Course Description The aim of this course is to give students practice and instruction in college level writing and to help all students improve their writing for various purposes. This online intensive version of the class requires three-five hours (estimated) per day during the four week semester. When you're working on research final drafts, more time may be required. It's like having a part time job! This may seem overwhelming at first, but you should remember that you're attempting to earn three college credits in four weeks (doing work comparable to the work usually undertaken during a fourteen week semester). To fulfill the First Year Writing requirement for the university, in this course we will work to achieve these goals: Foundational Writing and Information Literacy Goals • Rhetorical discernment: To write for varying purposes and audiences, develop texts with sufficient detail, astute organization, and appropriate documentation, diction, and style. • Critical reading: To read critically by engaging with ideas and texts, properly summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting others’ ideas while effectively integrating them with and developing one’s own ideas. • Substantive revision: Through persistent inquiry and informed by feedback from peers and/or the instructor, to compose and revise so that texts and ideas grow in effectiveness and complexity. • Information literacy: To access and work effectively and ethically with print and digital sources, including: learning to discern searchable key words within a complex research question; distinguishing between primary and secondary and scholarly and popular resources; critically evaluating sources for relevance, currency, authority, and bias; and managing and appropriately documenting information sources. These goals will be promoted through four portfolios or writing collections (each worth 25% of the final grade). Portfolios • Portfolio 1: Readings, assignments and drafts toward a social narrative to bring readers inside a place, event, or problem. • Portfolio 2: Readings, tutorials, a question posing proposal, research logs and an annotated bibliography documenting research into a specialist discussion about a question or problem. • Portfolio 3: Readings, assignments and drafts toward a literature review representing the specialist discussions investigated for Portfolio 2. • Portfolio 4: Readings, assignments and drafts toward a deep re-envisioning of either the social narrative or the literature review, creating a feature article or commentary for a wider, non-specialist audience. We'll call this a "genre transformation" because you'll be making something new, pitched at a new audience to serve a new purpose. Sentence Sandbox Exercises These are extra credit exercises in sentence style. Please discuss these with me if you are interested in extra credit work. This course is part of a pilot program that will be using Brightspace, UVM's new learning platform that's replacing Blackboard. Since only a limited number of courses will be piloting Brightspace this coming semester, you may have courses in Blackboard as well. For more information on Brightspace: go.uvm.edu/brightspace-pilot.

Required Materials • A reliable computer and reliable internet access are crucial. • Enrollment in the course in Eli Review, an online peer review and revision platform Class Requirements and Policies Participation and Timeliness This online class requires active reading, responding and drafting over the course of each day. Pay careful attention to the course calendar and assignment deadlines. Because we will be moving quickly, these deadlines are crucial (you will not benefit from peer review, nor will you be ready for instructor feedback if you miss deadlines, and your missed deadline can also cause others to fall behind if they've been assigned as your peer reviewer). Plan accordingly and remember that late assignments may not be accepted for credit. Each portfolio grade includes a timeliness component. You will lose 10 points on your portfolio grade each time an assignment is late. In cases of emergency or hardship, please contact me about schedule and deadline problems. Writing You will complete four major, drafted writing projects. Most of the portfolio drafting will happen in Eli Review. Other assignments and exercises, as well as final drafts will be posted in course wikis. You will be expected to meet the word count minimums. First drafts will typically have a 600 word minimum (about half the final length); complete rough drafts and final drafts of the major essays (the social narrative, the literature review and the genre transformation) will have a 1200 word minimum.

Grading Each Portfolio (including all assignments and drafts) is worth 25% of the final grade. Portfolio grades will be based on: • Completion of all assignments and drafts on time • Following directions carefully • Quality of peer reviews (improvement in this area will be relevant, too). • See Rubrics for Discussion Board posts, Drafts and Final Drafts in the "Rubrics" tab Sentence Sandbox Assignments are optional for extra credit.