| Instructor: | Robin L. Simmons |
| Office: | 3-255, West Campus |
| Office Hours: | Check the schedule on my door or call for an appointment. |
| Phone: | 407.582.1171 [So that we both have a record of the question and the answer, the best method of contact is email from your Atlas account.] |
| Department Office: | 5-231, West Campus |
| Department Phone: | 407.582.1313 |
| Email: | rsimmons@valenciacc.edu [I read email from Atlas only.] |
| Required Textbooks: | Kirszner and Mandell's Portable Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing, 6th ed. and Faigley's The Brief Penguin Handbook, 2nd ed. |
| Course Website: | http://rlsimmons.blogs.com/enc1102online/ |
Prerequisites: Minimum grade of C in ENC 1101 or ENC 1101H or IDH 1110. Application of skills learned in ENC 1101. Emphasis on style; use of library; reading and evaluating available sources; planning, writing, and documenting short research paper. Gordon Rule course in which the student is required to demonstrate college-level writing skills through multiple assignments. Minimum grade of C required if ENC 1102 is used to satisfy Gordon Rule and general education requirements.
The purpose of ENC 1102 is to teach you to think logically, especially when you read and write. Our attention will be divided between two major responsibilities: 1) the production of a correct and effective research paper of at least 2,000 words, and 2) an introduction to reading and writing about literature. Completing these tasks will require that you meet the four core competencies of a Valencia Community College graduate: think, value, communicate, and act.
All of the instruction for this course is conducted online. For evaluation, you will submit assignments by email and take quizzes and the final exam at a campus testing center.
Since this course is online, your ability to meet deadlines will count as your attendance. If you miss three assignment due dates, you will be withdrawn from the course. Late writing assignments will be penalized 5 points per day; quizzes, the online literature discussion, and the final exam must be completed by posted deadlines.
I will use the time stamp on the assignment email to determine if your work has arrived on time, so be sure that you request and keep a "Sent" copy of each email. I will not, under any circumstances, accept a late paper after Friday, November 30, 2007.
Since every member of the Valencia community now has an Atlas account, and since the Valencia server will screen all Atlas correspondence for viruses and inappropriate material, I will open and read only those messages that you send from Atlas. I will delete unread any messages from other email sources.
Do not let your mailbox become so choked with old email from past semesters that the server cannot deliver new messages.
Do not forward your Atlas email to another account; reading Atlas email in Atlas will ensure that a non-Valencia server doesn't delete an important message about this class as email spam.
You must submit all assignments as email attachments, not in the actual email. In addition, the documents must be in rich text or Word formats. The file extension will be .rtf or .doc. If you do not know how to save in these formats, be sure to visit a campus computer lab to get instructions. I will not evaluate your work in any other formats.
I do not accept technological problems at home as excuses for late work. If you are unable to complete your assignments on your own computer and deliver them via email, I expect you to drive to campus and finish them here at one of the college's computer labs. I buy "My hard drive crashed" with the same skepticism as "The dog ate my homework." Online equals via computer, not necessarily from home.
The American Heritage College Dictionary defines plagiarism this way: "To use and pass off as one's own the ideas or writings of another." To avoid this serious academic offence, properly document any direct quotations or ideas that you find and use in your papers. Follow the MLA guidelines [Chapter 21] on pp. 245 - 299 of your Brief Penguin Handbook.
Make note of these two important policies concerning academic honesty:
First, you must submit an original research essay for ENC 1102, not one submitted in any other course during any other semester, not even a previous attempt at ENC 1102. Turning in the same essay for two different courses is considered self-plagiarism and will result in a WF for this course.
Second, copying and pasting from Internet sources without providing correct documentation is not college-level work. The first instance--even if it is a single sentence--will result in a grade of zero for the assignment. The second instance will result in your immediate withdrawal from the course with a grade of WF.
Valencia Community College subscribes to Turnitin.com. This website allows faculty to upload student writing so that software can compare the papers to every available electronic resource in the world, looking for parts that match up with previously published sources. Any assignment that you submit is subject to analysis at Turnitin.com.
Print and keep hardcopies of all of your research sources and assignments.
If you decide to drop this course for any reason, you must initiate the process. Otherwise, you will receive a WF at the end of the semester. The deadline this session for withdrawing with a W is Friday, November 2, 2007.
You will receive grades via Atlas email. Look for your graded work within 10 days after the deadline for the assignment has passed.
Your grade in this class will be an average of all writing assignments, quizzes, and the final exam, none of which are optional. All grades average equally. A = 100 - 90; B = 89.99 - 80; C = 79.99 - 70; D = 69.99 - 60; F = 59.99 - 0. Use the grade worksheet to determine where you stand in class.
This class does not offer extra credit or rewrites for assignments that received bad scores. No grade will be dropped or curved. To earn the highest possible score, read all of the assigned sections of your textbooks, follow all of the directions at the website, model your own work on the student samples available for many of the assignments, email me from Atlas with questions prior to submission, use college tutoring services when necessary, and proofread carefully for sentence errors. Before you press "Send," confirm that you have attached the right file(s).
Work that contains more than 10 sentence errors is subject to failure, so proofread!
Your final examination will be available in the campus testing centers from Tuesday, December 4, through Tuesday, December 11, 2007. If you miss the final exam, you will receive a WF for the course.
Be aware of these recordkeeping responsibilities:
- When you send email from Atlas, always check "Save a copy to the 'Sent' folder."
- After you send an assignment via Atlas, you will get a response from me that says that I have received your work. If you do not receive this receipt within 48 hours, contact me from Atlas immediately.
- After you send an assignment via email, confirm that you have a copy of this assignment in the "Sent" folder of your Atlas email. Check for the paperclip icon that indicates Atlas delivered the attachment as well as the message.
- In a notebook or folder, keep hardcopies of all graded work, all email, and all research until you have received your final grade.
Computer Labs [available on all campuses]. If you are having technical problems at home, you have a variety of on-campus options for computer use.
Libraries [available on all campuses]. To access online databases, a required resource, you will need a valid Valencia ID and PIN. You have full Internet access and email opportunities from college computers located in the libraries.
Student Services [available on all campuses]. Try this location for information on academic advising, student development, financial aid, and career counseling.
Testing Centers [available on all campuses]. Call for operating hours before making the drive to campus to take a quiz or the final exam.
Tutoring Services [available on all campuses]. Arrange a tutor if you believe that you will benefit from one-on-one help.