COMP 200-01: Advanced Composition (CRN 768)
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Your final grade will be broken into 5 parts: 2 writing units, a grammar and mechanics presentation, the final exam, and in-class and miscellaneous assignments. Each assignment is described below.
Descriptive Unit (35%): Your first writing unit will involve a series of observations and writings culminating in the Final Profile, which will be submitted with the Self-Evaluation of the unit. Your primary grade for the unit will be based on the Final Profile; however, you must submit each of the other assignments to pass the unit.
Journal of Observations—You will choose a location (it can be any location, on campus or off, inside or outside) and spend a minimum of 5 hours observing it. Those 5 hours can be broken into 1-hour chunks or they may be done all at once. If you choose to chunk the time, try to be consistent about the hour at which you observe the place (i.e. don’t go first thing in the morning one day and then at noon the next). As you are observing the place, you will record your impressions. Things to note in the journal include physical description; people who are there; snatches of conversation (yes, you can record profanity); noises you hear; scents; activities (human and non-human), etc. Anything that is noticeable about the place you should record. The journal does not need to be typed, though it can be. Do not worry about organization in the journal; just note your observations. You may use lists or freewriting or drawings or photos in any combination (though you should not limit the journal to photos or drawings). The journal should be a minimum of 7 pages. This journal will help you as you construct the remainder of your writings for this unit. It is due on Monday, 28 Janby 5 in my office.
Physical Description—Once you have had the opportunity to observe a place and record your findings, you will write a physical description of the place. You will describe specifically what the place looks like as well as any other sensory details that are integral parts of the place (odors and sounds particularly). If there were certain people or animals that were at the place the whole time you observed, you may include them in your physical description; however, people or animals that come and go during your observations should not be part of the physical description (e.g. if you’re describing a bar, it is likely the bartender and/or servers will need describing while customers, who are transient, will not. The exception, of course, is the regular customer). I do not want analysis in this essay. Instead, I’m looking for a clear, specific physical description of the place. The draft for the description is due on Friday, 1 Feb in class. The final version is due Monday, 4 Feb by 5 in my office. The physical description should be between 3 and 5 pages long.
Profile 1—The third writing in this unit is a profile, a descriptive essay that moves beyond the physical description and toward a thematic description. Using your observation journal as a reference (you may also return to the place for further observations, of course), you will write a structured description of the place in which you try to capture something elemental, unique about the place. Consider the following questions as you create your profile: What do your observations tell you about the place? What is the significance of this place to you? To others (people, animals)? What does the place represent? What kind of mood/feeling does the place evoke? What is most striking about the place? Your answers to these questions will help to focus your paper, and your description should show your reader something about this place. It is critical that you continue to write descriptively as you reveal this place to the reader. The rough draft is due Friday, 8 Feb in class, and the final draft is due Monday, 11 Feb by 5 in my office. Your profile should be between 4 and 7 pages long.
Profile 2—The second profile is a radical revision of the first profile. There are several ways in which you can approach this revision (and we’ll talk about them in class): you can completely reorganize the essay; you can radically alter your sentence structure (using some of the techniques we discuss from Stunning Sentences); you can alter the focus and show a different significance to the place than you did in the first profile. The rough draft for Profile 2 is due Wednesday, 27 Feb in class, and the final draft is due Friday, 29 Feb by 5 in my office.
Final Profile—Your final profile will be a revision of the profile you preferred of the two you submitted (or a third version you think is superior to the first two). Which profile you choose to submit for your final profile is up to you, as is the amount of revision and editing you do to the profile. The grammar and mechanics policy will be applied to this paper. The final profile is due Friday, 7 Mar by 5 in my office and must be accompanied by the self-evaluation. We will meet in my office to discuss the final profile and your self-evaluation between 10 and 13 Mar.
Self-Evaluation—The final aspect of the descriptive unit requires you to assess you own writing. You will have written several descriptive papers by the time you create your final profile and you will have learned about making choices in descriptions, organization, theme, sentence structure, and other elements. Your self-evaluation will be exactly what it sounds like: an evaluation of the choices you made in creating your final profile. In this self-evaluation, which should be 2-4 pages long, you will discuss what specifically makes the final profile your best work for the unit. Elements of your writing that you should talk about include your organization, sentence structure, and focus, but you should also talk about why the revision choices you’ve made benefit the final draft. The revision choices include what you’ve changed as well as what you’ve kept the same. Do not discuss how hard you’ve worked on the paper; it is not relevant to the self-evaluation. Focus instead on the specific content of the essay and what makes it strong. You may (and should) also discuss parts of the essay with which you remain unsatisfied and why that is the case. The self-evaluation is due on Friday, 7 Mar by 5 in my office and must accompany your final profile.
Local Issue Unit (35%): Your second writing unit requires you to describe and pose solutions to a local (campus or town) issue. There will be several stages to this unit culminating in the Problem-Solution Essay that will comprise the majority of the grade for this unit. You will, however, be required to submit all of the other writings to pass the unit.
