Friday, September 27th, 2013--8 pm

Greetings,

In this blog entry you will find the following:

1. Packet #3 reading assignment

2. For Section 81 only: details about our theater date in October

3. details about in class essay #1--discussed in class today


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1. PACKET #3 READING ASSIGNMENT

"Clothes"
(a short story by Chitra Divakaruni)
http://www.woodsidehs.org/uploadedFiles/file_642.pdf

"A Family" 

(a short story by Guy de Maupassant)
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/Afamily.html

2. ATTENTION SECTION 81, LEARNING COMMUNITY, ONLY

As I mentioned in class last week, I  have arranged for all of us to attend a play on campus.  The play is Almost, Maine. Please save the evening of THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24TH. The play begins at 6:30 pm in the Playwright's Theatre. Tickets are complimentary thanks to the First Year Experience program on campus. My hope is that all of us can attend. PLEASE LET ME KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE IF YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO ATTEND. I need to let the box office know the number of students in our group next week.

3.  Here is the link to the website I mentioned in class. When you open it, click on the "Filmmaker Q & A." It is not mandatory that your read this, but you may find it quite interesting and useful. 

http://www.daughterfromdanang.com/about/

Also, just as a reminder of the three choices you will have on the exam:

--Why did Heidi have the experience she did when she returned to Vietnam? Also, do you think anything could have prevented the outcome?

--What do you think was Heidi's definition of "home" before she made her trip to Vietnam?
Upon her return, how did her definition change? What would she say is the meaning of home for her now?

--In many film viewers' opinions, what makes a documentary successful is how the filmmaker sparks our interest and our emtions. Do you think this was an effective documentary or an ineffective one? Why or why not?

Thursday September 26th, 2013--8:30 pm

Greetings,

I hope your week has gone well.

Looking forward to seeing all of you tomorrow!

I arrived back on the mainland late Wednesday evening. My time away was absolutely wonderful.

Tuesday, September 17th, 2013--4:30 pm

Greetings!

Just a few reminders....

There will be NO CLASS on the following days:

Friday, September 20
Monday, September 23
Wednesday, September 25

Please follow the syllabus as you would otherwise.
Before I return to class on Friday, September 27th, you will have completed the following:

1. Tour of the campus library.
2. Read up to page 102 in Montana 1948
3. Viewed the documentary, Daughter from Danang.

The documentary is now available to check out and view in the Library Media Services on the first floor of the library. You will need your One Card ID to check the film out.

There are two copies available. The film is 83 minutes long and can be checked out for two hours at a time. There are laptops available to use in Media Services to view the film OR if four of you wish to view together, that can be arranged in a separate room.

SUGGESTION: you may want to be ready to jot down notes while you view the film. Your first in class essay will be based on the film. We will be discussing the film in class on Friday, 9/27.

Tomorrow in class, I will be distributing a few study questions to keep in mind while viewing the film.

Saturday, September 14, 2013--5 pm

Hello,

quick note.

I am currently working on grading the Q and C homework from Section 2--the 8 o'clock class.

There is an set of Q and Cs that have no name on it.

The commentary on "Flies" begins this way:

After reading this poem I kept coming the same question about how the flies were actually involved and why was it such a big deal?

If you recognize this as your writing, please email and let me know who you are so I can record the score. :)

Thanks!

Wednesday, September 11, 2013--6:15 pm

Hello!

I want to clarify again the details about the packets and the Q and C homework.

1. Follow the syllabus and read ahead. It is pretty self explanatory.

2. When there is something due to be read, either a Packet or pages in one of the books we are reading for the semester, or in the Handbook, you will want to bring that item to class. In other words, you will want to print out the Packet OR bring the book. This is so you will be prepared to discuss the material you have read in class. Additionally, there might be a quiz on the material.

3. I MAY remind you about something that is on the syllabus, but do not count on me reminding you. It is your responsibility to read the syllabus and be prepared. For example, some of you I am sure have already noticed that there is a quiz on Monday.

4. I know that in other classes, you may be submitting work electronically. But in this class, that is not so. You will be bringing a hard copy of your work to hand in.

5. There are only FOUR Q and C homework assignments in the entire semester. I know I went over this in the blog entry yesterday, but I am still receiving emails this evening asking me about details I explained in class today and on the blog yesterday. IF A PACKET ASSIGNMENT DOES NOT HAVE "Q & C DUE" AFTER IT, THAT MEANS THAT NO Q & C IS DUE FOR THAT PACKET. :)

6. The number of readings in the Packet determines how many Q and Cs you will be writing.
For example, there are two poems in Packet 2. So for Friday, you will be submitting a Q and C for the prose poem, "Flies," AND a Q and C for the poem "Arturo."

See you Friday!

Tuesday, September 10th, 2013--9 pm

Good morning!

A quick note.

