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Students of 102 are guided through processes of research, writing, and revision twice, from start to finish. They must produce two 7-10 page research papers, the first on topics introduced in the class reading, the second a topic of their own formulation. Students write a total of 32 pages, by also completing informal writing assignments and being presenting pieces of their research in different genres and for different audiences.
Students must hand in three drafts of increasing length for each research paper. They must also hand in a research proposal with research question, preliminary sources, and tentative thesis. You should also require and provide deadlines for an annotated bibliography before each paper. You must provide careful guidance on sources, teaching students how to evaluate and use sources, and the difference between scholarship and websites. Please require that all but one cited source (students must use a total of 6) are publications of scholarly journals or books. Drafts are workshopped by peer groups; when a student's work is reviewed by peers and instructor, the student shall be required to create a hand-out that summarizes the main points of the paper, an abstract, and a retrospective outline. Students must make substantial revisions to their papers to receive full credit for their work.
Reading and Classroom Practice:
102 is a workshop-style class in which students participate by discussing ideas, research progress, and writing. The beginning of the class should focus on a contemporary issue and read a variety of cultural materials on the issue. We encourage multiculturalism (or aspects of it) for a theme. For example, instructors have chosen to focus on the issue of censorship and taught both censored texts (Huck Finn, Madame Bovery) and the essays, opinion papers, and media pieces that surround the censorship debate. (This stimulated many research topics on free speech!) The issue you choose to teach should interest you enough to read 22 papers on it-multiple times! While you choose preliminary reading material, some instructors have organized book club peer groups, who collaborate and choose a book for their first research paper. If groups of 4-5 students are working on a text together, they have plenty of opportunities to exchange ideas and give appropriate feedback to one another. Students will need to have a library orientation in which they learn how to use at least three different search databases appropriate to their topic (on the topic of censorship, students used the education database, the MLA database, historical abstracts, and criminal justice databases). Click here for a description of the book club (link) project, which is popular in many educational settings.
Classroom activities are thus divided between group and class-wide discussions
of research stages, drafts, and papers; discussions of assigned readings,
focusing on writers' styles of prose and argument; discussions of response
papers and ideas from which to derive paper topics; discussions of techniques
for asking research questions, generating preliminary writings and keywords;
presentation of aspects of papers in various formats (PowerPoint presentation,
hand-out/brochure, or otherwise experience with visual design of information);
summaries of research in various abstract lengths; practice in positioning
research for various audiences, which you assign; attention to bibliographic
format-more than one, please (ask students to convert from one to another-they
need to know there are several); individual and group conferences; library
and computer lab time for individualized coaching.
You will not assign many readings after the first research paper (typically
mid-way through the semester), since students should be reading their
own primary sources. Students should be required to share their reading
with groups/class.
Regardless of level, each student in the writing program produces a portfolio to showcase his/her substantial course papers and/or presentations (3-page papers for 99 students, 5-page for 101, 8-10 page for 102). These portfolios serve as final exams for the course and must be evaluated by two readers: the student's instructor and another instructor (please pair up to exchange portfolios). In the case of wide disagreement, you should consult a third instructor.
Students should submit clean copies of their work in the portfolio and write an introductory cover sheet that provides an overview to their work, focusing on either the themes of their papers or their writing process. Drafts are not to be included in the portfolios; only final papers without instructor comments should be included. Students may present the portfolio in the way that they wish (color binders, visual images, labels/tabs or files, etc.). You should use the final exam time allotted to writing program students to assist students with final decisions on what to include in the portfolio, ways to assemble and present the work, and checks for completeness (cover sheet, all course papers, table of contents, name and date, etc.).
The portfolio should
be at least 15% of the student's grade. Both instructors should provide
a sheet stating the grade with a brief justification. Each student's instructor
should then average the two grades (if different) and assign the result
as the portfolio grade. Portfolios must be returned during office hours.
They cannot be left in a public place for student pick-up.
The simplest grading procedure is 25% for each component: research paper 1, research paper 2, informal work and participation, and exam.
The required texts include The Brief Penguin Handbook, Webster Dictionary, and for fall semester only, a university-selected work, read by all first years during the summer and/or first weeks of fall semester. The Writing Director, Holly Blackford, has several teaching guides with writing activities, which you can peruse and photocopy. Other choices of readings are your purview. See 101 instructions for my advocacy of bringing in a variety of challenging materials to the classroom, for purposes of analysis. Students will be spending most of their time researching the books that you assign and exchanging readings with one another, selecting their own secondary sources for the research project, and reading the Research sections of the Penguin Handbook. Do not assign the amount of reading that you would in a 101.
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