Please Be Sure To Read This Syllabus So That You Are Aware Of Course Policies and Expectations

Syllabus
Persuasive Writing 103 Internet
Fall 2005

Instructor's assistant

Course description

PERSUASIVE WRITING. 3 cr. Composition of persuasive essays, including documented papers. Includes study of various forms of argument. Prerequisite: 101.

During the semester students will have an opportunity to choose social and political issues of interest to them and join a group of fellow students in an investigation of those controversial topics.  The main focus of this class is on doing various kinds of real-world, independent research on controversial issues and practicing different ways to present those issues to an audience of peers.  The semester concludes with an informed argument paper.

Class philosophy

Writing is a skill just as surely as is playing the guitar or throwing the ball.  Like any skill, it can be developed and sharpened.  Talent and genetics and culture have something to do with the degree and ease of developing such skill, but just about anybody can become a competent persuasive writer if enough time and energy are devoted to the effort.  

    So the main activity of a writing class -- of this class -- should be practice under the guidance of good coaches. And as with all professionals, whether of the intellect or the muscle, we'll exercise constantly.  We will do just that -- lots of practice with constant feedback from each other and from the expert coaches -- Eller and Danny Landreaux.  

    Typically, most of the writings will be short items -- 100-500 words -- with quick feedback from your fellows and/or the teachers.  Each brief writing will be "coached" by a combination of the instructor and his assistant and fellow students.  The object of these "coaching sessions" will be to:

• Identify an important strength in your writing;

• Identify one or two major areas of weakness on which to work;

• Model brief rewrites and edits and provide quick examples of improvements which you could make.

During the course of these exchanges, we will most importantly be behaving as professionals, engaged in the collection, organization, and presentation of information and ideas with which we have both an intellectual interest and an emotional concern.  Our activities will mirror the real-life behavior of professionals.

Main goals

Goal #1:  Practice applying key skills and ideas for persuasion and argument:  paraphrase, summary, and conventional patterns of discussion.

Goal #2:  Examine the validity of a set of ideas presented by a controversial movie-maker -- Michael Moore -- examining and making claims, analyzing ethos, pathos, and logos, finding facts that both support and contradict the content of the film.

Goal #3:  After having examined closely and at length the issues and arguments suggested by our controversial documentary movie by Michael Moore, either develop a related argument supporting his argument or find arguments which negatively critique his position.

    Our main shared text this semester is a movie, Bowling for Columbine, directed by Michael Moore.  During the semester will be other short readings which we will share, and some memorization of information and ideas, but our main goal will be to put to practice and develop a respectable skill with a few of the following topics:

Class Policies

• Attendance:  Timely participation in discussion groups, chats, and email is the same thing as attendance. Since you would spend 3 hours in class every week if you were attending a resident class, you should spend at least 3 hours each week in our discussion boards.
• Evaluation of Attendance
  • Internet Students:  All attendance scores are worth a max of 20 points.  Each substantive act of participation is worth 5 points.  So to get a possible full credit on a round of discussion, you must participate substantively 4 times.  [Click here to find out what substantive means.]  In addition, in order to receive good credit, you will need to spread your participation out over the period of the discussion, going back to discussion board several times during the round.
  • Resident Students:  Roll will be called every class period and participation in class discussions and activities is expected.  Weak participation in class discussion is the same as being absent.  Absence and lack of participation will be tracked in Blackboard Gradebook.  Four or more absences during the semester will result in a 10% penalty on semester total score.
• Technical Problems:
  • Eller is tolerant -- up to a point -- with the time it takes to work out technical problems when writing and submitting assignments.
  • If you get kicked out of an open-book, Blackboard-posted quiz, email the teacher or teacher's assistant and they will arrange for you to take a different version of the quiz on-site or at a specified time with an approved proctor.  Unlike the quizzes, though, the make up quiz will not be open-book.
  • If you get kicked out of a major, open-book, Blackboard-posted test, you will have to come to the campus and take the test on-site, closed-book.
• Time Spent:  The three hours normally spent in a resident classroom become on-line activities.  This means that you will spend approximately the same amount of time attending to this class as you are expected to spend for a resident class.  In other words, you will spend the three hours normally spent sitting in lecture reading and participating in class activities plus the normal expectations of classes -- 2 hours for every hour in class -- a total of 8-9 hours a week spent working on this class.  This is a standard formula for all college classes.
• Communication with Teacher:
  • Students can expect about a 24-48 hour turn return on emails.  Not all emails will be answered especially if the question can easily be answered by reference to previous emails or by looking on the Internet and Blackboard.
  • Teacher is not on email 24/7.  Email received after five o'clock in the evening during the work week and on the weekends will not be immediately answered.  However, on weekends, teacher may occassionally spend a period of time responding to emails.  If teacher takes a short email holiday for conference visits, etc. he will inform the class before hand.
  • Students needing immediate feedback on class-related problems can use Eller's cell phone number between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays.
  • Check Eller's on-line schedule at <http://www.ulm.edu/~eller/eschedule.htm> for hours in which he will be available in his office.
• Email:  
  • Use your Blackboard Email utility to send email to the class.
  • Use your username@tribe.ulm.edu for all class email.  See instructions for accessing tribe email by going to <http:www.ulm.edu/~eller/things/email>. 
• Late Fees:  Papers are not considered late if the written assignment is turned in before Eller finishes evaluating all the previously submitted assignments in that assignment group.  If you have not turned an assignment in by the time Eller has finished evaluating the group already submitted, an arbitrary penalty will be assigned to your work.  Writings are always accepted no matter how late they may be, but the later they are the stronger the penalty applied to the final grade after evaluation.
• Substantive Discussion:
• Submitting Final Assignments:  All final writing assignments can be sent to Eller in a readable file format using Blackboard's digital dropbox [Click here for sending and file format requirements].
• All formal writing assignments will be screened by turnitin.com.  Check this website out to see how it works.
• First time plagiarism or cheating of any kind, whether intended or "accidental," will fail a writing assignment or test.  Second time plagiarism will fail you in the course.

Overview of all assignments

See developed assignment schedule at <http://www.ulm.edu/~eller/103/weekdivi.htm>

Click Here to go to schedule <http://www.ulm.edu/~eller/103/weekdivi.htm>

This page last updated on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 03:20:18 PM

 This page last updated on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 03:20:18 PM