“[LANG 120’s] purpose is to prepare you to adapt to writing in any and every course you take.”

Student comment

Course Description, Goals, and Learning Outcomes

LANG 120 is a one-semester “gateway” course for the Liberal Arts Core at UNC Asheville. It is designed to introduce students to the demands of college writing and thinking. You may well protest, “But not all disciplines write in the same ways! Not all genres follow the same rules!” And you’d be correct. So how can one course prepare you for this variety? We’ll confront this question head-on by making writing not only an activity we’ll practice, but also the central subject of our inquiry. In fact, our ultimate goal will be to help you develop your own theory of writing—a working understanding of how writing works, how it’s used, how it’s learned, and what makes it effective.

Class sessions and tasks will provide opportunities to undertake these efforts not through lectures and exams—nor by trying to “cover” everything—but instead through discussions, activities, and projects. Some of these will be more structured, others more open-ended, but either way we’ll focus on learning how to think rhetorically: that is, how to think critically and strategically about what to say and how to say it in any given situation, attentive to the contingencies of audience, timing, place, purpose, and genre.

Consequently, and consistent with the mission of the First-Year Writing Program, we will work together to help you

  • Engage in critical inquiry and reflection: Discover and refine critical questions or problems and investigate them from multiple perspectives;
  • Develop information literacy: Access, evaluate, and integrate relevant information from a variety of sources in an ethical manner; and
  • Communicate in rhetorically effective ways: Craft and revise compositions marked by choices in focus, structure, and style appropriate for rhetorical purposes, audience expectations, and disciplinary conventions.

In other words, we’re working on developing a more robust understanding of the ways we investigate problems (and learn from our questions and discoveries), navigate information (especially when we’re drowning in it), and engage meaningfully with other people, especially attentive to the range of communication choices available to us (as well as the possible effects of those choices).

I also hope you will leave the class more aware of the assumptions and ideologies that shape how we think and communicate and more conscious of what you have yet to learn, but also more confident about pursuing that learning in spite of challenges or difficulties.

“This class helped me expand my understanding of writing and gain a new appreciation for it, something I thought I’d never be able to achieve.”

student comment

Inclusive Learning: Andragogy & Accommodations

The term andragogy, as popularized by Malcolm Knowles, refers to the study and practice of teaching adults. We know, for example, that adults learn best when we’re motivated intrinsically—when we care about, or see the value of, what we’re learning. We also know that adults do best in a flexible but challenging learning environment—one that allows us to risk making mistakes without fear of adverse consequences.

We may differ, of course, in the kinds of flexibility we need or the particular challenges that motivate us. We all need accommodations of one variety or another to help us engage fully with our learning—and be willing to risk the failures that make learning possible.

I have tried to design the course to be open and flexible, but if you discover barriers in the design of this course, barriers that complicate your participation or disrupt your learning, please let me know so we can discuss work-arounds or changes. You can contact me most easily by email (bgraves@unca.edu) or come see me during office hours. You can also request an appointment by email.

I also encourage you to be in touch with our campus Office of Academic Accessibility. In addition to providing official accommodations, they may also have ideas or resources to share. You can find more information at their website, https://oaa.unca.edu/.

Inclusive Learning: Other Course Values

Openness. If we are to risk making mistakes, and to learn from our different points of view, we need safe and welcoming spaces in which to do so. We can help create these spaces for one another by approaching our conversations with openness—to our differences, our challenges, our emotions—but also with curiosity.

Persistent, Mindful Attention. Creating safe space for risk-taking also requires practicing attentiveness not only to course material, but also to one another’s ideas and physical and emotional well-being. Let’s make the most of our space and our time together, however complicated or constrained by pandemic conditions and technology limitations. Even as we depend increasingly on our electronic devices to connect and do our work, let’s commit to listening as best we can to one another’s conditions and needs.

Mutual Respect and Intellectual Humility. Once again, if we are to support one another’s learning-by-risk-taking, we can practice giving each other the benefit of the doubt—trusting that we are all genuinely seeking to understand the questions and topics we’ll explore, whatever our disagreements or confusions or limited perspectives. Let’s honor everyone’s efforts to do the work, get to class, and engage with challenging ideas.

