English 101
Dakota State University
Dr. Dan Weinstein, Instructor
Spring, 2009

 

Name: _________________

COURSE INTRODUCTION

Welcome

Welcome to ENGL 101, an introduction to "academic" writing. Academic writing is the kind of writing professors do when they write to each other about questions in their disciplines. As a college student, you, too, will use this mode of writing in papers you write for your courses, to communicate your understanding of course material, as well as your responses, your own thoughts about what you learn.

The writing habits of academic writers have evolved over hundreds of years. Their purpose: to help members of academic communities, professors and students, understand one another as they think together about questions of human concern. On one level, therefore, you should think of this course as an introduction to general habits of writing that are practiced by college professors when they write for each other and which professors will expect you to adopt when you write for them.

But what about life after college? Will the ways of writing taught in this course help you write well in your professional career? The answer to this rhetorical question is obvious: you bet they will. The very same qualities that make academic writing a useful, if not an indispensable medium for academic discussion also show up in all kinds of professional communication, from boardroom presentations to annual reports. Have you noticed the close similarity between the words "professor" and "professional"? Both terms refer to a person who has sworn, in some sense, to conscientiously develop expertise in an area of knowledge and to ply that expertise with an awareness of the intellectual and ethical standards of her or his expert community, standards which are communicated and interrogated in the kind of writing we will study here.


How to Proceed

All writing you do for this course, except for discussion posts, is to be done in this Zoho Writer file. This document has been prepared with spaces for each assignment. All you have to do is, at the appointed hour, scroll down and write in the right space (these spaces are labeled "WRITE HERE"), according to the instructions provided for each assignment. Each assignment has several parts. Each time you write part of an assignment, I will check your work and leave comments about what you did and advice about what you should do next.

You should also keep your eye on our D2L home page [https://d2l.sdbor.edu/] where, in the "News" widget, I will make announcements regarding such things as group activities in which you should take part, as well as any needed updates on the assignments listed in this file.

I expect you to check our D2L home page every day to see if I have posted an announcement.

After you have completed an assignment in this file, I will enter a grade for that assignment in the D2L grade book. Note that each assignment has several steps, and that each step has a separate due date.

The 5 Parts of Each Assignment

Each assignment has five parts. Here is a list of the parts and what each entails.

How I Comment on the 5 Parts

Here is how I comment on the parts of each assignment:

So, yes, the idea is that, for each assignment, you will write one part then wait for me to comment on it before you move on to the next part. However,if I do not comment on the latest part of a given assignment within 48 hours after it is due, move on to the next part of the assignment without me. It is my hope that a close and productive editorial relationship will develop between us.

Here is the assignment schedule:

 

self introduction
rough writing
    9:00pm, January 16
informal interactive outline
    9:00pm, January 19
first draft
    9:00pm, January 21
second draft
    9:00pm, January 23
reflection
    9:00pm, January 25

 

family story
rough writing
    9:00pm, January 28
informal interactive outline
    9:00pm, January 30
first draft
    9:00pm, February 2
second draft
    9:00pm, February 4
reflection
    9:00pm, February 6

 

column
rough writing
    9:00pm, February 10
informal interactive outline
    9:00pm, February 12
first draft
    9:00pm, February 14
second draft
    9:00pm, February 17
reflection
    9:00pm, February 20

 

essay about academic writing
rough writing
    9:00pm, February 26
informal interactive outline
    9:00pm, March 1
first draft
    9:00pm, March  3
second draft
    9:00pm, March 6
reflection
    9:00pm, March  8

 

interpretive essay
rough writing
    9:00pm, April 2
informal interactive outline
    9:00pm, April 4
first draft
    9:00pm, April 6
second draft
    9:00pm, April 9
reflection
    9:00pm, April 14

 

analysis essay
rough writing
    9:00pm, April 16
informal interactive outline
    9:00pm, April 19
first draft
    9:00pm, April 21
second draft
    9:00pm, April 24
reflection
    9:00pm, April 26

 

reflective essay
rough writing
    9:00pm, April 30
informal interactive outline
    9:00pm, May 2
first draft
    9:00pm, May 5
second draft
    9:00pm, May 7
reflection

 


Occasional hyperlinks in this file lead to resources for our assignments. To follow a hyperlink from this file, depress your control (Ctrl) key and left click at the same time.

