Spring 2019 English 130 Office: Merrifield 100-C

8:00-9:15 & 9:30-10:45 & 11:00-12:15 Office Hours: Wednesday 8:30 a.m -11:30
Rhiannon Conley a.m.
Email: Rhiannon.Conley@UND.edu

Required Materials and Resources:

How Writing Works with Readings Jack and Pryal
Regular access to a computer with Internet access and Microsoft Word.

Course Objectives:
This course, which builds upon ENGL 110, asks you to take academic writing skills into the
public, to work as an engaged citizen of the information age. We will begin the course by
reading about an important social issue, and then determine how to use this knowledge to serve
our communities.

To that end, you will conduct primary and secondary research projects, which will lead to a
project proposal. Then, you will produce documents that will help inform and persuade the
public about your issue and project, such as letters, emails, editorials, websites, and promotional
materials.

Through all of these projects, the course will ask you to work rhetorically—to think carefully
about the audience, purpose, persona, genre, and timing of your writing, as well as the impact
that your writing can have in the community. Like ENGL 110, this course emphasizes active
learning through an emphasis on revision, peer review, and writing workshops. By the end of the
course, you should:

 Learn and use key rhetorical concepts through analyzing and composing a variety of texts
 Learn common formats and/or design features for different kinds of texts
 Gain experience reading and composing in several genres to understand how genre
conventions shape and are shaped by readers’ and writers’ practices and purposes
 Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts calling for
purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure
 Locate and evaluate (for credibility, sufficiency, accuracy, timeliness, bias and so on)
primary and secondary research materials, including journal articles and essays, books,
scholarly and professionally established and maintained databases or archives, and
informal electronic networks and internet sources
 Adapt composing processes for a variety of technologies and modalities
 Experience the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes

Course Expectations & Participation: It is my expectation that students will come to class
prepared and ready to work, complete their reading and assignments on time, and attend class
regularly. Everyone in this classroom is an adult and I expect you all to behave and engage with
me and your fellow classmates as such. This class is centered on in-class work including
classroom discussions, workshops and writing activities. It is imperative to your work and the
work of others that you are present and participatory every day of class. Students who come to
class ready and willing to participate, ask questions and work well with others earn better grades
than those who do not.
Attendance: You have to come to class. I’m not going to teach the same thing twice to
somebody who couldn’t bother to show up. Come to class. This is costing you a lot of money.
Try not to flush it down the toilet by deciding to sleep in. For real. You cannot do well in the
class if you don’t show up. Just come, okay? If something happens, let me know, we can work
through it and get you squared away, but if you just don’t come, I mean, what am I supposed to
do with that? And then you’re confused about why you’re getting C’s on your assignments?
Like, why is that my problem? Seriously. You could have gotten help if you were here. We went
over that exact problem. But you weren’t here, because you’re never here. And now you’re
asking for help? Come on. Be serious.

A Note on Names: I believe that a part of my job as an instructor is to learn your name or the
name by which you would like me to address you. I do genuinely wish to learn your name, as I
believe this is a reflection of my respect for you and your place in my classroom. However, I
have lots of students and sometimes I mispronounce names or mix them up. Please help me to
learn your name by telling me if I am making one of these mistakes. It is important to me and I
will not be offended if you call me out!

Grading Breakdown

Participation 5%
Discussion & Workshop 10% A – Exceptional
Reading & Writing Journal 20% B – Above Average
Annotated Bibliography 10% C – Average
Literature Review 10% D – Below Average
Recommendation Report 20% F – Failing
Grant Proposal 25%

Late Work: All work is due on Blackboard at the times and dates assigned unless otherwise
specified. The semester moves very quickly and turning in late work will get you behind on
subsequent work. Therefore, late papers will be penalized by 5% of the total earned grade for
each day that they are late. This penalty can only be avoided if students with valid, verifiable
excuses make arrangements with me more than 24 hours before the due date.

In order to pass this class, students must turn in all assignments.

Office Hours: Office hours are available to anyone who would like to discuss assignments,
grades or any other aspect of the course. I encourage these visits for anyone who has questions,
is struggling or feels unsure of themselves. During office hourse I will be available via Skype.
By offering you office hours I am essentially extending myself to you as a resource that will
improve your writing and so your grade. I am always happy to meet with students. If you are
unavailable during my office hours we can easily schedule an appointment that works with your
schedule.

Disabilities: If you need accommodations in this course because of a disability, if you have
emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the
building must be evacuated, please contact the Disability Support Services office in McCannel
Hall, 777-3425, and let me know as soon as possible what accommodations you need.

Academic Honesty: The UND Academic Catalog states: “Students are expected to maintain
scholastic honesty. Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating on a test,
plagiarism, and collusion. Plagiarism means the appropriation, buying, receiving as a gift, or
obtaining by any means another person’s work and the unacknowledged submission or
incorporation of it in one’s own work. This includes appropriation of another person’s work by
the use of computers or any other electronic means. Collusion means the unauthorized
collaboration with another person in preparing written work offered for credit. For detailed
policy statements and procedures dealing with scholastic dishonesty, see the Code of Student
Life, Appendix IIIa.”

Representing someone else's words or ideas as one's own is a serious offense and will be treated
as such in this class. Turning in another student’s paper, taking words or ideas from internet
sources, asking someone else to write a paper for you, or finding papers online or in a file are all
examples of academic dishonesty. If you commit any of these offenses on formal or informal
assignments or on drafts or revisions, you may fail an individual assignment or the course. All
confirmed plagiarism cases are reported to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities.

Aiding another student in an act of academic dishonesty will also be grounds for failing the
course. You must therefore be aware that when you share your work outside of class with other
students, or even when you are not extremely cautious about preventing your work from being
available to others, you are making yourself vulnerable to this penalty. To be very clear: do not
electronically send your papers to other students and be extremely cautious about giving anyone
else access to your work.

If you have any questions about appropriate use of outside and online sources or about the help
you have received from someone else on an assignment, please see me. You should also consult
the Chester Fritz Library’s resources on avoiding plagiarism and proper citation:
https://libguides.und.edu/c.php?g=91312&p=5080429 .

Essential Studies: As you may know, English 130 is a required part of your Essential Studies
program. Essential Studies courses are designed to help students become stronger in areas that
have been identified as particularly important for professional, private, and civic life in the 21st
century: being able to think and reason well, to communicate effectively, to judge the credibility
of information, and to engage in complex and respectful ways with social and cultural diversity.
English 130 fulfills one component your written communication requirement.