College Writing II Spring 2011

College Writing II Professor Mead
Spring 2011 9:00 & 11:00 AM

January
10 M Introduction. KIRSTI IN CLASS
12 W The Iliad, pp.3-67
14 F Style: Lessons in Clarity & Grace, Lesson One
17 M NO CLASS
19 W The Iliad, Books 1 & 2. Two-page summary of Knox Introduction.
21 F SLCG, Lesson Two
24 M The Iliad, Books 3 & 4
26 W The Iliad, Books 5 & 6
28 F SLCG, Lesson Three
31 M The Iliad, Books 7 & 8
February
2 W The Iliad, Books 9 & 10
4 F SLCG, Lesson Four
7 M The Iliad, Books 11 & 12
9 W The Iliad, Books 13 & 14
11 F SLCG, Lesson Five
14 M The Iliad, Books 15 & 16
16 W The Iliad, Books 17 & 18
18 F SLCG, Lesson Six
21 M NO CLASS
23 W The Iliad, Books 19 & 20
25 F SLCG, Lesson Seven
28 M The Iliad, Books 21 & 22
March
2 W The Iliad, Books 23 & 24
4 F SLCG, Lesson Eight
7 M Edit Session
9 W Edit Session
11 F SLCG, Lesson Nine. Paper #1 Due.
14 M NO CLASS
16 W NO CLASS
18 F NO CLASS
21 M NO CLASS
23 W Paths of Glory, Foreword, Introduction, pp. 3-42.
25 F SLCG, Lesson Ten
28 M Paths of Glory, pp. 42-80
30 W Paths of Glory, pp. 83-109
April
1 F SLCG, Lesson Eleven
4 M Paths of Glory, pp. 113-154
6 W Paths of Glory, pp. 154-180
8 F SLCG, Lesson Twelve
11 M Paths of Glory, pp. 182-190
13 W Library/Office Visits
15 F Library/Office Visits
18 M Edit Session
20 W Edit Session
22 F NO CLASS
25 M NO CLASS
27 W Paper #2 Due. Evaluations/Speeches
Policies
Students who have special needs must contact the professor as soon as possible, and he will make all reasonable accommodations.
Please remember that you must complete all assignments on time to pass the course.
Keep copies of your drafts and your final papers for security.
Office: OM312B MWF 10-11, TR 8:30-9:30, 11-1* AND BY APPOINTMENT
tel. 438-4336 smead@stmartin.edu You may leave me a voice- or email message, but I cannot promise to respond before the next class meeting.
*I sometimes have meetings during part of these hours.
PLEASE CHECK YOUR CAMPUS EMAIL REGULARLY FOR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS. This is the only way I have to get in touch with you outside of class, and I need to be reasonably sure you are getting the messages.

Now, what are we doing in this class?
ENG102 is designed to strengthen a student’s ability to forge thesis-driven essays and to give the student the opportunity to begin learning original, academic research. In other words, you are going to be creating new knowledge, not just writing about how you feel or transferring information from a source to your readership. This section of ENG102 will pursue the course goal by intensive reading of two literary texts: The Iliad and Paths of Glory. Both of these books are challenging for the twenty-first century student in that they are from foreign cultures and different periods of history. This challenge is in part because the reader (you) has to stow away her or his personal world-view in order to understand what the rules seem to be in the worlds created inside the texts. But these works are also challenging because they treat a hard subject unflinchingly: they are both war stories, and in these wars the world is violent, cruel, and unpredictable. But each work reaches through the hardships of human conflict to reveal the inherent greatness of humanity and its ability to shape its moral destiny.
In most classes we will have an open-ended discussion of the sections of the text for that day. It is crucially important to keep in mind that participation in class discussion is an integral part of the writing process; you simply cannot expect to be silent in class and to produce later your best written work. We will also have several “edit sessions.” At these, each students arrives to class with the best draft of the paper he or she can come up with on his or her own (no “rough drafts”). Students will be paired and read and suggest revisions for one another’s paper. The point here is to be as critical as you can with your partner’s paper, to challenge the thesis, its methodology, and its presentation so that your partner can re-write the paper into something clearer, stronger, and more elegant. You will want them to do this for you.
In addition to one short summary due early in the semester, you will produce two 10-page research papers. The first will be an interpretive argument about some aspect of artistic meaning in The Iliad, one that challenges conventional interpretations (and of course to know that, you’ll have to research what the conventional interpretations are) and that uses scholarly outside sources (i.e., articles in refereed journals or books from university presses) to support, locate, or challenge your thesis or sources that give you historical background or methodological tools. Ask me about this in class. The second paper will be the same kind of paper, but used either Paths of Glory or both Paths of Glory and The Iliad for its subject. These papers should include discursive notes and a Work Cited page, all in MLA format.
You are expected to meet throughout the semester, on your own initiative, with your instructor, a reference librarian, and peer readers at the Writing Center.
We will also be taking every Friday “off” to discuss the Style book and to do as many exercises as we have time for. There will be no graded work with this, except your participation.
Grades: Summary 10%, Paper #1 30%, Paper #2 (including drafts) 40%, Participation 20%.
Finally, if you have ANY problems, complaints, questions, or concerns, please speak to me, and I will do all I can to remedy the situation.