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Honors Section 01: MW 9:00-10:40 in 037 Millett
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Lecturer: Cathy Sayer Mailbox: 469 Millett Phone: 775-2471 Email: cathy.sayer@wright.edu |
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Texts and MaterialsFor this course, you will need:
Course Goals
The general goals of this course are to prepare you for the types of writing you will encounter in the workplace and for the citizenship role of a business professional. The specific goals are to assist you in developing strategies for:
Course DescriptionTo achieve the course goals, you will write a variety of texts: emails, memos, letters, proposals, reports, handbooks, manuals, etc. Some will be exercises from our text, but most of your writing in your major project will be real workplace writing in the form of a service-learning team project. Service-learning projects represent mutually beneficial partnerships between academic courses and nonprofit organizations. The nonprofit groups will provide you with real workplace contexts for practicing the skills taught in the class, and you will provide valuable services for the organizations—services for which they could not afford to pay and which might otherwise go undone. All parties have an equal stake in the success of these projects. For your service-learning project in this course, you and 1-2 other classmates will form a team to provide writing services for a non-profit organization in our area. Your team will choose a project from a list of organizations that have made requests for our services. And the whole class will work as an extended creative team, supporting each other and acting as a consulting group as we contract out our services to meet needs in our community. By the end of the course, you should have a collection of writings from which to compile a portfolio to take to job interviews. Course Requirements
Your final course grade will consist of the following:
All assignments must be completed and turned in to receive a passing grade in the course. All formal team portfolio pieces must have received feedback from your classmates and me in order to be submitted for a grade.
Collaborative Team Project Portfolio
Your team’s project portfolio is due, Wednesday, March 12, at the celebration we will host to honor our community partners and present them with the completed projects. The portfolio will consist of drafts and revisions of the following documents.
Class discussion, readings and activities will provide guidance on the proper format for these pieces. And you will receive feedback on each from your classmates and me to help you revise. You will have one mandatory conference with me on a semi-final draft of your project. However, before you submit your first drafts to your community partners for review, you should consult with me to make certain your work reflects the principles being learned in the course.
A minimum of 2 drafts of each essay must be submitted during the term in order for a piece to be included in your final portfolio.
Project Evaluation
Your project evaluation will be due during finals week and will be discussed in more detail before you begin work on it. Basically, though, you will be asked to demonstrate your overall learning about business writing during this term by evaluating
ParticipationYour participation grade will be based on a reading log and presentations of your team’s document drafts to the class. Your grade will be calculated on the percentage of credits you earn out of the total possible during the term (90%=A, 80%=B, etc.). Every day that you have a reading assignment, you should come to class with a reading log. The purpose of the logs is to help you digest your readings and be prepared to apply the information to your project work during class time. In the log, you should take notes on the most important points and concepts in the chapter and list any questions you want to ask in class. So that you can use your log efficiently in class, you also may want to note page numbers where each piece of info is located. Each log should be labeled with the date, the chapter number, and the title and may be typed (single or double spaced) or handwritten. Logs will receive full or half credit. To earn full credit, you must
Logs that are deficient in one or more of these areas will receive half credit. However, you may make up as many as 3 logs with no penalty, as long as the late work is presented at the beginning of the next class meeting. During the term, each team will draft and revise 7 different documents. On the day a draft is due, one member of your team will present the draft to the class on the big screen and explain why you made the choices you did. The class will then discuss strengths of the draft and improvements that can be made. Each team member must do his/her fair share of the presentations (2/3 for a 3-person team, 3 for a 2-person team). Presentations will receive full or half credit. For full credit, you must
Presentations that are deficient in one of these areas will receive half credit. There will be no make-ups for draft presentations.
At the end of the term, your team members (in their project evaluation) and I will evaluate your contributions as a team player. Each of us will assign you a team player grade, which I will then average to arrive at your team player grade. I assume that your classmates and I will be looking for similar characteristics in terms of your performance in the class and on your team, but I can tell you the qualities I look for.
The policies and procedures in this course will follow, as closely as possible, those in the work world. Therefore, in determining what might be proper behavior in a given situation, you should continually ask yourself, “What would I do if this happened on my job? How would this action reflect on me as an employee? How would it reflect on my company?” Making things run smoothly will require common sense, respect for others, and effective and timely communication, both with me and with your classmates. To ensure your success please attend to the following policies. and recommendations AttendanceSince this class will operate like a real workplace, there is no systematic absence penalty. Remember, though, that excessive absences and tardiness may negatively affect your relationships with your team members, your team player evaluations, the overall quality of your team project, and your credibility with me. That credibility could come in handy, should some special circumstance develop that requires my understanding. Time ManagementPlanning and using time efficiently are crucial to the success of your work. While you will have some class time to work on your project, you also will need to plan time outside of class to meet with your agency partners and to work with your team. As incentive for you to manage your time well, all assignments will be due at the beginning of class on the assigned date, unless otherwise stated in the course schedule. Portfolios turned in late
Therefore, plan ahead for “emergencies” such as running out of printer ink and call me ahead of time to make arrangements if some situation develops where you know you will not be able to get your work in by the deadline. Treat the class like a job you would like to keep.
Computer Classroom Policies
Since the class meets in a computer classroom, you must follow the Computer Classroom Policies.
Before coming to class, please turn off all cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices that make noise.
Process for Dealing with Team ProblemsSince this course will follow the kinds of practices used in the work world, when I grade your team portfolio, I will evaluate the quality of the writing produced, not the amount of effort expended in producing it. Nevertheless, the quality of your team’s work will likely be affected by any problems in your team. Furthermore, it is no fun to work with a team that is mired in interpersonal dysfunction. Therefore if a problem develops with one of your team members, take action right away, following the steps below. 1. Evaluate your own role in the situation. Have you done your best to include the team member and encourage his/her participation? Have you communicated that you value his/her input? 2. Give the team member a chance to correct or explain his/her behavior. Speak to him or her about the situation. He or she may have some problem of which you are unaware. Perhaps you can help. Or the member may not be aware that his/her behavior has become a problem to the team. It’s hardly fair to expect behavior to change without communicating the need for change. 3. Consult with me. If the problem persists, speak to me. I will then schedule a meeting with the whole group. If all our efforts to effect change in the "problem" member’s behavior have been unsuccessful, you will have the opportunity to assign an appropriate team player grade when you write your project evaluation at the end of the term.
Project Resources
Just as in the workplace, this course calls for you to take a lot of individual initiative. That means you will need to locate your best resources for any given task. You should constantly ask yourself:
Please take advantage of my help, just as you would your trainer or supervisor on the job. Grab me in class when you have a question or something you want me to look at. Or schedule an appointment with me in my office if you would like more uninterrupted time.
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