Bri Lafond
M.A. Composition, emphases in Literature and TESL/Applied Linguistics
English 1A
English 1A Syllabus
Norco College, Fall 2014
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:15am - 10:20am
Class Location: IT-111
Class Dropbox: CLICK HERE
Writing Center Week One
This week in the Writing Center, you'll be going through an orientation hosted by Writing Center staff. Part of this orientation will include signing the Acceptable Use Agreement which outlines the dos and don'ts of lab use. If you have any additional time, please see if you can access our Class Dropbox from lab computers.
Writing Center Week Two
This week in the Writing Center, please read the following article on annotation:
http://www.vcoe.org/Portals/VcssoPortals/cici/Beyond%20the%20Yellow%20Highlighter.pdf
After reading, write a short response (200-300 words) in which you reflect on your own reading and annotation practices as well as react to Carol Porter-O'Donnell's article. Did you find anything in the piece useful? Do you have any new ideas about how to read and annotate texts for class? Did this piece help clarify for you why instructors might want students to develop annotating skills?
Please email me your responses before you leave the lab: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Three
This week in the Writing Center, please read the following article on revision:
http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/giles--reflective-writing-and-the-revision-process.pdf
After reading, write a short response (200-300 words) in which you address Discussion Question #3 (listed at the end of the reading).
Please email me your responses before you leave the lab: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Four
This week in the Writing Center, please read the following article on rhetoric:
http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/carroll--backpacks-vs-briefcases.pdf
After reading, write a short response (200-300 words) in which you address Discussion Question #3 (listed at the end of the reading).
Please email me your responses before you leave the lab: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Five
This week in the Writing Center, please read the following TWO articles concerning cultural appropriation:
After reading, write a short rhetorical precis (or summary) of each piece (each needs to be a minimum of 100 words) in which you discuss the way each author makes his or her argument: Does the author rely most on ethos, pathos, or logos? What kinds of evidence does the author use to support his or her point? Who do you think the intended audience is for each piece? Is the author's argument ultimately convincing.
I have uploaded some templates and resources you can use to develop your rhetorical precis to our shared Dropbox folder here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/36emodl1gbcztcw/AABEc0TvSzc2SM1UE-zDnEpma?dl=0
Feel free to use any of these resources to develop your precis/summaries, but you don't have to adhere to the format exactly if you don't want to.
Please email me your responses before you leave the lab: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Six
Last week in the Writing Center, you read two articles on the topic of cultural appropriation. This week, I want you to write a short argument (200 - 300 words) expressing your own opinion on cultural appropriation. This response should be your own opinion on the topic, but if you want to bring in outside sources (for example, either of the articles from last week's assignment), you may: just be sure to cite those sources. While you're allowed to use sources, I encourage you to bring in your own experiences and examples with this response.
Regarding the particular Rhetorical Situation: the exigence is increased interest in cultural appropriation in popular culture; the audience is me (a generally academic audience, but one that is fairly familiar with popular culture); and the constraints are the word limit and your limited time in the Writing Center.
Go forth!
Writing Center Week Seven
This week in the Writing Center, please read the following article on argumentation:
http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/jones--finding-the-good-argument.pdf
This is a long piece, so I don't expect you to finish reading the whole thing this week. What I do want you to do is the activity described on page 159: "Thinking Outside the Text." Here is the video referenced in that activity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8
Email me your completed response here: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Once you've completed the activity, read as much of the article as you can before time is up. We'll be working with this piece again for next week's activity.
Writing Center Week Eight
I know I said we'd continue working with the Jones piece this week, but I'm putting that on hold to confront a new controversy.
This week in the Writing Center, you will be reading two articles on #GamerGate:
http://recode.net/2014/10/09/what-is-gamergate-and-why-is-intel-so-afraid-of-it/
After you read these two articles for background information, I want you to go to Twitter and check out the #GamerGate conversation for yourself. Go to Twitter.com and search for #GamerGate. Spend a few minutes looking at the conversation. Based on your own observations, what do you think #GamerGate is about?
