English 300-A02, Junior English

Summer Session A, May 29-June 29
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00-3: 45, CH 126

Professor Lloyd Davies
Cherry Hall 132
lloyd.davies@wku.edu
Phone: 745-5717 (office); 781-7422 (home)

Texts

Aims and Organization

The purpose of this course is to focus on the activities of reading, thinking, and writing as crucial elements of a university education. Good writing is the result of good reading, which begins with scrupulous attention to the meaning of a text and then moves to a thoughtful, imaginative engagement with it. Interesting and productive research does not consist in simply collecting information; rather, it involves the discovery of ideas that lead you to comprehend and interpret that information in new and significant ways.

Our work, then, will begin with careful readings of selected texts from the Jacobus anthology. You will use those pieces of writings as rhetorical models and also as actual arguments that you can respond to with your own ideas. You will write several short but complete essays that will demonstrate your ability to assimilate ideas and information from other people and put it to your own use.

Assignments and written Work

  1. You will take notes on each of our texts, including full quotations of crucial statements by the author. You will also make an outline/summary of each text we read. This will be due on the day assigned to that reading. Your notes and outline/summary will be judged on effort, attention, organization, and clarity.
  2. You will each be assigned one of the eight readings for which you, and two or three other students, will be responsible for a short introductory presentation. Your presentations can take the form of interviews, debates, etc. They will be judged on their effort, creativity, and helpfulness.
  3. You will work on material from the Handbook for Writers--this will be in-class work scheduled on the day that essays are due.
  4. You will write four original essays, based upon each weeks' two readings. These essays will be judged upon their use of sources and documentation, structure and organization, rhetoric and argument, and, finally, grammar and usage.
  5. You will serve as critical readers of each other's papers.

Grades

  1. Notes and outline/summary of readings: five possible points for each text (total: forty). Late work will automatically lose two points per text.
  2. Presentations: five points possible.
  3. Classroom work on the Handbook for Writers: ten points possible.
  4. essays: ten points possible (total: forty). Late work will automatically lose five points per assignment.
  5. readers of classmates' essays: five points possible (one point for each reading; missed reading is zero; if you do all four readings you get one bonus point).

Your total points possible will equal one hundred; your final grade will be based on 90-100: A; 80-89: B; etc.

Schedule

Week One: Introduction to Writing

May 29: Introductions

May 31:

Week Two: Government and Justice

June 5: (Notes and outline/summary due for each reading)

June7:

Week Three: Wealth and Mind

June 12: (Notes and outline/summary due for each reading)

June 14:

Week Four: Mind and Nature

June 18: (Notes and outline/summary due for each reading)

June 21:

Week Five: Faith and Poetics

June 26: (Notes and outline/summary due for each reading)

June 28:

Back to teaching.