English 328: Writing, Style, and Technology
Instructor: Dr. Steven D. Krause
Office: 614-G Pray-Harrold
E-Mail: skrause@emich.edu (by far, the best way to get a hold
of me)
Office Phone: 734-487-1363 (I do check my voicemail)
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:00-7:00 pm; and by
appointment
Class WWW Page: http://krause.emich.edu/eng328/fall2004-sec4
Course Description and Objectives
This course explores the ways in which the concepts of "style" and "technology" interact with each other and effect our writing. Among other things, this will involve for our class the study of different style guides and cyberculture, and it will involve instruction in how to make and maintain "good" personal/professional web sites.
Texts
Strunk, William, and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Third or Fourth Edition. (The Fourth Edition is likely to be available in the usual campus bookstores, though you can probably pick up a copy of the third edition at many second hand stores, if you’d like).
Tribble, Evelyn B. and Anne Trubek (Editors). Writing Material: Readings from Plato to the Digital Age. New York: Longman, 2003.
Williams, Joseph. Style: Toward Clarity and Grace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. (This is NOT the same book as a popular textbook that Williams wrote called Style: Ten Lessons Toward Clarity and Grace! Make sure you get the right book.)
I order my books exclusively through University Bookstore in the union. This means that while you might be able to find these books at the other usual stores, you should have no problem getting a copy of them at the bookstore in the union. Alternatively, you might want to consider ordering your books through an Internet bookseller. There will also be a number of assigned readings available only on the World Wide Web.
Class Requirements/Stuff You Need to Do
Regular and Diligent Participation, 30% This part of the grade consists of the following components:
Attendance. You should attend every class for a variety of reasons-- you paid for this, you never know what you're going to miss, the first step of success with virtually anything is just showing up, etc. For me, attendance is an issue of participation since you can’t regularly and diligently participate in most of our class activities if you’re not here. So here's the rule: You can miss two classes with no penalty. For the third absence and each absence after that, you will lose 20% of your participation grade for each class missed. I do not accept any sort of excuses, medical or otherwise, so do not bring me a note of some sort. I realize that some of you may have previously arranged "summer vacation" plans, but you should be aware that this does not constitute an excused absence. Under extreme circumstances (catastrophic medical emergencies, for example), I am willing to make arrangements. But by and large, there are no other exceptions to this policy.
If you miss class, please do not email or call to ask "what you missed;" instead, read this poem. If you know right now that you will miss three classes, you should probably not take this class.
Conduct. It’s important to "attend" in an appropriate, mature fashion. That means you shouldn’t show up late (if you’re more than about 15 minutes late, I’ll count you as absent), and it means you should participate in a mature fashion. I feel a bit foolish in spelling this out, but just to be clear: you should treat others (your teacher and your colleagues) as you would hope to be treated. Among other things, you shouldn’t read newspapers or magazines, talk loudly with others in a fashion that disrupts your colleagues, do homework from other classes, sleep, or generally goof off. When working with the computers, you shouldn’t consider it an opportunity to check your email, log in to a chat group, or do other things that generally don’t have anything to do with the class activities of the moment. Doing any of these things will mean that in my definition of things you are "absent."
A special word about cell phones. Please turn off and refrain from using your cell phones, pagers, and/or portable email checking devices during class. Using them during a class is simply rude. If you don't do this and your cell phone use is disturbing, I will count you absent, or, if your phone goes off, I will require you to sing the class a song.Participation on the Class Emailing List. Each of you will need to sign up for and participate in the class electronic mailing list. We will discuss how to sign up for this mailing list in class, and a link to the information is available on the class web site. For the most part, this emailing list will be used to discuss class readings and activities, though we will also use it for announcements and other purposes as well.
As the schedule indicates, post your messages to the mailing list BEFORE the class where we will be discussing the reading that is the subject of your posting. Posting them BEFORE class will mean that we will be able to incorporate them into our class discussions and it will be one of the indicators to me of the extent to which you have completed the assigned reading.
It is important for you to "manage" your email on a very regular basis. Simply put, before each reading assignment, you can expect about 25 messages in your "in" box. You certainly don't have to study each of these messages in great detail and you don't have to save them, but you will need to "deal" with these messages.
You can use any email address you would like to participate in the discussion on this mailing list; however, I have two suggestions for you to consider:
- I would strongly encourage you to use your my.emich.edu email account for this class. You will need to use this account anyway for posting your web site, and it is a service that you are paying for already (as part of your tuition and "tech fee.")
- I would strongly discourage you from using a "hotmail" account. They tend to cause problems with the mailing list software and, in my opinion, are not worth the hassle. If you want to/need to use a free email service, I recommend Yahoo.
Group Work and Peer Writing Review Work. We will be doing a lot of collaborative work in small groups throughout the term. Some of this group work will be tied directly to thereading assignments, and some of this work will consist of peer writing work on one of your three essay assignments for the course. Everyone in class is expected to participate in all aspects of group work at different times, including taking on the role of "leader" and/or "presenter" to the rest of the class, taking notes, offering suggestions, listening to others, etc.
Learning and Teaching Your Colleagues About Using the Computers. We will be doing a fair amount of work on computers this term. For some of you, this may represent an additional "challenge" because you don’t feel comfortable with the technology, while others will find this part of the class "easy." In either case, that’s okay. If you are less than comfortable using computers, look at this as an opportunity to learn something new and valuable. If you are more experienced with computers, look at this as an opportunity to share with me and your colleagues something you already know. In either case, being willing to learn or willing to teach about using the computers for our various class activities will be appreciated.
All the other usual class participation stuff. You know what I mean: participating in discussions, not interrupting people when they are talking, being generally nice to me and your colleagues, etc.
Self-assessment of participation. At about mid-term and again at the end of the semester, I will ask you to send me an email where you tell me what grade you think you have earned in terms of participation to date. We will discuss the procedure for this in class.
Web-Based Portfolio of Writing Projects, 70% The bulk of the grade is made up of the major writing projects of the term, all of which will (ultimately) be presented as part of your personal/professional web site. This will all become clear as the term progresses; in brief, the assignments are:
All of these writing projects will ultimately be published as part of your personal/professional web site, which will itself be an ongoing project that you will begin early in the term and which you will complete by the time of our scheduled final.
Generally speaking, all of the writing projects must adhere to the style guidelines of the Modern Language Association in terms of formats for citing sources within the text, a works cited page, etc. We’ll talk about this briefly in class, but given that this is a 300-level writing class, I am working from the assumption that you are already familiar with MLA style. If you’re not, you might want to purchase The MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (available at just about any book store).
For late writing projects, I generally deduct a letter grade for each class period the project is late. There is one exception to this: if you tell me BEFORE the class in which a project is due that you are having problems finishing a project in a timely fashion, I will generally offer an extension.
In order to pass the course, you must complete all of these portfolio writing projects, regardless of your grade for any of the other components of the course.
Grading
Given all this, grading is pretty simple:
Participation: 30%
Portfolio of Writing Projects: 70%
The overall grading scale for the class is equally straight-forward:
A=100-93; A-=92-90; B+=89-87; B=86-84; B-=83-80; C+=79-77; C=76-74; C-=73-70; D+=69-67; D=66-64; D-=63-60; E=59-0
I will base my rounding of points on attendance.