Last but not least, please set up a Skype [http://www.skype.com/] account and add me (djweinstein) as a contact. Skype is a free text / voice / video messaging service. Log in to Skype whenever you are working on this course. In this way we will be able to communicate conveniently, in real time, if you have a question about what you should do, if you should wish to use me as a sounding board for ideas, or want me to join you in this document as you write (I chose Zoho Writer as our medium because it allows me to look over your virtual shoulder as you write in it - but I won't intrude unless you invite me). Skype is also a good backup communication system in case D2L goes down. Your use of Skype in the manner I have described is a requirement of this course.

A Word About Writing in Zoho Writer

Although a very sophisticated piece of equipment in many ways, Zoho Writer is a relatively rudimentary text editor in the way that it generates text. It is no Microsoft Word. It can reliably handle text that is entered simply, without fancy formatting.

To write in Zoho Writer, position the cursor where you want your text to appear. Then type. Do not indent the first line of a paragraph, and when you want to start a new paragraph, simply hit the Enter key once. Use the backspace and delete keys to get rid of text you wish to discard. As far as their formatting is concerned, the paragraphs you write in this document should look just like this one.

I recommend that you write directly into this Zoho Writer document. However, some people find that, for one reason or another, Zoho Writer is not responsive enough, or, very occasionally, refuses to save what they have typed. The existence of these issues, even though they tend to affect a very few students each semester, warrant a suggestion about how you may safeguard your work.

To be on the save side, to ensure that what you write will stay written, and that you will always have a copy of it, you might use WordPad (not Microsoft Word) to do your typing, and copy and paste your words into the appropriate "WRITE HERE" spaces in this file. You could then save a copy of your WordPad file on your computer in addition to posting your writing here.

Caution: if you do write in WordPad, use plain and simple formatting. Just type. Do not indent the first lines of paragraphs and separate paragraphs with a single tap of the Enter key. Observing these guidelines will help to preserve the layout of this file when you paste you text into it.

ASSIGNMENT 1: SELF INTRODUCTION

This assignment has several objectives. First, let me tell you what I would like you to do; after that I will tell you why I would like you to do it.

What To Do
Your ultimate "deliverable" for this assignment, what I want you to end up with when you are done, is an introduction of yourself, 300 - 400 words long, that incorporates certain elements as it unfolds. I will tell you about these elements in just a little bit, in the prompts for the rough writing part of this assignment. But first, here is an overview of how we will proceed.

Like all of the assignments that follow it, this assignment consists of five tightly scheduled parts: rough writing, informal interactive outlining, the writing of a first draft, the writing of a second, revised draft, and the writing of a reflection about the experience of writing this assignment. Your writing for each part of the assignment must appear in this document.

In all, this assignment will take us ten days to complete (Sept. 2 - Sept 12). Between September 2nd and 4th, I would like you to do the rough writing part. Between September 4th and 6th, I would like you to do the informal interactive outlining part. Between September 6th and 8th I would like you to do the drafting part. Between September 8th and 10th I would like you to do the revision part. Finally, between September 10th and 12th I would like you to complete the reflection part. When you have completed all the parts, I will grade the assignment and enter the grade in our D2L grade book.

I will check in with you, via this file, as you work on this assignment. My job will be to offer comments about what you have written and to give you advice about how to proceed. Your job will be to pay attention to the comments I offer and to write the next part of the assignment with those comments in mind. If you have questions along the way, the best way to get in touch with me is to Skype me. My Skype name is djweinstein, and I should be online, and on Skype, much of the time throughout the days and evenings. And if I'm not, you can leave me a message on Skype. I also respond to D2L mail.

Below you will see headings for each part of this assignment. Further instructions appear beneath each of these headings. Please read them carefully, and follow the directions as closely as you can. As you do, please remember: the overriding purpose of this course is to help you become a better writer for academic and professional readers. It is my assumption that you have room to grow in this respect (as do I), and in no way will I ever judge you as a person based on your writing skills. Your writing skills are just that: they are skills. Our task here is to help you pracice and improve them, and my job (my privilege) is to stand by your side, as your coach, while you do.

