Guidelines for Work submitted for grade in ENGL 1213.A1
Attendance:
Ask not what you can get from the class, ask what you can bring to the class. Get it?
Short Assignments:
You will be given short assignments at unannounced moments during the term. There will be no opportunity for making up the marks available in any of these assignments, so if you are not in class on the day one is given out, you need not ask for a chance to do the assignment for grade. The assignments will be designed to test your attention as a reader, your knowledge, your ability to research a topic, and / or your ability to follow instructions.
Narrative:
Write a short story. Exercise your creativity. Demonstrate your understanding of Aristotle's dictum that every story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. Demonstrate your ability to anticipate your reader's needs. Demonstrate your ability to interest someone who is not already personally involved in your life and world. Demonstrate your understanding of the English language, and your understanding of the what and the why of this opportunity. Choose any topic you like. Ideally, your story will convince your reader of something (the dangers of . . .? the value of . . .? to be adventurous, cautious, thoughtful, considerate), but this is not a requirement of this assignment.
Research:
Find three published articles that can stand as exemplars of writing in your academic major (in other words, your discipline). Explain what makes them exemplary, and do so in a way that communicates your understanding of what is important to your discipline. What do people in your discipline discuss? What methodology or methodologies do they consider most effective? What methodologies do they consider legitimate? Do they use a form of English that is specialized or in some way distinct from the language you would find in a newspaper?
Summary:
You will be given a non-fiction and and a fiction text to read. As a class we will decide what is important enough to include in a summary of each, and you will then compose the shortest possible summary for each. Your summary will be written in complete, well-formed sentences, and it must communicate all of the important elements identified by the class.
The non-fiction and the fiction summary (of Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" and of Robert Kendall's "Faith") should be no more than 2 pages each.
Bibliography:
You will be given a number of various source text references which you will be expected to turn collectively into a correctly formatted list of bibliographical citations.
Description:
When the time comes, I will provide you with an object or a process to describe in detail.
Definition:
For this paper you will be required to define a complex, abstract concept.
Define your academic major to a reader who is also an undergraduate student at Acadia. The context into which you are to insert your definition is an argument over what is the best option for undergraduate studies at Acadia. Because this is true, you need to anticipate how others will define their majors and the concept of "best option."
Remember that the question of "What is best?" depends on the values your bring to bear on it. Just because you value having a choice does not mean someone else will. Just because you value personal attention does not mean someone else will. Just because you value clarity, does not mean another will.
Proposal:
You will format this paper as a formal letter addressed to the appropriate recipient. In it, you will propose a course of action, and it must include the most important element of any proposal: a reasonable, easily understood first step. It can be no more than two pages long.
Webfolio:
You should start working on this assignment well before the end of term. You will recieve instruction on writing on-line as the term and the course progress, and you should act on these instructions as you recieve them. As always, this may only be possible if you attend class. The goal of this assignment is to produce a site on which resides all the papers you complete for this course. It will function as a portfolio of your writing, and creating it will afford you opportunities to correct mistakes and respond to the comments you receive on the assignments you submit.