e-mail: jmcmahon@elcamino.edu; Office: PE4;
extension 3673
Website for
students: http://herculodge.typepad.com/breakthrough_writer/
This course
focuses on the development of critical thinking skills and on the application
of these skills to written argumentation. Students will examine logical
reasoning and apply its principles when reading and writing analytic and
evaluative essays about argumentative, persuasive, narrative and expressive
works and topics.
Student
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of
English 1C, students should be able to:
1. Employ proper
grammar, punctuation, and spelling in writing.
2. Employ
standard MLA guidelines for formatting assignments and citation.
3. Identify the
major components of an effective argument.
4. Write with
clarity to communicate effectively.
5. Adapt writing
for different styles or forms, including argumentative essays, web pages, and
blogs, to name a few.
6. Respond
critically to course material, using synthesis and analysis
7. Create
effective argumentative texts using a variety of models such as refutation,
concession, and critique.
8. Develop
methods and strategies for analyzing and interpreting texts.
9. Utilize proper
MLA citation and bibliographic form.
10. Identify and
locate a variety of sources relevant to a research topic.
11. Utilize
research materials to make and present an analytical argument.
12. Compose an
argumentative essay supporting a claim about issues, argumentative prose, or
literary interpretation. The essay
will show the student’s ability to support a thesis using analysis, elements of
argumentation, and integration of materials and ideas. The essay will be well organized, will
follow proper MLA format, and will be technically correct in paragraph
composition, sentence structure, grammar, spelling, and usage.
Required
Texts: Writing and
Reading Across the Curriculum Brief Edition, Third Edition by Laurence Behrens; Rules for Writers by Diana Hacker
Grading:
Four Research 225
for 900 subtotal
Four Surprise
Closed-Book Reading Exams, 25 each, 100 subtotal
Grand Total:
1,000 points.
Policies:
You can’t make-up
reading exams. Points are irretrievably lost.
Late Papers:
Reduce one full grade ; no late papers accepted once new set of essays is due.
Research Papers
should be approximately 1,200 words, 12 font, Times New Roman, page numbers,
name, and essay title in upper right hand corner (headers in Microsoft View)
and Works Cited should have minimum 3 sources and spacing using MLA format.
Revisions: You
may revise ONE paper for 10-30 pts. depending on the quality of the rewrite.
Revision must be turned in ONE WEEK after original due date.
Plagiarism
Policy: If you plagiarize, steal previously written material and attempt to
make it appear as if you wrote it, you will get ZERO points on the essay. For a
rewrite, the HIGHEST POSSIBLE GRADE WILL BE A C MINUS, based on an A-level
paper. A B paper will be a D, a C paper an F.
Attendance
Policy: For 16-week semesters, students may be dropped after missing 6 classes
for ANY REASON, including medical. For Summer and Winter sessions, students may
be dropped after missing 4 classes for whatever reason, including medical.
Riding Policy:
You cannot “ride” my class. A “rider” is a student who does nothing and tries
to turn in papers all at once during the end of the semester. If by the third
essay due date, you have turned in only one essay or none, I will drop you. I
will be dropping “riders” on November 12 of this semester.
Etiquette Policy:
If you’re text-messaging, receiving phone calls, privately conversing or
studying for other courses during my class, you will be asked to leave the
class.
Reading and Writing Schedule
2-17 Introduction
2-19 The Satisfactions of
Housewifery and Motherhood/Paradise Lost 124-129
2-24 The Radical Idea of Marrying
for Love130-142
2-26 The State of Our Unions
143-155
3-3 Debunking Myths About
Marriages and Families 156-161
3-5 Many Women at Elite Colleges .
. . and What Yale Women Want 170-178
3-10 Essay 1 Due
3-12 Essay 1 Due
3-17 A Third of Life 335-343
3-19 Improving Sleep 344-355
3-24 America’s Sleep-Deprived
Teens . . . 356-361
3-26 When Worlds Collide . . .
