This document provides an overview and syllabus for an English 10: Accelerated Academic Literacy course at California State University, Fresno. The course aims to develop students' abilities as readers and writers to participate in academic and public conversations. It will focus on analytical thinking, reading methods, writing processes, and joining various literacy communities. Students will complete reading responses, four formal writing projects, and midterm and final portfolios. Class participation, online writing labs, assignments, and the final portfolio will determine grades. The course policies outline attendance, late work, academic integrity, and computer requirements.

1. English 10: Accelerated Academic Literacy
California State University, Fresno Spring 2016
Instructor: Lejla Tricic
Office: Peters Business Building 404
Office Hours: By appointment only
Email: ltricic@csufresno.edu
Web Site: http://blackboard-asp.csufresno.edu/webapps/login/
Course Overview
English 10: Accelerated Academic Literacy is a first-year course created to extend your opportunities for
reading, writing, thinking, and inquiry. This course is designed to develop your abilities as a reader and
writer – a literacy user – as an active participant in the world of language in which you are already
immersed. The primary focus is on the analytical thought, reading methods, and writing processes literacy
users employ to participate in the various communities we belong to. The secondary focus is on how
literacy users develop and use these processes to join academic and public conversations as citizens in our
society. At the end of the course you should feel more confident reading a wide selection of material
because we will talk about how our reading leads to different kinds of meaning making. In addition, you
should feel more confident when approaching various writing tasks because you will have had more
sustained practice writing with a rhetorical framework in mind; writing with a rhetorical framework in
mind means that you are shaping your writing to address an audience through the purpose you want to get
across in your writing. You will gain more experience assessing the rhetorical context – the situation you
are writing into – so that you can make decisions about genre and purpose. Generally, then, this course
challenges you to think critically about who you are and what you do as a literacy user, and it challenges
you to think critically about how a social context will shape and change readers’ purposes and writers’
texts. The bottom line is that this class will prepare you to understand and evaluate the literacy
expectations and practices of various communities – particularly the university community – so you can
learn the abilities, practices, and habits of mind to be an active member of this community.
Directed Self-Placement and Course Expectations
Taking English 10 is one option out of three to fulfill the first-year writing requirement. At most
universities students are placed into first-year writing based only on test scores. At this university,
students get to choose which course they will take to fulfill the first-year writing requirement. Our first-
year writing program believes that students are the best people to make choices about their learning so we
foster that through our program practices. That said, there is a responsibility that comes with making
choices for your education. I want to be sure that you are making the best choice for your future as a
student and that you are not choosing a course because it seems easier or you can get done faster. Below
are the indicators for student ability that I have used to design this class. If you feel these indicators do not
represent where you are as a literacy learner right now, you should talk to me immediately about
changing classes.
Students who take this class should be
• strong readers and writers
• comfortable with reading complex essays and taking notes as they read
• able to make connections to other things they have read or experienced as a means of
understanding a reading

2. • comfortable identifying the structure and organization of the things they read
• able to find topics to write about and can relate their ideas to the ideas of others
• able to find effective strategies for outlining and organizing their writing
• comfortable doing research, know how to locate and evaluate sources and know how to relate
them to their own writing
• confident about the conventions of grammar, punctuation, and spelling
• ready to work at a quick pace with the instructor as their guide.
Required Texts:
• Marshall, Margaret J. Composing Inquiry: Methods and Readings for Investigation and
Writing. ISBN-10: 0131922912 • ISBN-13: 9780131922914
• Munger, David and Shireen Campbell. What Every Student Should Know about
Researching Online, 2/E. ISBN-10: 0205856462 • ISBN-13: 9780205856466
• Notebook and pen every day in class
• A computer, access to Blackboard, money set aside to make hardcopies of portfolios and
certain essays.
Recommended Supplemental Texts—Optional (for reference):
• Graff , Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say I—2nd
Ed. New York: W.W.
Norton, 2010.
• Hacker, Diana and Nancy Sommers. A Writer’s Reference, Custom Edition for Fresno
State—7th
Ed. New York and Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013.
First-Year Writing Program Goals and Outcomes
At the end of English 10 students should be able to:
1. Understand and practice effective, academic reading strategies, processes, and assessment of
written work, including participating meaningfully in a community of readers and writers.
a) READING/WRITING STRATEGIES: Demonstrate or articulate an understanding of
reading strategies and assumptions that guide effective reading, and how to read actively,
purposefully, and rhetorically
b) REFLECTION: Make meaningful generalizations/reflections about reading and writing
practices and processes
c) COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION: Articulate or demonstrate meaningful participation in
a community of readers/writers, and ethical and self-conscious practices that address the
concerns of that community of reader/writers (e.g. using and giving feedback on drafts in
peer response groups)
2. Understand and practice effective, academic summary, demonstrate rhetorical awareness and
purpose, enter academic conversations, and make analyses and connections from/with
research.