I received an e-mail this morning from a student, clarifying that she needed to write SIX Q and Cs--one for each of the four poems due to be read for tomorrow, and two more for the two poems due to be read for Friday, for a total of six.

No!!!!

:)

Remember,

You ONLY complete a Q & C for the Packets that indicate that on the syllabus.

The four poems due to be read for tomorrow, Wednesday, do NOT require a Q & C.

I thought I explained this thoroughly in class, but now I am worried!
Do not make this harder than it is! :)

There are only FOUR Q & C assignments you will complete over the course of the semester. This is really easy to discern if you look at your Grade Worksheet.

Have a most wonderful day. See you tomorrow!

Monday, September 9th, 2013--9 pm

Hello!

Below you will find copies of the two handouts that were discussed and distributed in class today:
1. The Oral Presentation assignment
2. A Short Guide to Reading Poems

REMINDER: The oral presentations take place during the last week of classes. Refer to your syllabus. I will have a sign up sheet for presentations a few weeks before they are due.

English 1A, College Composition I

Fall 2013

Instructor:  Catherine Fraga

Oral Presentation Assignment

The Significance of Home

Assigned:  Second week of semester

For this assignment, please select an article, observation, photograph, painting, collage, film, song, poem, essay or anything else that offers some message or reflection on the theme of home.  It could have a personal meaning for you, but it does not have to. 

After you have selected your “item,” write a minimum of one page about the item.  Include a brief description of the item and a detailed explanation of why you chose this item; include a thoughtful commentary.  Proofread carefully for unacceptable errors as well as other proofreading mistakes.

On the day of presentations, please do not read your essay to the class, but simply summarize the main points aloud to the class.  The presentation usually takes only a few moments. You will submit a copy of the essay only to me.                                    

As the semester progresses, you may get ideas for your presentation from our readings, the films we will be viewing, or from class discussions.

Remember that you will not receive this short essay back nor will you receive any credit for the assignment if there are ANY unacceptable errors present.

Please do not take this assignment lightly.  It is worth 100 points.

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English 1A, C. Fraga

A Short Guide to Reading Poems

Look at the first few lines for how they seem to be operating (form and craft):  A

poem’s form and craft will tell you a lot about how to read it in the first few lines.  Don’t

worry too much if you don’t know the technical terms for what’s going on.   Just take a look

at the first sentence or two:  does the poem seem to be more concrete or abstract?  Does it

introduce images, or ideas, or both?  Does it tell a story or seem to elicit a feeling right away? 

Does it operate outside of time or narrate a story inside time?  What’s literally happening in

the poem?  What do you notice about the poem’s shape or the way the sentences are

working?  Notice anything unusual inside the way the language is working.

Let the opening lines guide further reading:  Having asked and answered these

questions, you will find that the first lines of the poem set its tone and its operating mode. 

That mode will either continue or it won’t—where it breaks down or changes may be an

important clue to the poem’s “turn,” the point in the poem where the poem seems to

broaden its view or become more emotional.  You will be able to keep track of important

movements of ideas in the poem by isolating the poem’s initial formal patterns in these early

lines and tracking how they change during the poem’s progression.

Consider the title:  Having read these initial lines and gotten your bearings inside the poem,

re-read the title.  How has reading the first few lines of the poem helped you to unpack the

title?  Or the opposite may be true:  the title may help to answer a question you had in

reading the first few lines.  If doing so doesn’t help the poem’s meaning emerge, read the

next full sentence of the poem and then reread the title.  This is a technique that you can use

at any time during the reading of the poem.

Who’s speaking?   In poems, the speaker is not the poet, but there’s a speaker nonetheless,

and he or she is guiding you through the poem.  That speaker may not always use a personal

pronoun like “I” or “you,” but the speaker is there, moving through the poem, guiding your

reading.  The speaker is just that, a guide, and you can make yourself more comfortable in

the poem just by noting who it is that’s speaking and where they seem to be headed.  Is the

poem addressed to everyone, or to a specific person?  Is the speaker solving a problem,

writing a letter, describing an event, or something else?  Are there other actors in the poem

besides the speaker?  Keep track of the pronouns being used in the poem and see how they

change during the course of the poem.

Note the type of language being used:  Poems use all kinds of normal, unpoemlike

words, and they also sometimes use an elevated or formal language.  Sometimes a poem will

use several different types of language, called registers of language, in the very same poem. 

Take a look at where the poem is easy to understand and uses everyday language, and where

it doesn’t.  This could have something to do with the “turn”. 

Friday, September 6th, 10:15 pm

Hello!

Below you will find the two handouts from today's class:
1. Unacceptable Errors
2. Sample Student Response/Q & C Homework

Again, have a wonderful weekend. Be safe. See you Monday...with your stapler! :)

UNACCEPTABLE ERRORS

In English 1A, students should already be very proficient in word usage.  We do not have time for grammar lessons.  (I will, however, provide short ‘mini’ lessons when I feel they are warranted.)  The following errors that are commonly made on student papers are considered unacceptable.

