COURSE DESCRIPTION
ENGLWRIT 112 is the only course that satisfies the university’s College Writing General Education requirement. As a fundamental part of your education at UMass Amherst, this course emphasizes critical thinking and communication, consideration of plural perspectives, and self-reflection.
More specifically, the purpose of College Writing is to help you grow and challenge yourself as a college writer—for academic assignments and for the writing demands in your personal, professional and civic lives. In this course, you’ll examine how writing is a communicative act that always occurs within a particular context, and you’ll gain practice writing for different purposes in multiple contexts.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By writing, reading, and engaging in discussion across four units, you will be able to:
Write for more than one purpose and audience in more than one mode, media, or genre;
Use the writing process to substantially revise your thinking, in which your understanding of an idea evolves or extends;
Synthesize ideas and claims from personal, academic, public, or professional texts;
Analyze the intention, meaning, or effect of personal, academic, public, or professional texts;
Make effective rhetorical choices during revision;
Use citation practices that represent diverse sources of information and acknowledgment of intellectual property;
Show in written reflection which strategies you will apply beyond the course.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Hoang, Haivan V., et al., editors. Opening Conversations: A Writer's Reader. Hayden-McNeil Publishing, 2015.
UMass Writing Program Student Writing Anthology.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
College Writing has been designed based on the belief that writing is a process and a social activity, that people learn to write by writing and giving/getting feedback, that writers can gain more control over their writing by cultivating an awareness of their own processes and strategies, and that texts written by students in this class community are therefore central to the course.
WRITING PROJECTS
Students in all sections of College Writing are required to compose four projects. Each project will utilize an extensive writing process and introduce new challenges.
1. Interacting with Texts (Project 1) asks you to develop and write a critical response to one or more published texts and tailor the response to an academic audience.
2. Adding to a Conversation (Project 2) asks you to pursue a question that intersts you, engage in effective library research, and develop a piece of writing suited to a more public audience.
3. Circulating Multimodal Texts (Project 3) builds on the research and skills you develop in the previous projects to compose a multimodal text for a public audience.
4. The Course Portfolio gives you an opportunity to reflect on your development as a writer over the semester. You will write an Initial Writer’s Statement that captures your processes and beliefs about writing at the beginning of the semester. At the end of the semester, you will compose a Culminating Writer’s Statement that asks you to revisit your Initial Writer’s Statement and reflective writing from each project. You will trace the choices and strategies you use to develop each of your essays. (Tip: Save every piece of writing you do for this class!)
PROJECT PORTFOLIOS
Each of the three major writing projects requires you to engage in a progressive, multi-stage writing process. For each project, you’ll develop and submit a portfolio that includes writing material from each of the following process stages:
1. Generative writing to explore ideas and writing options;
2. An initial draft;
3. A substantially revised draft based on feedback from me and your peers;
4. A further revised and copyedited draft;
5. Reflective writing and artwork that explores the choices you made and the strategies you used.
Each state of the process is meant to help you focus on different aspects of your writing. You will receive feedback from your peers and from me during the drafting stages of each project. You will also receive feedback from me on the final versions of each project.
To grow as writers, we need to write, reflect, and write some more. Thus, each part of the process is required, and grades will be based on the entire process. This means that each draft version must reflect changes made based on feedback from me, your peers, or new things we have learned in class. Drafts that remain unchanged will not be graded. Fulfilling the requirements for every part of a portfolio on time will guarantee you a minimum of a B grade for that unit. Turning in a final essay without the other portfolio elements will result in a failing grade for that project.
WRITING COMMUNITY ATMOSPHERE
Creating a classroom community that supports learning depends on each person fulfilling their responsibilities, offering mutual respect in discussion, and being constructive readers of one another’s writing. All students are expected to adhere to the university’s Guidelines for Classroom Civility and Respect (bit.ly/UMassCivility).
Performing well in a writing community means actively and respectfully contributing to and seeking to learn from your classmates. In order for a small class like this to work, you will need to come to each class meeting prepared and participate when you are here. Speaking up during class is not natural or easy for everyone, but in this class, we will have opportunities to participate in different modes and in different sized groups (e.g., asking questions during small group discussion, taking notes on behalf of a partner, sharing perspectives in writing with peers are just a few of the ways you might participate).
Address people with the names and pronouns they use. All members of our community (students, instructor, guest speakers, etc.) have the right to be treated with dignity and respect in our shared space. Everyone has the right to be addressed and referred to by the name and pronouns that correspond to their gender identity, including the use of non-binary pronouns. Students can indicate the name and pronouns they use on SPIRE, which appear on class rosters. Please let me know what name and pronouns you use if they are not on the roster.