Write about your observations and your own take on #GamerGate in a short response (200-300 words).
Please email me your responses before you leave the lab: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Nine
This week in the Writing Center is make up week! If you've missed any of the previous lab assignments, now is your chance to go back and complete them.
Email completed responses to me here: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
If you don't have anything to make up, please finish reading the article on argumentation we started during Week Seven:
http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/jones--finding-the-good-argument.pdf
Writing Center Week Ten
This week in the Writing Center, read the following piece on locating and evaluating sources for a research project:
http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/articles.cfm
After reading, think about the kind of work or workplace you're going to be writing about for the final project. (This project asks you to evaluate a specific workplace through several different theoretical lenses.)
Look up and read about this kind of work on Wikipedia.
Next, go to the Norco Library electronic resources page:
http://library.rcc.edu/norco/eresources.htm
Look up the same subject and skim a few articles on the topic.
Write a brief comparison (aprox. 200 words) of the two sources. What do they have to say about their subject? Is there any contradictory information? What do each of these discourse communities value? Why would professors want you to use one source and not the other?
Email your completed response to me here: bri.lafond@rccd.edu.
Writing Center Week Eleven
This week in the Writing Center, please read the following essay on ethnographic writing:
http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/kahn--putting-ethnographic-writing.pdf
After reading, write a short response (200-300 words) in which you discuss how the information in Kahn's piece might be useful for your own upcoming project.
(Note: While "ethnography" is a particular genre of writing typically used in the field of anthropology, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the discourse observations you will be doing as part of your final project.)
Please email me your responses before you leave the lab: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Twelve
During Tuesday's class, we'll be reading and discussing "Annoying Ways People Use Sources" by Kyle Stedman. If you have your lab appointment before class on Tuesday, please just read Stedman's piece and send me an email that says you've read it.
http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/stedman--annoying-ways.pdf
Go back to Paper Three and find a place where you used information or a quote from a source and didn't properly incorporate it into your paper. Revise this section using what you've learned from Stedman's piece, then write a short response (200-300 words) in which you describe the kind of problem you had to fix and why this kind of "annoyance" can be a problem in academic writing.
For the correction, please include the corrected sentence or sentences along with the Works Cited entry for that citation. Email me if you need clarification on this.
Please email me your revision and response before 8pm on Sunday, November 16th: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Thirteen
This week in the Writing Center, you should begin researching sources for your final paper. Use the Norco College Library Electronic data base to find sources along with Google Scholar and any other sources of legitimate research that you like.
Norco College Library Electronic Resources
Find at least THREE promising sources for your paper and prepare MLA citations for each one. You can use EasyBib and the Purdue Online Writing Lab to help you create your citations.
Please email me your responses before you leave the lab: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
(NOTE: Even though EasyBib can automatically create citations, you often have to manually add information to the generator that is missing from the website alone. Consider: does the source have a corporate or collective author? Is there a publishing date at the bottom of the web page? Please be careful if you use EasyBib.)
Writing Center Week Fourteen
This week in the Writing Center, you need to start working on your Annotated Bibliography entries. Since you have already found a couple of your sources (because you TOTALLY did last week's lab assignment), you can now begin annotating them. Refer to the Rhetorical Precis Template we have been working with in order to develop your annotations. Remember: you don't have to follow this template exactly, but it's a good framework to determine what information you should include.
In addition to the information included in these four sentences, please also include at least one sentence describing how you will be using the given source in your paper. For example, are you using this source in your historical lens section as an example of how your chosen job was viewed in the past? Or are you using this source in order to establish a feminist lens with which to consider your chosen job? Or is the source an example of how popular culture typically views your chosen job?
Email TWO annotated citations to me here: bri.lafond@rccd.edu
Writing Center Week Fifteen
Work on your Final Project and/or Annotated Bibliography. GET IT DONE!