For out of class essays, each unacceptable error takes ten points off your final earned grade. You may correct unacceptable errors and receive the points back if you choose to revise. In class essays that have unacceptable errors CAN always be corrected to earn back the points lost.

1.  there – place                                                Put it over there.

2.  their – possessive pronoun                        That is their car.

3.  they’re – contraction of they are               They’re going with us.

4.  your – possessive pronoun                        Your dinner is ready.

5.  you’re – contraction of you are                        You’re not ready.

6.  it’s – contraction of it is                        It’s a sunny day.

7.  its – possessive pronoun                        The dog wagged its tail.

8.  a lot – always two words                        I liked it a lot.

9.  to – a preposition or part of an

      infinitive                                                I like to proofread my essays carefully.

10. too – an intensifier, or also                        That is too much.  I will go too.

11. two – a number                                    Give me two folders.

12. In today’s society            This phrase is grossly overused and very cliché. Instead use “Today” or “In America” or “Now” etc

13. right(s)/write(s)/rite(s)            rights are a set of beliefs or values in which a person feels entitled: His rights were read to him before he was arrested for stalking Dave Matthews. Writes is a verb indicating action taken with a pen, pencil or computers to convey a message: Michelle writes love letters to Dave Matthews in her sleep. Rites are a series of steps or events which lead an individual from one phase in life to the next, or a series of traditions that should be followed: The initiate began his rite of passage ceremony at the age of thirteen.

14. definitely/defiantly            This error USUALLY occurs when a writer relies solely on spell-check. You really must learn to become the final editor of your work. Definitely is an adverb and it means without a doubt. Mary will definitely miss the Dave Matthews Band concert. Defiantly means to show defiance. She was in a defiant mood. It is an adjective. Or it could be used as an adverb. She was defiantly rude and sullen towards the professor.

15. On your Works Cited page:            you MUST center and type at the top the heading just as it is here: Works Cited. NOT ALL CAPS, NOT BOLDED, NOT UNDERLINED, NOT MISSPELLED, NOT IN A DIFFERENT SIZED FONT, ETC.

16. woman/women            woman is used when you are referring to ONE female lady.

                                                            women is the plural of woman, meaning MORE THAN ONE lady

                                                            There are many women at the nail salon, but only one woman is shopping at the market next door.

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An accumulation of the following errors will affect your grade, but not 10 points off for EACH error.  My evaluation of your work depends on how serious the error is, and how often you make it.  Some do not slow up the reader as much as others.

• Misuse of the word “you”.  You must actually mean the reader when you use the word “you”.

• Avoid use of contractions in formal expository writing. (can’t, shouldn’t, didn’t, etc.)

• Agreement of subject and verb.  Both must be either singular or plural.

• Fragmented sentences, comma splices and run-ons.  Be sure to proofread your papers carefully before turning them in.

You will not pass English 1A if you cannot write an intelligent sentence in correct English.

******************************************************************

Dave Matthews

Professor Fraga

English 1A, 1

2 February 2013

“Traveling through the Dark”

by William Stafford

Q: I have no question.

C:  During a very brief event on a dark country road, poet William Stafford chronicles a very somber and difficult decision the speaker has to make; Stafford has written a very universal poem. Even if the reader has never been in a similar situation, almost everyone has had to weigh the pros and cons of a challenging decision. By the end of the second stanza, when we learn that the dead deer is pregnant and her fawn is alive, we are drawn into the dilemma the speaker and his friends face.

This poem reminds me of what makes life so exciting and yet so frustrating at the same time. Whenever we make a decision, we are never completely guaranteed we have made the “right” decision; we just make the best decision we can based on the information we have.

            The last two lines of the poem are especially effective and very visual. The sadness seeps through the words: “I thought hard for us all…and then pushed her over the edge into the river.” In fact, Stafford’s careful word choice throughout the poem keeps the reader focused and tense. Sometimes living is very much like “traveling through the dark” without any signs for direction.

Thursday, Sept. 5th, 2013 -- 1:00 pm

Hello,

Thank you to student, Grace Field! She has informed me that one of the required texts, Full Body Burden, is indeed available now in paperback. Thanks, Grace.

Below, you will find the assignments for Packet One and Packet Two.

READING PACKET #1 (four poems)

“Taking my Son to School”
by Eamon Grennan

(do a google search of the above poem exactly as it is written above. The first posting will be a commencement speech give by Mr. Grennan. Open this and you will see the poem right at the beginning of the speech. Focus only on the poem, not the speech)
*********************************************************************************
"One Home”
By William Stafford

Mine was a Midwest home—you can keep your world.
Plain black hats rode the thoughts that made our code.
We sang hymns in the house; the roof was near God.