Come to class prepared. Being prepared for class includes reading the required materials, doing all in-class and out-of-class writing, and having drafts and assignments done on time. Reading texts by other writers, including classmates, will help you generate ideas, engage in dialogue, and become aware of your writing choices.
Attend conferences. In addition to class meetings, you will meet individually with me for at least one required student-teacher conference where we’ll more fully discuss your writing and progress in the course.
Give constructive peer response. Learning to write also means learning to be read by others. In our class, you will regularly give and receive feedback. By giving constructive feedback and listening carefully to others, you will stretch your ideas, clarify your thinking, and make substantive change through revision.
Participate in class discussion and small group activities. Our writing community activities will include discussion with the entire class, small group exercises, and peer workshops. These activities are designed to help you consider more ideas, perspectives, and articulations than you might have when simply working on your own.
Put your phone away. It is impossible to participate actively in in class discussions, small group activities, and/or peer review workshops when your eyes and ears are elsewhere. Cell phone use during class, or laptop/tablet use for purposes other than class activities, is disrespectful to me, distracting to your peers, and, ultimately, a disservice to you because you are not getting the full benefit of class activities.
ATTENDANCE
Small-group activities around writing make this class unique and effective. You learn to write in this class because you engage with other people around writing, and this requires you to be in class. Students who are consistently engaged with the course and each other throughout the semester tend to be the most successful, which means attending all class meetings, participating, and keeping up with assignments.
The Writing Program follows the university’s policies and procedures on class attendance. If you miss over 20% of the class (roughly 3 weeks or 9 class sessions), you will struggle to earn passing grades on your projects, and this will result in you not being able to pass the class. It is your responsibility to consult a classmate or Canvas to find out what you missed if you are absent, arrive late, or leave early.
Life happens to all of us. I understand that you may need to miss, arrive late, or leave early. The university considers religious observances, required participation in athletic events or field trips, and illness as excused absences. If you need to miss class for an excusable reason, notify me in advance and provide a doctor’s note if you miss due to illness.
Absences. You are permitted three unexcused absences over the course of the semester. These absences will not count against your grade, but you will be required to turn in any work due on the days you miss. If you accrue three or more unexcused absences, your Writing Community Participation grade will be lowered one-half letter for each additional absence. For example, if you had a B in Writing Community Participation but had three unexcused absences, your grade would be lowered to a B-.
Late arrivals and early exits. I take attendance during the first 5 minutes of each class meeting. If you are not in the room when I finish taking roll, you will be considered late. Leaving before I dismiss class counts as an early exit. Three late arrivals or early exits or combination thereof (without prior approval from me) will be equivalent to one unexcused absence. If you accumulate multiple late arrivals or early exits, then the unexcused absences policy (above) will apply.
The key is to communicate with me. Please email me or speak with me about absences and issues as they arise.
COURSE GRADE
We will complete four major projects throughout the term. For each project, you will turn in a final project and a portfolio. Your final grade will be a combination of the grades you receive on major projects and your participation. Receiving a grade of B or above requires you to submit work on time at each of the drafting stages that show proof of revision and to participate in the peer review process. Your final course grade will be calculated this way:
Interacting with Texts (Project 1), 20%
Adding to a Conversation (Project 2), 25%
Circulating Multimodal Texts, 25%
Course Portfolio, 15%
Writing Community Participation,15%
Your Writing Community Participation grade will be based on your daily participation and responses to Canvas discussions.
LATE WORK
Because our course is built on drafting, revising, and offering feedback to one another, it is imperative that you complete assignments on time. Late work is not accepted. Exceptions are granted only in the following situations:
1. If you have an excused absence on the day an assignment is due, your late work will not be penalized. You must contact me on or before the date of your absence to set a new due date.
2. You may request an extension for a final draft (except for the final assignment of the semester) by emailing me at least 24 hours before the due date. A new due date will be assigned when the extension is granted. If this new due date is missed, the assignment will be recorded as a zero.
Note: Extensions and exceptions to the late work policy will not be granted on work that requires peer feedback.
LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY
The ability to communicate in multiple languages or varieties of English is a valuable asset. In this course, you are encouraged to draw on all of your linguistic and cultural resources to meet your own communication goals. Although we will generally employ English(es), including Standard Written English (SWE), in class writing, you may call on your other languages, dialects, and rhetorical practices at any point in the writing process. While all students in this course will challenge themselves to become more effective writers, definitions of effective writing depend on culture, experience, and background. Therefore, in this class, you’re invited to explore and reflect on your full repertoire of personal, familial, professional, and academic language skills.
