Required Textbooks, Readings

(a) Maimon, Elaine, Janice Peritz, Kahleen Yancey. The New McGraw-Hill Handbook. McGraw-Hill, 2007. [Abbreviated below as NMHH.]

(b) Good collegiate dictionary. See the list on the General Syllabus.

(c) Selected essays: online in my "English 1101 Materials" at my ASU website (www.aug.edu/~nprinsky).

(d) Selections from "Prinsky's Engl. 1101 Pamphlet": online in my "English 1101 Materials" at my ASU website.

Important Notes

(a) Be sure to write your name in your textbook or put an identifying slip of paper in it, in case the textbook is mislaid or forgotten somewhere. Some form of identification will help in the recovery of the book.

(b)  In order to facilitate your continual reference to downloaded materials from my website, you must use (or purchase an inexpensive) three-hole punch, punch the sheets of paper, and then put them in a three-ring binder.  Even I have to refer to them this way. Be sure to download, print out, read over, and bring to class any materials cited for any particular class session. As with your textbooks, also provide some kind of identification in your three-ring binder, in case it should be mislaid or forgotten somewhere, so that it may be more easily recovered.

(c) At the end of this Class Schedule is a list of Glossary of Usage items to be studied in the composition handbook glossary of usage, along with additional usage items to be found in your collegiate dictionary, plus additional items from the chapter on spelling in the composition handbook.  Be sure to look over these items.

(d) If a test on material covered by a particular assignment below can be found on my Engl. 1101 webpage, download the test and put the answers (in pencil) on a Scantron form provided by me. It is your job to ask me for the Scantron form, download the test, and take the test, prior to the class session on the particular material.

(e) Be sure to consult this Class Schedule prior to each class session, in order to be prepared for what is to be covered.
 

Class Sessions (underlined lowercase letters indicate logical groupings in the assignments; specific sections of NMHH are indicated by chapter, lettered subsection, and possibly numbered subsection: thus 34a2 would indicate Chapter 34, section a, subsection 2 in section a; if a zero is used -- e.g., 36.0 -- the meaning is Chapter 36, the material prior to letter a of the chapter); assignments are due by the start of class, unless otherwise specified
 

Aug. 18  (T) - Go over course syllabus, course requirements; lecture on chapters from the Prinsky Engl. 1101 Pamphlet: Ch. 8 ("Writing the Impromptu Essay on an Assigned Topic"), Ch. 10 ("Writing Thesis Sentences, First Paragraphs, and Last Paragraphs"), Ch. 14 ("The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Four Actual Regents' Exam Student Essays, with Commentary");

Aug. 20 (Th) - (a) Before class, have printed out and studied from the Prinsky Engl. 1101 Pamphlet (online at the Prinsky ASU website), Ch. 8 ("Writing the Impromptu Essay on an Assigned Topic"), Ch. 10 ("Writing Thesis Sentences, First Paragraphs, and Last Paragraphs"), Ch. 11 ("The Comparison and Contrast Essay"), and Ch. 14 ("The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Four Actual Regents' Exam Student Essays, with Commentary"); (b) beginning instruction in Microsoft Word 2007; (c) in-class impromptu essay on a Regents' Exam topic -- 60 minutes; (d)  analysis of the essays just written in class 

Aug. 25 (T) - Go over In-Class Regents' Essays

Aug. 27 (Th) - Revise In-Class Essays & turn in by the end of the period

Sept. 1 (T)   -  (a) have already read and studied Ch. 47 ("Dictionaries and Vocabulary) in NMHH; (b) have already taken to turn in (on Scantron form) my test on NMHH, Ch. 47 ("Dictionaries and Vocabulary"), as well as on your collegiate dictionary (chosen from the collegiate dictionaries listed as required for the course on my General Syllabus); (c) have downloaded and studied my chapter on "Why and How to Build a Vocabulary" in my online Engl. 1101 Pamphlet on my Engl. 1101 webpage; (d) in-class diagnostic vocabulary test (a model of the final departmental vocabulary test); look over "1,000 Useful Words" in the Freshman English Learning Materials (see the General Syllabus about how to access the Freshman English Learning Materials) (e) bring your collegiate dictionary as well as the composition handbook to this class session for after-test pointers on dictionary use and vocabulary building; students who do not give proof of having the two textbooks on Sept. 1 -- New McGraw-Hill Handbook and one of the collegiate dictionaries listed on the General Syllabus for the class -- automatically lose the right of instructor appeal on the reading-response exit essay, plus failure on the dictionary test  

