Instructor: Sarah Ingle

Email: sei5j@virginia.edu

Theme: Legacies of Jefferson and Poe (Spring 2015)

ENWR 1510-56: MW 2:00-3:15 pm in Dell 2, room #102

ENWR 1510-41: MW 5:00-6:15 pm in Bryan Hall, room #330

Office Hours: Mon. and Wed. 4-5 pm in Dawson’s Row #203 and by appointment

 

ENWR 1510: Accelerated Academic Writing

 

ENWR 1510 is designed to provide you with the tools to write effective academic arguments. The primary goal of the course will be to teach you the techniques of persuasive academic writing. You will use the writing techniques that you learn in this class throughout your academic career.

 

While we work to become better writers and readers, we will explore the writings and legacies of Thomas Jefferson and Edgar Allan Poe. We will approach these two iconic American writers critically and dialectically, using them to challenge one another’s principles and “self-evident” truths and to challenge ourselves to think about American history and culture in new ways. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, we will compare Jefferson and Poe as cultural icons and as elegant and accomplished writers of prose.

Students will learn to:

 

--Identify and understand the core components of an academic argument

--Make complex and contestable academic claims

--Support claims with appropriate reasons and evidence

--Choose and execute an appropriate writing style

--Analyze texts and explain how their form and style contribute to the ideas that they express

--Identify reliable sources

--Give helpful feedback on peers’ writing

 

Grade breakdown: Paper 1A: 10%; Paper 1B: 10%; Paper 2: 20%; Paper 3: 20%; Final Revised Paper and Self-evaluation: 15%; Participation (including homework): 25%

 

Course Requirements

 

Absences: All students are expected to attend class on time and to be prepared for discussion.  You will be allowed 2 absences that will not harm your grade. Use them wisely. Except in the case of true emergencies, any further absences will count against your overall grade.  Each absence after the 2 free absences lowers your final grade by one third of a letter grade (A- goes to B+, etc.). 

 

Participation: Although there certainly will be some class time that is devoted to lecturing, this is a discussion course.  Take note that your participation grade is 25% of your overall grade. Class discussions and workshops are vital aspects of our class meetings. Not only are you expected to come to class having thoroughly read the assigned materials and completed the assigned homework exercises, but you should also be prepared to offer your own arguments and to politely critique those of your peers. Being late to class or not having the required materials will count against your participation grade.     

 

Papers: Paper 1 will be written in two stages, with each stage counting for 10% of your total grade. Papers 2 and 3 will each count for 20% of your grade. Each paper should be 5-6 pages, double-spaced, in twelve point, Times New Roman font, with standard margins. All papers should be handed in at the start of class. Late papers will be penalized by a third of a letter grade per day late (including weekends). This means that if you turn in your paper two days after the due date, your B will automatically drop to a C+. All papers must include citations in proper MLA format.

 

Other Assignments:  Instead of a final exam, you will be required to revise one of your papers and write a self-evaluation about your revisions. You must also complete various short homework exercises throughout the semester. These assignments will be listed on the Activities Grid on our course’s Collab site. Failure to complete homework exercises will result in a significant deduction from your participation grade. We will discuss the details of the final revised essay and self-evaluation later in the semester.

 

Plagiarism: As a student at UVA, you are bound by the University’s honor code. Plagiarism will result in automatic failure of the assignment (at the very least), and it may cause you to fail the course or even to be expelled from UVA. If you aren’t sure what constitutes plagiarism, ask!

 

The Writing Center: The Writing Center is located in 314 Bryan Hall. To make an appointment, use the website: http://www.engl.virginia.edu/wctr/wcinfo.html. The Writing Center is an excellent resource for this class. The writing counselors there are available to give advice on all stages of writing, including brainstorming for a topic, paper structure, and sentence-level issues.

 

Required Texts

The Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Norton Critical Edition)

The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin Classics, edited by J. Gerald Kennedy)

 

You can access all homework worksheets and all other assigned readings by clicking on the links from the Activities Grid on the class’s Collab site. Please bring all assigned texts and homework assignments to class.

 

If you feel that you need extra help with your grammar or basic writing skills in English, please consider getting a reference guide. I can recommend Lynn Troyka’s Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers or Andrea Lunsford’s The St. Martin’s Handbook. Teaching grammar is not the focus of this class, but I do expect your papers to be free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

 

Library resources for academic research:

 

MLA: The Modern Language Association is a large database that has citations for academic publishing in the field of language and literature.

Project Muse: Covers some journals that are not in the MLA database.

Academic Search Complete: A good resource on finding articles from a wide range of disciplines.

JSTOR: Another good resource for articles in the humanities.

Virgo: In addition to academic journal articles, there are plenty of books and edited collections of essays that are published about particular texts, authors, and topics. Running key search terms through Virgo may reveal relevant collections in the library’s local holdings.