The light bulb that hung in the pantry made a wan light,
but we could read by it the names of preserves—
outside, the buffalo grass, and the wind in the night.

A wildcat sprang at Grandpa on the Fourth of July
when he was cutting plum bushes for fuel,
before Indians pulled the West over the edge of the sky.

To anyone who looked at us we said, “My friend”;
liking the cut of a thought, we could say “Hello.”
(But plain black hats rode the thoughts that made our code.)

The sun was over our town; it was like a blade.
Kicking cottonwood leaves we ran toward storms.
Wherever we looked the land would hold us up.

*************************************************************

“Where Children Live”
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Homes where children live exude a pleasant rumpledness,
like a bed made by a child, or a yard littered with balloons.
To be a child again one would need to shed details
till the heart found itself dressed in the coat with a hood.
Now the heart has taken on gloves and mufflers,
the heart never goes outside to find something to do.
And the house takes on a new face, dignified.
No lost shoes blooming under bushes.
No chipped trucks in the drive.
Grown-ups like swings, leafy plants, slow-motion back and forth.
While the yard of a child is strewn with the corpses
of bottle-rockets and whistles,
anything whizzing and spectacular, brilliantly short-lived.
Trees in children's yards speak in clearer tongues.
Ants have more hope. Squirrels dance as well as hide.
The fence has a reason to be there, so children can go in and out.
Even when the children are at school, the yards glow
with the leftovers of their affection,
the roots of the tiniest grasses curl toward one another
like secret smiles.

**********************************************************************
“To a Daughter Leaving Home”
by Linda Pastan
(please google the poem and you will find it on PoemHunter.com)

READING PACKET  #2--(1 poem & 1 prose poem)

"Arturo" by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

http://www.pccc.edu/home/cultural-affairs/poetry-center/maria-mazziotti-gillans-poems2

*******************************************
“Flies”
By: Donald Hall

A fly sleeps on the field of a green curtain. I sit by my grandmother’s side, and rub her head as if I could comfort her. Ninety-seven years. Her eyes stay closed, her mouth open, and she gasps in her blue nightgown—pale blue, washed a thousand times. Now her face goes white, and her breath slows until I think it has stopped; then she gasps again, and pink returns to her face.

Between the roof of her mouth and her tongue, strands of spittle waver as she breathes. Now a nurse shakes her head over my grandmother’s sore mouth, and goes to get a glass of water, a spoon, and a flyswatter. My grandmother chokes on a spoonful of water and the nurse swats a fly

In the Connecticut suburbs where I grew up, and in Ann Arbor, there were houses with small leaded panes, where Formica shone in the kitchens, and hardwood in closets under paired leather boots. Carpets lay thick underfoot in every bedroom, bright, clean with no dust or hair in them. Nothing looked used, in these houses. Forty dollars’ worth of cut flowers leaned from Waterford vases for the Saturday dinner party.

Even in houses like these, the housefly wandered and paused—and I listened for the buzz of its wings and its tiny feet, as it struggled among cut flowers and bumped into leaded panes

In the afternoon my mother takes over at my grandmother’s side in the Peabody Home, while I go back to the farm. I nap in the room my mother and my grandmother were born in.

At night we assemble beside her. Her shallow, rapid breath rasps, and her eyes jerk, and the nurse can find no pulse, as her small strength concentrated wholly on half an inch of lung space, and she coughs faintly—quick coughs like fingertips on a ledge. Her daughters stand by the bed, solemn in the slow evening, in the shallows of after-supper—Caroline, Nan, and Lucy, her eldest daughter, seventy-two, who holds her hand to help her die, as twenty years past she did the same thing for my father.

Then her breath slows again, as it has done all day. Pink vanishes from cheeks w3e have kissed so often, and her nostrils quiver. She breathes one more quick breath. Her mouth twitches sharply, as if she speaks a word we cannot hear. Her face is fixed, white, her eyes half closed, and the next breath never comes.

She lies in a casket covered with gray linen, which my mother and her sisters picked. This is Chadwick’s Funeral Parlor in New London, on the ground floor under the I.O.O.F. Her fine hair lies combed on the pillow. Her teeth in, her mouth closed, she looks the way she used to, except that her face is tinted, tanned as if she worked in the fields.

This air is so still it has bars. Because I have been thinking about flies, I realize that there are no flies in this room. I imagine a fly wandering in, through these dark-curtained windows, to land on my grandmother’s nose.

At the Andover graveyard, Astroturf covers the dirt next to the shaft dug for her. Mr. Jones says a prayer beside the open hole. He preached at the South Danbury Church when my grandmother still played the organ. He raises his narrow voice, which gives itself over to August and blue air, and tells us that Kate in heaven “will keep on growing . . . and growing . . . and growing”—and he stops abruptly, as if the sky had abandoned him, and chose to speak elsewhere through someone else.

