Welcome to English 132—Winter
2009
My name is Dr. Gary McIlroy,
and I will be your instructor for this course.
As a 95% online course, most of our work will be done on our website
(henryford.ucompass.com) at your convenience (though all assignments have
deadlines).
PLEASE NOTE: You will not be able to access our
course UCOMPASS site until the first day of the semester. At that time, go to henryford.ucompass.com
and follow the instructions for logging in. However, in order to prepare for
the start of class, please read the abbreviated course description and
instructions below:
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This English class will require a lot of your time.
We will read two novels, write three “at home” essays, take short-answer and
essay quizzes (usually one quiz a week), and do a research paper.
Although most of our work will be online, you will need to attend an
orientation session and come to campus later in the semester to write an essay. I will schedule several days and times for
you to meet these requirements.
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Here are the things that you need to do to get started:
1) Purchase or borrow the following two novels: GREAT EXPECTATIONS, by Charles
Dickens, and JACK MAGGS, by Peter Carey. They will be available in the
bookstore. One of the most helpful things you can do when reading these books
is to underline important passages or makes notes in the margins. This will
help you remember information and find it if you need to use it.
It would be a good idea to start reading GREAT EXPECTATIONS. It is a long book and we will read it in six
weeks.
Here is the reading schedule for GREAT EXPECTAIONS:
Weeks 1-2--Read through chapter 19 by the end of the week 2.
Weeks 3-4--Read through chapter 38 by the end of week 4.
Weeks 5-6--Finish the novel by the end of the week 6.
At the end of each week there will be a quiz on the assigned chapters. These
can be short answer and/or essay questions.
In weeks 7-12 we will read JACK MAGGS.
Weeks 7-8--Read through chapter 25
Weeks 9-10--Read through chapter 57
Weeks 11-12--Finish the novel
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If you are unfamiliar with the UCOMPASS website, there is a tutorial
("UCOMPASS ORIENTATION") henryford.ucompass.com
. You can find out, for example, what
your username and password will be for this course.
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As an online student, you will need regular, almost daily, access to a reliable
computer and Internet connection. If you do not have such access, do not take
this course. (This would be similar to a
student who signed up to a traditional class but couldn’t find the
transportation needed to get to campus.)
Additionally, since most of our work is done online (including timed quizzes
and essays), please note that a malfunctioning computer or internet connection
IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO REDO AN ASSIGNMENT. If you get logged off in the middle of
a quiz or your screen freezes up, for example, you will not be able to have a
second chance to complete any graded or timed assignment. Obviously I cannot
allow students to take a quiz who have already seen the questions. Only if
there is a malfunction of UCOMPASS software, confirmed by our UCOMPASS course
administrators, will any allowances be made.
Please keep in mind that this is a “second semester” college writing class,
which by its nature is more demanding that any previous writing class you may
have taken.
Here is some preliminary information on our research
paper (various details may change):
Your research topic for this class is the life of Charles Dickens and how
Dickens’ experience and preoccupations are reflected in his novel Great Expectations. How, for example,
did Dickens’ experience of power, class, social ambition, and romantic
relations reflect those of Pip?
Your main sources for this paper will be books and essays (sometimes referred
to as “articles”). The essays can be found in literary journals,
bibliographies, and data bases (available at the HFCC library and even
accessible from your home computer). Do not use Internet sources for this paper
(these are not necessarily the same as data base sources, which you can use).
A good research paper can only come from a wealth of information as you will
eventually need to choose which information best suits your purposes. If you
fill out 100 note cards, for example, you may end up using only bits of
information from 20 of them. If you did not have the 100 cards to start with,
you probably wouldn’t have the “right” information (the information that suits
your purposes), or even the right ideas, to develop your essay.
Most of your paper will be your own discussion (in your own words) about what
you have learned from your sources. Still, it is you who decides the main focus
of your paper and your thesis. You are determining and evaluating how Dickens’
life is reflected in this novel. Sometimes you will want to use quotations, so
make sure when you take notes that exact words, phrases, and sentences are put
in quotation marks (and don’t forget the specific page numbers).
When using someone else’s ideas (I don’t mean common information: “Dickens was
born in . . .,” but someone’s theory, say, about how such and such influenced
Dickens’ fiction) you will need to give credit to your source. This is called a
parenthetical citation when placed in the research paper itself. We will
discuss later exactly how this is done. You will also eventually have a Works
Cited page at the end of the paper.
You will of course be referencing GREAT EXPECTATIONS in your paper, but your
essay should use at least 4 secondary sources.
This essay should be at least 5-7 pages in the MLA format, double-spaced and in
12 pt. font. (details subject to change).