Curriculum Guide

RHET 0310 Composition Fundamentals

Official Description:

Practice in writing, with an emphasis on developing fluency and editing. This course does not fulfill the core curriculum requirement and is intended for students who are not ready for RHET 1311. Institutional credit only; final grades are A, B, C, or NC. Three credit hours.

This course is cross-listed with RHET 1311: Composition I as part of UALR’s Accelerated Learning Program for composition. You must be concurrently enrolled in each section, and if you decide to add/drop the class you must do so for each corresponding section. When you pass both courses (RHET 0310 and RHET 1311), you will be eligible to take Composition II (RHET 1312). This is a great opportunity for you to succeed at developing the writing skills necessary to become a successful college and workplace writer.

A few points to note about this accelerated learning composition class:

• ·Separate assignments and homework will be assigned for each course.
• ·A separate grade will be given for each course.
• ·You must pass both courses with a C or better to advance.

Curriculum:

Composition Fundamentals is taught on the studio and ALP model. It meets directly after RHET 1311. Students in this class receive extra time to work on their assignments with supervision, guidance, and assistance from their instructor. The instructor can offer supplemental peer review activities and miniature assignments that help scaffold the work they do in 1311. Fundamentals may address issues of language diversity and academic writing, with contextual and holistic approaches to grammar and mechanics.

The official description for Fundamentals describes extra assignments, and says students receive a separate grade. While true, it's best to align 0310 and 1311 assignments as much as possible. Fundamentals students may complete additional smaller and scaffolding assignments. In turn, completing or neglecting these assignments could lower their grade. However, we strongly recommend instructors do not add major assignments to 0310. Therefore, 0310 and 1311 grades should be roughly equivalent.

RHET 1311 Composition I

Official Description

Prerequisite: A minimum ACT English score of 19, a minimum SAT I verbal score of 450, or a grade of C or higher in RHET 0310 or RHET 0321. Students will focus on organizing and revising ideas and writing well organized, thoroughly developed papers that achieve the writer’s purpose, meet the readers’ needs, and develop the writer’s voice. Final course grades are A, B, C, or NC. Students must complete this course with a grade of C or greater to take RHET 1312. Three credit hours.

Curriculum

RHET 1311 introduces students to basic concepts of rhetoric and writing including the rhetorical triangle, the appeals, and writing processes. Students also begin to develop information literacy in this course by using newspapers, magazines, and primary sources such as government reports and archives. Typical assignments include personal essays, memoirs, rhetorical analysis, op-ed pieces, and exploratory papers on local history, career interests, or cultural trends. These projects often have a multimodal component, such as PowerPoints and Prezi presentations. The ultimate goal is to produce 15-20 pages of polished writing submitted via an electronic portfolio.

Required Assignments

• Personal Essay or Literacy Narrative
• Rhetorical Analysis
• A 6-8 page, open-ended research paper with 5-8 sources
• Multimodal project (PowerPoint, Prezi, etc)
• Reflection Essay
• Digital Course Portfolio

RHET 1312 Composition II

Official Description

Prerequisite: RHET 1311 with a C or greater or equivalent. Practice in writing, with an emphasis on academic forms. Students will focus on analysis, argumentation, research, and documentation writing. Final course grades are A, B, C, or NC. Three credit hours.

Curriculum

RHET 1312 focuses more exclusively on advanced models such as the rhetorical situation, Toulmin method, and Rogerian forms of argumentation. This course is devoted to academic writing, not simply within institutional contexts but also as a form of public discourse. Students learn how to form complex research questions and arguments, support claims with evidence, and become familiar with academic journals. Typical assignments include advanced rhetorical analysis, synthesis essays, annotated bibliographies, research papers, infographics, and PSAs.