After the burial I walk by myself in the barn where I spent summers next to my grandfather. I think of them talking in heaven. Her first word is the word her mouth was making when she died.

In this tie-up chaff of flies roiled in the leather air, as my grandfather milked his Holsteins morning and night, his bald head pressed sweating into their sides, fat female Harlequins, while their black and white tails swept back and forth, stirring the flies up. His voice spoke pieces he learned for the lyceum, and I listened crouched on a three-legged stool, as his hands kept time strp strp with alternate streams of hot milk, the sound softer as milk foamed to the pail’s top. In the tie-up the spiders feasted like emperors. Each April he broomed the webs out and whitewashed the wood, but spiders and flies came back, generation on generation—like the cattle, mothers and daughters, for a hundred and fifty years, until my grandfather’s heart flapped in his chest. One by one the slow Holsteins climbed the ramp into a cattle truck.

In the kitchen with its bare hardwood floor, my grandmother stood by the clock’s mirror to braid her hair every morning. She looked out the window toward Kearsarge, and said, “Mountain’s pretty today,” or, “Can’t see the mountain too good today.”

She fought the flies all summer. She shut the screen door quickly, but flies gathered on canisters, on the clockface, on the range when the fire was out, on set-tubs, tables, curtains, chairs. Flies buzzed on cooling lard, when my grandmother made doughnuts. Flies lit on a drip of jam before she could wipe it up. Flies whirled over simmering beans, in the steam of maple syrup.

My grandmother fretted, and took good aim with a flyswatter, and hung strips of flypaper behind the range where nobody would tangle her hair in it.

She gave me a penny for every ten I killed. All day with my mesh flyswatter I patrolled kitchen and dining room, living room, even the dead air of the parlor. Though I killed every fly in the house by bedtime, when my grandmother washed the hardwood floor, by morning their sons and cousins assembled I the kitchen, like the woodchucks my grandfather shot in the vegetable garden which doubled and returned; or like the deer that watched for a hundred and fifty years from the brush on ragged mountain, and when my grandfather died stalked down the mountainside to graze among peas and corn.

We live in their house with our books and pictures, writing poems under Ragged Mountain, gazing each morning at blue Kearsarge.

We live in the house left behind; we sleep in the bed where they whispered together at night. One morning I wake hearing a voice from sleep: “The blow of the axe resides in the acorn.”

I get out of bed and drink cold water in the dark morning from the sink’s dipper at the window under the sparse oak, and fly wakes buzzing beside me, cold, and sweeps over set-tubs and range, one of the hundred-thousandth generation.

I planned long ago I would live here, somebody’s grandfather.

Monday, September 2nd, 2013

Greetings,

If you are reading this, congratulations! You have successfully "found" the class blog. Please bookmark  it on your computer for easy, quick access.

Below you will find a copy of the course syllabus and grade sheet, both of which were distributed in class today.

FALL 2013, CSU SACRAMENTO

COURSE:  English 1A:  College Composition I

Section 2, MWF, 8-850 AM  (Douglass Hall 207)

Section 4, MWF, 9-9:50 AM (Mendocino 1022)

Section 81, MWF, 11-11:50 AM (Douglass 107)—A LEARNING COMMUNITY

INSTRUCTOR:  Catherine Fraga

E-mail:  sacto1954@gmail.com

Office Hours:  CLV 149, MW 10-10:50 AM & MW 12-1:15 PM or by appointment

PEER MENTOR –for section 81 only: Aliya Tursunova

Contact information for Aliya: aliyatursunova@gmail.com OR 916-527-4024

CLASS BLOG: http://English1AFall2013Fraga.blogspot.com

Prerequisites:  Placement by examination OR successful completion of English 1 or its equivalent.

************************************************************************

REQUIRED TEXTS & MATERIALS

·      The Unwanted:  A Memoir of Childhood

by Kien Nguyen

Publisher:  Bay Back Books

·      Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats

By Kristen Iverson

Publisher: Crown Publishers

·      Rules of Thumb:  A Guide for Writers—9^th Edition

by Jay Silverman, Elaine Hughes, Diana Roberts Wienbroer

Publisher:  McGraw-Hill

·      Montana 1948: a novel

By Larry Watson

Publisher:  Washington Square Press/Pocket Books

·      8 1/2” x 11” lined notebook paper (paper that is torn out of a notebook without a straight edge will not be accepted).

·      Stapler (must have in your possession during class on Monday, September 9^th.  25 points possible)

·      Reliable access to a computer and a printer.