Rough Writing (due by 9:00pm, January 16)
Remember that rough writing is very loose writing based (roughly) on the example of David Antin [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/tuning.html], the American talk poet. When you do rough writing, do not even think about such things as rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation. Throw caution to the wind and write fragmentary, impulsive, spontaneous, unpredictable prose, that looks like this, with the following focus points in mind. Take a moment or two to mull over these focus points before you do your rough writing.

Focus Points:

Instruction: Keep in mind these objectives as you do your rough writing for this assignment:

Your self-introduction essay, when it is finished, should contain the following elements:

  1. 1.Your name  

  2. 2.A slogan or quotation that you think describes you (this slogan should appear in the first or last sentence of your self-introduction essay's first paragraph)  

  3. 3.Evidence from your own life experience that clearly shows why the slogan or quotation with which you have chosen to describe yourself fits you well  

  4. 4.A description of an interesting writing project you have completed  

  5. 5.An explanation of why this writing project was interesting to you  

  6. 6.Some thoughts about yourself as a writer, including what, with reference to your writing skills, you think you would like to work on  

  7. 7.A reprise [http://www.wordwebonline.com/search.pl?w=reprise] your slogan or quotation, possibly relating it, as well, to what you have said about your writing skills 


With those expectations in mind, then, please enter, right between these lines, ten minutes worth of rough writing toward such an essay.

Go!
_____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



sakfjasldfkjas;f
skljfasldfksafd
askljf

_____________________

Informal Interactive Outlining (due by 9:00pm, January 19)
Instruction: With your rough writing in mind, make a list of important words and phrases more or less in the order you think they might appear in your essay. The words and phrases you list may appear in your rough writing, or they may not. Under each word or phrase, write a brief explanation of its relevance to the essay you envision. Your list should contain between ten and fifteen items.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

First Draft (due by 9:00pm, January 21)
After you have seen my comments on your outline, go ahead and write your self-introduction essay between the lines below. Remember that the essay you write should be between 300 and 400 words long, and should contain the elements I listed in the instructions for rough writing.

One word about this and all other drafts: you should write a draft as if it were the final version of what you are writing. I can give you more effective feedback on your writing if I do so with the mutual understanding that what I am reading is your best effort toward a complete response to the assignemnt. Do not leave your draft unfinished.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Second Draft (Revision) (due by 9:00pm, January 23)
After you have seen my comments on your draft, go ahead and write your self-introduction essay between the lines below. Remember that the essay you write should be between 300 and 400 words long, and should contain the elements I listed in the instructions for rough writing.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Reflection (due by 9:00pm, January 25)
After you have read my comments on your second, revised draft of the self-introduction essay, please write two or three paragraphs of reflection about the experience of doing this assignment.
In your reflection you might answer some or all of the following questions:

  1. 1.What about the instructions surprised you? Why?  

  2. 2.What about the instructions confused you? How did you handle your confusion?  

  3. 3.What about the instructions challenged you most? What did you learn from this challenge?  

  4. 4.What about the experience of writing the different parts of this assignment surprised you? What did you learn from this surprise?  

  5. 5.What English grammar, usage, and/or punctuation issues were pointed out to you in my comments? Define these issues and explain what you can do to identify and eliminate them in the future?  

  6. 6.Describe three ways in which your self-introduction changed between its first and second draft. 

____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Objectives
This assignment has four major objectives:

  1. 1.to get used to a writing process that combines rough writing, informal, interactive outlining, writing a first draft of a piece of writing, having that draft reviewed, and following up on the feedback you got about your first draft by responsively revising that piece of writing with that feedback in mind.  

  2. 2.to see if you can focus a piece of writing so it coheres around a theme (in this case the theme is the slogan, saying, or quotation you have applied to yourself) 

  3. 3.to get you used to the give and take of receiving and responding to my comments on your writing  

  4. 4.to help me get to know you a little better 


ASSIGNMENT 2: FAMILY STORY

In your last assignment, the self-introduction, the slogan, saying, or quotation through which you chose to describe yourself was part of a thesis, an arguable statement about a debatable issue. Essentially, the requirements of the assignment were such that you had to assert the claim that you are a certain way (a way embodied in the slogan, saying, or quotation you chose), then support that central claim with evidence from your life and your experiences with writing. Remember how it felt to do that. You will do the same sort of thing in every paper you write for this course. The only difference will be that, from now on, you will not be writing exclusively about yourself.

