ENC 3310 Course Policy Sheet
ENC 3310-08
MWF 10:10-11:00
WMS 108
Mr. Nesbitt
wcn5418@mailer.fsu.edu
office: 331 WMS
office phone:644-1859
office hours: 11:00-11:50 MWF
Course description and goals: The goal of this class is to produce a polished portfolio by the end of the semester consisting of various articles and stories that you have workshopped, edited, revised, and talked with me about. If you have not already taken ENC 1101 and 1102, this is not the class for you. This is a class for junior and senior level English majors, and I will expect you to perform accordingly. I would like for you to think of these papers are more than just assignments for this class. Some/many/all of you will need a writing sample to apply for another workshop or graduate school. This is a good opportunity to produce writing compatible with those goals. As good writing tends to be an ongoing process rather than a singular event, I encourage you to start working on these papers early so that you can allow yourself the time for periodic revision of your work. We want to avoid writing neat, tidy essays filled with flat, typical characters who always experience happy endings. Life is a messy affair. We want to produce essays in which characters experience complications and are torn between people and ideas. The story may not even resolve such issues. This is not to say that a story cannot be happy, uplifting, or inspirational, but we want to avoid writing the textual equivalent of the Hallmark movie of the week. Ultimately, we want to develop a high-quality portfolio with interlocking stories that can be read both separately and as one continuous work.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is grounds for failure in this course as well as for suspension from the university. I have a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If I find you have engaged in plagiarism, we will have a discussion. If you reason is unacceptable--I have not heard a satisfactory explanation for plagiarism yet--I will flunk you and have you sign and date a form in which you admit to having plagiarized. If this is an unacceptable resolution to you, we will move up the chain of command. First, we will talk with the Director of Undergraduate Studies who also has a zero tolerance policy for plagiarism. If a resolution is not found there, we will then go to the student honor court who are quite serious about these matters. If we have to take these steps, you may fail the course, be placed on probation, be suspended from the university, be expelled from the university, or some combination thereof.
Attendance: More than six absences is grounds for failure. When you submit the portfolio include any documentation for absences that you have. I will consider such documentation. Do not assume that I will automatically excuse any absence you have documentation for, except university excused absences related to mandatory university functions such as athletic appearances.
Students with disabilities: Students with disabilities needing academic accommodations should in the first week of class 1) register and provide documentation from the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) and 2) bring a letter to me from the SDRC indicating the need for academic accommodations. For such students, course materials are available in alternative formats if needed.
Late assignments: For each day (a day is defined as a day that FSU has classes, even if it is only half a day; usually this means M-F) that an assignment paper/journal is late I deduct ten points. If your assignment is more than three days later, I won't accept it. All late assignments not turned to me in class, should be taken to 405 WMS. Ask someone at the desk to put a timestamp and date on the assignment and place it in my box. Do not put the assignment in my box yourself. I don't check my box every day. Without a timestamp and date from the English department, I will assume that the assignment has been turned in just moments before I found it. I make no special effort to check my box in order to find late assignments. All of the papers will be submitted in a portfolio at the end of the semester. I will not accept portfolios in three-ring binders, and each paper must be individually stapled or paper-clipped.
Late Person: If you are not in class by the time that I have finished calling the roll, you are absent.
Papers: All papers will be typed and double spaced in 12 pt. Times New Roman with a single-spaced heading on the first page. Include your last name and page numbers on all pages after the first. Papers will be left-justified; the right edge of the paper will be ragged. Papers that do not adhere to this format lose ten points right off the top. I will not accept papers that are not stapled or in a folder.
Length: Drafts for workshop, as well as the draft that you will bring to class with you each day, should be three to five pages long. The portfolio should be twenty to twenty-five pages in length and those pages should be more or less evenly divided among the four essays.
Presentation/workshop:
Each student will bring in a draft of his or her essay belonging to the category that we are currently studying. You will bring enough copies for each student to have one. We will read your essay in class. We will discuss what works well in the essay and give suggestions for improvement. The student presenting the essay will remain silent until after we have workshopped his or her essay. You will have an opportunity to speak to the class if you wish, then we will hand your drafts back to you. The presentations are S/U.
Missed presentations will be made up during the makeup days at the end, such days will be distributed on a first come first server basis. If you miss a presentation and cannot schedule a makeup day, you are out of luck. If you do not let me know beforehand that you cannot be here, and you absence is not the result of some horrible, proven misfortune, you cannot reschedule. We will not hold extra days of class or "squeeze" extra presentations in. Any changes in presentation dates must be approved by me. The draft will be a work you have begun this semester and you should do the very best on it that you can. If you hastily try to create something the night before, it is a poor use of our time giving you feedback about problems that could have been prevented have you given you writing the careful consideration it requires.
