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ABOUT ENGLISH 1020 and etc. |
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Q: Other than a really large pain in my back, what the heck is English 1020 and why are people making us take it? |
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Q: If I hate writing--and I really, really do!--and if I write really badly, can I still pass this class? |
A: Of course. English 1020 is not so much an "Englishy" course as it is a course in the basic conventions of academic communication. As such, "really bad" writing doesn't really factor in.... I am much less interested in your ability to compose pretty sentences and more interested in your ability and willingness to read, think, and report the things you've read and thought about--AND DO THIS "REPORTING" VIA THE CONVENTIONS AND PATTERNS THAT WILL HAVE BEEN CLEARLY PRESENTED TO YOU. Often it is students who think they are great writers that struggle most in this class. Academic writing conventions are weird and awkward and often confusing to students--probably because they are almost never taught in previous classes--but they are not hard or difficult to understand if you practice them. Too many students enter the class eager to disagree with me about the conventions of writing we practice because they have never actually been asked to use these conventions yet--they too quickly assume that ENG 1020 should just be a continuation of ENG 1010...it isn't. Trust me, you will be fine if you are willing to learn some new things about writing and academic writing! [top] |
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Q:Some of my friends said you are a needlessly hard grader and sort of a "dork" about things. Is that true? |
A: As far as the grading goes, you'll be fine if you do some simple things correctly, consistently, and with care: Take a good look at the "professionalism and civility" portion of the syllabus. I'll say it here as I do there: Because this course asks you to do something that is not natural or comfortable for many of you (namely, "write" and attempt new things with your writing), your effort and willingness in this course will go a long way to help your overall grade! Act like an adult, do your work, take care of your business, evidence a willingness to attempt new things, and you will do just fine in this course. Some of you might be rolling your eyes, but you will be astonished how many of your peers cannot try something new without resentment and snide remarks about "wasting one's time" ...professionalism goes a long, long way with me...as does asking honest, genuine questions about why you have been asked to do things you do not understand. Now, as far as the "dork" thing goes, here's my best explanation: I do not teach this course like a High School course, where I hound you for you for your work, remind you when you have forgotten things, scold you for poor behavior in the classroom, call you up to my desk to go over something I would really like you to understand better. I teach this course instead with the expectation that you are here, ready to go, eager to go, ready to figure out what you've been doing incorrectly and why-- Some students grow too accustomed to coddling professors. I take the stance that a college education is a "privilege" not a "right" and anything you put into your intellectual work at this point in your life needs to come from you...not from me. This makes me a "dork" to many students who don't think I'm "invested" enough in their academic life. They are wrong: I am so invested, I care so much, I see it a great disservice to try to carry you when you need to teach your feet (and brain) how to carry yourself. [top] |
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Q: Pray tell, if you were to narrow the whole ENG 1020 shabang down to a nutshell, what would be the single most important thing I should know about English 1020?
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A: You could do worse than imagine your four years of tuition here at Metro as money spent to "purchase time." When you pay tuition here, you are not paying for access to the minds of professors. You are not paying tuition to be given information that you lack...You are not going to school to be "given" anything. You are going to school (whether you recognize this yet or not) for the privilege of time to aquire what other, less fortunate people cannot (because of money, time, preparedness, interest, conviction, etc). You are paying for the opportunity that time allows to take information (gobs and heaps of information) and transform it via your brain and guts into an active contribution to this community, your peers, the surrounding society, the world. Active contribution takes time...and so you have bought yourself four years' worth. No one can teach you how or what to contribute. And noone can teach you or tell you what to do with all this time you've bought. So, where do you begin? Reading. The most important thing you need to know about English 1020 and College generally is that you are expected to read. The only way to be informed is to read. The only way to begin thinking is to read. The only way to find out what contributions are necessary and what contributions will be received with gusto....is to read! Showing up to class (not just English 1020 but all classes) is the minimum you can do to get your degree. Often, in upper- and middle-division classes, it is not enough to simply "be there." I expect--I seldom ask--that you are reading and making sense of issues and texts you care about and have chosen to research. More than this, you will quickly pick-up most of the conventions of academic writing just by reading them in your reading! The assignments--the papers--will seem SO much less difficult once you start reading academic writing. Read this website; read the newspaper; start reading the work of experts and faculty in your major (go check: they're in the "Periodical" section of the Auraria Library). Inform yourselves. Do not wait for me (for any professor) to do it. Read. [top] |
Q: I just don't get it.
Who in the hell are you trying to kid?
This class is a requirement, man. I don't want to be here. My major doesn't even require writing--I'm going to fly airplanes for a living. I may never pick up a pencil or type a key in my life again once I leave this school.Answer me this: why would Metro make EVERYONE take two English classes?
A: Yeah, yours is a common concern and one that consistently gives students trouble in terms of their final grade and, more importantly, their performance in future work and life. Many students of your mindset want to do well, but they just can't seem to stop resenting being asked to take this class.
It's a hard situation. Believe it or not, I do empathize...I also had to take classes like ENG 1020 (but, for me, it was Math 1020 and Econ 1020 and Chem 1020 and Stats 1020, etc).
