Policy Statement

Instructor: Dr. MichaelRifenburg

Contact: Michael.Rifenburg@ung.edu / @jmrifenburg

Office: 206C Dunlap Hall

Office Hours: TR: 7-9 am & 12-2pm.

Required Materials:

• Wardle and Downs, eds. Writing About Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed.
• Additional reading provided by instructor
• Google Drive account

·         Overview

The overall objective of FYC is to introduce students to the expectations of college-level reading and expository writing. To this end, the course will emphasize understanding research and writing as processes, generating claims and supporting them with appropriate evidence, rhetorical analysis of your own writing and that of others, and the critical exploration of the conventions of “academic” discourse. Taking the topic of “writing” as the focal point of our inquiry throughout the semester, the literacy tasks we’ll compose for the course serve as opportunities to examine common notions of what writing is, what it entails, and how it gets accomplished within specific rhetorical situations. Through focusing our reading, writing, and thinking on writing, I hope to help you develop writing skills that transfer to future writing contexts you will face at UNG and elsewhere.

Finally, this specific class is unique because student-athletes largely make it up. For the past decade, I have worked at Auburn, Oklahoma, and now here at UNG with student-athlete writers. I have published articles about how best to work with student-athletewriters and how their knowledge of their sport might actually help them in a writing classroom. I even just published a piece about UNG’s men’s basketball team. All this is to say that I am committed to working with you and strongly believe that what you know about your sport can help you when you face any writing situation.

Objectives

The objectives for this course meet national and institutional level objectives, specifically the Writing Program Administrators Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition and UNG’s general education objectives. A full list of these objectives are found on the English Department’s website, but I mention three below.

Upon completion of English 1102, students will demonstrate writing competence through

• Conducting advanced primary and secondary research to understand the rhetorical situations that are the focus of inquiry and to situate that inquiry in scholarly conversations;
• Evaluating, analyzing, and responding to arguments that constitute various exigencies;
• Applying concepts from Composition and Rhetoric, such as exigence, audience, purpose, and ethos, to identify and analyze complex rhetorical situations.

Assignments and Grading

I calculate final grades according to these percentages:    

Literacy Task #1:                             25% of final grade

Literacy Task #2:                             25% of final grade

Mini-paper     #1:                              15% of final grade

Mini-paper     #2:                             15% of final grade

Reflection:                                          15% of final grade

Homework:                                        5% of final grade

Definition of Letter Grades for Final Semester Grade

A         89.5-   100

B         79.5-   89.4

C          69.5-   79.4

D         59.5-   69.4

F          0-        59.4

Submission of Work

Unless specified, I ask that all graded work be typed and submitted to the D2L assignment folder as a .DOC, .DOCX, or .RTF file. The campus maintains many computer labs if access to a computer is an issue. Please follow MLA or APA format guidelines.           

Don’t submit your mini-papers or literacy tasks via your shared Google folder.      

Google Drive

I ask that you create a free account with Google Drive, a free cloud-based software found here. Once you create an account, click on NEW in the top left, then select FOLDER. Label the folder Lastname1102SP17. Mine would read Rifenburg1102SP17.

Once you have created this folder, share it with by right clicking on it and selecting SHARE. Enter my email address (Michael.rifenburg@ung.edu) and select DONE.

You will compose all your homework responses on Google docs and save them to this file, which I will be able to access.

Homework

For most of the reading assigned for our class, I ask for you to perform a response, which you will compose on a Google doc and save to the file you have shared with me. I also may ask you to share your responses with people in the class, as well. Feel free to use any of your written homework responses in one of the mini-papers or literacy tasks.

Keep in mind that though I accept late mini-papers and literacy tasks, I don’t accept late homework responses.

Attendance          

My attendance policy differs from the standard one adopted by the University; however, as stipulated on the Academic Affairs website, this difference is acceptable:

“Individual instructors or departments may have attendance policies stricter than that of the university, as long as the policies are stated in the class syllabus.”

For our course, students are allowed three (3) unexcused absences per semester in a course that meets three times a week, or two (2) in a course that meets twice a week. The penalties for missing more than that are:

Penalties for Unexcused Absences
2x/week Course	3x/week Course	Penalty
3	4	1 letter grade
5	7	2 letter grades
7	10	Automatic F

Student-athletes and others engaged in Provost-approved activities must notify the instructor of the reason for the absence ahead of time and arrange to complete all coursework in a timely fashion.

Make-up Work

I hold students responsible for all material covered during any absence. Late literacy tasks will lose a full letter grade for each day the paper is late. A paper turned in one day late will be marked down one letter grade. A paper turned in two days late will be marked down two letter grades. After two days late, the paper receives a zero. Please note: one day means one day, not one class day. I have attached a schedule to this syllabus informing you of the due dates for all major papers; therefore, plan ahead if necessary.

Additional Information

The required University supplemental syllabus includes policy on plagiarism, inclement weather, and student disability resources.

Release Statement

The policy statement and syllabus are open to change at my discretion. Continued enrollment in this class signals agreement to the policy statement and syllabus.