Honesty and Integrity. Given our commitment to risk-taking and learning, let’s do our own work while carefully and respectfully acknowledging our use or adaptation of others’ ideas.

“From the minute I entered Brian’s classroom I felt appreciated and comfortable. . . . Brian was always willing to help and answer any questions, and he never made me feel stupid.”

student comment

Expectations for Attendance and Engagement

One set of accommodations we ALL must make this semester stem from the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, which has complicated many of the ways we would typically do our work together in this course. Even as we commit to our community expectations for mutual respect and care (see https://coronavirus.unca.edu/return-to-campus/community-expectations/), we still face significant challenges. How do we build a supportive community when we’re not getting together as frequently and find ourselves constrained by masks, distance, bandwidth, Zoom fatigue, and a host of other challenges we’ve struggled to manage over the last several months?

There are no perfect solutions here, but I have endeavored to design all of our interactions—in person, via Zoom, and asynchronously—in engaging, meaningful, and accessible ways, and invite our collective troubleshooting of the issues that may arise as we go. I continue to believe that regular attendance, even constrained and complicated by these conditions, is crucial to building a supportive community of trust, attentiveness, and safe space for learning. With this in mind, please note these expectations for your attendance and engagement in this hybrid course:

  • Monday face-to-face (f2f) sessions: We will meet about once a week in person, with masks, in our assigned physical classroom, which will be arranged so that we’re safely spaced six feet apart from each other. Although these arrangements complicate the small group activities that normally structure my class sessions, we will nonetheless do our best to use these f2f sessions to interact with each other in meaningful ways, both to build community and to work together on making sense of our readings and projects. These sessions will be designed, in other words, on the assumption that students will be in the physical classroom together, though it will usually be important to bring a digital device with you. Consequently, please make every effort to attend these f2f sessions in person. However, if you are ill or in temporary quarantine, please let me know as soon as possible in advance of the meeting and I’ll set up a Zoom call for you to join remotely. I will not routinely record these f2f sessions, but please see my comments below about absences.
  • Zoom sessions: We will also meet about once a week via Zoom, sometimes on Wednesdays and sometimes on Fridays, for interactive small group activities related to our projects. These sessions, like our f2f meetings, will serve to keep us connected and engaged in our work together, and students are likewise expected to make every effort to join these sessions and to stay engaged with our activities for the entire session. That is, these sessions are designed on the assumption that students will be actively participating in each session’s activity. Although I will not require that you share video, I strongly encourage you to arrange things so that you can; seeing each other, even via Zoom, helps immensely in nurturing our connections. There will, however, be several ways to signal your active participation in these Zoom calls; the important thing is to be present and attentive so you won’t miss them! Finally, as with our f2f meetings, I will not routinely record these Zoom sessions, but please see my comments below about absences.
  • Asynchronous collaboration activities: Although we will not usually meet more than once a week via Zoom (much less in person), there will always be virtual activities, most of them collaborative, that you will be able to join at the time that is best for you—perhaps even during our regularly scheduled class time—but that should be completed during the week in which they’re scheduled. Completing these activities within their scheduled windows will also count towards your total attendance credits. Look for specific instructions from the course calendar.
  • Absences, anticipated or otherwise: There are all kinds of reasons that you may have to miss class, including illness, family or medical emergencies, religious observances, jury duty, military service requirements, or university events like team games. What’s most important here, whether you know of absences well in advance or face an unanticipated emergency that will keep you away, is to be in touch with me as soon as possible. Letting me know of an absence in advance helps us in at least two ways: (1) Because so much of our work is collaborative, it’s often much easier (and more respectful of others’ time) to plan for alternative or make-up attendance credits ahead of time; (2) If you let me know in advance of an absence (by at least a day), I am willing to record and share some or all of the session(s) you’ll miss, and am glad to work out a way to earn at least partial attendance credit for these missed sessions.

Other specific expectations will be laid out in the grading contract. Overall, however, let’s trust one another to weigh competing demands on our time, energy, and health—and to give everyone the benefit of the doubt even as we also try to hold one another accountable to our shared efforts.

