English
307, sections 8 & 791
Course Syllabus
Instructor:
David Menchaca
Office: CCIT #236, cubicle F
Offices Hours: online M/W, 5-6 & by appt. & online by appt.
Office Phone: 626-2555
Engl Dept: ML 445, 621-1836 (leave msg)
Email: menchaca@email.arizona.edu
Web: www.ic.arizona.edu/~profcomm/menchaca
Section 8: Web Delivered - Course Calendar
Section 791: MW 6-7:15pm - Course Calendar
Course Overview
Welcome to English 307.
What does "Professional Communication" mean? In a course focused
on Business Writing, professional communication is concerned with the language
practices used in professional settings. All settings where humans conduct
themselves with other humans tend to function through language and practices
based on common understandings. These practices are specialized at various
levels—for example, certain industries share common communication practices,
but even individual companies within an industry might have even more specialized
practices for internal communication.
Because there is no one way to communicate, but only communication practices that are appropriate for doing certain things at certain times, it would be impossible for a "business writing" course to teach you all of the possible ways you might need to communicate once you enter a profession. Regardless of the specifics of professional communication strategies, there are several important things you can learn that will enable you to understand professional communication, the technologies that shape and facilitate such communication, the effect of certain communication practices in actions, and, ideally, make appropriate choices for your own professional communication. Therefore, this course will focus on the analysis and practice of professional communication to achieve the following:
- Provide you with experience analyzing language practices from the professions enabling you to identify why certain practices are more appropriate in certain contexts.
- Provide you with experience utilizing professional communication practices in various forms to help you demonstrate your ability to apply rhetorical analyses to how you present yourself in professional communication.
- Provide you with experience analyzing and utilizing various technologies that shape professional communication to give you an awareness of the integral part technology increasingly plays in professional communication as well as practical skills with those technologies.
- Provide you with the opportunity to work collaboratively with a group of colleagues on a professional communication project to give you experience with the implications of communication choices and the ability to follow through on a project from the initial to final stages.
Course Calendar
To those ends, you will be doing many out of class written assignments (including the research and activities necessary to complete them), class activities, and group determined activities. Review the course calendar for specific due dates for your section by accessing the links below or at the top of this page. Be sure that you are looking at the course calendar for your section. The calendar is always subject to change, so please check it regularly.
Section 8: Web Delivered - Course Calendar
Section 791: MW 6-7:15pm - Course Calendar
Required Texts and Materials
Several computer floppy disks for saving your work.
Copies of your work as needed for class and group discussion.
The texts for this course are available online from the Profcomm website, or via the UofA library's Electroinc Reserves under English 307, sections 1-8. I will provide you with the password. You are expected to have completed all the readings by their due dates on the course calendar. We will be utilizing these readings throughout the course, and I will hold you responsible for having them read.
Assignment Overview
You can access all the general assignment sheets through the Profcomm website. The assignments, however, are contextualized specifically in this course according to a "professional communication scenario" based on The Profcomm Center.
You will be considered interns of The Profcomm Center for this course. As part of The Profcomm Center, our "division" has been given the assignment of examining professional communication technologies and practices. We are to investigate how communication technologies constrain and inform communication practices.
You will have some flexibility in your final projects. However, the project will result in an informative, analytical report and "online exhibit" about your focus area. You may focus on a specific field or organization, or you may focus an a more general history of the issue. For the project process, you will research the issue, write a formal proposal to do the project, complete the project or research, and produce both a project report and an exhibit. We will, of course, go over each of these steps in the process as the content of the class itself.
As interns for The Profcomm Center, your work for this course will contribute to the professional communication resources on the Profcomm website. If you do not want your materials published to this site, you will need to let me know.
Reading Response Assignments
In addition to our major projects, we will be reading and reponding to several essays about rhetoric and/or professional communication, and each of you will have an opportunity to present a reading to the class. For a more detailed explanation of what is expected, follow the link for you specific section below.
Policies
Basically, I ask that you come to class, do the readings, participate in the discussions, invest yourself in the activities, work well with your group, and have a generally pleasant time in the course. Nonetheless, in as much as we are in an institution of higher learning, and I am held responsible for asking you to adhere to some more specific guidelines, you'll want to follow the link and read through the approved "Policies" of the composition program.
