English 1100: Introduction to University Writing

Arts and Education 208

Section 01: Mon. & Wed., 9:30-12:20
Section 03: Tue. & Thu., 1:30-4:20

Dr. Claire Laville
claville@tru.ca [clavill@emory.edu if that doesnt work]
Drop-in office hours: Tue. & Thu. 11:30-1:00, Arts & Education 371

Required for purchase
S. Roe & P. Ouden, Designs for Disciplines: An Introduction to Academic Writing (CSPI, 2003)
The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose, 2nd ed. (Broadview, 2011)
A scrapbook or journal
A set of 3 x 5 index cards
Please bring the days readings, your scrapbook, and a few index cards to class every day.

This course introduces students to the practices of reading and writing in scholarly contexts.
Students will read and analyze scholarly journal articles from a variety of disciplines. They will
also develop their abilities to compose in the genres and sub-genres of scholarly writing,
including incorporating research and documentation in a grammatically correct style.

Breakdown of your grade
Attendance

5%

Active participation

10% (incl. scrapbooking, peer reviews)

Summaries

5%

5%

Documentation quiz

5%

Wiki contributions

Essay #1 (draft and revision)

20%

Proposal for essay 2

10%

Essay #2

20%

Multimodal composition (group)

15%

End-of-term letter

5%

Attendance
Regular attendance is vital to your success in this class. You may miss three half-sessions (or a
class and a half) without penalty, no questions asked. Beyond that, each missed class will lower

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your overall grade by 2%. Sleeping in class or being late on a regular basis amounts to being
absent for one full class.

Email policies: I will do my best to respond to emails within a day, or two days over the
weekend. You should not expect me to review your drafts, etc., the day before an assignment is
due. If you have a concern with your grade, you must wait at least 24 hours after receiving the
grade to contact me. I will not respond to any grade-related questions before that.

Academic integrity:
a. Plagiarism is the representation of someone else's words, ideas, images, or data as one's
own work. When a student submits work for credit that includes the work of others, the source
of that information must be acknowledged through complete, accurate, and specific citations,
and, if verbatim statements are included, through quotation marks or block format. Blatant
plagiarism usually involves copying portions of a text, having someone write your paper for
you, or using software to paraphrase someone elses work. Accidental plagiarism often
involves using someone elses idea (even if you change the phrasing) without attributing it to
him or her. For more information about avoiding plagiarism, visit
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01.
b. Fabrication is the intentional use of invented information or the falsification of research
or other findings. Examples include listing sources in a bibliography not used in the academic
exercise [note: you should list sources which youve consulted but didnt quote directly], or
making up information or sources.
All suspected cases of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Academic Integrity
Committee. The best way to avoid a mistaken charge is to keep a record of all stages of your
work, including notes, outlines, and comments from peer reviewers.

Accommodation and access: Students with medical or health conditions that might impact their
success should register with Disability Services (http://www.tru.ca/disabilityservices.html). All
circumstances are confidential. Students who receive accommodations must present the
Accommodation Letter from DS at the beginning of the semester, or when the letter is received.
Accommodations cannot be made retroactively.
As writers and members of a scholarly community, creating access is a shared
responsibility. If there is anything you think we could adjust that will help you learn, I will be
happy to work with you.

Resources: The Writing Centre is located in Old Main 2674 and will open for the summer on
May 11. They are open for appointments Monday-Thursday 9:00-3:00, and Fridays 10:00-1:00
(May/June only).

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SCHEDULE

The most up-to-date version of the schedule will be at http://writing1100.clairelaville.net.

Typical class structure

First 75 minutes: Check-in with scrapbooks. Discussion of the assigned readings (this may
involve informal presentations and quizzes). No laptops or cell phones.

20-minute break.

Next 75 minutes: Writing workshop. You can use a laptop, but no cell phones.

Week 1
Keywords: genre, discourse community

Mon 4/Tue 5

Introductions

John Swales, from The Concept of Discourse Community (handout)

Fill out questionnaire by midnight

Wed 6/Thu 7

Read Designs for Disciplines (DD), pp. 65-75, Writing summaries

Ed Dante, The Shadow Scholar; Kenneth Goldsmith, Its Not
Plagiarism... (both from The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Fri, May 8: Three summaries of Dante or Goldsmith due by midnight, in MLA

documentation style

Week 2
Keywords: tone, claim, personal essay, hybrid essay, dialectical note-taking

Mon 11/Tue 12

Read DD, pp. 11-24: chap. 2, Personal essays

Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose (BE): Margaret Laurence, Where
the World Began (164-69); Margaret Atwood, First Job (493-95);
Binyavanga Wainaina, How to Write about Africa (528-31); Doris
Lessing, On Not Winning the Nobel Prize (532-43)

Tom Wayman, Did I Miss Anything?

Wiki entries due by midnight after class

Wed 13/Thu 14

Read Kyle Stedman, Making Sure Your Voice is Present

DD, pp. 106-10: Objectivity

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BE: Jamaica Kincaid, On Seeing England for the First Time (366-71);
Larissa Lai, Political Animals and the Body of History (454-63);
Daniel Heath Justice, Fear of a Changeling Moon (596-612)

Fri., May 15: Essay #1 due by midnight.

Week 3
Keywords: research site, topic, abstraction, theoretical framework, abstraction, thesis

Mon 18/Tue 19

Read DD, pp. 27-44: Academic Research (and consider reading ahead)
Listen to Radiolab, episode 11.1, The Fact of the Matter (also available
through iTunes, Stitcher, etc.); read Kao Kalia Yang, The Science of
Racism from Hyphen Magazine

Wiki entries due by midnight after class

Wed 20/Thu 21

Read DD, pp. 122-54, Introductory paragraphs; pp. 185-97, Core

Paragraphs
BE: Peter Singer, Speciesism and the Equality of Animals (204-09);
Marvin Harris, Pig Lovers and Pig Haters (185-99); Robert Darnton,
Workers Revolt (271-97)

Friday, May 22: Revision of essay 1 due. Include revision statement.

Week 4
Keywords: relevance, tradition of inquiry, method, evidence, metaphor

Mon 25/Tue 26

Read DD, pp. 87-100 (Proposals); review pp. 204-23 (Documentation)

Documentation quiz

Wiki entries due by Wednesday night at midnight (note change)

Wed 27/Thu 28

Read BE: Stanley Milgram, Behavioural Study of Obedience (130-41);

Emily Martin, The Egg and the Sperm (347-65)

Recommended: DD, pp. 265-85, Writing in the Sciences

Friday, May 29: Proposal for essay 2 (incl. one critical summary) due

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Week 5
Keywords: multimodality, affordances, data literacy

M June 1/Tue 2

Read BE: Stephen Jay Gould, Entropic Homogeneity Isnt Why No One
Hits .400 Any More (316-32); Malcolm Gladwell, None of the Above:
What IQ Doesnt Tell You about Race (544-52)

Wiki entries due by midnight after class

Wed 3/Thu 4

Read BE: Adam Gopnik, The Corrections (560-68); more TBA

Week 6
Keywords: visual rhetoric, design principles (a.k.a. CRAP), usability

Mon 8/Tue 9

Read BE: Roland Barthes, The World of Wrestling (170-79); Scott

McCloud, from Understanding Comics: Words and Pictures (on class
website); more TBA

Wiki entries due by midnight after class

W 10/Thu 11

Presentations of multimodal group projects (written portion due by

midnight after class)

Sunday, June 14: Essay 2 due by midnight

Tuesday, June 16: End-of-term letter due by midnight