JOAN CANTY, INSTRUCTOR

FALL 2008

ENGLISH 1B ACADEMIC ASSIGNMENTS AND STUDENT AND INSTRUCTOR RIGHTS

College will expose you to ideas and readings that might challenge, surprise, delight, or shock you. Students in college, face-to-face or virtual, are in an adult setting. Instructors choose the material they want students to read in order to teach students key concepts in an academic discipline, to encourage exploration and discussion of ideas and issues, and to build on knowledge in order for students to learn skills.

You have heard the phrase “looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.” This expression is a metaphor for having a positive, or rosy, outlook on life. Each person has his or her own unique set of “glasses” through which he or she views and translates the world. The filter of these glasses is composed in part of experiences, personality, belief systems, and family and cultural environments. We interpret through these glasses input from others, experiences, and what we read, hear, and watch; and each person’s interpretation, or point of view, differs from the next.

The course description for English 1B at Columbia College mentions that readings are from “diverse cultural sources and perspectives.” In English 1B, we analyze various components of what we read such as narrative style, characters, conflicts, historical and cultural setting, theme, and author’s purpose, and we compare what we find in literature to real life. Weekly readings, writing, discussion, Web links, and lessons are geared so that students develop skills in critical reading and writing and in analysis; we encounter different interpretations and learn to think about abstract concepts such as “truth.” In English 1B we use these skills as literary criticism.

This course follows the course content guidelines set by the Columbia College English department and by the State of California. Because English 1B is a transfer course, it is articulated with comparable courses offered at California State Universities and University of California campuses, as well as with other California community colleges.

In the English 1B textbook Writing About Literature in the Media Age and in the novels you may encounter some startling or graphic language and ideas such as mental illness, adultery, infanticide, sexuality, spousal abuse, and battle scenes. Some of the stories are based on real-life events and are chosen not for their shock value but for their relevance to modern life, cultural issues, literary analysis, and other literature. Most of your reading, weekly homework, and discussion assignments is based on Writing About Literature in the Media Age. Three of the longer writing Projects give students the option of choosing which stories, plays, or poems from this textbook they wish to write about. The other writing Project is in four parts and is based on the novel you choose to read from among the three I have offered. Each student may choose which one of the three novels best appeals to her or him; all of us in the class won’t be reading the same novel. House of Sand and Fog and Regeneration have some explicit language and scenes that I would call R-rated. The Grapes of Wrath, probably PG rated, has some explicit language. Regeneration is the shortest novel but is the most complex (the writer is British); The Grapes of Wrath is the longest but I think the easiest to read. House of Sand and Fog has the most recent setting (early 1990s).

You may find that you have to respond to a piece of writing that you don’t understand, or one that you don’t agree with. Please ask questions and use the lessons to try and figure out what the piece of writing (text) is all about. See if you can relate the text to your experience and think about other possible meanings. Sometimes freewriting or rereading will help make the text clearer to you.

I might ask for some “from the book” answers on the open-book quizzes, but I don’t want regurgitation of facts or reactive opinion in your writing and discussion assignments. As an instructor, I am interested in seeing you exercise your analytical skills in your reading, writing, research, and discussion. I will grade you on the quality of your writing, the completeness with which you address the assignment, and the soundness and support of your argument. I don’t want to see unsupported rants or blog-type writing. Some of the best papers I’ve read have presented arguments that I didn’t agree with personally, but they were well-researched and well-supported. I do not discourage speculation but it must be supported and relevant to the text (the story, poem, article, essay, or play you’re addressing) and not due to a misreading or to wishful thinking.

As a student, you have the right to

· Not be dropped from the course except for excessive absence, repeated classroom disruption, violence

· Expect an instructor to be knowledgeable about the subject matter

· Expect to be given enough of a calendar of course events and deadlines to be able to budget your study time

· Expect a clear delimiting of the total content of the course

· Expect to be given an understandable method for arriving at a course grade, a method whose criteria apply equally to all students

You do NOT have the right to

· Disrupt the classroom (disruption can also occur in an online class)

· Present another person’s work as your own: plagiarizing, cheating. The instructor can give you a zero on the assignment and can refer you to the Dean of Student Services for disciplinary action

As an instructor, I have the right to

· Choose the texts and materials to be used

· Develop my own instructional methodology: what is to go on within the real or virtual classroom and outside the classroom regarding course work

· Set the course content within department guidelines

· Expel a disruptive student from a class session (for online classes, this may mean denying access) and require the student to see the Dean of Student Services to get back into class (nevertheless, the student remains enrolled)

· Make a judgment that a student has cheated or plagiarized and give the student a zero for that assignment

The instructor does NOT have the right to drop a student except for excessive absences; the Dean can drop a student for repeated disruption or violent behavior, or for violations of the Student Code of Conduct, such as cheating, intoxication on campus, or plagiarism.

I stand by my instructional materials, assignments, and methods. I welcome questions about assignments, policies, and the way the course is structured; please feel free to contact me via email or voice mail, or during office hours, if you’d like further explanation or discussion.

The course syllabus gives students a general idea of the texts I use and the assignments that are due each week. A more detailed listing of weekly assignments is in the course’s Weekly Learning Modules. After reviewing the course syllabus and reading materials, if you decide that you would prefer not to do the reading and writing that my class requires, then you have the option of dropping the class and taking it from a different instructor.