COMPOSITION II Syllabus

English 112

Section A

Semester: Summer I, 1999

Instructor: Dr. Roger R. Easson

Location: Buckman Hall 223

Time: 10:30-12:15 MTWTh

Required Texts:

Steven Beil. Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster. W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
David F.Nobel. The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man dna the Spirit of Invention.Penguin 1999.

Each Semester I select a new topic for the class to consider. Because the intellectual heart of this class is critical thinking skill development, and because I believe it is my duty to eliminate or significantly reduce the possi bility of plagiarism, I choose books just off the press which deal with controversial subjects.

This semester I have chosen a topic currrently very hot in the scholarly press: the religious quality of tehnology. It is almost as if technocrats have discovered religion, if you read the new books coming out on this topic. Because of the recent Memphis Wonders Exhibition: The Sinking of the Titanic, I have chosen to link that discussion with this new one in an effort to demonstrate how books may develop in conversation with each other. The Beil book continually uses the same terminology as the Nobel text: Especially relevant is their persistent use of the word "hubris" to discuss on the one hand the technological wonder of the Titanic and the new technological wonders which beset us now: The Internet, Cyberspace, The Human Genome Project to anme only a few.

There can be few more interesting and important topics for students of this new Millenium than this, I hope you will agree.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS CLASS

Ability to Read College Level Prose
Ability to Actively Develop College Level Vocabulary Skills.
Ability to Read Critically
Ability to Write Effective Expository Prose
Ability to Present New Information Effectively
Orientation to Library Research
Mastery of Effective Use of Secondary Sources
Mastery of Word-processing as a Writer's Workspace
Mastery of Ability to Meet Deadlines
Orientation to Cook-booking Formats and Documentation
Mastery of Copyediting
Orientation to Critical Thinking

FINAL GRADES are determined by three criteria:

Quality of Writing,
Class Participation, and
Attendance.

WRITING QUALITY: The Final grade is assessed by my appraisal of your encounter with the stated objectives above and by the CLARITY of your writing;

CLASS PARTICIPATION: High marks are given for attentive discussion and demonstration of knowledge of the materials assigned.

ATTENDANCE:

Students are expected to attend class. Any student who is absent, even for a legitimate cause, is responsible for the material covered and assignments given during the class that is missed.
Students who miss in excess of 5 classes (MWF) may receive a one letter lowering of the final grade.
Consistent with the College-wide policy, students who miss in excess of 20% of the total classes scheduled for a course (9 MWF, 6 TTH) will be dropped from the course with a grade of "F". Class attendance will be a factor in determining fina l grades in borderline cases.
As we will be working a good deal in small groups, much of what will be missed cannot be made up as it consists of small group interaction.
Late arrivals will be marked absent.
Should there be an emergency which takes you out of class--illness, death in the family, kidnapping by space aliens--please contact me as soon as possible so that I will know your absence is beyond your control.

PLAGIARISM: Given the unholy tradition of plagiarism on this campus, I go out of my way to design this class so that plagiarism will be impossible, however, it is my responsibility to alert you to the regulations regarding this issue at CBU, and to assure you that no leniency will be permitted should you be caught.

SCHOOL OF ARTS PLAGIARISM STATEMENT: "Plagiarism is the taking of work of others and offering it as one's own. Plagiarism is a major breach of the responsibility of students and scholars and is unacceptable in any community of learning. As such. plagiarism is cause for automatic failure for the course in which the assignment, paper, project, test, experiment, or oral presentation has been plagiarized."

NOTE WELL

This is a class devoted to improving your writing skill. If you need tutoring or assistance in improvement I am willing to provide you with special guidance and help. As Director of the Writing Assistance Program, I have many special resources at hand.
However, should you elect to either copy work from a published source, or to substitute the writing of another author--a student's or parent's--you will be guilty of subverting the goals of the class. Given the amount of writing we will do in this cl ass, it will be nearly impossible to disguise the great difference between your work and a professional writer's work.
I reserve the right to use stylistic and rhetorical markers to detect when another writer's work is being substituted for your own. Such detection indicating that you have elected to subvert the goals of the class, will trigger an automatic F.