This document is the syllabus for an English 102 college writing course. It provides information about the instructor, course description and goals, required textbook, assignments and deadlines, grading policy, attendance policy, and plagiarism policy. The course will focus on developing skills in persuasive and expository writing through four major assignments centered around analyzing how environments affect people and events. Students will complete daily writing assignments, participate in class discussions, and submit drafts and revisions of their major papers. The course uses a point-based grading system and attendance is mandatory.

1. Syllabus English 102 FA 2017
College Writing and Rhetoric
Instructor: Caitlin Hill
Email: cjhill@uidaho.edu
Office: Brink 102
Phone: 885-6156 (messages only)
Office Hours: M/W: 2-3:30, Th: 11-12:15
Course time & place: Section 23: T/H 12:30-1:45 TLC 139
Section 26: T/H 2:00-3:15 TLC 139
COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 102 is an introductory composition course, designed to improve your skills in
persuasive, expository writing, the sort you will be doing in other courses in college and in
many jobs. Sometimes this kid of writing is called transactional writing; it is used to
transact something—persuade and inform a reasonably well-educated audience, conduct
business, evaluate, review, or explain a complex process, procedure, or event.
This section of English 102 is designed around a theme of place. You will develop these
course goals through the analysis and argument of how our environments affect who we
are what takes place within them.
COURSE GOALS
By the end of the course, you should be very good at doing the following:
• Accurately assessing and effectively responding to a wide variety of audiences and
communication situations.
• Comprehending college-level and professional prose and analyzing how authors
present their ideas in view of their probable purposes, audiences, and occasions.
• Presenting your ideas as related to, but clearly distinguished from, the ideas of
others (includes the ability to paraphrase, summarize, and correctly cite and
document borrowed material).
• Developing a central idea or argument logically, supporting and illustrating it
clearly.
• Writing critical analyses and syntheses of college-level and professional prose.
• Being able to make the connection between questions and problems in your life both
within and outside of college.
• Gather and evaluate information and use it for a rhetorical purpose in writing a
research paper.
• Using a variety of strategies during the prewriting or “invention” process.
• Revising effectively.
• Accurately proofreading your own work in order to produce writing that maintains
the conventions of publishing English.
• Giving and receiving constructive feedback from peers.
Of course, I expect that you are able to carry out some of these tasks already.

2. DEADLINES & LATE WORK POLICY
Administrative Deadlines
The university has certain deadlines of which you need to be aware if you want to drop the
course at some point during the term.
Monday, August 28th – Last day to add the course WITH a late fee.
Friday, September 1st – Last day to drop the course without a grade of W.
Friday, October 27th – Last day to drop the course with a grade of W.
Course Deadlines
The due dates for all homework assignments and drafts are posted under the appropriate
Unit and Week on the course BbLearn site. Late daily homework will receive a 10%
deduction for every day it is late, including weekends. Late major assignments will be
ineligible for a grade higher than a C. Not completing a major writing assignment will be
grounds for failure of the course.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK
• Nicotra, Jodie, Becoming Rhetorical (available as an online link on our class site)
• There will be additional course readings outside of the textbook, which will be
available on the course BbLearn site as PDF documents.
COURSE WEBSITE
All major writing assignments and process homework (everything except in-class
assignments) will be submitted through the course BbLearn site. All assignment sheets
and other course materials will also be posted in the BbLearn site. Log on into BbLearn
(http://bblearn.uidaho.edu) using your University of Idaho NetID and password, and
locate English 102.
Please be aware that course materials and deadlines are subject to change. You should
check this Bb Learn site and your University of Idaho email account at least once a day to
stay properly updated. I will not take "I didn't see/hear anything about that" as an excuse
for missed or late work or being unprepared in class.
ATTENDANCE
Attendance in English 102 is mandatory. Being present in class is the key to success in
the course. More than four unexcused absences is grounds for failure of the course. An
excused absence is an official note specifying the days and reasons you were required to
miss class. Excused absences must be in writing from an official such as a doctor or a
university instructor or administrator (in the event of athletic events or field trips). You
are responsible for making up work you miss due to absences.
Attendance means being physically present, awake, coherent, and fully prepared for class,
with the day’s assignments completed. If you do not meet all of these conditions, you can
be marked absent for the day. You are responsible for making up work that you miss.