UMASS ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY
The Writing Program supports and concurs with this statement from the UMass Faculty Senate:
Since the integrity of the academic enterprise of any institution of higher education requires honesty in scholarship and research, academic honesty is required of all students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Academic dishonesty is prohibited in all programs of the University. Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and facilitating dishonesty. Appropriate sanctions may be imposed on any student who has committed an act of academic dishonesty. Instructors should take reasonable steps to address academic misconduct. Any person who has reason to believe that a student has committed academic dishonesty should bring such information to the attention of the appropriate course instructor as soon as possible. Instances of academic dishonesty not related to a specific course should be brought to the attention of the appropriate department Head or Chair. Since students are expected to be familiar with this policy and the commonly accepted standards of academic integrity, ignorance of such standards is not normally sufficient evidence of lack of intent (bit.ly/UMassHonesty).
In short, when you use the ideas or words that are not your own, you are required to acknowledge the source. Failure to acknowledge the contribution of others is considered plagiarism, a serious academic offense; fabrication of sources is another form of academic dishonesty. Suspect papers may be submitted to Turnitin.com as part of the grading process.
Part of academic honesty is doing the coursework yourself. I assume all the work that you do for this course will be your own, original work. You should not have another person or entity doing any portion of an assignment for you, which includes hiring a person or a company to write assignments and/or using artificial intelligence tools like Copilot, ChatGPT, and Google Bard. You are smarter and produce better work than AI anyway!
Academic dishonesty is a very serious academic offense with serious consequences, both in this course and beyond. More than that, it violates the trust I develop with you. Here’s a simple way to avoid it: If you have any questions about how to document sources, talk with me. If you have any questions about citation practices or academic integrity issues, talk with me. If you become overwhelmed during the semester and feel like you are backed into a corner, talk with me. Be honest with yourself, be honest with me. It is better to have a conversation than to take what does not belong to you.
RESOURCES
Office Hours. Please come see me in office hours to discuss any questions or concerns you have about the course or your work in it. If you have a time conflict with my office hours, please schedule an appointment with me.
The Writing Center. As a UMass Amherst student, you have access to free one-on-one writing support from our Writing Center, located in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. Trained tutors work with you in 45-minute sessions to brainstorm, structure a piece of writing, learn strategies for copyediting, and more. Depending on where you are in the drafting process, you might bring the prompt, a draft, some notes, or just some ideas in with you to your session. All student writers—whether you love writing, struggle with writing, or both—are welcome. And remember that you can keep using the Writing Center throughout your studies at UMass for any writing you do, including essays, lab reports, theses, resumes, personal statements, and more. Make an appointment on the Writing Center’s website: umass.edu/writingcenter.
The Writing Program. ENGLWRIT 111 and ENGLWRIT 112 are offered by the Writing Program. If you have general questions about either course, drop by 1323 W.E.B. Du Bois Library, call 413-545-0610, or email writingprogram@acad.umass.edu.
Office of Disability Services. The Writing Program is committed to making our courses accessible to all students and students with disabilities are encouraged to register with the Office of Disability Services (ODS). We also support the Faculty Senate’s statement on this matter: “The University of Massachusetts Amherst is committed to providing an equal educational opportunity for all students. If you have a documented physical, psychological, or learning disability on file with Disability Services (DS), you may be eligible for reasonable academic accommodations to help you succeed in this course. If you have a documented disability that requires an accommodation, please notify me within the first two weeks of the semester so that we may make appropriate arrangements. For further information, please visit Disability Services (https://www.umass.edu/disability/).” I encourage you to register with ODS at the beginning of the course and to contact me if you have any questions.
Title IX at UMass. In accordance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits gender-based discrimination in educational settings that receive federal funds, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is committed to providing a safe learning environment for all students, free from all forms of discrimination, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, and retaliation. This includes interactions in person or online through digital platforms and social media. Title IX also protects against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, or related conditions, including recovery. There are resources here on campus to support you. A summary of the available Title IX resources (confidential and non-confidential) can be found at the following link: umass.edu/titleix/resources. You do not need to make a formal report to access them. If you need immediate support, you are not alone. Free and confidential support is available 24 hours a day / 7 days a week / 365 days a year at the SASA Hotline 413-545-0800.
Charles Moran Best Text Contest / Student Writing Anthology. We encourage you to think about how your writing for this course can reach readers beyond this class. Please submit your essays to the Writing Program’s annual Charles Moran Best Text Contest (bit.ly/MoranBestTexts) and to be considered for the Student Writing Anthology (bit.ly/112anthology).