Bring at least one typed copy of an essay that you are working on to class every day because if someone fails to make a presentation we will use the time working with one another's work according to instructions that I will give in class. This will not be an essay that someone has written on. If someone fails to make it to a workshop and you fail to bring a copy of something you are working on to class, you will get an absence.
Evaluation:
Presentation: 5%
Essay #1 narrative/descriptive: 20%
Essay #2 narrative/descriptive: (another character): 20%
Essay #3 narrative/descriptive: (an object): 20%
Essay #4 narrative/descriptive: (epistolary)20%
In class exercises: (these are exercises that we will do in class; they cannot be made up)15%
Students who chat amongst themselves or engage in other disturbing behaviors: This shouldn't be a problem, but let's be clear about my policy. Attending class is a privilege, not a right. Students who consistently engage in disruptive, distracting, quarrelsome, disrespectful, or other negative behaviors that we cannot resolve in class will be referred to a higher authority.
Personal responsibility issues: I really have no way to verify what goes on outside of class, so what happens outside of class is irrelevant to me. Turn off all cell phones and pagers; the world will go on for an hour even it if cannot talk to you. Consult your syllabus; I will not remind you of what is due.
The difference between fault and responsibility: "I didn't finish my paper on time because the printers in the library weren't working. It's the library's fault." Maybe, maybe not. But whose responsibility is it?
Talk to me:The best way I have of giving you feedback and help with your writing, aside from workshop, is for you to come and talk with me during my office hours about specific problems, questions, and so forth that you are having. We can talk about a draft. We can talk about an idea. We can talk about an upcoming assignment. We can talk about an old assignment. We can talk if you are having problems with your writing. We can talk if you aren't having problems with you writing. We can talk about almost anything related to class. The one thing that I will not do is proofread for you, though I will help you with any grammatical difficulties you might have. While I hope my comments on your portfolio help you with you writing, they won't help you this semester. I ask, beg, implore, beseech you to come and talk with me early and often during this semester.
Assignment Information
Narrative/Descriptive. Paper 1 ("there's nowhere to start but the start": Think of this as a short story or perhaps a recording of an incident. The essay should use first person narration. I am looking for the typical characteristics of a story: plot, setting, climax, resolution, and so forth as well as lots of detail and description. Utilize the five senses. These stories will be interlocking so plan this one with care as the other stories will be extentions or variations of this one.
Paper #2 ("now let me tell you what really happenned"): This essay will tell the same story as essay 1 and 2, but the narrator will be another person from essay 1. Thus, the essay may take an entirely new perspective on the events contained therein. New information may be revealed that the protagonist is unaware of. The story may start and/or stop in a different place. New scenes may be included. This is not a "search and replace" or "cut and paste" job. I expect this to be a new essay, not essay #1 with pronouns replaced or a few sentences changed here and there.
Paper #3 ("the sofa won't stop talking"): This essay will tell the same story as essay 1 and 2, but the narrator will be an object, an animal, or something else that is not a person. Thus, the essay may take an entirely new perspective on the events contained therein. New information may be revealed that the protagonist is unaware of. The story may start and/or stop in a different place. New scenes may be included. This is not a "search and replace" or "cut and paste" job. I expect this to be a new essay, not essay #2 with pronouns replaced or a few sentences changed here and there. Assume the object has all of the five sense and some degree of cognitive awareness. Perhaps the object is more intelligent that the characters it observes. Perhaps it has a bad attitude.
Paper #4 ("the medium is the message"): Strictly speaking, an epistolary work is one composed of letters. Think, for example, of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Allen Ginsberg's and William S. Burroughs' The Yage Letters, or Jacques Derrida's Postcards. We're going to expand epistolary so that it includes more than just letters. What this essay needs to do is retell the story yet again through a series of texts. Texts can be such things as letters, e-mails, pictures, journal entries, news reports, notes found in pockets or left on refrigerators, newspaper columns, or transcriptions from a black box found on a crashed jet. You will probably find that you essay needs to create seams between these texts. For example, in the case of e-mails or a transcipt of a recording, the essay may not need any seams. However, if the essay tells the story through a series of pictures, someone has to describe those pictures and the story needs to anwer such questions as who sees these pictures, where they are coming from, and so forth.
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