Technology Needs & Required Materials

In order to participate fully in both f2f and online elements of the course, you will need each of the following technologies:

  • a notebook and pen (or your preferred writing technology) for regular in-class “freewriting” practice and notes, and
  • a reliable digital device (desktop, laptop, tablet, etc.) with software/apps and internet access with sufficient bandwidth to view, download, create, and share a variety of text, image, and video files (including PDFs).

Among the most important resources that we will make use of in the course are these:

Expectations for Formatting & Submission of Work

Submission: I will create a Google Drive folder for each student’s submissions and strongly encourage you to use Google docs for your journal entries, style exercises, project drafts, peer feedback, and other work-in-progress. Once posted in your folder, we’ll all be able to access and comment on one another’s work, making it much easier to collaborate and communicate. (If you prefer to do your initial work offline, you can upload Word docs or PDFs to your folder; we’ll still be able to add marginal comments that way.) When you’re ready for me to review work for specs completion, you’ll provide a link to the relevant doc in your work log.

Formatting: Unless otherwise indicated (or arranged ahead of time with the instructor), formal project drafts prepared outside of class should be typed and formatted consistent with current MLA, APA, or Chicago style and documentation guidelines. Generally, that means 1-inch margins; 12-point black font; double-spacing; title; and a header with your name, the class, and the date.

NOTE: Universal Design advocates suggest that sans serif fonts (like Verdana, Helvetica, or Arial) are more readable for people with dyslexia. See, for example, this study: http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/sites/default/files/good_fonts_for_dyslexia_study.pdf.

Specifications & Contract Grading

If we want to develop intrinsic motivation and encourage risk-taking, then grades—particularly in the form of constant, external evaluation—work against us. At the same time, we do need some meaningful way to assess how we’re doing and, ultimately, derive a final course grade. My compromise consists of two elements: (1) “specs” (specifications), or minimum requirements for each task, all of which must be met to consider the task completed, but which you can continue to work on until you do (or until we run out of time); and (2) a grading contract, which defines final course grades in terms of particular combinations of completed tasks.

This approach to grading may be quite different from what you’re used to, as there won’t be any points or individual grades to keep up with. There is no “gradebook” as such, nor any running percentage or average. Instead, we’ll assess your work through a feedback and revision process oriented to helping you meet the specs for each task, and we’ll track your progress using a work log and contract record document that I’ll share with you individually.

For an initial draft of the contract, with links to task specs, see this linked page for the 9:30 section and this linked page for the 2:00 section. We’ll discuss, revise as needed, and formally adopt our section’s contract during the first weeks of class, entertaining proposed amendments as needed through midterm.

“I really appreciated the grading contract because it allowed me to try different techniques and styles that I would have been too afraid to try otherwise.”

student comment

Labor of the Course: Activities & Projects

The work you’ll do in the course will depend, to some degree, on your own goals. In other words, I propose the following tasks, which I think will help you meet the goals and learning outcomes I’ve laid out here, but I also invite class collaboration in crafting the options that individual students may choose from. What I’ve laid out here, in other words, is tentative and preliminary. Our contract will clarify and define which tasks, in which combinations, may earn an A, B, C, etc.

Reflection Journal & Language Awareness Exercises. These low-stakes tasks will sometimes serve as class-prep activities, but more often they’ll give you a chance to consider how you’re responding to our readings and activities, how well you’re meeting your goals, and what you’re learning in the process.

Exploration Project (P1): Exploring Your Assumptions about Language and Writing. This task invites you to begin thinking about the experiences that have most shaped your identity as a writer, reader, and user of language—both in and out of school settings—and to consider your personal goals for the course.

Review Project (P2): Reviewing Expert Research about Writing. This task invites you not only to see for yourself what writing scholars are discovering about writing, but also to put them into conversation with each other and with your own past experience. Writing brief summaries of each study may not seem that useful at first, but you may be surprised what you learn from the process—not only about writing but also about genuine research driven by genuine questions. (Hint: Research is NOT about cherry-picking quotable quotes from random people who happen to already agree with you!)

