PURPOSE: To develop each student's individual writing skills in various academic American English writing modes with a special focus on the skills required to write effective expository, analytic and argumentative essays and research papers. OBJECTIVES: By the end of this class, your writing of American academic English will have improved in the following ways:
2 TOEFL style in-class essays (5% each -->10%) Midterm analytic essay (5%) Final in-class argumentative essay (5%) 1 Research Paper (35%)
All
work on all on all
writing assignments
must be completed by you and
based on your
ideas. As an ELI student you must
adhere to the Mason
Honor Code which states: “Student members of the George Mason
University community pledge not to cheat, plagiarize, steal, or lie in
matters related to academic work.” Please see the following
website for
specifc details regarding the Mason Honor Code: http://academicintegrity.gmu.edu/honorcode/
Grading Policies Work in this class is of two types in terms of grades: graded work and nongraded work.
You will receive grades on a 5 to 10 scale for graded assignments (10 is the highest possible mark; you are guaranteed 5 points even if your paper is not a passing assignment -- you will receive 0 points if you do not turn in an assignment). Some graded assignments are essays, some are short writings, some are group and peer work, and some are quizzes. Writing assignments are graded in terms of content (clear presentation of ideas, well developed supporting material, and logical organization as required within the American academic writing style). See the High Advanced Writing Essay Scoring Scale for details about what your instructor looks for when grading an essay. However, "technical" aspects of writing such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling are important too. Therefore, if you make consistent technical errors in an assignment, you will be asked to turn in a correction sheet. If you are asked to write a correction sheet, you must write one within two weeks of an assignment being returned to you. If you fail to turn in a correction sheet, the content grade you received will be erased from my grade book and you will receive a zero grade (far worse than an F which is worth 5 points!)...so do your correction sheets!
While ELI policy states that you are allowed a maximum of four absences in this class, try not to miss any. In a writing class such as this, it is important to keep up with the assignments, so a missed class is not only a missed opportunity for you to learn but also a missed opportunity to get some work done. Therefore, you are responsible for making up any work you miss because of an absence.
If you miss a quiz, YOU must contact the instructor and take the quiz or test BEFORE THE NEXT CLASS MEETING. Failure to do so will result in a zero on the quiz or test. If you miss a peer review session, you can not make it up in class; you must find another student who is willing to help you outside of class time. You may turn in assignments late ONLY AFTER making arrangements with the instructor. If you try to turn in work past a stated due date without having made arrangements to do so BEFORE HAND, the instructor reserves the right to neither accept nor grade the assignment. Page URL:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~llmiller/Syllabi/AW/syllabus.html
Last updated: January 2010 |