This class is a continuation of ENGL 1010 with an emphasis on finding good academic sources and using strategies in order to make a good written argument. Part of how we learn this is to practice writing. Another way is to read about writing or just read writing that is well-done! So there is a lot of reading and writing in all Engl 2010 classes, as well as a 10-page paper due at the end of the semester. Don't worry; we'll break it all down.

This particular class focuses on arguments surrounding the topic of video games. If you don't know much about gaming, that's okay! I'll teach you. If you do know a lot, awesome! I've been a gamer my entire life and know a lot about the topic, too.

The skills you learn in this class will help you in all your other classes and in many real-life situations, as well.

Catalog Description

ENGL 2010 Intermediate Writing - 3 Credits The second of the GE writing courses emphasizes the development of an effective academic style in argumentative essays that makes use of traditional rhetorical patterns, culminating in a major research paper. Subtopics will vary. Students with ACT English scores below 29 must take ENGL 1010 or ENGL 1010E before enrolling in 2010. General Education Category: Written Communication

All ENGL 2010 classes have minimum requirements from the English Dept. If you have an interest, you can see that list here. (I.E., it's not me trying to give you a lot of work; it's a requirement of all 2010's.)

• I provide required articles and links for you through Canvas modules and your assignments. There are no books for you to buy.
• You need to use Word for this class. You have free access to this: On MySUU, go to Resources, then Office 356 Log In. Do not use Google Docs; it messes up the formatting and doesn't always work with Canvas.
• You need access to Canvas and the SUU Library website.

1. Sources and Evidence: Locate, evaluate, and integrate credible and relevant sources to achieve various writing purposes.
2. Genre Awareness: Demonstrate critical and conceptual awareness of genre in reading and writing—including organization, content, presentation, forma"ng, and stylistic choices.
3. Context and Purpose: Analyze rhetorical situations and adapt to the audience, purpose, modalities, and the circumstances surrounding a range of reading and writing tasks.
4. Language Awareness and Usage: Recognize and make intentional, critical, and contextually-informed language choices across a range of rhetorical contexts/situations.
5. Recursive Writing Processes: Develop flexible, iterative, and reflective processes for invention, drafting, workshopping, and revision.

Assignments Outline

While you can technically miss some assignments and not hurt your grade, sometimes one assignment is the only time a concept is talked about, so you won't know how to do it on the next assignments or major essays.

Also note that because I want to teach you to use the best academic sources, we will only be using the SUU library databases' peer-reviewed academic articles and they can only be 10 years old or less.

Major Essays

The bulk of your grade in ENGL 2010 will come from these interconnected assignments which culminate in a substantial, 10+ page Persuasive Argument Essay. The other two major essays prepare you for the final one. All smaller assignments help you craft parts of the final essay, so you need each assignment to do well on that final essay.

Discussions

Discussions are completion-based assignments that allow you to explore course ideas and readings in depth.

Workshops

Workshops are low-stakes activities designed to help you practice skills and explore ideas (easy points that will help your other assignments, too)--they also let me check in on how your research is developing. They are designed to help with your major writing assignments, so feel free to reuse and recycle the writing you do for them when appropriate!

Quizzes

These are open-book quizzes just to make sure you have some basic information under your belt.

Grade Scheme

The following grading standards will be used in this class:

A minimum grade of D- in the class is mandatory to meet the SUU core Integrated Learning General Education requirement.

Complete/Incomplete assignments

Smaller grades are considered Complete or Incomplete. If you get an incomplete, it means you didn't do enough of what was being asked to be considered proficient in that assignment. It is expected that you will make corrections and resubmit in order to get full points. If you get a complete but not full points, you may also correct what's missing and resubmit.

Neat trick! Hypothetical grades: You can plug in hypothetical grades into assignments in the Grades section of Canvas to see how this would affect your overall grade. I can't do it on my end but you can do it for yourself.

Please remember:

