1. Required Texts (all available at the ASU bookstore)

(a) Maimon, Elaine, Janice Peritz, Kahleen Yancey. The New McGraw-Hill Handbook. McGraw-Hill, 2007.

(b) A good hardcover collegiate dictionary that has 1500 or more full-sized pages (= 7 inches by 9 inches), and 150,000 (or more) entries, such as (listed alphabetically by title) (b1) The American Heritage Dictionary, Third College Edition; or The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition; (b2) The Encarta World English Dictionary or Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary; (b3) The Oxford English Reference Dictionary; (b4) The Random House Webster's College Dictionary; (b5) Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (essentially a reprint of the second edition of The [Unabridged] Random House Dictionary of the English Language); (b6) Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition or Eleventh Edition; (b7) Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition or Fourth College Edition; or (b8) Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary or Webster's II: New Riverside College Dictionary.  (Note: the Oxford American Dictionary, first full-sized edition, is inferior to the other dictionaries on the list because of generally lacking the etymology or word-origin part of most entries, found in all the other collegiate dictionaries. However, The New Oxford American Dictionary, second edition, 2051 pp., is acceptable because of including etymologies.) Generally, the more pages (with a smaller rather than a larger type size), the better; note that b2 and b5 are often sold in the sale racks of bookstores, cost what the other dictionaries cost, and have well over 2000 oversized pages, with three rather than two columns of information on a page. Discount department stores and discount office supply stores often sell one or more of these items at a discount. (Just to carry to class, a smaller paperback dictionary may be helpful, but is not sufficient; the best paperback dictionaries are the longest, having the most words -- all having at least 950 pages [listed alphabetically by title]: The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition [950 pages]; Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary [987 pages]; Microsoft Encarta Dictionary [1014 pages] ; Oxford American Dictionary [1089 pages]; The Scribner-Bantam English Dictionary, Revised Edition [1057 pages]. Note well that a paperback dictionary is not sufficient for college-level reading requirements. None of the paperbacks, for example, has the word callipygian, which easily might be encountered in college-level reading [such as the required essay reading in this class], your literature anthology in English 1102, or your literature anthology in Humanities 2001 and 2002]; however, all the hardcover collegiate dictionaries have the word.) So your collegiate dictionary test is whether the dictionary has the word callipygian, a word you will love and wonder how you ever got along without.

2. Other materials to be gotten from the "Engl. 1101 Materials" on my ASU website: "www.aug.edu/~nprinsky" (without the quotation marks): (2a) Class Schedule -- print this out as soon as possible; (2b) required nonfiction readings; (2c) Prinsky's Engl. 1101 Pamphlet (including "Norm's Notes on the Reading-Response Essay"); (2d) Various at-home multiple-choice tests on assigned material. You will need a three-ring binder in which to keep these materials.

3. Course Requirements

        The course requirements are as follows: (a) several in-class impromptu (extemporary) essays, written in response to required readings that will be, like other materials in this class, available on my ASU website: "www.aug.edu/~nprinsky" (without the quotation marks); (b) two longer, multiple-draft reading-response essays on assigned topics on two required readings, each paper running 1600 words (roughly seven or eight pages); one of the two longer essays will involve personal observation, and the other essay will involve some research in written as well as online sources, along with a limited amount of personal observation; the personal experience and observation reading-response essay is due around midterm, while the combined research and personal experience and observation reading-response essay is due at the end of the course; (c) a departmental exit assessment in-class impromptu (extemporary) essay (50 minutes time limit), given during the last week or so of the course, written in response to a reading distributed to the class the class session before the exit assessment in-class impromptu essay; (d) a departmentally-required multiple-choice objective vocabulary test of 100 words drawn from the list of the 500 or so words from the required readings in this section of the course (posted on my Engl. 1101 webpage) (worth 7.5% of the course grade); (e1) multiple-choice at-home tests on assigned essay readings from materials posted online (just as the tests or quizzes are posted online); (e2)  multiple-choice at-home tests on assigned readings from the The New McGraw-Hill Handbook. (f) a departmental final multiple-choice objective grammar and usage test based on the required composition handbook (worth 7.5% of the course grade).

        All the requirements of (a) through (d) plus  (f), above, are standard for every section of Engl. 1101 at ASU.  Requirement (c), above, determines pass/fail in the course (passing in Engl. 1101 and 1102 means a course grade of C or above). This exit assessment in-class essay is graded by two other Engl. 1101 teachers besides the course instructor, and at least two of the three instructors must give the essay a passing grade. Requirements (e2), (f), and (g) are intended to strongly encourage students to study the main required textbook for the course (what a concept!); the tests -- including the departmental final grammar and usage test (worth 7.5% of the course grade) -- are based on students having read and done the exercises on the material in the following chapters of the required composition handbook: 30-37, 39-45, 51-56, 58-59, and 61-63.