Required Assignments

• Advanced Rhetorical Analysis
• An 8-10 page, open-ended research paper with 8-10 sources
• Infographic or Visual PSA
• Reflection Essay
• Digital Course Portfolio

RHET 1320 Honors Composition

For students with superior achievement in English. Fulfills first year composition core curriculum requirement. Honors composition is a one-semester course of first-year composition that accelerates students who scored a 27 or better on the ACT and received at least a B in high school English through the composition sequence. The course focuses on writing with sources and on students’ development of argumentative texts. RHET 1320 exposes students to both academic conventions and writing for real-world audiences and purposes. Three credit hours.

Professional Expectations

Meetings

Attendance matters for teachers as well as students. When you accept a teaching appointment, you're committing to meet your classes during scheduled times for the duration of the semester. Conferences and other professional obligations shouldn't lead to cancellation of more than 2-3 classes in a semester. Please list those dates on your course schedule and arrange for online activities, or a substitute.

Let the department's administrative specialist know anytime you can't meet your classes. If a serious conflict or crisis arises midway through the semester, you must contact the composition director and department chair in writing.

Send an email, or leave a note in our mailboxes. Emails and notes don't need to list specifics, but they should indicate your need to meet about arranging a long-term alternative to standard instruction. Contact them both, and do not assume that information will always pass from one person to the other. You are responsible for ensuring that the relevant administrators (chair, director, admin specialist) know about your situation.

Employment Documents

The department is required to keep the following documents on file for all employees: employment contract, CV, syllabus, and schedule. If you teach for another state institution, the university also requires you to complete a concurrent employment form. See the administrative specialist in the main office for details on this form. Teachers are also sometimes required to undergo online training and provide certificates in accordance with state law. The department chair or composition director will forward this information to you when it's required.

Grading & Attendance

You must provide written feedback to students throughout the semester on their writing. A composition course requires a minimum of three major papers, a reflection statement, and a digital portfolio. (See other posts for details.)

You must keep a grade book in digital format, either in Blackboard, Google Sheets, or Excel. It is important to have a record of students' performance--especially if someone else needs to take over your class due to emergencies or other issues.

You must also submit final grades for students according to instructions sent out by the composition director.

Assignments in composition courses should all be process-based. Students should have the opportunity, and even the expectation, of revising their work.

We discourage exams in the form of multiple-choice questions and short answers. These forms of assessment do not align with best practices of writing instruction.

TAs and part-time teachers should always contact the composition director about students who need an Incomplete, or who will fail due to violations of academic integrity. The composition director will meet with you and the student (if needed) to arrange a plan for completion of missing work. The student must always be informed in advance when receiving grades of this nature.

It's important to take attendance for your class every day. Especially during the first two weeks, you need to verify that your course roster is accurate. Registration errors are not uncommon, and they need to be resolved to avoid complications. In short, no student should be attending your class unless they are officially enrolled. Otherwise, they will not receive credit.

Communication

You should check your email and LMS daily. Always respond to student emails, even if you think a response isn't warranted. Sometimes, you can simply write back to a student indicating they need to review assignment guidelines, or meet with you in person. It is never a good idea to ignore emails from students, even if they have dropped your class or will receive an NC.

You can always simply refer students to the director of composition, or forward their emails with a request for assistance.

We don't expect you to respond to student emails on evenings or weekends. However, standard turnaround for email is 24 hours during the business week.

We can't require you to check email between semesters. However, we recommend that you remain accessible during these periods in the even that students contact you with questions about grades. The composition director will also likely be sending you important information about scheduling and program updates during these periods. If you plan to be away from email, set an away message and make sure we have your phone number in case of serious issues. We do not give you phone number out to students. It is only used by faculty and administrators.

End of Semester

In November, you'll receive an announcement from the director of composition with instructions about logistical items including course evaluations, assessment activities, plagiarism issues, and grade appeals. You must attend to these items in order to remain illegible for reappointment.

It's especially important to submit links to student portfolios at the director's request in a timely manner. Submit them during the same week as you finish grading. The composition program conducts assessments on an annual basis. Failure to submit your portfolios leads to inaccurate and unrepresentative samples.