What to Do
In this assignment I am asking you to enlarge your attention to embrace another member or members of your family. I would like you to think of one or more stories that give evidence to support your claim that your family, or members of your family, possess a certain quality or qualities (that they are generous, wise, complicated, what have you). Then I'd like you to write an essay which, in its introduction, proffers as its thesis a characterization of some or all of your family, followed by one or more stories that support your characterization. In this way, your characterization of your family ("My family is ____ ) or your Uncle Moe (My Uncle Moe is ____) will serve as the thesis of your essay and the evidence, the story or stories you tell about your family, will fill in the body of the essay.

What's that? Your head is already buzzing with ideas about your family you are dying to write about? Tremendous! However, before you start writing, I would like you to read an example of the kind of essay I will be looking for. The essay I would like you to read is called "My Father's Legacy: The Lion on the Mountain": http://litsite.alaska.edu/aktraditions/legacy.html by Margie (Twitchell) Brown.

I have several reasons for wanting you to read Brown's essay. For one, it is a fine essay which, in my opinion, succeeds in doing what it sets out to do: convey a mature daughter's sense of appreciation for her father and his own "appreciation of thing of nature" - a sense she she did not have as a young girl.

Reading Questions to Answer
(answer these questions before you do your rough writing)

As you read "My Father's Legacy: The Lion on the Mountain", I would like to you notice a few things about how the essay is written. This is important, because this, too, paying attention not just to the content of a reading but to how a reading was written, is a fantastic way to give yourself a fund of "moves" to deploy in writing of your own.

So, when you read "My Father's Legacy: The Lion on the Mountain", I would like you to ask yourself (and answer, here, in your Zoho document) the following questions:

How does Brown, the writer, characterize her father? Where do you see this happening? What words does she use to do it? What actions does she describe?
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Where do you see Brown using dialog in the essay and to what effect?
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

What significant details do you find in the essay? Why do you find these details significant? How to they connect to Brown's theme?
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________
One detail that appears in the essay is, of course, the mountain itself, Mount Joaquin. This detail might be considered more weighty than some of the others in the piece; one might call it symbolic. Look up the word "symbol" and explain what, in Brown's essay, this mountain represents.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Brown also uses time as a dramatic device. Where do you see her doing this and to what effect?
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________
Brown also writes about thoughts in connection with the feelings they evoke. Where do you see her doing this, and to what effect?
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Now it is your turn. Using some of the techniques you have seen in Brown's essay - the representation of character through the description of actions, the use of detail to convey symbolic significance, the use of dialog to reveal character and advance a story, shifts in perspective to show different points of view - write your own essay in which you use a family story or stories to make a point about the character of a member or members of your family.

Rough Writing (due by 9:00pm, January 28)
Focus Points:

Instruction: Keep in mind these objectives as you do your rough writing for this assignment:

Your ultimate deliverable for this assignment is an essay about one or more members of your family in which you assert a general characterization about that person or persons and back up your assertion by telling illustrative stories about him, her, or them.

Before you begin to write, think of three stories about your family. Then, jump into writing and tell the story that seems like the best one to tell. As you tell the story, think of how Brown tells her story of her father. Try to hear the voices of the people about whom you are writing and add dialog to your rough writing. Try to think of telling details about point to the meaning of an event or that signal something about a person's character.


With these thoughts in mind, then, please enter, right between these lines, ten minutes worth of rough writing toward such an essay.

Go!
_____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Informal Interactive Outlining (due by 9:00pm, January 30)
Instruction: With your rough writing in mind, make a list of important words and phrases more or less in the order you think they might appear in your essay. The words and phrases you list may appear in your rough writing, or they may not. Under each word or phrase, write a brief explanation of its relevance to the essay you envision. Your list should contain between ten and fifteen items.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