Sept. 3  (Th)   - (a) Go over "Norm's Notes on the Reading-Response Essay" (online -- Ch. 9 of Prinsky's Engl. 1101 Pamphlet -- referred to in abbreviation as NNRRE); (b) from NMHH, Chs. 2c (clarity about the purpose of the assignment), 3a-c (exploring ideas, deciding on a thesis, planning a structure), 4b-c and f-g (writing focused paragraphs; writing clearly organized paragraphs, good introductions, good conclusions),  5c-f and 5h (revising and editing); (c) fom NMMH, Ch. 7 (reading, thinking, and writing; plus how to do the reading-response essay); (c) also Ch. 24f (pp. 416-417) of NMHH on MLA format, to be used on both in-class and out-of-class essays

(no class Sept. 8 [T] a faculty "furlough" date)

Sept. 10 (Th)   - (a) abstract/general vs. concrete/specific words (NMHH pp. 72-73, 535, 781-82, G-1, G-8, G-12, G-17); (b) connotations vs. denotations (NMHH, pp. 113, 190, 238, 761, 777, 779-781, G-4, G-5); (c) levels of formality (also called "levels of usage"; NMHH, pp. 769-770); (d) figurative language (NMHH, pp. 190, 786-786, G-7); (e) parallelism (NMHH, Ch. 42); (f) sentence variety (NMHH, Ch. 45); ; (b) NMHH Glossary of Key Terms: abstract and concrete; analogy; figurative language/figure of speech -- also, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, personification, simile, understatement); (c) in your collegiate dictionary, study the entries on allusion, anaphora, antithesis, chiasmus, metonymy, paradox, pun, synecdoche ; (d) organizational modes -- NMHH, 4c and 4d; (e) in your collegiate dictionary, study the entries, relevant to nonfiction writing, on narration, description, exposition, and argumentation or persuasion; (f) have downloaded and read and studied from Prinsky's Engl. 1101 Pamphlet (online) Ch. 15 ("Explanation of the Regents' Exam Reading Comprehension Test, and Reading Skills") and Ch. 16 ("Sample Regents' Examination-type Reading Comprehension Text, Answers, and Test-Question Explanations")  (g) take-home reading comprehension test on Joseph Addison's Spectator 15 (online) due at start of class; go over reading test; (h) detailed outline (word processed) on the reading due at the beginning of class

Sept. 15 (T)   - Finish the material of the immediately preceding class session

Sept. 17 (Th)  - (a) before class have reviewed "Norm's Notes on the Reading-Response Essay"; (b) in-class reading-response essay on Joseph Addison's essay Spectator 15

Sept. 22 (T) - (a) Go over class essays on Addison's Spectator 15; (b) have downloaded  "Dr. Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar" (online) and studied the first half; Ch. 30 (Parts of Speech), NMHH ; turn in accompanying test (also on the webpage) 

Sept. 24 (Th)   - Second half of "Dr. Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar"; Ch. 31 (Sentence Basics), NMHH ; turn in accompanying test (also on the webpage)

Sept. 29 (T)  - Test on William Hazlitt's essay "On a Sun-dial" (online) due; go over Hazlitt essay and long out-of-class reading-response essay required on the assigned reading; detailed outline of the reading (word processed) due at the beginning of class

Oct. 1 (Th)   - Finish going over Hazlitt essay, as well as begin long reading-response essay assigned on the Hazlitt essay; study the same items on style and organization as for the first reading assignment Addison's Spectator 15, above, with application to Hazlitt's essay

Oct. 6  (T)   - NMHH, Ch. 33 (comma splice and run-on); 52 (semicolons), 53 (colons), 55a-e (the dash) [note how the colon and the dash may be used to correct the comma splice)

Oct. 8 (Th)  - NMHH, Ch. 34 (subject-verb agreement) and 36k-o (pronoun-antecedent agreement)

Oct. 13 (T)  - Go over Samuel Johnson's Idler 23 (online) and test (online) on the reading; detailed outline of the reading (word processed) due at the beginning of class study the same items on style and organization as for the first reading assignment Addison's Spectator 15, above, with application to Johnson's essay

Oct. 15  (Th) - In-class reading-response essay on Johnson's Idler 23; be sure to have reviewed NNRRE, as well as the assigned reading, and reading notes

Oct. 20 (T) - NMHH, 51a-j (comma use); review "Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar" about commas

Oct. 22 (Th) - NMHH, 36a-j (pronoun case) & 36p-t (pronoun reference)

Oct. 23 (F)  - word processed draft of long reading-response essay on Hazlitt's "On a Sun-Dial" due; continue to work on the paper even after the first draft is turned in -- which you will be able to do if you have word processed the paper and saved the file

Oct. 27 (T)  -  Go over Adam Smith's Chapter 10, Part 1, of The Wealth of Nations; study the same items on style and organization as for the first reading assignment Addison's Spectator 15, above, with application to Smith's Chapter 10, Part 1; detailed outline (word processed) due at the beginning of the class session on the reading