1. You have to learn the skill to get the grade. Even if you "work really hard" as some students tell me in anger, if you don't fulfill the assignment, I can't give you full credit. I worked hard to understand algebra the first time through, but it didn't click with me. The second time it did. It sucks when effort doesn't yield the results we want, but sometimes that happens. Your work has to show understanding of the concepts being taught in the assignment.
2. Accomplishing the bare minimum of what the assignment requires is necessary if you want any credit.
3. The minor assignments are the lessons for the class. Every concept is the foundation for the next thing taught. If you skip one assignment, it may not affect your grade initially, but you will not have learned a necessary skill that will be required later to learn another skill. This will likely continue all semester, and it will suddenly snowball rapidly the last couple of weeks. I do everything I can to warn you and help you, but once it gets to that point, there's usually nothing either one of us can do to remedy the problem. Trust me; I've been doing this a long time and have seen the pattern dozens of times! I've literally had students do almost no work, think they can wing a 10-page paper without any lessons, and then get pissed when that predictably doesn't work out for them.
4. C is average. If you do work that is fulfilling the assignment but just hits that bare minimum, that is totally fine, but it doesn't make it A work (many students think an A should be given if they turn anything in at all). "A" means excellent work has been done. I am actually very forgiving in my grading even if it doesn't seem like it. If I can justify raising your grade, I do it every time. So if you did poorly, know that was after I was doing everything I could on my end to help you get the best grade I could; but my hands are tied by the requirements of the course and assignments. However, I'm happy to help you improve that grade if it's before rewrite deadlines.
5. You earn grades; I write them down. Students don't get to decide what they've earned, because they don't know much of anything about academic writing yet, hence the need for the class. To come to me and tell me what you deserve is 1. grossly misunderstanding the purpose of a university class, and 2. going to be based on the emotion of the grade you want- which is kind of the opposite of what I'm trying to teach you in the class to begin with! Likewise, telling me the Writing Center said it was an A paper is first, a lie; they won't do that. Second, not relevant as they are helping but are not composition professors.
6. I can care if you'll be on probation, not be able to play for your team, lose your scholarship, have to go to your home country, etc. (all things students have told me would be on me if I didn't pass them (remember, it's not me; it's you who does the work or not), but not be able to do anything about it. I worry about all of you all the time, but I ethically can't give you grades you don't earn, add extra assignments for your personal benefit, or bend the rules just for you.

• Sun Jan 10, 2027 — Canvas Settings (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 10, 2027 — FERPA Consent Waiver due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 10, 2027 — MLA Template 1 (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 10, 2027 — Syllabus Quiz (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 17, 2027 — Discussion: What Exactly Is a Game? (abt. 1 hr) Reply to Topic due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 17, 2027 — Quick Quiz: What Makes a Source Academic? (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Mon Jan 18, 2027 — Discussion: What Exactly Is a Game? Required Replies (2) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 24, 2027 — Discussion: "Shitty First Drafts" Reply to Topic due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 24, 2027 — Discussion: Go Play a Game! #1 (abt 3 hrs) Reply to Topic due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 24, 2027 — Quick Quiz: MLA Writing Style (abt. 30 min) due by 11:59pm
• Mon Jan 25, 2027 — Discussion: "Shitty First Drafts" Required Replies (2) due by 11:59pm
• Mon Jan 25, 2027 — Discussion: Go Play a Game! #1 (abt 3 hrs) Required Replies (2) due by 11:59pm
• Mon Jan 25, 2027 — MLA Template 2 (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 31, 2027 — Quick Quiz: Personal Pronouns in Academic Writing (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 31, 2027 — Workshop: How to Read Like a Writer (abt. 1 hr) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Jan 31, 2027 — Discussion: Go Play a Game! #2 (abt. 3 hrs) Reply to Topic due by 11:59pm
• Sun Feb 7, 2027 — Workshop: Incorporating Sources into Writing (abt. 20 min) due by 11:59pm
• Mon Feb 8, 2027 — Discussion: Go Play a Game! #2 (abt. 3 hrs) Required Replies (2) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Feb 14, 2027 — Major Assignment 1: First Draft of the Rhetorical Analysis (abt. 3 hrs) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Feb 21, 2027 — Major Assignment 1: Final Draft of the Rhetorical Analysis (abt. 1 hr to revise if your first draft is in decent shape) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Feb 28, 2027 — Discussion: Rhetorical "Moves" (abt 30 min) Reply to Topic due by 11:59pm
• Sun Feb 28, 2027 — Quick Quiz: Choosing Quotes (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Mon Mar 1, 2027 — Discussion: Rhetorical "Moves" (abt 30 min) Required Replies (2) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Mar 7, 2027 — Major Assignment 2: First Draft of the Topic Proposal (abt. 3 hrs) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Mar 14, 2027 — Major Assignment 2: Final Draft of the Topic Proposal (abt. 1 hr to revise if your first draft is in decent shape) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Mar 21, 2027 — Quick Quiz: Odds and Ends (abt. 15 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Mar 21, 2027 — Thesis Statement (abt. 30 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Mar 21, 2027 — Workshop: Introductions (abt. 20 min) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Apr 4, 2027 — Major Assignment 3: First Draft of the Persuasive Argument Essay (abt. 8-12 hrs depending on the time you spent on assignments working up to this one) due by 11:59pm
• Sun Apr 18, 2027 — Major Assignment 3: Final Draft of the Persuasive Argument Essay (abt. 2 hrs to revise if your first draft is in decent shape) due by 11:59pm

Late Policy and Rewrites:

You can turn work in late for full points! But late work won't get notes from me, which can inadvertently affect your grade. (You can still get any questions answered if you come in for office hours, however).

You can do rewrites for full points, too! In writing, it is very common to have to revise! That's what the writing process is! It's not a failing on your part if you need to revise. I want you to learn, so if you miss the point of an assignment or you don't like your grade, come see me so we can see what needs to be done for your next attempt.

