Syllabus

1. Syllabus English 102 FA 2017
College Writing and Rhetoric
Instructor: Caitlin Hill
Email: cjhill@uidaho.edu
Office: Brink 107
Phone: 885-6156 (messages only)
Office Hours:
Course time & place:
COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 102 is an introductory composition course, designed to improve your skills in
persuasive, expository writing, the sort you will be doing in other courses in college and in
many jobs. Sometimes this kid of writing is called transactional writing; it is used to
transact something—persuade and inform a reasonably well-educated audience, conduct
business, evaluate, review, or explain a complex process, procedure, or event.
This section of English 102 is designed around a theme of place. You will develop these
course goals through the analysis and argument of how our environments affect who we
are what takes place within them.
COURSE GOALS
By the end of the course, you should be very good at doing the following:
• Accurately assessing and effectively responding to a wide variety of audiences and
communication situations.
• Comprehending college-level and professional prose and analyzing how authors
present their ideas in view of their probable purposes, audiences, and occasions.
• Presenting your ideas as related to, but clearly distinguished from, the ideas of
others (includes the ability to paraphrase, summarize, and correctly cite and
document borrowed material).
• Developing a central idea or argument logically, supporting and illustrating it
clearly.
• Writing critical analyses and syntheses of college-level and professional prose.
• Being able to make the connection between questions and problems in your life both
within and outside of college.
• Gather and evaluate information and use it for a rhetorical purpose in writing a
research paper.
• Using a variety of strategies during the prewriting or “invention” process.
• Revising effectively.
• Accurately proofreading your own work in order to produce writing that maintains
the conventions of publishing English.
• Giving and receiving constructive feedback from peers.
Of course, I expect that you are able to carry out some of these tasks already.

2. DEADLINES & LATE WORK POLICY
Administrative Deadlines
The university has certain deadlines of which you need to be aware if you want to drop the
course at some point during the term.
Thursday, January 19th – Last day to add the course WITH a late fee.
Wednesday, January 25th – Last day to drop the course without a grade of W.
Friday, March 31st – Last day to drop the course with a grade of W.
Course Deadlines
The due dates for all homework assignments and drafts are posted under the appropriate
Unit and Week on the course BbLearn site. Late daily homework will receive a 10%
deduction for every day it is late, including weekends. Late major assignments will be
ineligible for a grade higher than a C. Not completing a major writing assignment will be
grounds for failure of the course.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK (available at the UI Bookstore)
• Ramage, Bean and Johnson, The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing, 7th edition.
• There will be additional course readings outside of the textbook, which will be
available on the course BbLearn site as PDF documents.
COURSE WEBSITE
All major writing assignments and process homework (everything except in-class
assignments, journals, and optional rough drafts) will be submitted through the course
BbLearn site. All assignment sheets and other course materials will also be posted in the
BbLearn site. Log on into BbLearn (http://bblearn.uidaho.edu) using your University of
Idaho NetID and password, and locate English 102.
Please be aware that course materials and deadlines are subject to change. You should
check this Bb Learn site and your University of Idaho email account at least once a day to
stay properly updated. I will not take "I didn't see/hear anything about that" as an excuse
for missed or late work or being unprepared in class.
ATTENDANCE
Attendance in English 102 is mandatory. Being present in class is the key to success in
the course. More than three unexcused absences in one unit or six total absences is
grounds for failure of the course. An excused absence is an official note specifying the
days and reasons you were required to miss class. Excused absences must be in writing
from an official such as a doctor or a university instructor or administrator (in the event of
athletic events or field trips). You are responsible for making up work you miss due to
absences.
Attendance means being physically present, awake, coherent, and fully prepared for class,
with the day’s assignments completed. If you do not meet all of these conditions, you can
be marked absent for the day. You are responsible for making up work that you miss.