Technically, your appointment ends once you've submitted final grades. However, it's likely that students and administrators will need to contact you after the semester ends. We suggest you setup mail forwarding in your school account so that you don't miss any important messages.

Plagiarism & Academic Integrity

Many teachers might think of plagiarism as a black and white issue. A student turns in a paper consisting entirely of material copied from other sources, or they download a file from a paper mill and submit it. True, these cases exist. However, most cases fall into other categories that require nuance and discretion.

International Students

Consider an international student who learned how to write in a different culture with different stances toward authorship and originality. In some cultures, it makes perfect sense to weave sources into your writing verbatim without direct citation. Some international students even admit freely that there's no sense in trying to rephrase a passage from an author that already sounds eloquent and persuasive. They might also assume that their readers will automatically recognize this source material, eliminating the need for Western citation principles. In these cases, students don't simply earn a free pass. But teachers should treat them as learning experiences. If you've ever studied abroad, you know the difficulty of adapting to different environments and educational contexts.

Underprepared Students

Likewise, think about students from under-funded school districts who never received adequate writing instruction. A surprising number of students often explain that their teachers explicitly taught them how to "write fast" by cutting and pasting sentences and phrases from many sources and stitching them together.

Writing experts often refer to this kind of plagiarism as "patch writing," in which students string together language from a wide array of sources without providing accurate citation information. Technically, they have committed plagiarism, but not willfully or knowingly. Their actions stem from lack of knowledge, not an intent to deceive or game the system.

Plagiarism Vs. Citation Problems

Teachers can often mistake problems in citation formatting or sloppy scholarship for plagiarism. You can tell the difference by looking for attempts to cite sources. Misplaced quotation marks, missing attributions or page numbers, and failure to indent block quotations often look like plagiarism on the surface. In fact, the student at least understands the importance of attributing sources, but they're still struggling with the tools to do so.

These kinds of cases don't always merit disciplinary action. You can lower a student's grade, or even assign a failing grade, for severe problems with citation. But these kinds of issues don't require a plagiarism report.

Severe Cases of Plagiarism

Some cases of academic dishonesty do require reporting. They include cases where a student has demonstrated a willful attempt to deceive their instructor and submit a paper they didn't write. For example, a student submits an essay which turns out to be work from another student, or downloaded from a website. In such cases, the student has made a deliberate attempt to present someone else's work as their own.

Context can help a great deal in determining the appropriate response. Students who commit accidental plagiarism due to citation issues, or lack of knowledge, usually don't have problems turning in work on time or attendance.

It's important to think about your own instruction and the student's background as part of the situation. Not every student completes Composition I or II at the university. Many students transfer credit for either or both courses from other institutions. Therefore, it's entirely possible a student hasn't been taught effective citation or authorship practices.

You may know the student finished a composition course at this institution. In that case, they have been taught the importance of authenticity, original research, and source attribution. Composition II especially focuses on academic writing, research, and citation. A student may still be struggling with the finer points of citation near the end of a college writing course. However, they should definitely understand the importance of authenticity. They should also understand basic citation practices, as well as the role of summary, paraphrase, and quotation in effective academic writing.

Plagiarism Detection Software

Many teachers use software programs like TurnItIn to help reduce and deter plagiarism. These tools can help, if used wisely. These programs essentially act as warehouses of text. They run algorithms to scan student papers against every other essay submitted to them. Some programs also search and compare text from student papers to Google Scholar and the Internet at large.

A detection program can essentially reveal the amount of language that comes from other sources, including material that has been cited effectively.

Programs like TurnItIn are best used as learning tools. Instead of simply making students use these programs, incorporate them into your classroom activities. Show students how to use detection software to analyze their own writing.

Preventing Plagiarism

Teachers shouldn't rely on programs alone to reduce plagiarism. Instead, try to craft meaningful assignments that students will want to complete. Overly prescriptive or generic guidelines and topics will usually result in higher plagiarism, because students simply want to "get it done."