3. COURSE ETIQUETTE
Classroom citizenship. The classroom is a learning community. Be respectful of your
fellow students and your instructor. If you have a problem with anything in the course,
speak to me about it privately after class or meet me during my office hours. Disruptive,
insulting, intolerant behavior during class may result in expulsion from a class meeting or
the entire course.
Technology. All cell phones must put away during class time. Unless you have been given
explicit permission to use your laptop in class, all laptops should be shut and stowed. Even
if you aren’t called out in class for using this technology, inappropriate use will be
reflected in your participation points. If you answer a phone call in class, expect to be
excused.
Email etiquette. I welcome your emails and questions – if you have questions about the
course, your work, meeting times, etc., please contact me at the address listed above or on
the BbLearn home page. When you contact me, please treat it as a professional
correspondence—your message should have a greeting, be written in complete sentences,
and signed with your name and section number at the bottom. If your email is written like
you’re texting a friend, don’t expect a reply. Generally, you can expect a response during
regular business hours (Monday-Friday, 8-5 PM).
OFFICE HOURS
My office hours and office number are listed above and on the BbLearn home page. I
welcome you to stop by to discuss your work, questions about the course, etc., during that
time. If for some reason you can’t come during my regularly posted hours, please email me
or stop by after class to make other arrangements.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Major Assignments
There will be four major composition assignments. Each major assignment will develop
the University of Idaho ENGL 102 learning outcomes through a focus on environments:
• Personal Narrative: Place-Identity
• Annotated Bibliography
• Place & Crisis Research Narrative
• Multi-Genre Assignment: Analysis of a UI Place or Space
Daily Assignments/Homework
There will be shorter process work writing assignments due regularly. These assignments
are specifically designed to help you generate material to write the major assignments and
make up credit for the “Process Points” portion of each unit. For the most part, this work
will be completed entirely in class and handed in to me at the end of the period. Your time
outside of class should be spent on reading assignments and your major writing
assignments.
Journals
Daily free-writes will be incorporated into our classroom meetings. I suggest recording
your responses to the free-write prompts into a separate composition notebook designated
entirely to your English 102 free-writes and classroom notes. You will post one free-write

4. response per week onto the BbLearn Discussion Board forum to share with your peers. It
is through this online post that I grade your completion of in-class free-writes and
journaling, meaning that points for these assignments will be reflected in both the Journal
and the Participation portions of each unit. Grades will be based on completion, not
necessarily content.
Rough Drafts
There are no rough drafts required for this course. You will not be forced to hand in any
draft of a major assignment before the final draft due date. However, 10 out of the 100
available points for each major assignment are dedicated to handing in a rough draft and
the presence of significant revision in the final draft based on instructor comments on said
rough draft. If you choose not to submit a rough draft, you will be ineligible to receive
more than 89 points on the major assignment.
If you want to turn in a rough draft, you will submit it in the appropriate dropbox on the
BbLearn site. Do not panic when you receive 0 points for this submission—the points
appear in the rubric for the final draft submission.
GRADING
Course Grading System
Here is the distribution of the total points for the four units this semester:
Unit One Process
Points - 50
Journal - 40 Major Assign. -
100
Participation
60
Total Points
Possible: 250
Unit Two Process
Points - 50
Journal – 40 Major Assign.-
100
Participation
60
Total Points
Possible: 250
Unit Three Process
Points - 50
Journal - 40 Major Assign. -
100
Participation
60
Total Points
Possible:
250
Unit Four Process
Points - 50
Journal - 40 Major Assign. -
100
Participation
60
Total Points
Possible:
250
TOTAL POINTS
Total Available Course Points 1,000
All of these scores will be posted on Blackboard under the My Grades link promptly and
regularly. I will recommend an F in the course if you fail to submit any major assignments.
Course Grades possible:
A
Represents achievement that is outstanding or superior relative to the level
necessary to meet the requirements of the course.

