ENG 455: Directed Study in American Literature

Objectives

In this practicum, you will serve as an editorial assistant for All American: Literature, History, and Culture, an online subject encyclopedia based at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. This experience will provide you with a unique opportunity not only to expand, but to apply knowledge and skills that you have begun to develop in other courses, particularly in the areas of American literature, publishing, and technology. Indeed, you will begin to think and act in a way that will prepare you to enter graduate school or a career in a field such as journalism or publishing. Specifically, we will proceed with these objectives in mind:

Deeper appreciation of language and literature: As you write and edit Web pages on American authors, you will deepen your understanding of how language shapes meaning in literature and will broaden your knowledge of linguistic and bibliographic terms, formal features, and genres.

Broader understanding of the humanities: To study literature is to study life. As you produce essays and other materials on literature and its historical context, you will become more adept at analyzing human thought, philosophy, and social issues.

Expanded cultural literacy: Because of the allusive nature of all language, particularly literature, names constitute a crucial part of a person's vocabulary. As we study literature and its context, you will expand your cultural vocabulary to include the names of many people and characters, places, events, and movements.

Reading: As you read challenging literature by American authors, you not only will expand your vocabulary and your ability to extract meaning from sophisticaed syntax, but also will learn to infer information about audience and purpose, thus preparing yourself to interpret the complex, often veiled messages you encounter in law, business, and the media.

Research: In addition to working with several standard literary reference materials and polishing skills in paraphrasing and documentation, you will practice finding and using primary sources, including editions and manuscripts.

Communication: Your editorial duties will provide ample opportunity to improve your communication skills, particularly in the areas of writing and editing, speaking, and graphic design.

Technology: To complement these other skills, you will learn to make effective use of technology to find and share information. By the end of the course, you will be able to find material on the World Wide Web through a variety of means, communicate via a listserv, and design and edit material for publication on the World Wide Web.

Be Your Best

You can expect me to be the best teacher I can be. I will work hard to make this course interesting and rewarding. I expect you to be your best, as well. Although this course is no more difficult than most college courses, it demands a lot of work, including reading and writing assignments, library research, and study. I expect you to make these commitments, to turn in neatly typed and carefully edited assignments on time, and--particularly because this is an online course--to check your e-mail and the online forum each weekeday for possible assignments and announcements. For tips on improving your study habits, see Be Your Best.

Spring 2000 | 9-10 a.m. MWF

Professor Mark Canada
118 Dial, 521-6431
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
canada@sassette.uncp.edu
www.uncp.edu/home/canada
Office Hours: 9:15-10:15 MTWRF

Schedule

Research

January 10-24: Analysis of All American and competing sites
February 7: Annotations
February 14: Period Page

Editing

February 21: Introduction
February 28: Content
March 6: No class (spring break)
March 13: Readability
March 20: Style
March 27: Format

Design

April 3: Typography
April 10: Layout

Distribution

April 17: Presentation
April 24: Promotion
May 1: Review

Assignments

Format

During class on the day an assignment is due, you must turn in a 9x12 envelope containing the following items in the order listed:

The first item must be a hard copy of your final draft. This draft must be typed in an appropriate font, such as 12-point Times, and must be bound with a paper clip. Your last name and the page number must appear on each page.
Behind this final draft must be all of the material you used or created in preparing this assignment, including rough drafts, notes, and photocopies of all sources you quoted or paraphrased.
The final item must be an IBM-formatted diskette containing all of your work on the assignment, including your outline, rough drafts, and final draft. This diskette should have a label with your name, e-mail address, and telephone number on it.

Write your name, e-mail address, and telephone number on the outside of this envelope and turn it into me when I request it in class. If you cannot be in class when I collect the assignment, you must notify me in advance. Failure to follow these guidelines may result in an F for the assignment.

Criteria

Before you submit a final draft of any assignment, please review the following criteria, which I will use in grading each assignment:

Content: The project should thoroughly and insightfully address its subject with accurate, credible, timely, and relevant information. If the project is supposed to be argumentative, it should state a clear, substantive, contestable, and precise claim early and support this claim with appropriate evidence.
Clarity: The project should present information in a clear, logical fashion. In particular, paragraphs generally should begin with precise topic sentences, followed by clear, well-organized sentences that support the topic sentence. The writer should use transitional words and phrases effectively to guide the reader through the information.
Readability: The project should engage the reader with lively, concise writing and should generally lack typographical errors, as well as lapses in tone, register, punctuation, spelling, word choice, and grammar. The project should effectively incorporate source material with proper use of attribution, paraphrases, and quotations. Longer projects should begin with an engaging introduction and include a satisfying conclusion.
Format: Parenthetical citations and the bibliography or list of works cited should conform to MLA style. The project also should have an attractive, professional appearance and should conform to any particular format requirements set by the instructor.

Note: Each project must be your own work. That is, except for properly cited quotations, every sentence and phrase must be in your own words. All interpretations, except for those properly cited, also must be your own. If you turn in someone else's work, use a source's exact words without placing these words in quotation marks, or use an interpretation you found in a source without giving credit to the source, you may fail this course. You must be prepared to prove that you have done all your own work by showing me your sources and discussing the details of your project with me in conference.

Using a point system, I will assign grades as follows:

A (90-100 percent): This project clearly meets all of these criteria, although it may contain one or two very minor lapses.
B (80-89 percent): This project contains a few minor lapses, but otherwise generally meets the criteria for an A.
C (70-79 percent): This project may contain more than a few minor lapses or one major lapse. Nevertheless, it adequately meets the requirements of the assignment.
D (60-69 percent): This project may be strong in one area, but it contains many minor or major lapses and, as a result, does not adequately meet the requirements of the assignment.
F (below 60 percent): This project contains plagiarism or an overwhelming number of lapses that make it an inadequate response to the assignment.

Furthermore, when the semester is complete, I will consider some of the material you produce for publication on All American: Literature, History, and Culture, a World Wide Web site that I manage. Thus, by working hard in this course, you not only will learn a great deal about literature, improve your writing and research skills, and practice using new computer technology, but may have one or more electronic publications that you may cite in resumes and portfolios.

Editorial Duties

As an editorial assistant, you are responsible for helping to make All American: Literature, History, and Culture an accurate, credible, clear, timely, and attractive source of information on the World Wide Web. Specifically, you will:

analyze other online subject encyclopedias on American literature, history, and culture and submit a report on ways that we can learn from their strengths and weaknesses;
write and post annotations assessing these Web sites' credibility and thoroughness;
maintain a calendar of upcoming events on American literature, history, and culture;
edit other students' Web sites for accuracy, readability, consistency, and graphic appeal;
monitor the Web site and fix problems such as broken links.

Web Page on Literary or Historical Period

In this page, which also will be a candidate for publication on All American, you will write an overview of a literary or historical period in America. This page, which you should aim at readers with little or no knowledge of American history or literature, should include the following elements:

a title bar naming the period;
a byline featuring your name, followed by a line saying, "Student, University of North Carolina at Pembroke";
a 1000-word essay that describes major people, trends, and developments in this period and supports these points by referring to at least two articles or books by scholars;
an annotated bibliography that analyzes the content, timeliness, and credibility of at least two useful sources on this period;
a sidebar featuring a chronology of the period;
links to at least two relevant Internet sites, such as sites with pictures or information relevant to the period.

Presentation

Using presentation software, such as PowerPoint, you will demonstrate classroom and individual uses ofAll American for an elementary, high school, or college English class. In this presentation, you will make students familiar with the resources on our site, show them how to use these resources, use material on the site to run a sample class activity, and solicit feedback on the site from the students and their teacher.