Introduction
This is a course in the craft of writing, specifically the craft of writing in the humanities.  I choose the word “craft” carefully.  Writing can be art, and the greatest written works are among humanity’s greatest achievements.  Whence the genius for such works derives is an eternal mystery, and one can no more teach a student to be a great novelist, dramatist, or poet than one can teach someone to be the next Frederic Chopin or Tiger Woods.  But the writing most of us need to perform in order to achieve success in our academic and professional careers, communicate with our colleagues, friends, and the public, and clarify and record our own thinking fortunately does not fall into that mysterious and lofty category.  It is more like carpentry:  one learns to build a table that will stand solidly on its own, support whatever weight it is supposed to bear, and be aesthetically pleasing.  While we may not all be able to produce a Chippendale, all of us can learn to make a serviceable and attractive table if we are given the tools and are willing to apply ourselves.  Similarly, we can all learn to write prose that helps us achieve our professional goals.  That is fortunate, because few skills are as important to your overall success in your course-work and your life as your ability to take your thoughts and put them down on paper in such a way that they reach a reader’s mind more or less unaltered, and that your reader then finds them persuasive.  Do that poorly and you need to prepare yourself for a life of misunderstandings, frustration, and disappointment; do it well and some degree of success is nearly certain.  As part of George Mason University’s General Education Mission, this course aims to provide you with skills that will help you convey your ideas effectively, both in future course-work and professionally in your chosen field.


Texts and Materials
You must own the following:

Writing About the Humanities by Robert Di Yanni
MSWord (either the PC or the Mac version)
A flashdrive
A writer’s handbook

I have ordered a writer’s handbook for this course:  The Prentice Hall Guide to Grammar and Usage by Muriel Harris (Prentice Hall).  However, if you already have a handbook you like to use, you may substitute that instead.  Good handbooks include Diane Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference and Andrea Lunsford’s The Everyday Writer.  Hacker’s Rules for Writers is also acceptable. The classic The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White is wonderfully short and filled with good advice (and some that is idiosyncratic or even a little weird), but it does not deal with grammar in any comprehensive way, so you should consider it supplemental to these others.

For this course you also must own a good dictionary.  Actually, you should own two:  a portable dictionary you carry with you and a full-sized hardcover that occupies a place of honor within arm’s reach of wherever you do most of your reading (they should ideally be different dictionaries so if a word isn’t in one you can turn to the other).  Be careful, because anybody can call a dictionary “Webster’s”; the name is now in the public domain and means nothing.  The best reasonably-priced dictionaries available are the Merriam-Webster Tenth Edition, The American-Heritage Dictionary, and The Concise Oxford English Dictionary.  The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is even better, though more pricey ($150).  Also worth a look is the so-called Little Oxford English Dictionary, which is hardcover but only about six inches by four inches, quite portable, and around $15.  Of course, the complete Oxford English Dictionary is the greatest dictionary in the world, though unwieldy in its two-volume “Compact” edition and prohibitively expensive ($1500-$6000 depending on the binding) in its full-sized version.  However you may access the complete OED through the Mason library databases.  You may also access many dictionaries through OneLook.com, which is linked from the Resources web-page.  Generally, however, dictionaries on CD-ROM and on the web are not as useful for reading assignments, though they can be handy when you are writing.

Course Requirements
Exercises
These will be short assignments — such as typed responses to the class readings (viewings, listenings, etc.) — designed to prepare you for the major essays. 

Essays, Revisions, and Reflective Commentaries
You will write four essays of specific types during the semester.  Each will be judged on the basis of how well it fulfills the assignment, including issues of purpose, structure, tone, audience, persuasiveness, style, grammar, and format.  Initially, you will submit each essay to a group of your peers for their feedback.  Note that this version of the essay should not be a first draft.  Inevitably, you will improve your own work by revising it on your own, so it is a waste of everyone’s time to make us do what you could already have done.  The essays you submit should represent the best work you can do, and will be judged accordingly.

Once you receive feedback from your peers, you will revise each essay.  You will then submit this revised version to me for my evaluation; I will evaluate each essay according to a rubric designed specifically for that assignment.  Each essay must be accompanied by a reflective commentary that describes your experience writing the paper and details the changes you made (and the reasons for them) during the revision process.