First Draft (due by 9:00pm, February 2)
After you have seen my comments on your outline, go ahead and write your family story essay between the lines below. Remember that the essay you write should be between 500 and 525 words long, and should contain at least some of the elements I listed in the instructions for rough writing.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Second Draft (revision) (due by 9:00pm, February 4)
After you have seen my comments on your draft, go ahead and write your self-introduction essay between the lines below. Remember that the essay you write should be between 500 and 525 words long.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Reflection (due by 9:00pm, February 6)
After you have read my comments on your second, revised draft of the self-introduction essay, please write two or three paragraphs of reflection upon the experience of doing this assignment.
In your reflection you might answer some or all of the following questions:
What about the instructions surprised you? Why?
What about the instructions confused you? How did you handle your confusion?
What about the instructions challenged you most? What did you learn from this challenge?
What about the experience of writing the different parts of this assignment surprised you? What did you learn from this surprise?
What English grammar, usage, and/or punctuation issues were pointed out to you in my comments? Define these issues and explain what you can do to identify and eliminate them in the future?
Describe three ways in which your self-introduction changed between its first and second draft.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Objectives
Through this assignment I have tried to do several things to you as a writer. I have tried to shift your attention from yourself to others, I have tried to show you how someone else's piece of writing may be used as a source of stylistic inspiration for your own writing, and I have continued to emphasize that what you write (for this course, and for academic and professional readers) should always revolve around and support a central point or insight about the subject about which you are writing.

In our next assignment, the column, I will ask you to repeat the process of mining generically representative texts for moves to use in your own writing as you write about something that matters to you.


ASSIGNMENT 3: COLUMN

So far you have written and essay in which you have introduced yourself and another essay in which you have introduced one or more members of your family. These assignments have been driven, for the most part, by my interest in you and your writing ability (although I hope that you, too, have gotten something out of them).

This time, however, although I shall remain your primary reader, the target audience for your writing lies beyond us. This time I shall ask you to write a column, the kind you find in a newspaper, and to use that column to persuade the general public to consider a subject your way.

What to Do
For this assignment, I would like you to go out on the Web and read three columns written by columnists whose work is published on the New York Times web site: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html .

You can probably guess what I will ask you to do with the columns you choose. That's right. I want you to analyze your three columns the way we analyzed Brown's essay about her dad: to infer from them some writerly "moves" writers in the genre of the column typically employ.

Once you have drawn six "moves" from your samples, it will be your turn to apply these moves to rough writing toward a column of your own, on a topic of your choosing. In the end, the column you write should be between 500 and 525 words long, and yes, it may be about your take on any idea, object, person, or event about which you would like to interest others.

Reading Questions to Answer
(answer these questions before you do your rough writing)

This time, I would like you to find your own readings to examine. Between the lines below, please enter MLA style citations [http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/] for three New York Times columns, including the URL of each. A sample has been provided. Delete the sample citation and replace it with your own citations. Then, beneath each citation, list two writerly moves" that you find in the respective column. For example, you might list "This column begins by musing on a current event," or "This column addresses the reader directly as 'you'".
The idea is for you to come up with six general characteristics of columns which you will then be able to apply to your own column.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .

Sample Citation:

Grugman, Paul. "The Great Illustion" The New York Times (15 Aug. 2008). 29 Aug. 2008) <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/opinion/15krugman.html>.
Move #1: This column begins by musing on a current event.
Move #2: This column addresses the reader directly as 'you'.
_____________________

Rough Writing (due by 9:00pm, February 10)
Instructions: As you prepare to do ten minutes of rough writing, think of three possible topics for your column. Then, dive into one of them, the one that most speaks to you, and, as you do, try to incorporate two or three of the "moves" you noticed in the columns you analyzed.

Go!
_____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Informal Interactive Outline (due by 9:00pm, February 12)
Instruction: With your rough writing in mind, make a list of important words and phrases more or less in the order you think they might appear in your column. The words and phrases you list may appear in your rough writing, or they may not. Under each word or phrase, write a brief explanation of its relevance to the column you envision.
At the top of your list, identify the topic of your column.
Your list should contain between ten and fifteen items.
_____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