For those students in section 8, the course will meet for an orientation meeting on the first day of class, Wednesday August 28th from 4:30 to 5:45 in CCIT 319. Most of the other meetings during the semester will be at flexible times, and most of the work of the class will be done on-line. In this required initial orientation, you will get information on how to use the on-line technology and information about where you will be able to access the technology on campus. If you miss this required orientation meeting, you may be dropped from the course. There will be one or two more actual class meetings on campus in the middle and end of the semester, which will be scheduled on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:45.
Grading
To complete this course
successfully, you must attend class and scheduled conferences, complete all
major assignments (complete them on time), and participate in class activities
and discussions. Although the writing assignments vary, I will evaluate your
major assignments primarily based on how effectively you have used appropriate
rhetorical methods (both document content and design) for the writing situation
you are addressing. If you have a question about your grade, please ask me
about it. An important thing to remember is that even if you feel you have
done poorly on an assignment, turn it in anyway! If you turn the assignment
in, you will at least receive some points that count towards your final grade.
Note: A word to the wise--keep copies of all of your assignments! Although
I don’t often lose things, it can happen. If you have a copy, we’ll
both be happier in the rare event that I misplace your paper.
The grades for the course will be determined according to the following scale:
|
Letters & Memos & Whatnot |
25% |
| Project Proposal | 25% |
|
Final Project Report/Product |
25% |
|
Job Application Portfolio |
25% |
Assignment Format
In-class writing: These assignments can be hand-written or typed (since we are meeting in the computer lab)--the one requirement is that they are legible. These assignments will not be graded on grammar, spelling, or punctuation. (But here’s a hint: I will be less distracted and better able to focus on your insightful comments and ideas when I’m not distracted by major grammatical and spelling errors.)
All out of class assignments: All assignments that are turned in should be typed and formatted appropriately for the type of document you are writing. Occasionally, you will need multiple copies of your assignments for peer review. All out of class assignments will be submitted electronically to the Caucus conference for your specific class.
When turning in assignment electronically (either through Caucus, email, or floppy disk), it is your responsibility to ensure that I have received the document and am able to access it. If I am unable to access your assignment electronically or if there is a problem with the file, I will notify you and you will then need to correct the problem and resubmit the assignment.
Be sure to keep the graded version of all of your assignments as you will be turning in a portfolio at the end of the semester.
Late Assignments: Late assignments are, well, late. Unless you have spoken with me beforehand to arrange for an extension, I will subtract 10% from the assignment grade for each day the paper is late. I will not grant extensions just for any old reason, but if you absolutely cannot meet the deadline because of something unavoidable, contact me as soon as possible so we can discuss the situation. Computer problems are not an acceptable excuse for a late assignment--with the variety of resources on campus, you should have ample opportunity to complete your assignments on time. Backup your work more than once.
A note about the use of technology in this class
English 307, section 8 meets almost exclusively online as part of the University of Arizona's growing distributed learning program. The fact that we are doing coursework in a fairly non-traditional way gives us the interesting opportunity to look at issues of professional communication that this course is concerned with: where and how work gets done. You will have hands on experience with the ways in which technology is reshaping the way we communicate.
We will meet once a week (at a time to be determined collectively by the members of this class) in our online course environment, Workplace by Teamwave. You will need to read about how to use Workplace™ on the Profcomm website. Also read the "user guidelines." I will provide you with your sign in information in the orientation session. Please download Workplace™ as soon as possible after the orientation.
Online class meetings will be approximately two hours long. In those class meetings, we will be discussing your individual work, discussing the required readings, workshopping the assignments you will be writing, and sharing important information necessary for your success in this course. In addition to these meetings, I encourage you to schedule conferences with me throughout the semester.
In addition, I have created a Caucus conference for both English 307, section 8 and section 791. Thus, the use of technology will be an integral part of our course work. One of our objectives in this class is to analyze communication practices, including the technologies--such as email and websites--which mediate those practices. We will be asking questions about how these technologies shape our ability to communicate in particular ways and with differing consequences.
A word of caution about electronic communication
One of the ramifications of certain communication technologies, such as email, is our increased expectation of immediate (or almost immediate) response. Although I welcome the opportunity to communicate with outside of class regarding your course work--either electronically or face-to-face--I also believe it is important for us all to be careful not to let "electronic availability" erase the boundaries between our working and non-working time. This is the long way of saying that, as an instructor, I will always reply to your emails. However, if I receive your email the midnight before an assignment is due, I may not be able to provide the extensive feedback a more timely request would afford.