There are exceptions to late work and rewrites being allowed:

• Discussions- because other students depend on your timely response, cannot be late.
• Feb 15 and Mar 29 are hard deadlines. No work or rewrites from Weeks 1-5 can be turned in after Feb 15. No work or rewrites from Weeks 6-12 can be turned in after Mar 29. There are no exceptions.
• Your final draft of your final essay cannot be turned in late. There are no exceptions.

Please, contact me asap if you need extra time or are struggling in some other way! I can't help you after the fact.

As this is an asynchronous online class, there is no attendance requirement. However, please note that the course discussions (which replicate the in-class discussion portion of a face-to-face class) are mandatory, due weekly, and cannot be made up if missed.

Students are responsible for everything in the syllabus even if they don't read it, remember it, or agree with it. It is essentially a contract that binds both students and the professor to it.

There's a myth that online classes are easy (or at least easier). Unfortunately, that is NOT true for English composition. Because of the detailed nature of what you're learning, you have to be highly self-motivated to do the readings and look over assignments multiple times until you completely understand the concepts without the benefit of me being with you to clarify all concepts as would happen in a classroom. I am available to help, though!

If you have an overloaded schedule this semester at school or work, consider taking this class later when you have time. Research and writing are time-consuming tasks. Even if you got A's in high school by writing essays the night before, that will not work in this class. The final essay, for example, should take a minimum of 12 hours. If you take your time on all the smaller assignments leading up to the final essay, it will make the task infinitely easier, though!

My goal is to:

• Respond to student messages within 2 business days
• Provide grades and feedback within 3 days from the due date for small assignments and 6 days for major writing assignments

Keep in mind that if I spend 20 minutes making notes per essay draft, it's 8.5 hours per assignment just for this class, and I have 4-5 classes per semester, and that is just one small (albeit important!) part of my job. So try to be patient.

Grading and Commenting

I only comment in detail on first drafts of major assignments and only if they are turned in on time. I just use a rubric on final drafts, since most students only really want the notes on the first draft to help them do better on the final draft. You are always welcome to make an appointment if you want more clarification on any assignment.

On minor assignments, I may or may not make a note. If I say, "This looks good!" I mean that sincerely and it's fine the way it is. Please realize that anything I write as a note students often read as "I hate you and your writing sucks"; What I might have actually written may be, "I'm not sure what you are arguing. Can you explain?" and I'm literally just asking for clarification. Without voice cues, we sometimes assume the worst. I try to be as straightforward and honest with you as possible, which may sound blunt in writing, so try to imagine my voice being as supportive as possible when you read my notes. I'm just trying to help you!

So conversely, if I say something needs to be corrected, it really does and will lose you points if you don't. I give you a rubric ahead of time so you see how I will grade your work; if I tell you something is missing, I'm basing it on how I will be grading you using the given rubric.

However, I won't mark every error for you. I'm not an editor. :) I have to pick a few important things for you to focus on learning at a time. But I do allow rewrites for full points, so if you don't like a grade, come see me so we can go over what else you can do to get the concepts downs for your next try.

IT IS NORMAL to have to rewrite (fix parts of) assignments in writing classes. It is not a failing on your part. It just takes a bit to get it right. That's how the writing process works.

Notes of Importance

For all 2010 classes, it is expected that you already know what you learned in ENGL 1010 before taking this class. I do review some of the 1010 concepts but not all of them.

Everything for this class is done in MLA formatting with the exception of the discussions. Everything else should have a heading, header, correct font and spacing, proper in-text citations when applicable, etc.

Documents that cannot be opened will be considered missing. Please submit as a .doc or .docx or .pdf to ensure compatibility with Canvas’ commenting function. Do not send a link to a Google Doc. Also, scan over all assignments periodically to make sure I've graded them and let me know if something got skipped.

Due dates and times are based on Mountain Standard Time.

My personal opinions on your topics do not affect your grade. As long as you make a decent argument and back it up, that's all I care about. Some topics won't work well, and I will let you know that to save you time and stress.

I am always happy to discuss a paper in detail during office hours regardless of when it is submitted. That said, students who are panicking and trying to get me to accept or fix assignment grades from all semester long are going to be disappointed. There is LOTS of time to work with me. The last week is not that time.

Best Way to View the Course: Through a laptop or PC. If you only use your phone, you will miss information for which you are responsible- I don't know why the app misses stuff, but it does. At least once a week, I suggest you go to a computer lab or public library to go over this class site if you do not have your own computer. If you do have a laptop or computer, I suggest only accessing the class from there.

In this class, all AI is off limits. The point of the class is to learn to write on your own. If AI is doing or organizing your work, in this class, that is considered academic dishonesty.

Also, students should not input sensitive, personal, confidential, copyrighted or proprietary information into public AI tools as it is illegal and violates expectations of privacy and academic/creative work.