English 100 Honors

Fall 2000

Jeanne Costello

Office: 1322-05

Phone: 992-7735

Office Hours: M 1-2, TTh 12-1, W 1-3

Required Texts:

            Writing From Sources by Brenda Spatt (WFS)

            Creating Community in a Changing World by Kim-Chuppa-Cornell, et. al. (CC)

            The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

            Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir by D.J. Waldie

Suggested Texts:

            Dictionary

            English Handbook (from a previous class if you have one)

Extra Costs:

            Xeroxing

Welcome to English 100H!

The purpose of freshman composition is to prepare you to read college-level material and write academic essays using research from a variety of sources. Toward that end, we will be discussing how to analyze essays and how to engage in different kinds of research, including fieldwork and service learning, as well as internet and traditional library searches. We will practice responding to those sources in writing, both informally and formally, and synthesizing a variety of perspectives into formal essays.

As an honors version of freshman composition, this course will differ in certain ways. While the amount of writing you do will probably be about the same as any other 100 course, the reading, research and preparation for that writing will be more involved and intensive. The more essential difference, though, is that as an honors student, you are expected to take charge of your own learning and even contribute to the making of this class. This constitutes the greatest demand and challenge of this class, for you as a student, and for me as a teacher. I have to relinquish some of my control and be willing to chart a less certain course. You have to take more control, but also be willing to tolerate some uncertainty about our direction as we create the course to fit your interests and needs. 

I have a certain general focus in mind (your city) which has guided my necessarily advance selection of texts, and the official course outline requires us to cover a certain range of skills. I have also committed to integrating a service learning component into the course (to be explained more fully later), but within these parameters, we have some freedom to improvise.

English 100H

Course Requirements

Essays: Each of the essays will give your practice engaging in different kinds of research from observation and interviewing to service learning and internet surfing. Use of print sources will of course figure in many of the essays.

#1-Observation (10%)

#2-Argument (10%)

#3-Problem Analysis (Cause and Effect) (10%)

#4-Service Proposal (10%)

#5-Service Learning Evaluation (10%)

#6-Creative Nonfiction “Memoir” (10%)

Option: you may choose to drop one of these paper grades and instead count one paper as 20%. You must write all six papers to exercise this option, though. You will also have the chance to revise two essays after they have been graded.

Exams: Exams will be based upon readings from the textbooks and will be created by the students together with the instructor.

            Midterm (10%)

            Final (10%)

Informal Writing (10%): IWs will be written according to prompts given on the course outline. They give you the opportunity to reflect individually upon topics and reading material, and to be graded according to thoughtfulness and thoroughness of content rather than adherence to the conventions of essay writing. You will be given 15 opportunities to write an IW, but only required to write 10. You may complete all 15 for up to 5% extra credit.

Homework/Quizzes/In-Class activities/Participation (10%): A grab bag for the other elements of the course, all self-evident, I presume. Perhaps I should explain that I will occasionally give quizzes on the reading material to keep you responsible.