Analysis Project (P3): Analyzing Expert Writing Habits. This task invites you to investigate—and then share with the rest of us—what expert writers actually do when writing a particular genre that you’d like to understand better. What can we learn about writing from a deep dive into the patterns that distinguish expert genre production and the values that drive those patterns?

Peer Response Letters. These provide periodic opportunities to practice feedback without grading—and to learn to trust ourselves and our peers to help us assess the strengths and weaknesses of our writing.

Process Notes. They’ll look like cover letters for the four projects, but they also serve as tools for revision (considering how to address gaps between intentions and execution) and reflection (keeping track of what you’re learning and how your theory of writing is taking shape).

Final Reflection Letter & Portfolio. Articulate your emerging theory of writing, assess your efforts to meet the learning outcomes, and offer the next class some advice. You can see samples of past students’ portfolios on this linked Advice and Models page.

Calendar of Activities & Project Deadlines

For the full calendar of our class meetings, with prep instructions for each synchronous session, details on asynchronous activities, and task submission deadlines, follow this link: https://graves120.wp.unca.edu/calendar-spring-2021/

How and When to Expect Feedback

Look for feedback on your low-stakes work-in-progress primarily in comments on your Google Doc submissions; we’ll track your specs completion for each task via your Work Log & Contract Record document. Generally, you should expect some level of feedback from me within a week of submitting something, though the added workload of hybrid delivery has somewhat complicated this timeline.

If at any point you’re confused, can’t find what you need, or simply feel a need for more (or speedier) feedback than you’re getting, please email me or check in during office hours. There’s a good chance I may be able to do an “instant” feedback conference on the spot!

“Graves is very helpful in giving feedback. He is willing to listen and help you achieve your vision with your work.”

student comment

Academic Indicators

The purpose of these “indicators,” which I plan to post for everyone initially by week 5, is to help the Academic Success Center (ASC) keep tabs on how students are doing across ALL their courses. (See more at https://advising.unca.edu/academic-alerts.) The point here is to identify, in particular, those who may need additional support. I will usually try to communicate with you before I submit a code to OnePort. Details on what these codes will mean for LANG 120 appear on this linked page.

Academic Honesty

As noted above under course values, we collaborate on the understanding that you will share or submit your own work, with outside sources clearly credited and appropriately documented. Misrepresenting the originality of your ideas or information will not meet minimum requirements for particular tasks and may, under certain circumstances, risk a failing grade for the course. When in doubt, consult with me. Otherwise we will follow the procedures for responding to academic dishonesty outlined in the 2020-2021 Catalog.

Asking Questions & Staying in Touch

Please check the course announcements page AND your UNCA email at least once a day. I may use either to post announcements, share follow-up comments or instructions after class, suggest calendar or project revisions, or communicate about changes due to adverse or inclement weather.

If you have general questions about class, please post those to our “Questions and Clarifications” forum on Moodle (https://learnonline.unca.edu/mod/forum/view.php?id=593216). On the other hand, if you have questions that pertain to your specific work or situation, feel free to email me directly from your UNCA account. I will usually respond to forum or email questions within 36-48 hours.

In the case of more urgent concerns, send me a Chat (https://chat.google.com/) or text message (828-380-4174), and I will do my best to respond within 1-2 hours.

Other Helpful Resources to Support Your Work & Health

Dates for Drop/Add and Course Withdrawal

See the 2020-2021 Catalog (at http://catalog.unca.edu) for policies on course registration and grade changes. The last day to withdraw from this course is Friday, March 12, 2021. Students may withdraw from a maximum of three courses during their enrollment at UNC Asheville, and may be granted a grade replacement only twice. If you do not pass LANG 120 with a C- or higher, please do plan to take it again ASAP and to replace your failing grade (D or F) so that it doesn’t adversely affect your GPA.

Final Caveat

For further details on these and all university policies, consult the Student Handbook (https://studenthandbook.unca.edu) and the Course Catalog (https://catalog.unca.edu). This course adheres to and is governed by all UNC Asheville rules and regulations outlined in these texts. In the event that policies articulated here conflict with those of the University, the latter take precedence.