First Draft (due by 9:00pm, February 14)
After you have seen my comments on your outline, go ahead and write your  column between the lines below. Remember that the column you write should be between 500 and 525 words long, and should contain at least some of the "moves" you noticed in the three New York Times columns you analyzed.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Second Draft (revision) (due by 9:00pm, February 17)
After you have seen my comments on your first draft, go ahead and write the second draft of your column between the lines below. Remember that the essay you write should be between 500 and 525 words long.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Reflection (due by 9:00pm, February 20)
After you have read my comments on your second, revised draft of your column, please write two or three paragraphs of reflection upon the experience of doing this assignment.
In your reflection you might answer some or all of the following questions:
What about the instructions surprised you? Why?
What about the instructions confused you? How did you handle your confusion?
What about the instructions challenged you most? What did you learn from this challenge?
What about the experience of writing the different parts of this assignment surprised you? What did you learn from this surprise?
What English grammar, usage, and/or punctuation issues were pointed out to you in my comments? Define these issues and explain what you can do to identify and eliminate them in the future?
Describe three ways in which your column changed between its first and second draft.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________
Objectives
The point of this assignment was to move your awareness of audience beyond a dialog with me, to that of a general audience for which you had to think a bit differently, perhaps, to find common ground. In addition, the initial part of this assignment required you to cite elecronic sources (the columns from the New York Times web site) in MLA (Modtern Language Association) format, and practice, again, the skill of analyzing texts to learn the traits of their genre.


ASSIGNMENT 4: ESSAY ABOUT ACADEMIC WRITING

This is it, folks. This is the turning point. Good bye, popular writing. Hello, academic writing!

What does that mean? What is academic writing, anyway? As I said in my introduction to this course, academic writing the kind of writing that is done by members of the academic community. In addition, academic writing bears a pronounced resemblance to the writing done by subject experts in any professional community.

Some call it the discourse of power.

Our job is threefold: (1) to figure out what conventions, applied to writing, make that writing "academic", (2) to think about and discuss why these conventions are considered beneficial, and (3) to think about and discuss ways in which the conventions of academic writing may not always be so beneficial after all.

Out of these discussions will come a response paper from you about the concept of academic writing, its pros and its cons.

What to Do:

Before you write anything at all about academic writing, study the following documents with care:

  1. 1.Wikipedia article on academic writing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_writing]
    Academic writing has many forms. This article lists a bunch of them.  

  2. 2.Hall, Hazel. "Rules and Conventions of Academic Writing" Digital Media & Interactive Design Resource Center. Napier University. (08 Dec. 2000). 30 Aug. 2008 <http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~mm/academic_writing.htm>.
    They are sticklers for convention, those Scotts.  

  3. 3."Academic Writing Conventions" University of South Australia (08 Dec. 2000). 30 Aug. 2008
    <http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/Resources/research-Education/research%20education/Online%20resources/Support%20materials/Academic%20Writing%20Conventions.htm>.
    This is what they like to say about academic writing in South Australia.  

  4. 4.Paul, Richard. "Critical Thinking - Standards of Thought". Socratic Questioning Video Series (excerpt). Foundation for Critical Thinking (May 2008) 31 Aug. 2008 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNCOOUK-bMQ >.
    Among other things, Dr. Richard (Richard is his last name) clarifies what academicians mean by the terms "clear" and "precise".  

  5. 5.Morris, Tom.  "Academic Writing Rant." E-mail to Dan Weinstein. 25 Sept 2008. < http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/weinsted/documents/engl101-fa2008/Morris-on-Knowledge.pdf>.
    This is an email message from a friend of mine, a British Philosophy student and computer programmer. In this message Morris shares his understanding of knowledge. 

  6. 6.Downes, Stephen. "Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies". (2001) 31 Aug. 2008 < http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/toc.htm >.
    Downes lists logical pitfalls one should avoid when presenting an argument or when thinking in general.  

  7. 7."MLA Formatting and Style Guide" Online Writing Lab. Purdue University. (2008) 31 August 2008. < http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/ >
    On this site you can learn how to format a paper to the formatting specifications of the Modern Language Association (a popular and influential standard for the formatting of academic papers in the humanities).  

  8. 8."Expressing Your Voice in Academic Writing" UniLearning. 31 Aug. 2008. <http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/academic/4bi.html>.  

  9. 9.Lillis, Theresa. "New Voices in Academia? The Regulative Nature of Academic Writing Conventions". Multilingual Matters. vol 11, no 3. (1997). 31 Aug. 2008. < http://www.multilingual-matters.net/le/011/0182/le0110182.pdf >.
    Lillis questions the fairness of academic writing conventions.  

  10. 10.Littlewood, William. "Academic Writing in Intercultural Contexts: Integrating Conventions and Personal Voice". Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics. vol 1. (1996). 31 Aug. 2008. < http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/5/500003.pdf >.
    Williams explores the "tension" between academic writing conventions and individual self-expression. He proposes a model of writing instruction through which he attempts to reconcile these pressures. 