3. COURSE ETIQUETTE
Classroom citizenship. The classroom is a learning community. Be respectful of your
fellow students and your instructor. If you have a problem with anything in the course,
speak to me about it privately after class or meet me during my office hours. Disruptive
behavior during class may result in expulsion from a class meeting or the entire course.
Technology. All cell phones must be turned COMPLETELY OFF and put away. Unless
you have been given explicit permission to use your laptop in class, all laptops should be
shut and stowed. Even if you aren’t called out in class for using this technology,
inappropriate use will be reflected in your participation points. If you answer a phone call
in class, expect to be excused.
Email etiquette. I welcome your emails and questions – if you have questions about the
course, your work, meeting times, etc., please contact me at the address listed above or on
the BbLearn home page. When you contact me, please treat it as a professional
correspondence—your message should have a greeting, be written in complete sentences,
and signed with your name at the bottom. Generally, you can expect a response during
regular business hours (Monday-Friday, 8-5 PM).
OFFICE HOURS
My office hours and office number are listed above and on the BbLearn home page. I
welcome you to stop by to discuss your work, questions about the course, etc., during that
time. If for some reason you can’t come during my regularly posted hours, please email me
or stop by after class, and we can make other arrangements.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Major Writing Assignments
There will be four major writing assignments. Each major assignment will develop the
University of Idaho ENGL 102 requirements through a focus on environments:
• Personal Narrative: Place-Identity
• Place & Crisis Research Narrative
• Multi-Genre Assignment: Analysis of a UI Place or Space
• Ideal Learning Environment Proposal
Daily Assignments/Homework
There will be shorter process work writing assignments due regularly. These assignments
are specifically designed to help you generate material to write the major assignments and
make up credit for the “Process Points” portion of each unit. For the most part, this work
will be completed entirely in class and handed in to me at the end of the period. Your time
outside of class should be spent on reading assignments and your major writing
assignments.
Journals
Daily free-writes will be incorporated into our classroom meetings. You will record your
responses to the free-write prompts into a separate composition notebook designated
entirely to your English 102 free-writes. These will be collected and graded periodically
throughout the semester. Grades will be based on completion, not content.

4. Optional Rough Drafts
There are no rough drafts required for this course. Instead, if you’d like to turn in a
complete rough draft to me for feedback, you can do so. If you take advantage of this
opportunity you will receive 50 points on the final assignment after you conference with
me to go over your draft. Your final draft will then be graded out of 50 points instead of
100. This is not an extra credit opportunity.
If you want to turn in a rough draft, you must turn in a hardcopy of the draft to me before
or on the designated optional rough draft due date, which is listed on the course schedule
and will be at least one week before the final draft due date.
GRADING
Major Assignment Grading System
All major writing assignments are graded by a negotiable contract. I will create the
baseline, standard detailed rubric for the first writing assignment of the course. As the
semester moves on and students become more focused on what they would like prioritized
in their education, adjustments and continued elaboration can be made to the rubric. Each
assignment will be worth a total of 100 points, but how these points are distributed
throughout the grading rubric is up for negotiation. Ideally, this will create a happy
medium of expectations between students and instructor.
Course Grading System
Here is the distribution of the total points for the four units this semester:
Unit One Process
Points - 50
Journal - 50 Final Draft -
100
Participation
50
Total Points
Possible: 250
Unit Two Process
Points - 50
Journal – 50 Final Draft -
100
Participation
50
Total Points
Possible: 250
Unit Three Process
Points - 50
Journal - 50 Final Draft -
100
Participation
50
Total Points
Possible:
250
Unit Four Process
Points - 50
Journal - 50 Final Draft -100 Participation
50
Total Points
Possible:
250
TOTAL POINTS
Total Available Course Points 1,000
All of these scores will be posted on Blackboard under the My Grades link promptly and
regularly. I will recommend an F in the course if you fail to submit any major assignments.