3. a) SUMMARY/CONVERSATION: Demonstrate summarizing purposefully, integrate
“they say” into writing effectively or self-consciously, appropriately incorporate quotes
into writing (punctuation, attributions, relevance), and discuss and use texts as
“conversations” (writing, then, demonstrates entering a conversation)
b) RHETORICALITY: Articulate or demonstrate an awareness of the rhetorical features of
texts, such as purpose, audience, context, rhetorical appeals, and elements, and write
rhetorically, discussing similar features in texts
c) INTEGRATING RESEARCH: Demonstrate analyzing research to develop an argument,
incorporating others’ ideas (through quotations, summary or paraphrase) into writing
effectively or self-consciously, and appropriately integrating citations into text
(punctuation, attributions, relevance)
3. Practice appropriate language use, clarity, proficiency in writing, and citation mechanics.
d) LANGUAGE COHERENCE: Have developed, unified, and coherent paragraphs and
sentences that have clarity and some variety
About the Course
Reading
Reading and writing go hand in hand. The reading we will do in this class will be necessary for our topics
of class discussion, for modeling approaches to writing, and for developing a better understanding about
form, rhetorical approach, and the use of evidence in writing. There will be roughly 20-25 pages of
reading each week. I will expect that when a reading assignment is due that you will have read the text
actively; that is, you will have made notes in the margins, will have questions to ask, and will be ready to
engage in conversation with others about the reading. You are required to participate every day when
readings are assigned. In addition, there are a couple types of reading responses that will be done
periodically during the course.
• Journals: Responses to published texts help you prepare for class participation. Your reading
response is meant to get you to think critically about the text and it is to help you to think about
how the writing functions in a text. All reading responses need to be at least one full page,
double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins. In these responses I will be looking for your ability
to make connections between the writing and your experiences, and I will be looking for an
analysis of the reading: what is important about this topic? What did the writer get wrong? What
does this mean for you and your experiences? What other ways are there of understanding this
issue?
Writing
Writing is not just a demonstration of one’s ability to write. Writing is about thinking on paper. It is about
learning something new. It is about expressing important ideas. It is about connecting to an audience. The
writing I will ask you to do will emerge from the concepts, processes, and issues that we will read and
discuss in this class. All of these writing projects will encourage you to choose topics that are important to
you, that connect with issues, ideas and experiences that you are familiar with. There will be four writing
projects that you will do in this course. As we move through the course, each writing project will
challenge you to add more knowledge, skills, and practices of writing to what you already know from the
assignment before.

4. • Formal Writing Projects: In this class, you will have numerous formal writing projects of various
lengths. These writing projects are meant to get you to read, write, and respond as both a student
in the university and as a public citizen. More information about these writing projects will be
given to you during the semester. Generally, these projects require outside research using both
academic and nonacademic sources; they require you to write multiple drafts before a project is
complete, and they must be written toward an audience, which means you will need to
contextualize and explain your claims and examples, give readers a clear sense of why your
responses and ideas matter, and be proofread in the final text.
• Midterm and Final Portfolio: At the midterm and end of the semester, you will create a
representation of your work as a writer in this class. For the midterm portfolio, you will need to
choose at least 5 pages of formal writing from our class and write a 2-3 page reflection letter that
discusses your learning up to this point. For the final portfolio, you will choose at least 10 pages
of formal writing to represent who you have become as a writer and write a 5 page reflective
cover letter that discusses your learning over the entire semester. Your portfolio will be assessed
according to the five portfolio dimensions, which are also listed above under the goals and
outcomes: 1.a, 1.b, 2.a, 2.b, and 3.a. In addition to my assessments, your classmates will read and
assess your portfolios as well. Your final portfolio must pass in order for you to pass the
class.
• Online Labs: This class involves writing labs which are conducted online. You will have several
opportunities to try out different genres of online writing for most of the writing you will do for
this class. IMPORTANT: To be able to deal with the sometimes inconsistent nature of
technology, I would encourage you to write your workshopping responses in a word processing
program, save it to disk, and then PASTE that work into the text field on blackboard.
Participation:
Class participation is mandatory and will be a necessary part of your success in this class. Therefore, you
will need to come to class prepared with homework done and ideas to share – everyday. Graded class
participation will include small group work, small group workshopping, online workshops, and large
group discussions. If class participation is a problem for you, please see me and we will discuss strategies
that might be helpful for you.
• Workshopping is an important component to this class. Workshopping gives you the opportunity
to get audience feedback on your writing; workshops are also an opportunity to get ideas for
approaching various writing tasks, to understand the range of rhetorical components – besides
grammar – that are available for revision, and finally to assess a piece of writing for it’s rhetorical
effectiveness. Participating in these workshops will help you to read and revise your own work
with more fluency and expertise.
• Midterm and Final Portfolio Assessments: Being able to assess writing is key to being a good
writer, which is why the first-year writing program believes that students should have an
opportunity to assess their peers’ portfolios. Assessment means that you will make a judgment
about the quality of your peers’ portfolios based on the five portfolio dimensions (which we will
discuss in class later). Participation in these assessments is required for passing the class. The
midterm assessments will be conducted online and the final assessments will be on the last two
days of class.
Evaluation