It's also important to scaffold assignments with appropriate readings, activities, and discussions. Assignments that aren't embedded well into instruction time will also result in higher plagiarism. Students will procrastinate, then stress, then look for a quick solution.

It's always a good idea to remind students about the importance of academic integrity, regardless of the course you teach. Make sure students have the resources and materials they need to complete research projects and cite sources.

Duplicity and Other Forms of Dishonesty

Another case of academic dishonesty involves an attempt to submit work from one course for another course. Some academics call this "recycling," and others "double dipping." Not only do journals and book publishers frown on this practice, but it can seriously damage a scholar's reputation.

Sometimes, a student might have a good reason to use the same paper for two courses. They might be working on a longterm project, or an ambitious paper that combines knowledge and methods from two courses or disciplines. For example, a student might want to write one 15-page paper on a topic rather than two completely separate 10-page papers. Or the research they're doing may apply to two different projects.

When that happens, the student should consult both teachers and ask permission to submit one project for both courses. If one teacher agrees, that's usually sufficient. Even if a student makes a mistake and doesn't think to ask, the instructors might consider the overall quality of the work and give the student the benefit of the doubt.

In conclusion, many issues can arise when dealing with different definitions of authorship. Violations of academic integrity always involve clear evidence of an attempt to deceive others in order to somehow circumvent course requirements.

Teachers should definitely report these kinds of cases. However, many times a student has simply submitted work that doesn't meet your expectations. You can always grade student work for citation issues that don't necessarily qualify as plagiarism.

FERPA & Confidentiality

Keeping A Grade Book

Every teacher needs a system for tracking and reporting grades to their students. Spiral-bound ledgers and calculators used to fill this purpose. Now, we have digital tools to make computing, storing, and reporting grades easier. Whatever system you develop, make sure you record your grades for every project. Reporting grades not only helps students, but also reinforces your curriculum. More than 5-6 weeks without a grade report will start to cause anxiety in some students, apathy in others. You want everyone, even high achieving students, to know where they stand.

Some teachers use Blackboard's grade book feature. This tool offers a relatively simple and user-friendly method of updating grades in real-time. Whenever you enter grades for a project, students can login to see it. You can also set up a final grade column that updates as a "running total," meaning that it projects an anticipated final grade based on work completed so far.

Various plug-ins and programs exist for electronic gradebook keeping. You can find them easily online. For example, Google Classroom and sheets offers Chrome browser plug-ins that you can search for by clicking the "add-on" button in your file menu.

But you don't have to rely on Blackboard or other programs. Some teachers prefer to maintain their own grade books in Excel and Google Sheets. Doing so gives them more control over data management. It also removes some of the difficulties and glitches of online grade book programs.

The Basics: Scales & Categories

Before anything else, you should establish your grade scale and categories. The composition program at UA-Little Rock uses a simple 10-point scale for final grades. You should state this in your syllabus:

90-100	A
80-89	B
70-79	C
0-69	NC

Next, decide on your grade categories. Most courses offer grade categories for participation, major papers, and short work. Some instructors have found it useful to assign a point value to every major and minor writing assignment. For example:

Grade Categories
Participation
Major Projects  Synthesis Essay Research Project Infographic Annotated Bib Reflection Essay
Final Portfolio
Peer Reviews
Writing Journal

As you see above, some teachers assign a separate grade for each paper and the final portfolio. Students must submit drafts of papers and receive feedback on each of them. They revise these papers and include them in a final portfolio, which is evaluated and graded separately. The final portfolio should always account for a large percentage of a student's final grade--at least 20 percent. The final portfolio grade depends on the strength of final drafts, but also the quality of their reflection essay and web design.

You can and should award points for early drafts of major papers, and you should also require students to revise their work for their portfolio. Revision is an essential outcome for college writing courses. The final portfolio grade helps to ensure this process.

Total Points vs. Weighted Grades

Now you need to decide whether you'll use weighted grade categories or a total points system. Both systems are valid, but fall to instructor preference. Some teachers value the simplicity of the total points system. They assign points to projects based on their overall importance to the course. They calculate a student's final grade simply by diving points earn by points possible.

