Syllabus for ENGL 4993 (CRN 31232): English Capstone Experience Spring 2012 Northeastern State
University – Broken Arrow
Although this syllabus
is for the benefit of all students who enroll in this course through Broken
Arrow, some of the details below apply only to students for whom I am serving
as Capstone supervisor. Be sure you know
the specific requirements of your own Capstone supervisor.
WAYS TO REACH ME:
Mailing address: Dr.
John Mercer, NSU-BA, 3100 E.
Office: BALA 280 Office phone:
918-449-6541
Office hours for Spring 2012 (all times are p.m. unless
labeled otherwise):
Mon. 11:30 a.m.-12:50, 3:50-5:30
Tues. & Wed.
3:00-4:20, 7:20-7:40
Thurs. 5:30-7:10, 10:10-10:30
Fax for faculty in BALA:
918-449-6571 (Faxes must include cover sheet with my name.)
Mailbox: Box 4 in BALA 261
(Give items for my mailbox to staff assistant in BALA 267.)
E-mail: mercer@nsuok.edu or mercer25@att.net (NSU e-mail is forwarded to ATT account.)
Faculty Web site: http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~mercer
CATALOG DESCRIPTION: “The student will design and complete a major
[writing or internship] project. Required of all Bachelor of
Arts English majors.”
PREREQUISITE: Senior
standing, including completion of at least 30 hours toward a major in English,
and approval of your project by a Capstone faculty supervisor.
AVAILABILITY: This
course is offered on the Broken Arrow schedule every Fall
and Spring. It is not offered in Broken
Arrow or Tahlequah during Summer terms.
FINDING A FACULTY
SUPERVISOR: As the coordinator of English Capstones for
Broken Arrow students, I can help you find a faculty supervisor for your
Capstone project. I can also supervise a limited number of
students’ Capstones per semester. If you want me to serve as your Capstone supervisor,
please talk with me about your project as soon as possible, preferably during
the semester before your Capstone. Otherwise, you may work with any full-time
NSU English faculty member who agrees to sign your Application for Capstone
Experience and supervise your project.
TYPES OF PROJECTS:
Capstone projects should demonstrate mastery of the skills you have
learned as an English major. Your faculty supervisor
will determine whether a particular project is appropriate. The most common types of projects are as
follows:
(1) Internship: Serve an unpaid internship related
to your future career interests. Your
internship might be in business, publishing, politics, law, education, library
and information science, or some other field. The minimum total time required
for a Capstone internship is 100-150 hours for the semester, or 7-10 hours per
week for 15 weeks. If you are interested
in interning in the NSU-BA Writing Center, please contact Writing Center
coordinator Monique Idoux (449-6060 or 449-6519; idoux@nsuok.edu). The writing centers at
a. a detailed log of time spent and tasks performed
week by week
b. documents that reflect the work you did during
your internship (with labels clearly indicating your role in each document)
c. journal entries or reflections concerning your
activities and what you have learned from them (at least several typed,
double-spaced pages)
d. a letter written by the on-site supervisor of
your internship
(2) Research paper: Write a 20-page research paper
on an approved topic related to language, literature, or some other field of
interest to you. Document your paper
using MLA form.
(3) Practical manual: Write a manual of information
that will be useful to you and/or to a particular audience. Possible topics might include how to apply
for (or succeed in) a particular type of graduate or professional education
(such as law school or library school), how to fulfill a particular role or
task (such as how to serve as primary caregiver for a cancer patient, raise
twins, or start a preschool), or to what extent it is feasible to enter a
career in a particular field (such as college English teaching). Depending on your prior knowledge of the
topic, your manual may be based primarily on research (20 pages minimum
length), your own experience (40 pages minimum length), or a combination of the
two (about 30 pages minimum length).
(4) Creative writing: Write original fiction, drama,
poetry, or essays. Most students who
choose this type of project write one or more short stories, or the beginning
of a novel, totaling at least 40 pages.
You may build on previous writing, but more than half of the writing
must be done in the semester you are enrolled in the Capstone. Mr. Chris Murphy (918-444-2612; murphy07@nsuok.edu) and Ms. Susan Semrow (918-444-3616; semrow@nsuok.edu) of the NSU – Tahlequah faculty may possibly be able to supervise
fiction-writing Capstones if you ask them far enough in advance.
In
general, however, we discourage students from choosing creative-writing
projects because it is difficult to find faculty members who feel qualified to
supervise them.
ENROLLMENT IN THE COURSE: Follow
these steps to get enrolled in the Broken Arrow section of ENGL 4993, English
Capstone Experience. You must complete
this process no later than the first week of the semester in which you want to
take the course.
(1)
To
learn about this course and the kinds of projects you may choose, read the Capstone
syllabus posted on my faculty Web page.
(2)
Talk
with me about what you want to do for your Capstone project and what faculty
member would be best suited to supervise it.
(3)
Talk
with your potential faculty supervisor about your project, secure his or her
agreement to work with you, and come to an agreement about what you will do for
your project.