5. Your final grade will – first of all – depend on meeting the requirements of the course (see below). After
the requirements of the course have been met, the percentage of work accomplished will be figured to get
your final grade. Failure to meet any of the requirements of the course listed below may cause the
student to receive a failing grade for the class.
Requirements for the course
1. All writing projects must be attempted
2. Three absences or less (see attendance policy below)
3. Turn a midterm and a final portfolio on time (Late portfolios will not be accepted)
4. Participate and turn in all assignments required for the Midterm and Final Portfolio readings
5. Participation – every day – in class and on-line
In addition, final grades will be based on the following:
Participation, Citizenship, and Short Writing Assignments 20%
Online writing labs 20%
Writing assignments 30%
Final Portfolio 30%
Grading Scale
90-100% A
80-89% B
73-79% C
64-72% D
0-63% F
[Please note: the grading scale above is correct: students who transfer to another university that have a +/-
system need to know that students passed first year writing with a “C” not a “C-“]
Late Work Policy:
Portfolios cannot be turned in late. Late portfolios will automatically receive a failing grade. Other
assignments such as reading responses and writing project drafts turned in late will be lowered by one
grade for each day they are late. I will occasionally accept homework by email, but please don’t make it a
habit.
Attendance
It is very important that you show up to class. Since we do a lot of in-class writing and discussion, good
attendance is essential. You can have up to three absences for any reason; there are no excused absences
for this class, so any emergency or last minute illnesses will need to fall within these three. On your
fourth absence, you are in danger of failing the course. Coming late to class is distracting to both the
students and the instructor. Please try to show up on time for every class meeting. Three tardies (more
than 10 minutes late) equals one absence.
For those students who will need to take time off for university sponsored events, I will need to know the
date of those absences by the second week of classes in order to excuse those absences. This will need to
be on letterhead from the person in charge of your organization. Having excused absences does not mean
that you get an additional 6 absences on top of the excused one. It means that you and I will need to work
out what is fair in relation to the number of classes you need to miss for university sponsored events and
create an attendance contract that both you and I sign. If you need to be excused for an excessive number

6. of classes (10 or more), I may request that you take this class another semester.
Please note: The in class midterm portfolio reading assessment activities (week 8) are mandatory and
cannot be excused except for the most serious reasons.
Please note: If you are absent from class, it is your responsibility to check on announcements made while
you are away. It is also your responsibility to make sure that your name appears on the daily attendance
sheet each day that you do attend class.
Religious Observances
Students who will be absent from class due to religious observance must provide notice of the date(s) to
me, in writing, by the end of the second week of classes.
University Policies
Students with Disabilities
Upon identifying themselves to the instructor and the university, students with disabilities will receive
reasonable accommodation for learning and evaluation. For more information, contact Services to
Students with Disabilities in Madden Library 1049 (278-2811).
Cheating and Plagiarism
Cheating is the actual or attempted practice of fraudulent or deceptive acts for the purpose of improving
one's grade or obtaining course credit; such acts also include assisting another student to do so. Typically,
such acts occur in relation to examinations. However, it is the intent of this definition that the term
'cheating' not be limited to examination situations only, but that it include any and all actions by a student
that are intended to gain an unearned academic advantage by fraudulent or deceptive means. Plagiarism is
a specific form of cheating which consists of the misuse of the published and/or unpublished works of
others by misrepresenting the material (i.e., their intellectual property) so used as one's own work."
By enrolling in this course, you join a community requiring intellectual integrity. When you write your
name on an assignment, you take credit for the work contained, whether that be an entire text or only a
sentence. Plagiarism, cheating, and other forms of academic dishonesty demonstrate a disrespect of the
community and will not be tolerated. Penalties for cheating and plagiarism range from a 0 or F on a
particular assignment, through an F for the course, to expulsion from the university.
For more information on the University's policy regarding cheating and plagiarism, refer to the Class
Schedule (Legal Notices on Cheating and Plagiarism) or the University Catalog (Policies and
Regulations)
Computers
"At California State University, Fresno, computers and communications links to remote resources are
recognized as being integral to the education and research experience. Every student is required to have
his/her own computer or have other personal access to a workstation (including a modem and a printer)
with all the recommended software. The minimum and recommended standards for the workstations and
software, which may vary by academic major, are updated periodically and are available from
Information Technology Services (http://www/csufresno.edu/ITS/) or the University Bookstore. In the
curriculum and class assignments, students are presumed to have 24-hour access to a computer
workstation and the necessary communication links to the University's information resources."
Disruptive Classroom Behavior

