- e-mail: bundy@morainevalley.edu
- phone: (708) 974-5762
- campus mail: D108
- office: D115
- office hours: by appointment only during pre-session and summer
2. Course Identification
- credit hours: 3
- contact hours: 3
- course meets: 102-590
- prerequisite: “C” or better in COM-101 or appropriate score on placement test.
- requisite: You must earn a “C” or better to earn an A.A. or A.S. degree, or to transfer this course.
- catalog summary: “Designed to teach clear and effective expository prose, with emphasis on organization, clarity and coherence. Learn to adapt style to various readers and use research to clarify explanations and support arguments.”
We use the Eighth Edition of the MLA Handbook, which you can find in the bookstore. Any other readings or videos will be available on our course blog.
4. COM 102 Course Learning Outcomes
Critical Reading and Thinking
By the end of the term a student should be able to:
- Create connections among texts discussed and other texts.
- Analyze a writer’s stylistic choices, such as the perspective or tone adopted for a particular audience and purpose.
By the end of the term a student should be able to:
- Construct an argument based on a text or texts.
- Develop strategies for reaching more than one type of audience in a piece of writing.
- Select source material (library, print, digital, or fieldwork-based) appropriate to a writing project’s purpose and audience.
- Integrate research material from multiple sources into a piece of writing while maintaining one’s own voice.
- Demonstrate ethical awareness in writing by incorporating and documenting source material responsibly according to a guidelines system (MLA, APA).
- Correctly document sources through appropriate in-text citations and a Works Cited page.
- Move beyond managing correctness in writing and toward making deliberate choices about stylistic elements such as clarity, concision, cohesion, and emphasis.
- Demonstrate skill at the stylistic aspects of integrating sources, such as employing a variety of transitional effects or integrating a quote into the grammatical structure of a sentence.
Final drafts of major writing projects will be evaluated according to the Communication department's grading criteria.
Here's the point breakdown for the course grade, with 1,000 possible points and the typical scale of 90/80/70/60 percents as cutoffs for A/B/C/D:
Note that if you're not doing well in the course, but it's too late to drop, you can opt to withdraw. Be aware of deadlines: for this course, the last day you can withdraw is noon, 7/30. If you don't withdraw officially by the deadline, you may receive an "F" for the course.
Also remember that even online, each student is responsible for adhering to the Code of Student Conduct as stated in the college catalog.
6. On Plagiarism
Be sure you are familiar with the college's Code of Academic Integrity. In my class, these are the most common ways students plagiarize the work of others:
If I discover plagiarized work, I will talk with you by e-mail or in person. If you submit plagiarized work again after that, you fail the course. The particular type of plagiarism won't matter (1, 2, or 3). If we've had a talk, then you'll have been made well aware of the consequences.
Here's the point breakdown for the course grade, with 1,000 possible points and the typical scale of 90/80/70/60 percents as cutoffs for A/B/C/D:
- Attendance & Participation: 150*
- Project Drafts: 100
- Peer Reviews: 100
- Major Writing Projects:
- Project #1: 150
- Project #2: 150
- Project #3: 100
- Project #4: 150
- Final Exam: 100
Note that if you're not doing well in the course, but it's too late to drop, you can opt to withdraw. Be aware of deadlines: for this course, the last day you can withdraw is noon, 7/30. If you don't withdraw officially by the deadline, you may receive an "F" for the course.
Also remember that even online, each student is responsible for adhering to the Code of Student Conduct as stated in the college catalog.
6. On Plagiarism
Be sure you are familiar with the college's Code of Academic Integrity. In my class, these are the most common ways students plagiarize the work of others:
- they might copy sentences verbatim and acknowledge the source, but forget the quotation marks around the verbatim material;
- they might substitute words but keep the grammar of the original source, with or without acknowledgement;
- they might copy sentences verbatim from a source, with no quotation marks and no acknowledgement about where the material came from.
If I discover plagiarized work, I will talk with you by e-mail or in person. If you submit plagiarized work again after that, you fail the course. The particular type of plagiarism won't matter (1, 2, or 3). If we've had a talk, then you'll have been made well aware of the consequences.
7. Getting Help
I serve as Co-Director of the Speaking & Writing Center with my colleague Mike McGuire. Together, we run a staff of students and faculty trained to provide consultations on writing. You can make an appointment at the center (A258) and bring the paper you're working on along with details about the project. We won't edit your work, but we'll give you honest feedback from interested readers for free. We are open during summer, but with limited hours.
I serve as Co-Director of the Speaking & Writing Center with my colleague Mike McGuire. Together, we run a staff of students and faculty trained to provide consultations on writing. You can make an appointment at the center (A258) and bring the paper you're working on along with details about the project. We won't edit your work, but we'll give you honest feedback from interested readers for free. We are open during summer, but with limited hours.
Here are brief descriptions of our major course units. The major assignments are all multi-source essays. We'll be reading and viewing materials, essentially, then you'll stake out a response to them through your writing. There's room in here for creativity, choosing your own topics (within the thematic umbrella I'm providing), and playing with the approach that might best engage readers. There are no "research papers" or "position papers"; rather, all the pieces will involve you finding ways to engage the minds of your readers around some idea or train of thought you think adds to the conversation.
Unit 1: Reading Yourself
How well do you read your own behaviors, and in effect know what makes you tick? In this unit we'll explore personality typing, and consider ways popular science and scholarly science coexist.
How well do you read your own behaviors, and in effect know what makes you tick? In this unit we'll explore personality typing, and consider ways popular science and scholarly science coexist.
Unit 2: Reading Others
Aside from personality, there are many factors that impact our interactions with one another. We'll look at gender differences (with the understanding that gender isn't binary, but is largely treated that way in the culture), as well as other factors that might make it difficult for us to "get on the same page" with others, so to speak.
Aside from personality, there are many factors that impact our interactions with one another. We'll look at gender differences (with the understanding that gender isn't binary, but is largely treated that way in the culture), as well as other factors that might make it difficult for us to "get on the same page" with others, so to speak.
Unit 3: Reading Art
Reading for comprehension and reading interpretively are quite different things, so we'll work with that concept with one small project and one larger one; the former will involve a poem I'll give you, and the latter, a film we'll watch together.
Reading for comprehension and reading interpretively are quite different things, so we'll work with that concept with one small project and one larger one; the former will involve a poem I'll give you, and the latter, a film we'll watch together.