Grade Categories
Participation	100 points
Major Projects (100 each) Synthesis Essay Research Project Infographic Annotated Bib Reflection Essay	500 points
Final Portfolio	200 points
Peer Reviews	100 points
Writing Journal	100 points

Total Points

1000 points

In this model, a student who earns 887 of 1000 total points earns a final grade of 87, a high B. A student who only earns 732 of those points earns a mid C, still passing.

Weighted grades work in a similar way, except they use percentages. Teachers allot the same total points to each grade category, and then simply weight each category. For example:

Participation	10%
Major Projects (10% each) Synthesis Essay Research Project Infographic Annotated Bib Reflection Essay	50%
Final Portfolio	20%
Peer Reviews	10%
Writing Journal	10%

You should also state this information clearly in your syllabus. Transparency in your grading scale and categories helps students, and also helps you in the case of grade appeals. All students deserve a clear outline of how to earn the grade they want.

Managing Grades in Excel & Sheets

Excel probably offers the simplest and most straightforward tool for managing grades. It's even easier than online tools like Blackboard, and less likely to crash. You can store Excel files in secure locations on your computer and cloud storage (Google Drive) and access them from any device. You can also use Google Sheets, which has almost the same interface.

In Excel or Sheets, you can create a separate sheet for each student by clicking the "add sheet" function at the bottom of your screen. It appears as a plus sign. Label each sheet with students' names. When you've finished, create rows and columns for each major assignment that include the grade and points possible. Here's an example:

Assignment	Grade	Points Possible
Participation	85	100
Short Assignments
Topic Proposal 1	10	10
Topic Proposal 2	10	10
Peer Review 1	8	10
Peer Review 2	8	10
Summary Activity	8	10
Annotated Bibliography	10	10
CRAAP Test	10	10
TBA
TBA
TBA
Writing Log I (50)	45	50
Writing Log II (50)
Synthesis Essay (100)	85	100
Research Paper (100)	85	100
Infographic (100)	95	100
Reflection Essay (100)
Digital Portfolio (300)
Total Points Earned	459	520
Current Grade	B	0.8826923077

This setup makes it easy to update grades on a regular basis and send updates to students. In the "Total Points Earned" column, you'll insert a simple sum function that adds up the student's earned points and the total points possible. The function will update automatically as you enter more grades.

In the "Current Grade" row, you'll insert another function that instructs the cell to divide points earned (459) by points possible (520). The formula looks like this:

=B24/C24

This formula tells the grade cell (.8826...) to divide cell B24 by cell C24. That function generates a grade percentage that will also update automatically as you enter new grades.

Reporting Grades

At least once midway through the semester, you should issue a report to students with a summary of grades, including any missing work they earned a zero for. As you've seen, you can do this easily in Excel or Sheets. Ideally, you'll issue grade reports every 4-5 weeks in addition to written feedback on drafts. Not only does this help students, it also helps teachers to have a detailed and organized account of everyone's progress.

Building Your Course Schedule

A detailed course schedule serves as the backbone of your course. Making one before the semester starts will help you and your students stay organized and on track. Students greatly appreciate a timetable that tells them clearly what work to do when.

The idea of planning your entire course may sound overwhelming, but certain strategies make it very manageable. The earlier you begin, the better. Making a schedule has a range of benefits. Foremost, it  prompts you to give serious thought to your assignment sequences and readings. Here's what a given week on a course calendar appears:

A course schedule will lay out readings and topics for each week, with dates that align with the university's course calendar. A complete schedule may take several pages. You can see two finished examples of course schedules here:

Brian Ray's Course Schedule 

Sarah Prickett's Course Schedule

The Composition Director keeps a syllabus and course schedule on file for every section in the program. You can always ask for more example syllabi. You can also ask other writing teachers to share their schedules with you directly.