·      Two (2) Blue (or Green) Books for the two in-class essays

o   (these can be found in the university’s bookstore or at the Student Union store—they are available in two different sizes—either size is acceptable)

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

English 1A is a freshman writing course that offers students the opportunity to learn and develop the reading and writing skills that will be most useful to them during a four-year college program.  The course is designed to help students improve their ability to understand and critically judge reading material and to write an essay which has a single controlling idea and which is coherently developed using idiomatically and grammatically correct English.

The heart of the course is readings that require a range of narrative, analytical, reflective and research writing skills.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

1.     Attendance and punctuality are required.  I have designed this course so that it depends on your presence and participation.  If you’re absent, you are still responsible for finding out what you’ve missed (including lecture notes, handouts, changes in due dates, etc.)  Refer to your class phone list. 

2.     Having more than three absences will seriously alter your final grade.  This is not because I do not consider you mature enough to make a commitment to a class; it is because if you DO miss more than 3 classes, you miss group work, or an in class writing, or a quiz, or an in class essay assignment, and/or a bevy of other possible events, all of which affect the grade you earn.  Please communicate with me.  I am very understanding and reasonable.

If you must miss a class on a day an assignment is due, you are still responsible for getting the assignment to me on time.  Again, use the phone list, call your mother, or???  This is merely a fairness issue; we all have life situations that are often difficult and unexpected, and if others manage to still get their work in on time, I cannot give special exceptions to just a few.

3.     There will be numerous reading and writing assignments in this course.  I expect you to complete them on time and come prepared to class.  We may not get an opportunity to discuss everything we read for class, but that is inevitable in any college course.

4.    You will complete a question and comment assignment for several of the reading assignments.  The question is optional, but the commentary is not. Your commentary must be a minimum of eight sentences in length.  (I know ALL the shortcuts students may try.  Be assured that if you write eight very short, simple sentences you will not receive credit for the assignment. A thorough explanation of what is required for these question and comment assignments and a sample will be provided.)  No late homework will be accepted.

5.    Out of class essays may be handed in late, but there is a stiff penalty.  For every day your essay is late, the grade for that essay will drop a full ten points. This includes weekends. Points subtracted for lateness cannot be made up during the revision process.

6.     Quizzes:  There will be three scheduled quizzes on the Handbook and five unannounced, unscheduled quizzes during the semester. If you come prepared to class, the quizzes should present no problems for you.

7.    A note on classroom etiquette:

If you feel you cannot survive each class session without the use of your cell phone, iPod, iPad, laptop computer or other similar devices, please do not enroll in this class. (I own three of these devices, and value each of them, but I do not plan on using them during my classroom time with you. Simply, it is the highest degree of rudeness and disrespect.)  If I see you busy texting, etc. I will not hesitate to ask you to leave. (IF THERE IS A COMPELLING REASON THAT YOU MUST KEEP YOUR PHONE ON VIBRATE FOR AN EMERGENCY PHONE CALL THAT MAY OCCUR DURING CLASS HOURS, PLEASE INFORM ME BEORE CLASS.) Each cIass session is a mere 50 minutes long and plan to give you my full attention for 50 minutes and I expect the same from all my students. (Of course, if you have documented paperwork from the university indicating the need for a computer in the classroom, that is perfectly fine!)

EXCEPTION: If we are discussing a reading originally assigned to be read from the Internet, you MAY access that reading for discussion purposes in class.

8.     HOW YOUR GRADE IS EARNED:

See attached grade roster. At no time should you wonder how you are “doing” in the course. The grade worksheet makes it very easy to keep track. Simply record your scores as you receive back your graded work. Do not discard any assignments that are graded and returned to you until the semester is over.

9.    English 1A is graded A, B, C, D, or F.  Do not assume that because you have not submitted an out of class essay assignment, you will still be able to pass the course.  Even though you have missed the due date, and have an automatic “F” for that assignment, YOU STILL MUST WRITE AND SUBMIT ALL THREE OUT OF CLASS ESSAYS TO PASS THE COURSE, as well as earning passing scores on your other work.

10.    ABOUT PLAGIARISM: From the CSUS Policy Handbook:

“As stipulated in the California Code of Regulations, Section 41301, cheating or plagiarism in connection with an academic program at a campus may warrant expulsion, suspension, probation or a lesser sanction. Administrative action involving academic dishonesty at Sacramento State is the responsibility of the Student Conduct Officer in the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs. Any administrative action taken by the Student Conduct Officer must be in accordance with the procedures set forth in Executive Order No. 970, Student Conduct Procedures for the California State University.”