(4)
Complete
the Application for Capstone Experience (also
on my Web page), including your NSU student identification number (rather than
your SSN) and a brief description of what you intend to do for your Capstone
project.
(5)
Submit
your Application for Capstone Experience to your faculty supervisor. Ask him or her to sign it and send a copy of
it to me electronically or in hard copy.
(6)
I
will enter your permission to enroll in the NSU computer enrollment system.
(7)
I
will notify you by e-mail that you have permission to enroll.
(8)
Enroll
in the course through NSU’s online enrollment system. No one else can enroll for you.
CHANGE OF PROJECT OR
TOPIC: Many students are
unhappy with the Capstone project or topic they initially choose. Start work on your project at the very
beginning of the semester (or before) to determine whether your project or
topic will work for you. If you
think you may need to change your project or topic, discuss the problem with
your Capstone supervisor as soon as possible and, if you decide to change,
submit a new Application for Capstone Experience.
CONFERENCES: If I agree to be your Capstone supervisor, you
are required to have at least four (4) monthly conferences with me in
person (or, if necessary, by telephone) about your project (asking questions, discussing problems,
reporting work completed and work remaining, and especially getting my feedback
on drafts of work completed), sometime during January, February, March, and
April. Before each conference, if you have a substantial number of draft
pages for me to read, please submit them in hard copy (or, with my approval, by
e-mail attachment) by 10:30 p.m. on the Thursday before your conference. Failure to have these required conferences
will be reflected in the final course grade.
BETWEEN CONFERENCES: If you have problems or questions between
conferences, please see or telephone me during office hours or communicate with
me by voicemail, fax, or e-mail at any time.
(See WAYS TO REACH ME above.)
PROCRASTINATION: In this or any other independent-study
project, procrastination is your worst enemy. Discipline yourself to work on your project
consistently throughout the semester. If you procrastinate, you
will probably end up having to drop the course or being disappointed with your
course grade.
DISABILITIES: If you have a disability and need special
accommodations in this course, please tell me when you submit your Application
for Capstone Experience or at the very beginning of your Capstone semester.
AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT: You are expected to spend as much time on your
Capstone project as you would on any other 3-hour course: about 7 to 10 hours
each week for 15 weeks, or 100 to 150 hours for the semester. Keep this
requirement in mind when designing your project and when budgeting your time
throughout the semester.
MANUSCRIPT
SUBMISSION OF DRAFT: If I am
your faculty supervisor, submit a complete draft in advance so you will have adequate
time to make revisions and have the best possible project. If possible, submit a complete draft of your Capstone project in hard
copy no later than 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 19. Although you may submit a draft
as late as 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 26, doing so will give
you no more than two (2) days to make revisions. On the Monday after you
submit your draft, please meet with me for a scheduled
30-minute appointment to discuss the revisions you need to make. It is unlikely
that you will make an A in the course unless you have submitted a draft and
made the suggested revisions.
PROJECT DEADLINE: The finished project is due in hard
copy no later than 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, the last
day of classes before final exams. (Final
exams begin on Thursday, May 3.) If possible, hand your project to me in
person. Be sure to keep a copy of your project.
LATE PENALTY: If you have a legitimate reason for not
submitting your project on time, to avoid penalty you must make other
arrangements with me in advance. Otherwise, the grade for a late project
submitted after 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, but no later than 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 9, will be lowered one
letter (10%). No project will be accepted after May 9, the last day of final
exams.
WITHDRAWAL
FROM CLASS:
·
If
you drop a class by January 23, you
will receive a 100% refund of tuition. If you drop a class after January 23, you
will receive no refund.
·
During
the sixth through the tenth weeks of
the class, if it would be impossible for you to make a satisfactory grade
because you are not making reasonable progress toward the completion of your
project, I will, after first attempting to contact you, have you administratively withdrawn from the
course. If you are administratively
withdrawn, you will receive a grade of AW
(administrative withdrawal), which does not affect your grade-point
average.
·
If
you drop the class by April 8, you
will automatically receive a W,
which does not affect your grade-point average.
To drop a class, you must process an official drop slip. Be sure to keep a copy of your drop slip to
prove that you have officially dropped.
·
If
you drop the class after April 8,
you will receive a W if you are passing
or an F if you are failing at the
time you drop.
·
The
last day to drop a class is May 2.
FINAL COURSE GRADE: I will assign a letter grade to your finished
project based on content (adherence to topic, clarity, originality,
organization, thoroughness of development, and success in its own genre, such
as short story, research paper, informative manual, or portfolio) and on form
(adherence to required minimum length, manuscript form, and correctness of
grammar and mechanics). Your Capstone grade will be posted on your transcript
on the NSU Web site along with the grades in your other classes.
Grades on the Capstone
can be interpreted as follows:
A = outstanding,
superior
B = above average, good
C = average,
satisfactory
D = below average,
barely acceptable
F = failing,
unacceptable
FINAL PROJECTS:
Although I will mark errors and make comments on your draft, I will not
mark your final project or return it to you. The Department of Languages and
Literature uses the completed Capstone projects to assess our undergraduate
English program. Keep a copy of the final project for yourself.