English 101/Intenet Mr. Kelly McQuain, Instructor

Int101s.doc Office: BR-16

Revised 9/2001 Voice Mail: 215-751-8346

This is the first of a two-part sequence in English composition. Along with some review of grammar, sentence structure and the paragraph, this course requires the writing of essays of 500+ words that develop significant ideas in a sequence of well-organized paragraphs with a minimum of errors. Students are expected to use a variety of rhetorical patterns and respond in writing to assigned readings. Reading literature and responding to it in writing is required.

As a distance learning course, you and your fellow students will connect share ideas and correspond with each other through a variety of online formats. You will be expected to be self-motivated and disciplined enough to meet course deadlines--which means managing your time well enough to know when papers and projects are due and planning ahead to meet such goals. You’re also expected to be familiar with your web-browser, how to surf the Internet, and how to open documents in a variety of word-processing formats. Typically, formal papers will be due on Sundays at midnight so that those of you who work during the week will have the full weekend to complete your projects.

Because we become better writers as we become better readers, we will be reading a variety of material--fiction (including novels), essays, newspaper articles and more. In the case of online articles that I wish you to read, I will "link" these to our virtual classroom so that you can easily access them with your web browser. We won't have time to cover all of this material in class, although you will be expected to do all assigned work. We will do our best to cover the most important aspects, and as a good student you are expected to come up with your own questions and ideas about the material, and to share this during online group discussions--a further requirement of the course. Think of these as the class’s group journal, where we ask questions and trade ideas about important aspects of the course. Participation is very important because our thinking skills are honed when we express our ideas in writing. Our goal is to make you a better, more insightful writer capable of drawing on other written work to support your own ideas. That includes learning about how to cite sources