362-370
3-31 How Sleep Debt Hurts College
Students 385-394
4-2 Starting Time and School Life
395-400
4-7 Essay 2 Due
4-9 Essay 2 Due
4-21 Opinions and Social Pressure
206-212
4-23 Perils of Obedience 213-225
4-28 Review of Stanley Milgram’s
Experiments in Obedience 226-232
4-30 The Stanford Prison
Experiment 233-244
5-5 Disobedience as a
Psychological Problem 245-250
5-7 Uncivil Disobedience 251-257
5-12 Essay 3 Due
5-14 Essay 3 Due
5-19 The Mall as Prison 286-293
5-21 The Mall as Sacred Space and
The Mall as a Setting for Authentic Life 294-303
5-26 The Mall as Refuge 304-314
5-28 Mallaise: How to Know If You
Have It 323-327
Essay
Guidelines (points deducted for not following these instructions):
1. Essays should
be typed, double-spaced, 5 pages, and use 12 font Times New Roman.
2. Essays should
have headers in the upper right hand corner on every page.
3. Essays should
have a minimum of 3 sources on an MLA Works Cited Page.
4. Essays should
have a thesis paragraph with a STRONG THESIS 4 or 5 MAPPING STATEMENTS OR MAPPING COMPONENTS.
5. When you list
your mapping statements or components, be sure to use CORRECT PARALLEL
STRUCTURE.
5. Essays should
be stapled in the upper left hand corner and should be free of food stains and
such.
6. Ribbon should
be fresh.
7. All your
essays are research papers, which means about 80% is your writing and about 20%
is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized from your research sources.
8. Paragraphs
should be "meaty," a good 130-150 words.
9. You must use a
variety of EFFECTIVE TRANSITIONS
between paragraphs.
10. You must
attribute your sources in order to AVOID PLAGIARISM.
11. You must turn
in your paper on time to avoid losing 30 points.
12. You cannot
"rewrite" a paper if you're simply incorporating my corrections. So
be sure to proofread your essay.
13. Essays are
worth a maximum of 240 points. The preliminary assignment, thesis with Works
Cited, is 10 points. The grand total point in the class is 1,000.
14. The 5-page
essay outlines below are merely suggestions. You can structure your essay
however you see fit.
Writing Assignments
Chapter 5 Essay One Options:
First Option: Based on selections
from Chapter 5, defend or refute the “love match.”
Second Option: Based on selections
from Chapter 5, defend or refute the traditional marriage.
Chapter 8 Essay Two Options:
First Option: Based on selections
from Chapter 8, analyze the causes and effects of the modern sleep crisis,
especially in a narrowly defined group such as college students or some other
group.
Second Option: Based on selections
from Chapter 8, analyze the function of sleep.
Chapter 6 Essay Three Options
First Option: Based on selections
from Chapter 6, defend or refute the idea of “noble disobedience.”
Second Option: Analyze the perils
of disobedience in the context of a film, a book, or a current event.
Chapter 7 Essay Four Options
First Option: Analyze the
following passage:
We shop because the products represent or symbolize powerful
emotional needs: belonging, identity, status, reproductive success, creativity,
and rebirth. If you are a marketer and you can’t link your product to one of
these emotional longings, then you are finished. These are the same
symbols and emotional needs addressed by religion, so we can conclude that
shopping has a pseudo-religious component to it.
Second Option: Choose a successful product like iPod,
Mini Cooper, Diesel, etc., and research the way the fantasy it represents. Your
thesis would look something like this:
Product X is promoting the fantasy of _______________ by a
clever marketing campaign that positions Product X through
_____________________, __________________________, ________________________,
and ______________________________.
Third Option: Develop an essay
based on the following thesis:
While the mall is often esteemed as the Shopper’s Holy Mecca
of Capitalistic Ingenuity, there is a dark underbelly to the mall. As many
selections from Chapter 7 show, the mall has pernicious, often insidious,
effects on its patrons evidenced by ______________________________,
____________________________, _________________________________,
_______________________________, and ___________________________________.
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