EN102 Honors: Fundamentals of English Composition II 03 Credits
Dr. Madeline Seltzer and Michael J. Landis
Myles Horton and Paulo Freire
COURSE PHILOSOPHY:
The EN102H course will be a continuation of the themes established and developed in theEN101H course. The philosophy of Fundamentals of English Composition I (EN101) and Fundamentals of English Composition II (EN102) begins with Socrates’ admonition that “The unexamined life is not worth living…” Examining our lives means questioning the basic assumptions and values of our culture and society as well as those of our selves. The basis of critical thinking, “examining our lives,” requires us to view the world from multiple vantage points, voluntarily giving up the familiar, safe cultural assumptions (the “tyranny of custom” in the words of philosopher Bertrand Russell) developed throughout our experiences.
Advancements in technology over the past fifty years have given people around the world unprecedented access to each others’ cultural orientations. While providing opportunities for encouraging culturally diverse perspectives, this “shrinking world” phenomenon has paradoxically increased a kind of homogeneity of perspective, with economically powerful societies and institutions imposing a level of hegemony. Such homogeneity threatens to obliterate the unique identities of diverse cultures around the world; such homogeneity hampers our abilities to examine our selves and increases the chance of misinterpreting others as well as our selves. EN102 like EN101 will provide students with the experiences of encountering ideas, values, and identities, different from their own, that will release them from their cultural-ideological encapsulation—that will free them to encounter new perspectives as well as to understand themselves from continually shifting perspectives.
It is the ability to empathize with the unfamiliar that will be emphasized in EN101H and EN102H. Empathic skills are crucial to the attainment of the Enlightenment and Christian ideals of justice and world peace as well as to the realization of the Judeo-Christian ideal of valuing the individual person, which is stressed in Manor’s own mission statement. It is only when people can empathize (literally “to feel with the other”) or identify with people unlike themselves that they can begin to behave with love and charity towards others. This is the antidote to the various kinds of scapegoating that have been manifested both historically and contemporarily. Now in the twenty- first century, it is impossible to predict what groups will become targets of prejudice, marginalization, and oppression. Equipping our selves with empathic skills is probably the most effective tool we can derive to combat the encroaching homogenization that threatens to obliterate the invaluable heritages of diverse cultures around the world. With heightened empathic skills, our students will be sure to fight the atrocities that always accompany scapegoating, regardless of the particular marginalized/victimized group. As part of the curriculum of a Catholic college, committed to values education, this curriculum will heighten our empathy, tolerance, and awareness of our responsibilities in facilitating the good society marked by a kind of commonweal.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: INSTRUCTION AND PRACTICE IN COLLEGE
WRITING
This course empowers students to develop and refine further the various types of writing that are necessary for college work, such as summaries, essays, and research papers. Students will write, critique, and revise each other’s papers in a workshop atmosphere, creating several drafts for each assignment that will be read by other students and the instructors. Students will work on improving their grammar and sentence skills, paragraphs, essay organization, and research skills. Students will also read, summarize, and analyze a body of literature thematically focused on examining the self in the context of society and the environment.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. Students will further develop and refine the following skills and writing strategies:
a. descriptive and narrative writing with a thematic focus
b. the use of examples to support a thesis
c. cause/effect analysis
d. summary and analysis of college level readings
e. basic research form and technique: information literacy
f. application of hermeneutic keys for various media
2. Students will develop the ability to examine self and others philosophically, ethically, psychologically, and anthropologically/sociologically, with the ultimate aim of understanding self and others with continually shifting perspectives.
3. Students will develop empathic skills.
STUDENT OUTCOMES:
1. Students will demonstrate proficiency in negotiating the various constructive elements of the written medium—i.e. brainstorming and implementing patterns of organization, grammar and mechanics, and proofreading/editing strategies—as a vehicle for facilitating critical thinking.
a. Measure: Students will exhibit proficiency in negotiating language as a tool of critical thinking in essays and reaction papers.
a. Standard: 80% of students will complete all written assignments with a C or better level of proficiency.
b. Measure: Students will exhibit proficiency in negotiating language as a tool critical thinking in speaking in collaborative group assignments and class discussions.
b. Standard: 80% of students will perform at a C or better level of
proficiency as speakers in collaborative group projects at least
twice during the semester.
2. Students will demonstrate effective reading and critical thinking skills.
a. Measure: Students will critically analyze assigned texts in
answering study questions and collaborative learning questions and in writing essays.
a. Standard: 80% of students will perform on an average at a C or better level of proficiency in critically analyzing the works in study questions, collaborative learning questions, and essays.
3. Students will become familiarized with literature, film, and audio as tools for examining self and others, philosophically, ethically, psychologically, and anthropologically/sociologically, with the ultimate aim of understanding self and others with continually shifting perspectives.
a. Measure: Students will develop the capacity to implement
significant tools for examination of self and other through critical
reading, critical writing, and collaborative learning projects.
a. Standard: 80% of the students will perform on average at a C or
better level of proficiency in implementing the tools for examination of self and other through critical reading, critical writing, and collaborative learning projects.
4. Students will demonstrate the ability to identify and retrieve information
from a variety of primary and secondary electronic and traditional sources.
a. Measure: Students will identify and retrieve information for two
essay assignments.
a. Standard: 80% of students will complete research assignments
with a C or better level of proficiency.