Familiarize yourself with this website—everything you need to know about what constitutes plagiarism and the repercussions.

http://www.csus.edu/umanual/AcademicHonestyPolicyandProcedures.htm

11.   STUDENT ACCOMODATIONS AVAILABLE: Become informed about accommodations for test taking and other learning disabilities on this campus.  The following excerpt is from

http://www.csus.edu/SSWD/services/testing.html

Testing Services

Testing for Students with Disabilities

Students registered with Services to Students with Disabilities, (SSWD), are able to take exams in an environment free from distractions, with tools usually not available in the classroom. Some of the testing accommodations available to students are; readers and scribes, computer assisted and computer adaptive software, and wheelchair accessible and adjustable tables. Group room testing times are 12:30 PM on Monday, and 8:30 AM and 12:30 PM Tuesdays - Thursdays. Students arriving after 8:45 AM or 12:45 PM will not be admitted to the testing room. Testing Accommodation Instruction forms are to be completed by faculty and submitted with the exam. Exams should not be faxed or e-mailed.”

12. GET TO KNOW YOUR UNIVERSITY LIBRARY! Sacramento State has a VERY impressive library full of very current, applicable resources for all of your research needs. Do not wait until you have research to conduct to learn the ins and outs of the library. As soon as you enter the library, right near the escalators at the beginning of fall semester, you will see a schedule of free one-hour tours available. Grab a friend and take a tour. Learn how to access the libraries resources from your home or dorm room.

Theme:  The Significance of Home

·      We will consider home as our course-long theme. The significance of home – as a place of beginnings, as a starting point, as a place of comfort, regret, anguish, joy, personal growth, and loss – fuels a meaningful, intriguing collection of themes.  Home is a base from which all of us emerge.

·      Most of us have pre-conceived notions of home as a place of love, comfort, security.  For millions of children, however, these definitions do not fit their reality of home as a place to escape: escape from cycles of poverty, mistrust, abuse.

·      The course will explore not only home as a safety net, but also the illusions we have of home perpetuated by Madison Avenue advertising agencies. 

·      What are our expectations of home?  Again, does our “real” home live up to the expectations society has created?  How do different cultural values and priorities play a role in determining what home should and should not be?  Attempting to answer these questions is the task I have set for us during this semester. 

·      What does it mean to leave home for the first time?  What does it mean to be rootless, without a home? 

·      Finally, how can we reconnect to the earth as home, knowing full well that the lives we have created for ourselves impact the finite planet all of us call home?

·      We view at least two films that explore the theme of home. These films will allow us to observe and witness concepts we have read about and discussed.

COURSE OUTLINE

(Please note:  Bring this outline to class each session; changes could occur at a moment’s notice.  Also, most reading and writing assignments are noted -- other class exercises and lectures may not be noted specifically)

ALL OUT OF CLASS ASSIGNMENTS (HOMEWORK, ESSAYS, ETC) MUST BE TYPED AND DOUBLE SPACED UNLESS INSTRUCTED OTHERWISE. PLEASE USE TIMES NEW ROMAN, 12 POINT FONT.

***note: We will be reading three books this semester. two of them are specifically broken up in assigned reading due dates. however! the unwanted: a memoir of childhood is not! plan ahead. the memoir is due to be completed by Friday, November 2^nd. manage your time wisely.

Week One (Sept. 2-6)

·      Introduction to the Course (course theme explained) (Wed.)

·      Course Outline Distributed (handout) (Wed)

·      Question/Comment Homework Explained (Fri.)

·      Unacceptable Errors (handout) (Fri.)

·      Oral Presentation Assigned (for last week of class) (Fri.)

Week Two (Sept. 9-13)

·      Discussion: Reading and Evaluating Poetry (Mon.)

·      Stapler Check on Monday (25 points)

·      In class Demonstration/Discussion on the Writing Process (Wed.)

·      Read Packet 1 (Wednesday)

·      Read Packet 2 (Friday) Q & C #1 due today

·      Group Work #1 (Friday)

Week Three (Sept. 16-20)

·      Quiz based on pgs. 2-60 in Rules of Thumb (Monday)

·      Discussion: Reading and Evaluating Fiction (Monday)

·      Read pages 11-54 in Montana 1948 (Wednesday)

·      Discussion: How to Evaluate a Documentary Film (Wednesday)

·      Out of Class Essay #1 assigned today (Wednesday)

·      Get to Know the Library!  (Friday)

http://library.csus.edu/content2.asp?pageID=201

Week Four (Sept. 23-27)

·      View film (TBA)(Monday and Wednesday)

·      Preparation for in-class writing next week (Friday)

·      Read pages 57-102 in Montana 1948 (Friday)

·      Rough Draft due for Out of Class Essay #1 –OPTIONAL (Friday)

Week Five (Sept. 30-Oct.4)

·      In-class Essay #1 (Monday)

·      Out of Class Essay #1 due today (Wed.)