Peer Responses
For every essay assignment, you will receive the works of some of your peers.  Using guidelines I provide, you will offer your help and advice on each essay, submitting your response both to your peers and to me.  Then, over the course of the next week, you will follow up on this initial response by posting corrections and comments to WebCT.  I will grade these based primarily on the apparent effort and attention given to the paper, and secondarily on the quality of advice you offer.  Note that if you miss the day on which papers are exchanged or on which your response group meets in class, you cannot get full credit for this assignment.

Multimedia Research Project
Your final essay will employ scholarly and multimedia evidence as support, whether sound files, images, video captures, or film clips, depending on what is appropriate to your topic.  We will have presentations and resources that will help you learn to use the necessary technology.

The Portfolio, including Final Revisions and Final Reflection
At the end of the semester, you will submit a portfolio with final revisions of the first three essays.  At this point, I will assign each a letter grade, and these grades — in combination with the final reflective commentary, in which you consider your strengths and weaknesses as a writer and evaluate your essays — will combine to make a final portfolio grade.

Class Participation
I believe that learning requires an active engagement on the part of both the students and the teacher.  You cannot simply sit back and expect to receive knowledge like manna from heaven.  At the very least, you must participate by paying close attention to everything that goes on in class.  Ideally, you should also ask questions and risk exposing your ideas to your classmates.  A writing class is a cooperative venture, and cannot be conducted via lecture.  Excellent class participation will result in a bonus to your final course grade.

Attendance
A healthy percentage of success in life depends simply on showing up where and when you are expected.  If you are the kind of student who has trouble showing up, you will struggle in any composition class, especially mine.  On the other hand, students who never miss a class tend to do well in my classes.

Note that absences on the days when an essay is due and must be exchanged with your peer response group, or when your group actually discusses the essay, are particularly disastrous.

Although absences are always bad, if you know ahead of time that you must be absent, you should tell me.  I can arrange to meet with you beforehand and/or afterwards so that you do not fall behind.  Regardless, you are absolutely responsible for finding out what happened in class and for turning in any assignments due that day.  Missing a class does not grant you an extension.

Policy on Late Work
All assignments are due at the beginning of the class for which they are scheduled.  Exercises will not be accepted late.  If you cannot come to class, you may submit an exercise to me electronically.  If you send the document to me as an MSWord attachment (not in the body of an e-mail message) prior to the beginning of class (9:00 a.m. or 1:30 p.m. depending on which section of the course you are in), I will accept it without penalty.  Note that it is your responsibility to examine your message after you send it to be certain the document you successfully attached it.

Note that the initial version of some of the assignments — because it must be distributed to your classmates — cannot be submitted electronically.  Similarly, you must bring your peer responses to class on the specified day to earn credit.  The only exception is if you know in advance you will have to be absent and actually bring me all the necessary copies of the papers and responses prior to the day on which they are due.  Otherwise, a paper not submitted for peer response will automatically earn only 50% credit (which, because each paper is 10% of the final grade, means the loss of half of a course-grade), in addition to its likely not being satisfactory because it has not been peer-reviewed before being revised.  Also, you will receive half-credit on your peer responses because part of the benefit your peers receives comes from reading your work. I cannot over-emphasize this:  missing due dates for papers will have a catastrophic effect on your grade.  Do not think of due-dates; think of dead-lines, with the accent on “dead.”

You must bring your responses with you on those days we do peer response in class.  Late responses are a disservice to your peers.  Peer responses sent to your peers (and to me) later the same day will receive a two-grade penalty; peer responses sent more than twenty-four hours after they are due earn half-credit; peer responses sent after that earn no credit.

Revisions of papers will be accepted late, but with a full-grade penalty per day, not per class (again, unless prior arrangements have been made with me).

Conferences
During the semester, one-on-one conferences will replace two classes.  These conferences are your opportunity to get my help prior to the final portfolio.  Arriving at my office on-time for these conferences is mandatory.  If you are late, I will not extend your appointment because that would cut into the next person’s time with me; given when in the semester they are scheduled, they cannot be made up in case of absence. 

Evaluation
You may earn up to one hundred points are available in this course, divided as follows:

Strong in-class participation will earn students up to a 2/3 grade bonus (i.e. 6.7 points) on their final grade. Students may demonstrate strong in-class participation by joining class discussions, asking appropriate questions, and taking an active role in class activities.  Poor participation resulting from inattention (including excessive absences or lateness) will result in up to a 1/3 grade deduction, in addition to any points lost by failing to turn in assignments or participate in peer responses.  I’ll warn you if you are in danger of incurring that penalty.  Note this comment from the student handbook:  “Students who fail to participate (by virtue of extensive absences) in courses in which participation is a factor in evaluation may have their grades lowered.”

