literature paper should be approximately 6-8 typed doubled-spaced pages (12 pt. font, 1.25 margins). (40%)
PowerPoint Presentation - The final assignment is a 15-minute oral PowerPoint presentation of your research process and findings. Because the review of the literature paper emphasizes the research process as much as it does the results of your research, your PowerPoint presentation should focus on both your process (the sources you consulted and dismissed, the deadends or difficulties you encountered, your discoveries about the kinds of sources or research done on this topic, the questions and issues unaddressed, etc.) as well as your key findings. We will offer a workshop on PowerPoint presentations during class as well as individual assistance with your presentations. These PowerPoint presentations will take place the last week of class. (15%)
Due Dates:
All journal assignments are due at the beginning of the date assigned, and these assignments cannot be made up. The analytical literacy narrative and the review of the literature paper are also due at the beginning of the class hour on the dates they are due. Late papers (for any reason) will be lowered by one half-letter grade for each day late (e.g. a B+ paper would become a B paper if it is one day late; an A paper would receive an B- if it is four days late).
Attendance:
You are expected to attend every class since your participation is vital to the workshop nature of this course. After three absences, your final semester grade will be lowered by 1/2 for every class missed (for any reason). With excessive absences (four or more), you will fail the class because it is not possible to make up in-class work. You are also expected to arrive at class on time. Being consistently late or missing a significant portion of the class will constitute an absence.
Academic Misconduct:
Please be aware of the University's definition of academic misconduct, which includes plagiarism ("submitting a paper or assignment as one's own work when a part or all of the paper or assignment is the work of another") and the failure to cite the words and ideas of others properly. The University policies on Academic Misconduct are posted on the UWM homepage. In this class, you may not submit work that you have previously written and submitted for another course.
