English 318: Advanced Professional Writing
(What do previous
students say about this class?)
Outcomes | Contract | Deming's 14 Points
Contract (Spring 2003)
Textbook | Paradigm Hurdle | Policy Issues | Task Groups | Grades | Student Comments
Michael Bremer, Untechnical Writing, 1999
Recommended Text:
Carol Barnum & Saul Carliner, Techniques for Technical Communicators, 1993. [note: to be eligible for an A grade in the class, you will need to read and be tested on this secondary text]
Your only barrier to success in Engl. 318 --The great paradigm hurdle:
English 318 will challenge you in surprising and unfamiliar ways. You’ll begin to see how as you read this contract. Additional insight will come from paying close attention to comments from former 318 students (whose observations appear in the English 318 orientation video).
What we do in English 318 sounds fairly straightforward: we undertake real projects for real clients. Drawing on information from your texts and skills learned in other writing classes, you’ll carry through each project in much the same way as if you were a paid industry consultant.
Although you’ll need to apply principles from your text to complete class projects, unlike most classes, English 318 has not been organized around a textbook. In fact, English 318 has not been organized at all. Organizing the class is largely your responsibility. Because disorganized or poorly organized classes never complete projects effectively, your final class grade will reflect, in part, the effectiveness with which you organize the class. Consequently, you’ll want to organize now so you can complete the various projects for which you’ll be responsible during the quarter.
My role in the class will be that of consultant/coach. If you treat me like a classroom teacher, your projects and (consequently) your class grade will suffer at least one full grade drop. If you will use my expertise as consultant/coach, you’ll receive a higher grade at quarter’s end. This unfamiliar teacher/student relationship has created considerable discomfort for some of my former students—those more comfortable being told what to do rather than having to think for themselves what to do and how to do it. (You may recognize some of these students in your own class—from their practice of continually asking me what I want…) My wants are either spelled out in writing (often in this contract) or subject to negotiation. Taking responsibility for yourself and your actions may be uncomfortable, but you’ll need to do it when you leave Poly. Get a head start in Engl. 318.
English 318 affords you a chance to carve out what you want rather than conform to the seemingly whimsical “wants” of your instructor. Such latitude lets you learn more—and more quickly—than in the conventional classroom. At the same time, of course, having broad latitude affords you ample opportunity to fail. I invite you to take initiative—to fail, perhaps, but to fail productively so that subsequently you can succeed where it really counts. BTW: this simple yet challenging prescription—embracing current failure to achieve future success—has been adopted by virtually every superstar in any field or endeavor. I invite you to ask for evidence during class.
To start you off on a proper footing, during Week One I will retain the traditional role of instructor, but only during Week One. Thereafter my role will shift as I’ve described. Please don’t wait for me to tell you how to do your job in the class. Ask specific questions. If past classes are an indicator, you may spend several weeks waiting for me to start behaving like a teacher; the longer you wait, the lower your grade will be at quarter’s end. I guarantee you’ll remain confused and frustrated until you learn to use my expertise as someone other than a traditional instructor.
Central to my concept for the learning experience in English 318 is your opportunity either to succeed or fail as in real life—based upon your own actions. Here’s the good news: if you get it wrong this quarter, you’ll have another chance to get it right when you retake the class.
Learn how to ask questions. What does this mean? First of all, under no circumstances will I answer such speciously vague questions as: “What do you want?” You’ll have the rest of your life to follow idiots who revel in telling you what they want. I won’t; I’m a teacher—your teacher. You will hear what few prescriptions I require you to follow. Beyond those, what you do and how you do it becomes your responsibility. This hands-on paradigm may prove challenging because it requires you to “learn by doing,” a process with which you may be unfamiliar. Here at Poly a lot of people pay lip service to the “learn by doing” ideal, but few instructors actually require you to take the initiative it demands. English 318 does require you to take that initiative, just as you’ll do on the job after you graduate. As you will hear from some of my former students, you’ll want to start taking initiative not later, but now: today.