Possible grades in this course include A+ (97.0 points or above), A (93.0-96.9), A- (90.0-92.9), B+ (87.0-89.9), B (83.0-86.9), B- (80.0-82.9), C+ (77.0-79.9), C (73.0-76.9), C-(68.5-72.9), D (60.0-68.4), and F (below 60).  Note, however, that if you earn a C- or lower, you will need to re-take the course.

I grant incompletes only in circumstances beyond the student’s foresight and control, and only when I have a reasonable expectation that the student can complete the course successfully.

Basic Rules of Conduct
A class, like a society, requires that all participants observe a certain code of civilized behavior.  The following are the minimum standards you must observe to retain the privilege of attending the class (some of these are pretty obvious, but, believe it or not, every one of them is here as a result of past experience):

Be on time.  Arriving late is disruptive.  Running a class is like driving a stick-shift:  it takes time to shift up to cruising speed.  When you walk in after the agreed upon starting time, you stop the class and make it start out again in first gear.  It is rude.

The outside world should not intrude on our class.  Please disable any cellular telephones, pagers, and wrist watches with alarms, or leave them behind. Laptop computers are acceptable, but only for class purposes.  Reading e-mail or cruising the web for your own amusement will be grounds for the class participation deduction mentioned above.

Wait until the class actually ends to pack up.  Few things are more annoying than having to raise my voice at the end of class because people are sliding their books off the desks and unzipping and zipping their backpacks.

While I know that you have other obligations, our class is not the time to fulfill them.  Doing work unrelated to our class during class is not allowed.

Attendance implies body and mind and so requires consciousness.  Putting your head down on the desk or closing your eyes because you are tired is unacceptable at any level above nursery school.

At any moment, one of three things will be happening in the class:  either I will be talking, a student will be talking (asking or answering a question, participating in a class or smaller group discussion), or everyone will be concentrating silently on the task at hand.  In every case, courtesy demands that you pay attention, and not engage in your own private conversations.  But please feel free to ask questions and express your ideas — that kind of talking demonstrates your involvement and is generally a good thing.

The class is only seventy-five minutes long.  You should seldom, if ever, need to leave the classroom before the class ends.  If the need arises, and you can’t wait, by all means go in peace.  I trust you will return quickly, and not abuse my patience and generally kind disposition.

Honesty
Cheating is fraud.  Plagiarism is theft.  These are the two clear felonies of the academic community. Cheating includes anything that prevents an instructor from making an honest evaluation of your work, such as submitting work performed wholly or partly by someone else or using inappropriate aids for quizzes and tests.  Plagiarism is taking someone else’s words and claiming them as one’s own.  This is a greater crime than taking any possession they might own, because one is stealing their time, their effort, and their talents — precisely what earns them their living and their reputation.  If you put your name on work that is not your own, you are also misrepresenting yourself.  And perhaps, I would suggest to you, you would be selling yourself short, because any words of your own must reflect you better than words stolen from someone else.

That said, let me be clear.  Any act of academic dishonesty will result in my reporting you to the honor committee and recommending failure of the course (not merely the assignment).  In every case in which I have done this, the honor committee has accepted my recommendation.  This may sound harsh, but you will find similar guidelines at every college in the country.  It does not get any more serious than this.  I will use available online plagiarism-finding tools to check your essays as I see fit.

The official English Department statement on Academic Dishonesty is as follows:  “Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another person without giving the person credit.  Writers give credit through accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or endnotes; a simple listing of books and articles is not sufficient.  Plagiarism is the equivalent of intellectual robbery and cannot be tolerated in the academic setting.”

Note Regarding Students with Disabilities
Students with documented disabilities should present me with a contact sheet from the Disability Resource Center as soon as possible so that together we may plan appropriate accommodations.

My Responsibilities
In this syllabus, I spell out clearly what I expect of you.  What may you expect of me?  You have the right to expect that I am knowledgeable about the subject, that I will be prepared for class, that I will return your assignments to you reasonably promptly, that I will indicate clearly where you need to apply yourself in order to improve as both a reader and as a writer, and that I will give you positive feedback whenever possible.  It also means that you can count on my honest evaluation of your work.  If I say something positive, believe it.  If you perform poorly, I will certainly let you know.  However, I will not chase you:  if you are struggling, ask to meet with me.  More fundamentally, you can expect that I want you both to succeed and to enjoy the experience, and will do everything within my power to help.