Composition with Georgie Ziff Welcome to English 1A Composition with Georgie Ziff

About you… On a piece of paper please write the following… name and contact phone number other courses you’re taking what college English courses you’ve taken and where current employment and schedule things - anything I should know to better help y help you during the class how y – how you feel about your writing - why are you in college? - what are your academic goals?

About me… Georgie Ziff - Two boys: 20 & 23 - We live in Oakland. From the East Coast and the Midwest; came to California for a one year job and never left! M.A. in Composition and Creative Writing from CSUEB B.A. from CSUEB: major in English/Women’s Studies 10th year teaching college composition at California State University East Bay; 9th year at Merritt College; 6th year at Berkeley City College; 5th year at Los Medanos College Certified Scorer/Reader – Educational Testing Service – GRE, EPT, EAP Why the photo? Because we’re all that kid on the inside; find your own voice in your writing. My advice: school will always be ready for you when you are ready for school.

About Writing… my favorite writing quote: “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.” William Strunk Jr. Elements of Style

Required Course Materials Exploring Language, 14th edition - by Gary Goshgarian. Click on title for Amazon link.  Blank lined composition book for your writing journal Reliable computer and internet connection Account with Turnitin.com for essays Flash drive or some kind of cloud storage: account with Dropbox, etc.

Grading in the Course Three Multi-Draft Essays = 60% Homework Assignments = 15% Class Presentations = 10% Writing Journal = 5% Participation = 10% (Grade is about percentages, NOT points).

Save Your Work Online Cloud storage to access your work in the computer lab. Can create a free account at www.dropbox.com for saving your work online; it also synchronizes any changes you make online, so your Dropbox is always up to date! * Use a flashdrive as backup.

Essay Assignments You will write three multi-draft essays: 1. Language Perspectives 2. Language and Technology 3. Language and Thought; Shaping the Brain These are multi-draft essays, peer reviewed in class, and revised in the computer lab. Come to class prepared with drafts as part of the writing process: no drafts = no grade. Final drafts are uploaded to Turnitin.com Late essays are NOT accepted.

Presentations Group Writing Presentation: 1) describes the topic In a small group of 3 or 4 classmates, you will select and research a topic about writing and create a 20 minute presentation for the class that has three parts: 1) describes the topic 2) demonstrates the topic 3) involves the class with a learning activity or exercise

Presentations, cont. Group Rhetorical Analysis: The last week of class, in small groups of no more than 4 or 5 students, you will select an essay from the textbook that we have NOT analyzed in class and create a class presentation analyzing the essay from a rhetorical standpoint.  Rhetorical Analysis Guidelines are available for download from the class web page and details are provided on the Rhetorical Group Presentation webpage. Presentations will be the last week of school. Each group will submit a collaborative Group Portfolio.

Homework Assignments On the Schedule, homework assignments are underlined with hyperlinks to writing topic articles. Your task is to read each article and provide TWO paragraphs (not just a few sentences!) a) paragraph one = summary of the article (no opinion) b) paragraph two = your response and analysis of the topic. Specifically: * How effective/understandable/helpful is the article? * How is this information applicable to your writing? * What strategies can you employ from this information to improve your college writing? Homework must submitted to Moodle by 5 pm Thursday of the week it is due to get full 5 pts credit. Late work is accepted for only partial credit and links will only be available for three weeks. NO emailed or hard copies accepted.

Attendance Policy Come to class prepared and on time. Bring your textbook to every class. As this class meets two days a week, missing more than two weeks of classes, or more than four classes, will result in being dropped from the class. Computer lab days are required! Attendance is your job as a student; your life is not my business, so as such, do not feel it is necessary to inform me about reasons for absences or tardiness. Avoid using your personal life as an excuse. DO contact me if you are dropping the class so that space can be made available for another student.

Instructor Contact Before or after class or by appointment. Emailing is generally unnecessary, but if you do email, it is preferred that email is sent only through Moodle with Quickmail or messaging. If emailing outside Moodle, put THIS in the subject line of the email to receive a response: SCHOOL/CLASS/YOUR NAME/TOPIC of your question I teach at four different schools, so merely saying “question” or “hey” in the subject line and asking something vague like “what’s the assignment?” doesn’t provide enough information for me to actually help you. In addition, remember you are writing to an English teacher! Audience & purpose! Use real words and punctuation. Show you care about, you know, writing!

Today’s Objectives To get oriented to the course, the syllabus, requirements, expectations, and so forth. To break/melt the ice with one another To form and begin working in collaborative groups

Break the Ice Form groups of three Find out some interesting facts about your classmates Find one thing that everyone in your group has in common Exchange email/contact information with each other

In the Spot Light Each of you will in turn introduce one other person in your group and share something you learned about him/her. Share what everyone in your group has in common.

Working as a Team Together come up with 3 or 4 questions you may have about this course Now, with the syllabus, try to find the answers to the questions you came up with. Let’s talk about the questions you couldn’t find answers to…

What to expect next class… Presentation sign ups Discussion of writing process Your first reading assignment Grammar work

Your To Do List: Buy the Exploring Language textbook Buy a blank composition book for your writing journal Go to the class website – www.georgiesenglishwiki.pbworks.com Download the Syllabus and Schedule, noting the homework assignments.