5. B
Represents achievement that is significantly above the level necessary to meet
the requirements of the course.
Grades of A or B are honors grades. You must do something beyond the minimum
required in order to earn an A or B.
C
Represents achievement that meets the basic requirements in every respect. It
signifies that the work is average, but nothing more.
W
Stands for Withdrawal. This is the grade you will receive if you withdraw from
the course after Wednesday, January 11 but on or before Wednesday,
January 25th. A W has no effect on your GPA, but you can have only 20 W
credits during your time as an undergraduate at UI (about six courses. After
Wednesday, January 25th you can no longer withdraw from the course.
N
Stands for No Credit. A grade of N has no effect on your GPA, but it does mean
that you need to take the course again. You will earn a grade of N if your grade
is an N and you have done all the work for the course. You also must have made
a good faith effort to complete all the assignments. Handing in just any piece of
writing just to avoid getting an F will not work.
F
Stands for Failure. A grade of F has a negative effect on your GPA. If you fail to
hand in any major writing assignment or do not make a good-faith effort to
succeed at a major assignment, you will automatically earn an F. If your average
grade is an N but you did not complete one of the major components of the course
(one of the major papers of all of the homework assignments or drafts), you will
automatically earn an F in the course. There is no reason for receiving an F in
this course, unless you simply fail to submit the required work.
I
Stands for incomplete. Under very unusual circumstances you could be assigned
an Incomplete in the course if something happened to you within the last two
weeks of the semester that made it impossible to complete the course (a serious
accident or illness that left you hospitalized and very significant personal
tragedy, etc.)
Disability Support Services Reasonable Accommodations Statement
Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have documented
temporary or permanent disabilities. All accommodations must be approved through
Disability Support Services located in the Idaho Commons Building, Room 306 in
order to notify your instructor(s) as soon as possible regarding accommodation(s)
needed for the course.
Disability Support Services
Phone: 208-885-6307
Email: dss@uidaho.edu
Web: http://www.uidaho.edu/studentaffairs/asap/dss

6. University of Idaho Classroom Learning Civility Clause
In any environment in which people gather to learn, it is essential that all members feel as
free and safe as possible in their participation. To this end, it is expected that everyone in
this course will be treated with mutual respect and civility, with an understanding that all
of us (students, instructors, professors, guests, and teaching assistants) will be respectful
and civil to one another in discussion, in action, in teaching, and in learning.
Should you feel our classroom interactions do not reflect an environment of civility and
respect, you are encouraged to meet with your instructor during office hours to discuss
your concern. Additional resources for expression of concern or requesting support include
the Dean of Students office and staff (208-885-6757), the UI Counseling & Testing
Center’s confidential services (208-885-6716), or the UI Office of Human Rights, Access, &
Inclusion (208-885-4285).
Policy on Plagiarism in English 102
At the University of Idaho, we assume you will do your own work and that you will work
with your instructor on improving writing that is your own. Plagiarism—using someone
else’s ideas or words as yours own without proper attribution--is a serious matter.
The Council of Writing Program Administrators defines plagiarism in the following way:
“In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone
else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without
acknowledging its source. This definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to
manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers.” (From “Defining and Avoiding
Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices,” http://wpacouncil.org/node/9).
Also, turning in work you have previously completed for another course—either an entire
paper or significant portions of it—can also be considered an unethical use of your own
work and can be considered a form of plagiarism worthy of reporting as an instance of
academic dishonesty.
The consequences of plagiarism:
If evidence of plagiarism is found in student work in English 101, the instructor is
empowered by Regulation 0-2 of the general catalog to assign a grade of F for the course,
a penalty that may be imposed in particularly serious cases. In most cases of plagiarism,
the instructor will also make a complaint to the Dean of Students Office, which is
responsible for enforcing the regulations in the Student Code of Conduct. So in addition to
the academic penalty of receiving an F in the course, you may also be subject to other
disciplinary penalties, which can include suspension of expulsion. Although such severe
penalties are rarely imposed for first-time offenders, the Dean of Students Office
maintains disciplinary records as part of a student’s overall academic record.
Instructors may demonstrate that a paper involves plagiarism in two ways: 1) by
identifying the source, and 2) by showing the discrepancy of style between previous papers
and the paper I questions.
If a paper involves misuse of sources or other materials--which the CWPA defines as when
a writer “carelessly or inadequately [cites] ideas and words borrowed from another

7. source”-- the instructor may ask you to rewrite the paper, using correct forms of
documentation.
When you need to use words or ideas from another person—whether an idea, a picture, a
powerful statement, a set of facts, or an explanation—cite your source!