Tuesday of Week Two (8 April) you’ll probably take a comprehensive exam over the Bremer text. I say “probably,” because you have the option—as a class—not to take the exam. The 8 April date isn’t negotiable: if you decide to take the exam, you’ll need to take it on 8 April. (For reasons we can discuss during class, past classes electing not to take the exam have invariably received lower grades at quarter’s end—significantly lower grades.) If you elect to take the exam, you’ll need to bring a lined Exam Book on 8 April. A follow-up may be given later in the quarter. You’ll probably be excused from some or all of the second exam if you do well on 8 April. Unless you know what Bremer says you can not receive a passing grade at quarter’s end. Read the book! If you do poorly on 8 April, your classmates may ask you to withdraw from English 318. We’ll discuss the underlying reasons during class. Students who want to be eligible for an A in the class will also need to read and be tested on (later in the quarter) the Barnum and Carliner text.
Most Poly students enter industry woefully unprepared because they’re accustomed to being told what to do…and then doing what they’re told to do—individually. Even when classes go through the motions of setting up groups, the actual work usually gets done by a few individuals. Increasingly, U.S. industry relies upon projects prepared by groups of professionals, a trend particularly widespread in the so-called high-tech sector. As a professional editor or writer—and that’s exactly what many college graduates are—your job would be to work with an assortment of specialists, struggling jointly to overcome unforeseen problems while pooling your various talents to complete projects. The 318 group projects attempt to replicate a part of this “real world” process, requiring you to undertake real (not merely realistic) projects that result in real (not merely realistic) documents and collateral materials—work that consistently reflects professional quality.
English 218/148/149 (or its equivalent) is a prerequisite for enrollment in English 318.
No project work will be accepted after the last day of class (prior to finals week).
In order to replicate, as much as possible, the actual working environment you will encounter in industry, I’ve designed the class to reflect several realities you’ll encounter after you graduate:
While these guidelines may seem rigid, they’re needed to ensure that English 318 constitutes a valuable pre-professional experience. Beyond this modest stated goal—and you may have trouble believing it when you read this early in the quarter—the class can be fun. How much fun we have is up to you, but fun usually results from a person’s capacity for enjoyable engagement: so engage yourself. Real learning tends to occur best while you’re engaging all your senses. Get involved. If you plan not to work hard and not to have fun, please do us all a favor: drop the class today.
Each project we take on will be developed by specific task groups comprised of individual students. Ultimately, the entire class will be responsible for completing each project. When you read these words early in the quarter, they’ll make little sense to you; when you reread them later in the quarter you should understand that your progress and eventual grade in the class will result not just from your level of success within your multiple task group assignments, but also from the quality of work produced by you and your classmates.
To oversimplify the English 318 grading procedure, it works like this: I grade the projects; based on those grades you receive grade credit to distribute among yourselves.
Perhaps the best advice I can give you about English 318 grades is this: Forget about them. Having said this, I understand you may be hopelessly entangled within the grade paradigm. After all, you’ve invested years of your life in the misguided belief that grades have meaning and value.* I’ll leave it to your first real-world performance review to prove that your grade quest wasted your time; until then you have the option of ignorance. Anyone has a right to choose ignorance; one just has to be willing to accept the consequences for embracing that ignorance. [Hey! I’m as ignorant as you are—maybe more ignorant—but about different things.] Regardless of my own ignorance and views, I can appreciate, if not embrace, your fear of the real world paradigm. If you insist on clinging to your bias about the value of grades, your final 318 grade will be derived something like this:
…And I follow these grading criteria scrupulously. Got it? You don’t have to be a math major to see that the chart illustrates the basis for 50% to 360% of your class grade. Do yourself a favor: Forget about grades.*** Instead, concentrate on completing the projects effectively and on time.
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* I invite you to stop by my office to see my meaningless 4.0 college transcript. I keep it as a cautionary reminder.
** If the projects have significant value for our clients, everyone’s final class grade will be higher. . .
*** When all else fails, sit down, take a deep breath, and let reality be your guide. Moo!
—Jim Howland, April 2005