English 1020 teaches pragmatic skills for the purposes of most writing in this community--the academic community. Whether you plan a lifetime in academic scholarship or not, you will probably need to do some writing before earning your degree. English 1020 is designed to help you think and communicate effectively for however long you are in school.
Most teachers of English 1020 (myself included) like to think that the skills you learn here have application outside of school, too.
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Q: What did you say the worst part of this class was?
A: The worst part of this class is that students really won't/can't really appreciate it until they begin taking upper-division classes that ask you to do writing.
Those of you coming back to school after several years away will find the skills we practice somewhat without clear purpose or benefit.
Those of you already nearing the end of your degrees will find the skills drab and remedial--because you have already done them!
The students who seem to take the most away from this class are the students who are enrolled in upper-division classes concurrently with this one and can immediately see the need for the conventions we are learning.
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Q: Well, I'm here whether I want to be or not. What can I do to make it more relevant?
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1. Come to class and stop resenting having to come.
2. Ask me questions! Make me work!
3. Get to know some of the people around you--try to make a friend or two in the class.
4. Use all free time in this class to read!
5. Bring concerns and complaints to me immediately and directly. Or, E-mail me. I am very reasonable (or, so I am told), and I want you to leave the class with some good feelings about your work and your effort. Help me to help you get something out of this class.
Q: Why are we working in collaboration? Why cannot I not do work on my own?
A: I'm glad you asked this question...it is a legitimate concern.
My stance on this issue is this: Hollywood and other mass media resources continue to reinforce the portrait of intellectual life as the life of a bearded man tucked away in his cell, slaving over odd and scandalous formulas and ideas that, when released unto others (the rest of us), will shock the very core of the universe.
It is time to resist this portrait. Vastly too much successful work is getting done on a daily basis outside of the "scholarly cell." In the business world as in the academic world, enormously significant thoughts and ideas and projects are being cultivated in communication and collaboration with others in teams and small groups. In fact, you will be hard-pressed to find a job or career that does not require, in some fashion, collaboration.
Most of you have no doubt suffered in the process of collaboration--many of you will have been scarred by the process. This is largely because we (all of us) stink at the process--we stink at working with people. We would rather do it ourselves.
Accordingly, I teach (Lecture, discuss, practice) collaboration with my 1020 students. In keeping with the overall aims of the course--preparing you for academic communication and writing--I ask that you come together with your peers to work on a project and solve a pressing intellectual concern--as you will no doubt be asked to do in upper-division classes and graduate work.
This should also appeal to those of you uninterested in scholarship as a lifelong pursuit, because collaboration is probably even more common in the business world--and this chance to practice the skills of collaboration will give you a big step-up on your future competition.
Q: What every happened to the essay? Why do all of our papers look like business documents?
A: As I discuss in some of the other questions on this page, English 1020 is not Part II of a two-part English course requirement. English 1010 does not feed naturally into English 1020.
ENG 1010 and ENG 1020 are two very different courses with two very different goals and objectives.
I ask that each of your papers look different from a "normal" essay because I want my students to pay very close attention to the FORMATTING expectations of each major project they submit--I do not want them to take the formatting of any future paper for granted.
I want to send my students away from the class very conscious of how a paper looks to an audience--that it meets an audience's expectations. Yes, what the document actually "says" is arguably more important than how it looks, but I would also argue that if the document does not look as an audience would hope, the ideas will never be read at all--and all those good thoughts will sit for their lifetime without eyes to read them.
To achieve this sensitivity to a document's formatting, I have selected formats (at least for the first few papers) that are a little bit foreign to most of you--they are business-oriented formats, which call for single-spacing, left-justified margins, and odd headings and headers. Most "essays" will ask for quite the opposite, as many of you already realize. But in changing your approach to these formats, you will enhance your appreciation of formatting generally, and you will more quickly adapt formats for specific purposes and audiences...
For more on this, see the FAQ about the MLA.
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Q: What's this MLA business? What does it mean to "format according to MLA standards?" |
A: This MLA business is a significant part of our course, as well as a significant part of your future courses. The MLA is the acronym for The Modern Language Association. This association is, for the sake of brevity, a group of esteemed faculty and scholars in the field of the humanities from universities and colleges around the globe who get together about once a year and entertain lengthy discussions of formatting papers. Their purpose in this is to establish a single, uniform pattern of documentation and writing style that all members of the humanities will adopt when contributing their thoughts and intellectual work to whatever field of which they are a member. Sounds like a blast, huh! The MLA is but one association among many. If you are in Biology, the association you would want to start following would be the CSE/CBE (Council of Biology Editors/Councile of Science Editors). This would be the group of established international faculty determining how you should submit papers and proposals not only in your Biology papers, but also when submitting such papers for publication to the journals and magazines that entertain issues related to Biology and the Biological sciences. The APA is arguably the most commonly used formatting style in college today, though its title is a bit misleading: The American Psychology Association. Many of you in Sociology and many of the Social Sciences will be using this formatting style when We will cover some of the differences between the most common academic styles, but we will spend more of our time learning MLA formatting. Should you want to practice the formatting style specific to your discipline/major, please ask and your wish will be granted: I would really prefer, in fact, that you DO start practicing for your future classes in this class. |