First Day

Welcome to your English 1101H course! I hope this semester will be both fun and challenging for you! Your professor's name is Dr. Matthew Horton (that's me!), but you can call him Dr. H. I have high hopes that this semester will help you improve your skills as a college-level writer!

Click on these icons and see what you can do! This course is about writing, sure, but it is also about using technology to help you discover new possibilities with writing. Writing's not all just about typing papers and turning them in. In fact, this course strives to be as PAPERLESS as possible! This might be a little scary for some of you, but I assure you, the skills you'll learn will be just as important as effective writing!



Also, go ahead and look through some of the most important resources on this course website:
Read the syllabus
Check the agenda
Using Google Drive

Additional resources are available by clicking the tabs across the top and various links in the right-hand margin. As much as you can, familiarize yourself with this course website. My contact info is in the right-hand margin at well, towards the top.

Syllabus

In this course, you can achieve the following goals:

• Approach writing as a process of improvement
• Discuss your thoughts about current issues
• Develop a helpful writing process for yourself
• Learn the parts of an essay to compose smart, lively papers
• Gain confidence in communicating with an audience
• Use Google Drive to produce, share, revise, and respond to digital documents, including your own
• Evaluate sources on a recent and personally important issue

Calendar

Click items on the agenda to read additional details and instructions.

Readings

In addition to the book we are reading, Content (choose the PDF version because it has page numbers), your reading material will consist of various magazine articles about a variety of topics. You determine which ones you use as the basis for your essays! One of the three essays you write on these topics will be expanded into the research topic for your portfolio.

• "Murder by Craigslist"
• "The Killing Machines"
• "How Junk Food Can End Obesity"
• "How Long Can You Wait to Have a Baby?"
• "Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality"
• "The Girl Who Turned to Bone"
• "The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss"
• "The Rise and Fall of Charm in American Men"
• "What If We Never Run Out of Oil?"
• "Learning to Live With Fossil Fuels"
• "How Not to Die"
• "Why the Rich Don't Give to Charity"
• "The Touch-Screen Generation"
• "How to Stop the Bullies"
• "The Robot Will See You Now"
• "Awakening"
• "The Web’s New Monopolists"
• "A Million First Dates"
• "The Case for More Guns (and More Gun Control)"
• "The Insourcing Boom"
• "Mr. China Comes to America"
• "Hacking the President's DNA"
• "General Failure"
• "The Writing Revolution"
• "Why Kids Should Grade Teachers"
• "Boys on the Side"
• "Why Women Still Can't Have It All"
• "The Perfected Self"
• "Is Facebook Making Us Lonely"

The following magazines have free and interesting reads:

• The Atlantic
• Wired Magazine
• The New Yorker
• New York Times Magazine
• Harper's Magazine
• The American Scholar
• Orion Magazine
• Mother Jones
• The Chronicle of Higher Education

How Your Grade Is Calculated

I am using a flexible system that gives you almost complete control over the grade you earn in this class. My goal, actually, is to change your view of grading, at least as it applies to your pursuit of better writing skills. Your grade in this course will, very simply, reflect how hard you worked at making yourself a better writer than you are right now.

You'll produce four longer writings (1000+ words) and many smaller writings (300+ words each). Timely completion of all assignments accounts for 500 pts. The final portfolio for this course is worth a maximum of 475 pts. A total of 900-975 points equals an "A" in the course (800-899 equals a "B" and 700-799 equals a "C").

Timely completion means (a) meeting deadlines and content/length requirements for assignments and (b) participating in classroom activities designed around completion of these assignments. Why? Most students want a course grade to reflect their effort in a course; this approach to grading rewards effort without sacrificing academic rigor.

Using Google Drive

Your essays and reading responses this semester will be done on Google Drive. This online document creation and storage tool allows you to compose essays without any word processing software on your computer. The sharing feature allows you to collaborate with me and your classmates as you write your essays and receive feedback. You can also comment and make suggestions on essays shared with you.

In order for this tool to work for us, we will all have to cooperate, learn some new skills, and follow some rules. It will be a steep learning curve for some of you, but I think you'll be pleased with the results!

First, you'll need a Google account. If you have a Gmail account, then you already have a Google account, so all you need to do to get started is to sign in to Google Drive! If you don't have a Google account, the easiest way to start one is to sign up for Gmail! This link will allow you to designate a username for a Gmail account--I recommend using something like "LastName.FirstName" for your username.