Many teachers keep their schedules online. Doing this makes it easy to make updates and corrections. Although some teachers prefer print copies, this can pose problems if you need to make adjustments. You don't want multiple versions of your syllabus for students to manage. It can cause confusion.

You can save time by entering the text of your syllabus into the LMS itself. Having to constantly upload new versions of your syllabus as file attachments may become cumbersome.

If you're a new teacher, try to have at least 6-8 weeks of your course planned before the semester starts. You can make adjustments as you go. Make sure you announce any changes to readings or due dates ahead of time, both in class and on your LMS. It's usually fine to change readings a week ahead of due dates, and you can push back deadlines. Students don't react well when deadlines are moved up, or you make major changes on short notice.

Where do you Start?

A typical writing course takes place over 16 weeks. Divide that into 4 units of 4 weeks each. Think about what you want students to accomplish in each of those units. This will help you begin to conceptualize your course.

Your course should give students at least three major writing projects, with time at the end of the semester devoted to reflection, revision, and portfolios. So that means three units will revolve around one major, over-arching assignment. The fourth unit (last four weeks) will revolve around the course portfolio, reflection statement, and any final presentations associated with it.

Think about the major assignments, and use them to organize your content. For example, many Composition I courses begin with a literacy narrative as the first major assignment. That project will take four weeks to do the following:

• Introduce the assignment and give students time to brainstorm some initial ideas. (1 class day)
• Read and discuss literacy narratives from reputable, published authors. (3-4 class days.)
• Complete short assignments and groupwork, like descriptive paragraphs or introductions. (1-2 class days.)
• Workshop and edit sample essays. (1-2 days.)
• Engage in peer review on rough drafts. (1-2 days.)
• In-class writing time (1-2 days).

Breaking down your units in this way will give a clear skeleton to build on. You may not know exactly what readings you want students to do yet, but you at least know that they need a week to read samples, so they can develop a concrete sense of the expectations and conventions behind literacy narratives. Assigning different authors and styles also helps them see how to bend or even break some of these conventions.

Consider one more example, the research-based project. Imagine you plan to ask students to learn and write about an aspect of Arkansas history, or even write a profile of an historical location or landmark. You would break this unit down in ways similar to the literacy narrative project:

• Introduce the assignment. Discuss the purpose of historical research.
• Read 3-4 examples of local history projects.
• Give students short, in-class writing projects on local history topics.
• Introduce students to specific library resources, archives, and collections on state history.
• Schedule a librarian to help with database and collection tutorials.
• Have students give mini-presentations on their history projects.
• Invite a guest speaker to talk to your class about historical research, or a key moment in Little Rock/Arkansas history.
• Peer review workshops.

These activities and lessons could easily take 4 weeks or more. Planning and incorporating them into your schedule ensures that you have enough time to cover these lessons. It also lends organization and structure to your class. Imagine trying to plan all of this on the fly, mid-semester. It could not only add more stress to your prep time, but also lead to anxiety and a general sense of anarchy.

The more time you invest into planning up front, the more time you'll have for preparing your courses on a more detailed level. First semester teachers often underestimate the amount of time it takes to manage a course, prepare class notes, organize activities, and make handouts--all while conducing regular business like their own coursework, grading papers, and managing emails. A well-planned syllabus and course schedule becomes a life saver when we become busy with our jobs, as well as the surprises often thrown our way.

List of Journals

College English
College Composition and Communication
Written Communication
Technical Communication Quarterly
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Composition Studies
Journal of Basic Writing
Writing Program Administration
Journal of Writing Assessment
Assessing Writing
RTE: Research in the Teaching of English
Community Literacy Journal
Journal of Advanced Composition

Enculturation
Kairos
Computers and Composition
Computers and Composition Online

Journal of Second Language Writing

TESOL Quarterly

Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Journal of English for Specific Purposes
World Englishes

Rhetoric Review
RSQ: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Peitho
Harlot
Advances in the History of Rhetoric
Rhetorica