7. "The classroom is a special environment in which students and faculty come together to promote learning
and growth. It is essential to this learning environment that respect for the rights of others seeking to
learn, respect for the professionalism of the instructor, and the general goals of academic freedom are
maintained . . . . Differences of viewpoint or concerns should be expressed in terms which are supportive
of the learning process, creating an environment in which students and faculty may learn to reason with
clarity and compassion, to share of themselves without losing their identities, and to develop an
understanding of the community in which they live . . . . Student conduct which disrupts the learning
process shall not be tolerated and may lead to disciplinary action and/or removal from class."
Honor Code
"Members of the CSU Fresno academic community adhere to principles of academic integrity and mutual
respect while engaged in university work and related activities." You should: a) understand or seek
clarification about expectations for academic integrity in this course (including no cheating, plagiarism
and inappropriate collaboration), b) neither give nor receive unauthorized aid on examinations or other
course work that is used by the instructor as the basis of grading, and c) take responsibility to monitor
academic dishonesty in any form and to report it to the instructor or other appropriate official for action.”
Academic Resources
The Writing Center
The Writing Center offers a one-unit CR/NC tutorial that runs concurrently with the course and meets
twice a week for 50 min. You will work in a small group of 2-3 students and a trained tutor discussing
your writing and by giving one another feedback and sharing strategies for revision. The tutorial will
enhance your learning and help you succeed in this class. It will also help you prepare your writing for
submission to the portfolio. The tutor will not give you any homework assignments; you will simply work
with the writing you'll be doing in this and your other classes.
In addition, you can also work with a tutor in one-to-one tutorials by appointment or submit your writing
for feedback on-line. The Writing Center can be contacted at 278-0334 or
www.csufresno.edu/writingcenter
The Learning Center
The Learning Center offers free drop-in tutoring in multiple subjects including writing, math, sciences,
business, and languages. If you need a place to study, the Learning Center has a computer lab,
private study rooms, and open study space. Visit the Peters Building Annex from 8am-7pm Monday
through Thursday, 8am-5pm on Fridays, and 10am-2pm on Saturdays. For information about the
Academic Success Workshops or tutoring schedule go to http://csufresno.edu/lc or call 278-3052.
SupportNet
Our campus has developed SupportNet to connect students with specific campus resources promoting
academic success. I have agreed to participate in this program and may refer you to it if I believe
you need the services provided by SupportNet to succeed in this course.
Responsibility
College is different than high school: there are different expectations, different sets of requirements, and
different levels of responsibility. I would like to take a moment, now, to talk a bit about responsibility and
what responsibility means in the context of this course. You, as a student in this class, have a
responsibility to yourself and to the class to do the work required of you, to attend and participate during
class time, to ask questions of me or your classmates if you do not understand or want more information,

8. and to know what assignments have been turned in and where your stand with your grade. I have the
responsibility to be prepared for every class, to answer any questions and consider any feedback, to
provide, in a timely manner, helpful and honest suggestions for revisions on your writing projects, and to
make myself available to you for questions and concerns inside and outside of class. When we work
together to meet our respective responsibilities, our experience in this class will be improved because we
will know what to expect from each other. This syllabus acts as a contract between the student and the
teacher and these responsibilities are part of the guidelines for your participation and success in this class.