5. Course Grades possible:
A
Represents achievement that is outstanding or superior relative to the level
necessary to meet the requirements of the course.
B
Represents achievement that is significantly above the level necessary to meet
the requirements of the course.
Grades of A or B are honors grades. You must do something beyond the minimum
required in order to earn an A or B.
C
Represents achievement that meets the basic requirements in every respect. It
signifies that the work is average, but nothing more.
W
Stands for Withdrawal. This is the grade you will receive if you withdraw from
the course after Wednesday, January 11 but on or before Wednesday,
January 25th. A W has no effect on your GPA, but you can have only 20 W
credits during your time as an undergraduate at UI (about six courses. After
Wednesday, January 25th you can no longer withdraw from the course.
N
Stands for No Credit. A grade of N has no effect on your GPA, but it does mean
that you need to take the course again. You will earn a grade of N if your grade
is an N and you have done all the work for the course. You also must have made
a good faith effort to complete all the assignments. Handing in just any piece of
writing just to avoid getting an F will not work.
F
Stands for Failure. A grade of F has a negative effect on your GPA. If you fail to
hand in any major writing assignment or do not make a good-faith effort to
succeed at a major assignment, you will automatically earn an F. If your average
grade is an N but you did not complete one of the major components of the course
(one of the major papers of all of the homework assignments or drafts), you will
automatically earn an F in the course. There is no reason for receiving an F in
this course, unless you simply fail to submit the required work.
I
Stands for incomplete. Under very unusual circumstances you could be assigned
an Incomplete in the course if something happened to you within the last two
weeks of the semester that made it impossible to complete the course (a serious
accident or illness that left you hospitalized and very significant personal
tragedy, etc.)
Disability Support Services Reasonable Accommodations Statement
Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have documented
temporary or permanent disabilities. All accommodations must be approved through
Disability Support Services located in the Idaho Commons Building, Room 306 in
order to notify your instructor(s) as soon as possible regarding accommodation(s)
needed for the course.
Disability Support Services
Phone: 208-885-6307

6. Email: dss@uidaho.edu
Web: http://www.uidaho.edu/studentaffairs/asap/dss
Policy on Plagiarism in English 102
At the University of Idaho, we assume you will do your own work and that you will work
with your instructor on improving writing that is your own. Plagiarism—using someone
else’s ideas or words as yours own without proper attribution--is a serious matter.
The Council of Writing Program Administrators defines plagiarism in the following way:
“In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone
else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without
acknowledging its source. This definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to
manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers.” (From “Defining and Avoiding
Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices,” http://wpacouncil.org/node/9).
Also, turning in work you have previously completed for another course—either an entire
paper or significant portions of it—can also be considered an unethical use of your own
work and can be considered a form of plagiarism worthy of reporting as an instance of
academic dishonesty.
The consequences of plagiarism:
If evidence of plagiarism is found in student work in English 101, the instructor is
empowered by Regulation 0-2 of the general catalog to assign a grade of F for the course,
a penalty that may be imposed in particularly serious cases. In most cases of plagiarism,
the instructor will also make a complaint to the Dean of Students Office, which is
responsible for enforcing the regulations in the Student Code of Conduct. So in addition to
the academic penalty of receiving an F in the course, you may also be subject to other
disciplinary penalties, which can include suspension of expulsion. Although such severe
penalties are rarely imposed for first-time offenders, the Dean of Students Office
maintains disciplinary records as part of a student’s overall academic record.
Instructors may demonstrate that a paper involves plagiarism in two ways: 1) by
identifying the source, and 2) by showing the discrepancy of style between previous papers
and the paper I questions.
If a paper involves misuse of sources or other materials--which the CWPA defines as when
a writer “carelessly or inadequately [cites] ideas and words borrowed from another
source”-- the instructor may ask you to rewrite the paper, using correct forms of
documentation.
When you need to use words or ideas from another person—whether an idea, a picture, a
powerful statement, a set of facts, or an explanation—cite your source!