        A further requirement is checking my Engl. 1101 webpage for any changes, as well as your school e-mail.  For example, I e-mail my comments and grades on in-class essays.  If you prefer an alternate e-mail address to your school e-mail address, you need to e-mail me (at my school e-mail address) from the alternate e-mail address; my successfully receiving an alternate e-mail address means that this address can be added to my e-mail address book with the assurance that everything is correct, since the e-mail was successfully sent to me.

4. Course Grade

        The course grade is determined from the required work mentioned above (including required percentages). The cumulative grade average for the out-of-class grammar quizzes and cumulative grade average for the out-of-class reading-comprehension quizzes, each counts as an in-class or out-of-class essay grade, and these grades plus grades on in-class and out-of-class essays together make up 85% of the course grade (the remaining 15% is reserved in all sections of Engl. 1101 for the vocabulary and the grammar tests at the end of the course, cited in section 3, above).   Since this course is a skills course as well as knowledge course, students who demonstrate gaining skills by steady progress in their own essay writing will be graded accordingly. For example, if a student starts out writing C/D (borderline) essays (a numerical score of 69 or so), moves to C+ essays (a numerical score of 78 or 79 or so) , and then progresses to B essays (a numerical score of 80 to 88 or so), the course grade (subject to the 15% mentioned in section 3 above) would be a B. The exit assessment essay counts not only as pass/fail for the course, but as one of the in-class essays determining the grade of A, B, or C (failure on the final impromptu pass/fail essay would mean a course grade of D or F, based on the student's effort in completing course work). The longer multiple-draft essays each may count two in-class essays (if the grade is a B or above; otherwise, each out-of-class essay will count the same as the in-class essays); out-of-class essays may be revised for a higher grade, and the revised higher grade is the final grade on the essay. A final course grade on the borderline will be assessed by class participation: preparedness for each day's class, attitude toward the course materials, and attendance. The cumulative average on quizzes counts as one in-class paper grade. I use a numerical grading scale; my grading scale is A = 100-90, B = 89-80, C = 79-70, D = 69-60, F = 59 and below.

4. Miscellaneous

(a) Tutorial help is available at the University Writing Center. Please confer with your instructor about what specific areas and skills might best be benefited by the use of this facility. If you are having difficulties in this course, don't wait until late in the semester to consult your instructor about using the Writing Center. (b) Attendance: as per the ASU Catalog: the equivalent of 1.5 weeks of absences from a class may cause withdrawal of the student. (c) Make-ups for missed in-class essays will require written verification for the absence; make-ups will be on alternate readings "invisibly" posted on my ASU website, assigned to a student who missed an in-class essay for a bona fide, documented reason; absence on the day the final reading is distributed or the day of the departmental essay will cause an incomplete grade, if the absence has a bona fide, documented cause; otherwise the absence will cause a not-passing grade or WF. (d) Class conduct: as per the Jaguar student handbook, including the turning off of a cell phone or beeper during class. (e) Time line for Freshman English: Students must enroll in Engl. 1101 no later than the first semester they register following completion of 20 hours of ASU residence/transfer credit, and they must continue to register for Engl. 1101 until successfully completing the course (C or better). Students who complete Engl. 1101 must enroll in Engl. 1102 no later than the first semester they register following completion of 30 hours credit, and they must continue to register for Engl. 1102 until successfully completing the course (C or better). Students are encouraged to sign up for the Regents' Exam as soon as they have completed Engl. 1101. (f) My ASU telephone number is 706-667-4431; my e-mail is "englishprofatasu@aim.com" (without the quotation marks); my office is E-238 in Allgood Hall, and my office hours are 12  - 12:45 p.m. M,W,F, and 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 on Tuesday and Thursday.   Quite often, matters can be settled by e-mail. (g) The following material is from the English department "Policies and Procedures" document: "Instructors should make clear to students that there will be no 'make-ups' of the exit assessment essay during the same semester the exit assessment essay is scheduled. If a student who is in good standing in the course is absent for the exit assessment essay period for a valid reason (medical emergency, for example), the student may be allowed to take the exam under normal testing conditions the next time it is regularly given (at the end of the next semester). To do otherwise would be unfair to all students involved. In such cases, students will receive in 'Incomplete' grade and should be encouraged to audit English 1101 that next semester."

5. Engl. 1101 Materials on the ASU Web and How to Access Them

        A useful 1,000-word vocabulary-building list and a sample grammar and usage test are, with other materials relevant to Engl. 1101, available on the Augusta State University web (ASU web). To access this Web from on or off campus, go through the following steps (clicking with the mouse on the items, after reaching www.aug.edu). The angle signs ( > ) indicate that the pointer (the arrow on the screen) needs to be brought by the computer mouse to the menu choice activated by a preceding click on the left button of the mouse, and then the choice needs a left click:

         http://www.aug.edu/fenglish/index.html  >  Learning Materials

       http://www.aug.edu/fenglish/index.html  >  Writing Center                

        http://www.aug.edu/fenglish/index.html  >  Instructional Materials

                                   
        Also, check out the menu choices, under Freshman English, of The Writing Center and Computer Competencies Test. Note that under the letter W in the alphabetical list of letters on the ASU homepage you can directly access the Writing Center and its many choices that will provide aid and support for writing.