·      Read Packet #3 (Wed.) Q & C #2 due today

·      Out of Class Essay #2 assigned today (Friday)

·      Discuss MLA Documentation in class (Friday)

·      Read pages 105-175 in Montana 1948 (Friday)

Week Six (Oct. 7-11)

·      Read pgs. 115-166 in Rules of Thumb (Monday)

·      Quiz on pgs. 115-166 (see above) (Monday)

·      Read Packet #4 (Wednesday)

·      Group Work #2 (Friday)

·      Read chapters 1-3 in Full Body Burden (Friday)

Week Seven (Oct. 14-18)

·      Read pages 136-149 in Rules of Thumb (Monday)

·      Quiz on pages 136-149 (see above) (Monday)

·      Read chapters 4 and 5 in Full Body Burden (Wed.)

·      Group Work #3 (Friday)

·      Rough Draft due for Out of Class Essay #2—OPTIONAL (Friday)

Week Eight (Oct. 21-25)

·      Read chapters 6 and 7 in Full Body Burden (Monday)

·      Discussion: How to Read and Evaluate Essays (Wed.)

·      Read Packet #5 --Q & C #3 due today (Friday)

·      Review all Sentence Level Errors (Friday)

Week Nine:  (Oct. 28-Nov.1)

·      Read last chapter in Full Body Burden (Monday)

·      Out of class essay #2 due today (Monday)

·      Read Packet #6--Q & C #4 due today (Wednesday)

·      ***Begin reading The Unwanted. You need to have read it in its entirety BY NEXT FRIDAY, Nov. 2. (Friday)

Week Ten: (Nov. 4-8)

·      The Unwanted must be read BY Monday, this week, Nov. 4^th. Discuss The Unwanted ( Monday and Wednesday)

·      Out of class essay #3 assigned (Friday)

·      Discussion: How to Critically Respond to a Narrative Film (Friday)

Week Eleven:  (Nov. 11-15)

·      Veteran’s Day—no class (Monday)

·      View film in class (Wednesday)

·      Complete viewing of film in class (Friday)

Week Twelve:  (Nov. 18-22)

·      In class essay #2 on film viewed last week (Monday)

·      Read Packet #7 (Wednesday)

·      Rough Draft due for out of class #3-OPTIONAL (Wednesday)

·      Review of Grammar and Sentence Structure Issues (Friday)

Week Thirteen:  (Nov. 25-29)

·      Group Work #4 (Mon.)

·      Special Guest Speaker (Wednesday)

·      Thanksgiving Holiday, Nov. 28 and 29, no classes held.

Week Fourteen (Dec. 2-6)

·      Read Packet #8 (Monday)

·      Out of class essay #3 due today (Wednesday)

·      Course Evaluation (Friday)

Week Fifteen (Dec. 9-13) LAST WEEK OF CLASSES

·      Oral Presentations (Monday and Wednesday)

·      Grade Worksheet Check and last day of class (Friday)

Week Sixteen -- FINALS WEEK

There is no scheduled final exam for this class.

***A NOTE ABOUT REVISIONS***

Since this is a composition course, where the goal is to become a better writer and a more sophisticated thinker, you are invited to revise one of the three out of class essays. If you choose to revise an essay, the revision along with the original, is due no later than one week after you receive the graded essay back. You MUST highlight all changes and additions you make on your revised essay.

You may revise this ONE essay as many times as you wish until you earn the score you desire.

**************************************************************************

English 1A, Fall 2013, Prof. Fraga

GRADE WORKSHEET-----1675 POINTS POSSIBLE

Stapler Check (25 pts.)

Monday, September 9—stapler in your possession!______

Oral Presentation=(100 pts.)

Oral Pres._____(100)

Out of Class Essays (400 points)

Out of Class Essay 1_____(100 pts.)  Out of Class Essay 2_____(200 pts.)  Out of Class Essay 3_____(100 pts.)

Rules of Thumb Quizzes (300 points)

Pgs. 1-60 (100)_____     Pgs. 115-166 (100)_____    Pgs 136-149 (100)_____

Unannounced Quizzes (250) (50 points each)

Quiz 1____Quiz 2_____Quiz 3_____Quiz 4_____Quiz 5_____

Homework=(200 pts.)

Q and C #1 (50)_____Q and C #2 (50)_____Q and C #3 (50)_____Q and C #4 (50)_____

In Class Group Work (200 pts.)

Group Work 1 (50 pts)_____Group Work 2 (50 pts)_____Group Work 3 (50 pts)_____Group Work 4 (50 pts)_____

In Class Essays (200 pts.)

In class essay #1 (100)_____In class essay #2 (100) _____

**************************************************************************************

How to assess your grade earned: Divide the points you earn by 1675 to find the percentage. Then see chart below.

100-94=A                         63-60=C-                                    Example: 1455 pts. earned=86.8% =B+

93-90=A-                        59-54=D                                    Example: 1601 pts. earned=95.5%=A

89-84=B+                         53-0=F                                                Example: 1333 pts. earned=79.5%=B-

83-80=B                                                                         Example: 1200 pts. earned=71.6%=C+

79-74=B-

73-70=C+

69-64=C