Oct. 29 (Th)  - In-class reading-response essay on Smith's Chapter 10, Part 1, of The Wealth of Nations; be sure to have reviewed NNRRE, as well as the assigned reading, and reading notes

Nov. 3 (T)  - NMHH, 32 (sentence fragments)

Nov. 5  (Th)  - NMHH, 30b6, 36.0, 36i, and Ch. 61 (all) - use of the apostrophe

Nov. 10 (T)  - Reading comprehension test due on excerpt from Ch. 2 of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (online); same items for study as for the assignment on Addison's Spectator 15, above; detailed reading outline on the assigned reading (word processed) due at the beginning of class

Nov. 12 (Th)  - NMHH, Ch. 35 (problems with verbs)

Nov. 17 (T) - Go over essay "The Two Races of Men" (online) by Charles Lamb; study the same items on style and organization as for the first reading assignment Addison's Spectator 15, above, with application to Lamb's essay; detailed reading outline on the assigned reading (word processed) due at the beginning of the class session on the required reading (Nov. 8)

Nov. 19 (Th)  - In-class reading-response essay on the required reading by Charles Lamb; be sure to have reviewed NNRRE, as well as the assigned reading and reading notes

Nov. 24 (T)   - NMHH, Ch. 37 (problems with adjectives and adverbs) and Ch. 43 (misplaced and dangling modifiers)

Dec. 1  (T)  - (a) Ch. 40 (mixed constructions),NMHH, (b) Ch. 42 (parallelism); (c) evaluations; (d) distribution of reading for exit-assessment essay

Dec. 3 (Th)  -   (a) In-class exit assessment essay (50 minutes); (b)  NMHH,  Ch. 41 (confusing shifts) (remainder of the class period)

Before the final exam, study -  (a)  NMHH, Chs. 58 (abbreviations), 59 (numbers), 62 (hyphens); (b) NMHH, Chs. 54 (quotation marks), 55f-k (parentheses, brackets, ellipses, slash)

Departmental Final Objective Exams on (a) Vocabulary and (b) Grammar and Usage

for Section B:  Dec. 10 (Wed.)  7 a.m. - 9 a.m. - departmental final exams (one hour each): (a) 100-word multiple-choice vocabulary test from 500-word list on the assigned readings (to be found on the Prinsky Engl. 1101 webpage); (b) 40-or-so item multiple-choice grammar and usage test

Appendix: NMHH Glossary of Usage Items to Be Studied (See Ch. 50, pp. 789-98)

a,an; accept/except; advice/advise; affect/effect; all ready/already; all right/alright ; all together/altogether; allude/elude; almost/most; a lot; among/between; amount/number; anyone/ any one ; as ; as/like; awful/awfully; being as/being that; bad/badly; beside/besides; can't hardly; cite/sight/site; complement/compliment; conscience/conscious; could of/would of/should of; criteria/criterion; data/datum; different from/different than; disinterested/uninterested; don't/doesn't ; e.g./i.e.; elicit/illicit; enthused; even though; farther/further; fewer than/less than; flaunt/flout; former/latter; good/well; hanged/hung; hopefully; imply/infer; ironically; irregardless; its/it's; kind/kinds; literally; lose/loose; moral/morale; practicable/practical; principal/principle; quote/quotation; real; reason is . . . because; set/sit; should of; so; stationary/stationery; that/which, their/there/they're; to/too; try and; verbally/orally; wait for/wait on; weather/whether; would of ; your/you're

Additional Usage Item or Items to Be Studied: Look the Item or Items Up in Your Collegiate Dictionary

every day vs. everyday

Spelling problems (Ch. 63 of NMHH)

--addendum, analysis, crisis, criterion, daum, medium, phenomenon; stimulus, thesis, appendix

--attorney at law, mother-in-law, court-martial

--altar/alter, assistance/assitants, bare/bear, board/bored; choose/chose, clothes/cloths, coarse/course, conscieance/conscious, desert/dessert, it's/its, know/no, lay/lie, lead/led, lightning/lightening, loose/lose, moral/morale, passed/past, patience/patients, personal/personnel, principal/principle; sense/since, than/then, their/there/they're, threw/through/thorough; to/too, weather/whether, who's/whose, you're/your

--athlete, basically, breath (vs. breathe), business, chief, desperate, environment, exaggerate, explanation, foreign, grammar, harass, heroes, misspelled, niece, personnel, playwright, prejudice (vs. prejudiced; cf. bias/biased, iced tea), prevalent, privilege, probably, pronunciation, receive, reminisce, woman (vs. women), writing

In-class diagnostic grammar and usage test -- a model of the final departmental grammar and usage test;