Program Guidelines

Additional goals and objectives have evolved over the years for individual instructors: service learning, description, writing about literature or popular culture, writing and reading as recreation and self-understanding, the appreciation of one's own writing and the writing of others. However, instructors must not stray too far from University expectations: English 100I/100 is a course in expository, analytical writing that begins to prepare students for writing in their majors as well as for personal growth and the acquisition of knowledge. That is, English 100I/100 is neither meant to be a "creative writing" course nor a course devoted to writing about literature. Humboldt State University offers other courses designated to fulfill those needs. Therefore, each instructor's choices of curricula, instructional strategies, assessment of student papers, specific assignments, and syllabi must reflect the stated mission of English 100I/100 and should prepare students with the skills needed to satisfy the portfolio assessment, to write in a variety of modes for varying purposes and audiences (including sensitizing our students to different purposes and audiences for their work), and to write effectively in the University. In many cases, English 100I/100 is the only composition class students will complete as undergraduates, so the program's responsibility to prepare them as critical thinkers and communicators is significant.

The Kinds and Amounts of Writing
Different theories suggest optimal amounts and kinds of writing in terms of length and numbers of papers during a semester; effective teachers of composition debate the contributions of revision versus production, first-drafting versus editing, etc. No doubt we, too, will enter into this debate at points in our careers. Nevertheless, the guidelines for English 100I/100 sections at HSU are as follows:

Students should write an average of 500 words a week on work intended for an audience other than themselves (reader-based prose). Students need not turn in a finished paper each week; their weekly writing might produce a rough draft or a revision of a paper due at a later date. However, because students must practice different types of writing during the semester, please assign the equivalent of at least five papers. Not every legitimate assignment is appropriate for inclusion in the portfolio—like poetry or fiction—which doesn't diminish its importance in the class or to the development of the student as an effective writer. However, instructors who assign work other than analytical, claim-driven papers are responsible for assisting students in selecting three non-poetry, non-fiction pieces for portfolio inclusion. Instructors are further responsible for reading, responding to, conferencing about, and evaluating all of the formal papers assigned.

Although Comp Program requirements do not mandate a long research paper, please include at least one assignment that requires research in the library and on the Internet. (Our library's Online Workshops for Library Skills, or OWLS, can provide valuable guidance.) Please note that while English 100I/100 students benefit from learning research skills, the resulting paper may not necessarily prove appropriate for portfolio submission.

Students should also write an average of 500 words a week in journals, free-writing, and prewriting exercises—in writing-to-learn, writer-based prose. Some of this writing can take place during class time and need not have a reader other than peers; these activities should be designed to develop fluency rather than to serve as work to be evaluated by the instructor or submitted to the portfolio committee.

Syllabus
Each instructor is required to develop and distribute to students and to the Director of Composition a policy statement and daily plan. An electronic copy is best for program submission, but if you prefer not to share your documents online, please feel free to drop a hard copy in my mailbox. Please make your contribution to our samples bank by the end of the second week of class. Thank you.

In the fall of 2006, the Composition Program adopted a standard policy statement format governing the order and coverage of information that must be included in each of our syllabi. Please follow this link for more information.

Adding and Dropping Students
The maximum enrollment in English 100 is 25; the maximum enrollment in English 100I is 18. Until the second week of classes (usually), students may add and drop via Web Registration without approval from course instructors. After that open-registration period, students will need a magic number to add. Please do not overenroll! Most instructors withhold magic numbers until the second week of classes to protect maximum caps against the vagaries of open registration.

HSU does not permit instructors to drop or disenroll students. The responsibility for dropping a class rests solely with students. (See the "Dropping Courses" section on Enrollment Services' "Schedule Adjustment" page.) Instructors may advise students who are failing or who have ceased attending to drop the course, but they cannot perform that task for their students.

The Composition Program adheres to the first-week attendance policy, allowing instructors to “give away” the seats of enrolled students who miss any session during the first week of class without notifying the instructor in advance.

Attendance Policy
In order to complete English 100I/100 successfully, students must attend at least 85% of the class sessions: students enrolled in a MW or a TR class can miss no more than four sessions, and students enrolled in a MWF class can miss no more than six sessions. The Comp Program feels strongly that students who miss more than two weeks of class are not engaging in the work of the course—that students have not sufficiently participated to earn three/five units of University credit. Please note, however, that there exists in this policy a bit of instructor discretion: instructors may grant some leeway in extenuating circumstances—emergency hospital visits, participation in athletic events—for students who are making satisfactory progress toward course goals.

Portfolios
Please see The Manifesto for information concerning the portfolio evaluation system. Instructors are responsible for reading and following the information posted there.

Please recognize the importance of our portfolio assessment when designing the course syllabus. The portfolio is an organic part of the first-year composition program, not an add-on or inconsequential component, not a bureaucratic gauntlet from which hapless writing students must emerge. When developing a syllabus and assignments, bear in mind that students will need ample writing opportunities so that they have enough time and completed papers to compile an adequate portfolio.

Textbooks
A handbook has been ordered for all sections of English 100I/100. Instructors who wish to use a print handbook are required to use this selection. Students should be encouraged to keep their handbooks throughout their college careers as a reference, and to that end, the same handbook is required throughout the program (100I, 100, 200). Please remind students that the handbook is a reference tool useful for any writing assignment, not just for an English class.

A number of anthologies or readers provide models of exemplary essays in the various modes required of the students. Instructors interested in ordering readers for their students are encouraged to avail themselves of the texts available for review in the Comp Program Library in Tracy’s office; however, the readers are very expensive and have strengths as well as weaknesses. The decision to order a reader at the students' expense must be balanced with the hazard of the instructor to abuse copyright and copier privileges.

Final Exam
University policy mandates that instructors be available during scheduled final exam times. Please reference HSU’s “Final Evaluation Week Policy” for complete requirements. Instructors do not, however, have to administer a traditional, formal exam. Some instructors devote the final exam time to large-group readarounds; others reserve the session for grading or exit conferences.

Student Evaluations
For most composition instructors, student evaluations will be conducted in all classes taught each semester--normally during the last two weeks of the semester. A packet of evaluations with instructions for student administration will be available at the beginning of the evaluation period. It is the instructor’s responsibility to schedule an appropriate time period for the students to complete these evaluations.

Staff Meetings
A luxury of teaching in the Comp Program is the time set aside for instructors to participate in a conversation of the professional teaching community—time for professional development made available through our program meetings. While effective teaching is part craft and part art, all of us benefit from personal experience, from the experience of others, and from talking about and examining our practices. Therefore, as a condition of employment, all Comp Program faculty are expected to attend every staff meeting and to participate fully in portfolio scoring sessions.

To this end, instructors are permitted to cancel their own HSU classes in order to attend mandatory Composition Program meetings. In all but a very few, very rare circumstances, attendance is a condition of employment. Please see your Composition Director with questions. Instructors reluctant to cancel class are encouraged to schedule guest presentations, response group sessions or writing conferences, self-paced library tours, film viewing, etc.

Click here for the current semester's meeting schedule.