Our next step will be to have a discussion about these documents and you reactions to them. We will start our discussion on our D2L discussion board. After we have had some exchanges there, I will probably schedule conference calls with you to discuss this subject in real time. Watch the News widget on our D2L home page for updates and instructions.

Our discussion will take place between February 20 and February 26.

When we have concluded our discussion of academic writing, it will be time for you to write a response paper on the subject. Like other forms of academic and non-academic writing, the response paper is a genre of its own, and it comes with its own set of conventions for you to observe and practice.

Rough Writing (due by 9:00pm, February 26)

Focus Points

Instructions:
For this assignment you will be writing a response paper on the subject of academic writing. As you do your rough writing, keep the following questions in mind. These questions answer conventional requirements of the response paper form of writing.

Question: What is academic writing?
Question: What are some conventions of academic writing?
Question: What is knowledge?
Question: How are the conventions of academic writing related to its function in the creation of knowledge?
Question: What objections might one raise about the imposition of academic writing conventions?
Question: How do you respond to these objections?
_____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Informal Interactive Outline (due by 9:00pm, April 4)
Instruction: With your rough writing in mind, make a list of important words and phrases more or less in the order you think they might appear in your essay. The words and phrases you list may appear in your rough writing, or they may not. Under each word or phrase, write a brief explanation of its relevance to the essay you envision. Your list should contain between ten and fifteen items.

Keep in mind that your first draft of your response paper should contain an introduction that mentions the overall topic, narrows to a focus (this focus should consist of reasons one might object to the obligation to use academic writing conventions) and a statement of your reaction (your reaction to the aforementioned objections), a body which elaborates and illustrates the overview presented in the introduction, and a conclusion which summarizes your whole presentation.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

First Draft (due by 9:00pm, April 6)
After you have seen my comments on your outline, go ahead and write your response paper between the lines below. The essay you write should be between 500 and 600 words long, and should answer the questions I listed in the instructions for rough writing.
Second Draft(revision) (due by 9:00pm, Oct 14)
After you have seen my comments on your outline, go ahead and write your response paper between the lines below. The essay you write should be between 500 and 600 words long.
Reflection (due by 9:00pm, Oct 16)
After you have read my comments on your second, revised draft of the self-introduction essay, please write two or three paragraphs of reflection upon the experience of doing this assignment.
In your reflection you might answer some or all of the following questions:
What about the instructions surprised you? Why?
What about the instructions confused you? How did you handle your confusion?
What about the instructions challenged you most? What did you learn from this challenge?
What about the experience of writing the different parts of this assignment surprised you? What did you learn from this surprise?
What English grammar, usage, and/or punctuation issues were pointed out to you in my comments? Define these issues and explain what you can do to identify and eliminate them in the future?
Describe three ways in which your response paper changed between its first and second draft.

Second Draft (revision) (due by 9:00pm, April 9)
After you have seen my comments on your first draft, go ahead and write, between the lines below, the second draft of your essay about academic writing. Remember that the essay you write should be between 500 and 525 words long.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Reflection (due by 9:00pm, April 14)
After you have read my comments on your second, revised draft of your column, please write two or three paragraphs of reflection upon the experience of doing this assignment.
In your reflection you might answer some or all of the following questions:
What about the instructions surprised you? Why?
What about the instructions confused you? How did you handle your confusion?
What about the instructions challenged you most? What did you learn from this challenge?
What about the experience of writing the different parts of this assignment surprised you? What did you learn from this surprise?
What English grammar, usage, and/or punctuation issues were pointed out to you in my comments? Define these issues and explain what you can do to identify and eliminate them in the future?
Describe three ways in which your column changed between its first and second draft.
____________________
WRITE HERE . . .



_____________________

Objectives
This assignment has three main objectives:
to help you, as an academic writer, understand the principle conventions and institutional context of academic writing
to get you thinking about some ways in which language may be used to both further and to frustrate individual agency (by agency I mean the possibility of doing what one feels is necessary or desireable to do within a particular field of interest)
to get you thinking about how you can come to terms with academic writing conventions in your own way, so you will be able to write authentically in academic and professional contexts, clear to your audience yet true to your thoughts.