Once you have your Google account, let me know the Gmail address you'll be using and sign in to Google Drive, and we'll configure some things together during class. Here is the first assignment:

1. Create a folder called "Lastname.Firstname.1101H.Writing.F13"
2. Share the folder with me and grant me "edit" privileges (I'll give you my sharing address during class)
3. Create a document in that folder called "Lastname.Firstname.My.Expectations.F13"
4. Share this document with everyone else in the class and grant them "comment" privileges
5. Now open this document and write a 300-word response about your expectations for this course this semester. What are you most looking forward to? What are you most afraid of?
6. Create another document in the same folder called "Lastname.Firstname.My.Goals.F13"
7. Share this document with everyone else in the class and grant them "comment" privileges
8. Now open this document and write a 300-word response about your goals for this course this semester. What can YOU do to make progress as a writer? Describe your resolve to pursue a higher level of confidence and proficiency as a writer.

Future essays will also go in this folder with an appropriate filename (LastName.FirstName.Paper.Number.F13), and you will give commenting permissions to the classmates assigned to peer review your essays. As for the peer responses and self-responses you write, you can place them in this folder as well.

Parts of an Essay

In the color-coded sections below, the various parts of an essay are laid out for you. Use this as a guide for crafting effective essays. There are many ways to put an essay together, but the suggestions I make here are applicable to writing in many subjects. Students in the past have appreciated this guide, but I do not mean for it to stifle your need or potential to experiment with other forms.

Beginning: (Generate interest, orient the audience) [1-2 paragraphs]

Reach out to your audience Start with a specific detail and open your reader's mind to an interesting idea. You could discuss a striking statement from an article or mix in an anecdote that sets the stage for your paper. Your audience needs something real to feel involved. Writing general or opinionated ideas will hide that you are a thinking person. At its most effective, "Reach out to your audience" will be the first paragraph of your paper. Prepare your audience In your second paragraph, start setting up your paper by narrowing the focus down to your actual topic. Imagine your reader asking, "Okay, interesting beginning, but what is THIS paper going to be about?" Give background information that your audience needs to know up front. Give the impression that you have a serious purpose, and always convince the audience feel that you are leading them to an important choice. This part of the paper should naturally follow the concrete detail you discussed for "reaching out." Preview your argument In the same paragraph as "Prepare your audience," give a short version of your paper's stages of thought. These stages should not be IN your thesis, like a list of different ideas, but should mentioned BEFORE your thesis. Each stage makes a point to persuade the reader that your thesis statement is true or reasonable. In the middle section of the paper you will elaborate on each stage--they should work TOGETHER in SEQUENCE to develop ONE argument: your thesis. Laying out your stages here will keep your thesis statement from sounding like it comes out of nowhere. State your thesis, the MAIN argument of your paper Immediately following your preview, make a statement that you think is both true and persuasive. It should direct the audience toward a choice or a way of thinking that you imagine they do not already agree with. So your thesis cannot be a statement of fact or an obvious truth. A great thesis will be a single idea--it brings the topic to focus and tells the reader your position. To get a thesis that works with your stages, you will have to go through some trial and error.

Middle: (Present stages, at least 1 paragraph per stage) [3-4 paragraphs]

For EACH middle paragraph: Transition and topic sentence The topic sentence starts the paragraph and represents one (or part of one) of your stages. If you need a transitional hook, ask yourself, "what is the relationship of THIS stage to the PREVIOUS one?" The answer is your transition. Of course, if your transitions are solid and true, you often won't need to write a hook. Details to support topic sentence Illustrate using concrete examples from real life, quotations from texts and experts (if appropriate to your subject), personal stories, logical deduction, etc. Closing statement to explain your support Giving evidence is not enough. Every paragraph should have a closing sentence or two to show that the topic sentence has actually been proven. No claim is self-evident, so proof must be demonstrated AFTER evidence is given. How is this stage tied to your thesis? Sometimes, one of your middle paragraphs can acknowledge a different point of view that questions your thesis. First, you state the other point of view and explain how it is reasonable. Then disagree, offering NEW evidence in response to this opposing point. But mentioning a counter-point at the beginning of your essay is counter-productive.

Ending: (Answer the crucial question "so what?") [1-2 paragraphs]

Explain importance of proving your thesis Clarify why the point of your essay is important. In other words, discuss the significance of your thesis. Why is it relevant? Why does it matter? The WORTH of your thesis is not self-evident. New information to help apply the thesis Save some recent developments or information to add body to your conclusion. Keep the attention of your reader. Using general conclusion cliches to finish your essay will leave your audience with an empty feeling. Instead, apply the relevance of your thesis by extending your attention. Satisfy reader with a closing statement Discuss the benefits of taking your position; give a warning or call for action; suggest a solution or another problem. Or you can raise issues that leave your audience thinking and wondering.