Preliminary Research—At the start of the unit, you will need to spend time looking up information pertinent to your local issue. We are tentatively scheduled to spend Monday, 17 March in the library for a refresher on finding local information. Then you will have a couple of weeks to find more resources about the topic before you submit a list of preliminary sources and a brief (1-2 page) overview of pertinent aspects of the issue. If the issue is one with few print resources, you have several options for gathering information: 1) expand the scope of the research to areas where there are similar problems (i.e. find articles about the same type of issue in a different town/campus); 2) interview people knowledgeable of the topic; 3) conduct a survey around campus/town to find out local views on the issue. I would recommend a survey and/or interview for everyone, even if there are adequate print resources for the issue. If you are a commuter and would like to explore an issue from your home town, you are welcome to do so. The preliminary research report is due Monday, 30 Mar by 5 in my office.
Description of Problem—The first significant writing element of this unit is the description of the problem. You will write a 3-5 page paper in which you describe the local issue you’re researching. Your goal in this essay is to illustrate using concrete examples, which may include some of your research, why the issue you’re dealing with is actually an issue, a problem. You will want to use some of the descriptive writing practices you honed in the first unit as you describe the issue. You should not try to solve the problem in this paper; that is the goal of later papers. The rough draft of the description is due on Friday, 4 Apr in class, and the final draft is due Monday, 7 Apr by 5 in my office.
Solution—The second writing for the unit requires you to present one possible solution to the issue you’ve described in the previous paper. You do not need to describe the problem again, though you will need to reference it in your introduction. The goal for this essay is to argue that the solution you’re discussing will be an effective means of solving the problem at hand. You may need to use some of your resources in this paper, particularly if they support your argument. As with the description of the problem, the solution will need to be presented in a concrete, clear manner that illustrates its effectiveness. This paper should be 3-5 pages long. The rough draft is due in class on Friday, 11 Apr, and the final draft is due Monday, 14 Apr by 5 in my office.
Alternative Solution(s)—This aspect of the unit requires you to consider alternatives to the primary solution about which you’ve already written. In a 3-5 page paper, you will describe other means of solving the problem. Again, your secondary resources may be of value to you here as you detail alternatives. You are only required to discuss a single alternative, but if there is more than one alternative solution that seems viable, you should present them all. The rough draft is due in class on Friday, 18 Apr, and the final draft is due Monday, 21 Apr by 5 in my office.
Problem-Solution Essay—This writing, which will receive the primary grade of the unit, is where you synthesize all of the parts you’ve written. You will need to decide how much of each of the first three essays is necessary to make a coherent essay about the issue and its best solution. You may decide as you’re writing that the issue does not need as much treatment as you’ve given it or that the initial solution you described will not work and should be replaced by one of the alternatives. You may decide that there are several viable options or that a combination of solutions is necessary. The goal of this paper is to tie together all of the parts you’ve discussed individually to create a coherent final paper that describes the issue and presents a solution to the issue. The paper must also acknowledge alternatives and either explain their flaws or incorporate them into the primary solution. The final problem-solution essay is due on Monday, 28 Apr by 5 in my office and must be submitted with the self-evaluation. The grammar and mechanics policy will be applied to this paper. You will meet with met between 29 Apr and 2 May to discuss your paper and self-evaluation.
Self-Evaluation—As you did with the final profile, you will write a self-evaluation of your problem-solution essay in which you analyze your paper’s strengths and weaknesses. You will discuss how you combined the different parts of the essay and what makes the choices you’ve made effective. You may discuss organization, sentence structure, descriptions, and any other aspects of your writing that you find pertinent. Be specific in your analysis of your work. The self-evaluation should be 2-4 pages long and must be submitted on Monday, 28 Apr by 5 along with your final problem-solution essay.
Grammar and Mechanics Presentation (10%): You will work with at least one other student in the class to present some aspect of grammar and mechanics to the class. As part of this presentation, you will create a 1-page handout for the class that covers the pertinent points of the grammatical or mechanical issue you’re describing and that shows sample errors and how to fix them. Make sure that you cite any resources you use at the bottom of the handout (use MLA citations). You may, if you choose, project this handout (or a PowerPoint presentation) using the computer station in the class. Presentations should be 10-15 minutes long and will begin on 25 Feb (see syllabus for all dates). Sign-up for presentation dates and topics will occur on 25 Jan. Topics for presentation can include but are not limited to comma splices, run-ons, fragments, dangling participles, comma usage, punctuating relative clauses, pronoun-antecedent agreement, punctuating subordinate clauses, homonyms, sentence types, colons, semi-colons, restrictive and non-restrictive sentence elements, parallelism, and quote integration. If you have a different topic in mind, feel free to propose it. There will be no overlapping of topics, so have a couple of choices in mind when sign-up day arrives.
Final Exam (10%): On the last day of classes, 5 May, you will submit a clean copy of the essay you think represents your best work for the semester (you are welcome to revise any of the graded work before you submit it). For the final exam, scheduled for Monday, 12 May from 8:00 to 10:30, I will return your paper to you with several passages highlighted. You will be required to do one of two things with each passage: 1) revise it and defend your revision (i.e. explain why it works better in the new form); 2) defend its present form (i.e. explain why you like the way it’s written).
In-Class and Miscellaneous (10%): During the semester we will be reading selections from The Seagull Reader: Essays and Stunning Sentences and completing in-class writings and discussions. These assignments will be graded, for the most part, based on participation and will count toward this aspect of your final grade. In addition, you may be given the occasional quiz, and the points will count as part of the in-class and miscellaneous grade.
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