5. Students will demonstrate the ability to evaluate information according to acceptable criteria.
a. Measure: Students will evaluate information retrieve electronically and traditionally for two essay assignments.
a. Standard: 80% of students will complete the research assignments with a C or better level of proficiency.
6. Students will demonstrate the ability to utilize the research by integrating and
organizing the information in essays.
a. Measure: Students will utilize research in two essays.
a. Standard: 80% of students will complete research assignments with a C or better level of proficiency.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
In order to pass the course, the student must fulfill the following requirements:
1. Attendance
is required. Because group work
is an important part of the course, it
is necessary that students attend class regularly so that they can contribute to the work of their assigned groups. More than the equivalent of two weeks absences will result in a lowered final grade. Missing a scheduled conference with an instructor will count as an absence. If a student surpasses the two-week limit, the student must complete a formal essay addressing the material covered in class. Failure to fulfill the abovementioned obligation will result in failure of the course.
2. Completion of all writing and reading assignments on time: all writing
assignments must be typed, double-spaced, and adherent to MLA style
parameters. LATE PAPERS WILL BE PENALIZED. All reading assignments must be completed prior to discussion time. There will be periodic quizzes and reflection paragraphs to ensure compliance.
3. Average passing grade for the 6000 words
of graded essays.
5. Plagiarism—the representing of someone
else’s intellectual property as one’s own—is a serious academic offense with
serious consequences, from failing an assignment with a grade of “0,” to
failing the course, to being expelled
from the college. Students are
responsible for making sure that their work is their own and that all cited
material is cited properly according to MLA (Modern Language Association)
guidelines established in many college level style manuals. If the instructor determines that a student
has breached intellectual property parameters in an assignment—the student has
plagiarized—she/he will receive a “0” for this assignment. If pursuant to being cited for plagiarism,
the student is caught plagiarizing again, the student will fail the course and
face disciplinary measures from the Dean of Academic Affairs.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Alexie, Sherman. Indian Killer. Warner Books, 1996.
Hult, Christine A. and Thomas N. Huckin. The New Century Pocket Guide for Writers.
Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.
Each student should purchase a standard three-ring-binder notebook and filler
paper as a repository for handouts and notes and a portfolio for the various drafts of compositions completed throughout the course.
UNIT ONE: DISORIENTATION: A PATH TO INTERIORS.
Week I:
· Introduction to the Course
· Discussion of the Characteristics of the Liminal Experience
· Development of Personal Liminal Stories”: View Bill Moyers’ Your Mythic Journey with Sam Keen and What the Bleep…
· Review Patricia Hampl’s essay “Memory and Imagination”
· Review concepts of Freud and Jung
Week II:
· The Function of Stories…discussion
· Read Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have
You Been” and Adrienne Rich’s poem “Rape” (handout)
· Discuss Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” and Adrienne Rich’s “Rape”
· Assignment for Essay #1
Week III:
·
View Vincent Gallo’s
·
Discuss the liminality theme in
Week IV:
·
Workshop for Essay #1 (Rough Drafts Due)
· Collaborative on the readings and film
Week V:
·
Essay #1 due
UNIT TWO: DISORIENTATION: ENCOUNTERING THE “OTHER”:
IDENTITY, IDENTIFICATION, AND IDENTIFICATION WITH...
· Read and discuss the following selections from:
M. Esther Harding’s The I and the Not I (Handout)
Frans deWaal’s Good Natured: The Origins and Wrong
In Humans and Other Primates.
Week VI: UNIT THREE: DISORIENTATION: THE DESCENT INTO APORIA
·
Read “Columbus, the Indians, and Human
Progress,” from Howard Zinn’s A
People’s History of the
·
Read the first two sections of Sherman Alexie’s
novel Indian Killer (4-296)
·
Discuss Indian Killer
Week VII:
·
Finish reading Alexie’s Indian Killer
· Read selections from Frederick Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Pema
Chodron’s “There Is No
Such Thing as a True Story” from The
Wisdom of No Escape; and transcripts from an interview with Dr. Sam
Keen
(handouts)
Week VIII:
·
Collaborative on Indian Killer,
Nietzsche, etc.
· Discuss the Greek concept of aporia from Plato’s Meno
· View Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan
· Assignment for Essay #2
Week IX:
· Read selection from A.C. Grayling’s Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan.
·
Read Randall Jarrell’s “Eighth Air Force”
· Collaborative on A Simple Plan and related works
Week X:
·
Writing workshop (Rough Drafts Due)
UNIT FOUR: THE RETURN
Week
XI:
·
Essay #2 Due
·
View Motorcycle Diaries
· Assignment for Essay #3
· Begin research for paper# 3
· In-depth discussion of “The Return” stage of the archetypal Hero’s Journey
Week XII:
· Discussion of Motorcycle Diaries
Week XIII:
· Writing Workshop (Rough Draft Due)
Week IV:
· Essay # 3 due
· “Where Are You Going…Where Have You Been?!”
Course retro-spective and pro-spective
OFFICE HOURS: Dr. Seltzer will meet with students for
office hours in the Liberal Arts Office, Tuesday