Syllabus

Class Time and Place: Tuesdays 9:25-10:40am, Zoom
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: By appointment

 Coronavirus Statement

The coronavirus and subsequent economic/unemployment crisis have affected everyone both physically and emotionally, but have especially hurt people who are Black, Latinx, and/or working class. And I know that we are all still being affected. So, let me be clear: I want you to prioritize your physical/emotional health, your ability to care for your loved ones, and your financial/safety needs. If life circumstances make it difficult for you to complete activities for this course, please email me so we can figure out a plan.

Course Description (Official)

This composition course introduces students to the rhetorical characteristics of cross-disciplinary writing styles.  Instructors choose a single theme and provide students with reading and writing assignments which address the differing literacy conventions and processes of diverse fields.  Students learn how to apply their accumulated repertoire of aptitudes and abilities to the writing situations presented to them from across the disciplines.

Course Theme: Genre and Imagination

 When studying genre and style, it’s easy to get distracted with the argument and message of a piece of writing and lose sight of the structure and style. Therefore, I am encouraging you to write about Fake Stuff. This gives us an opportunity to be creative while keeping our analytical eye on the genres we are studying, not the content we’re writing about.

If you choose this option, you will choose an imaginary world (like a book or a movie) and write as if you lived inside that world for each assignment. You can use the same world for all assignments, or choose different ones.

If you prefer to write about real-world issues, you are also free to do that on topics of your choice for each major assignment.

Examples of Writing in an Imaginary World:

  • (Star Wars) A set of news reports about Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star (one from a pro-Empire news site, one from a pro-Rebels site, and one from a centrist site.)
  • (The Office) You are a new employee at Dunder Mifflin and are shocked by Michael (or another employee)’s behavior. You write an essay to post online explaining why the behavior is wrong and how it connects to larger social problems.
  • (Marvel) Peter Parker agrees to let his doctor run some tests on his Spiderman powers. The doctor writes a lab report to summarize the findings.
  • (Avatar: The Last Airbender) A scientist from the Earth Kingdom travels to the Southern Water Tribe to learn about their culture and about waterbending. Write a letter from the perspective of the scientist telling the Earth King about what you learned.

Course Objectives (Official)

  • Invention and Inquiry: Students learn to explore and develop their ideas and the ideas of others in a thorough, meaningful, complex and logical way.
  • Awareness and Reflection: Students learn to identify concepts and issues in their own writing and analytically talk and write about them.
  • Writing Process: Students learn methods of composing, drafting, revising, editing and proofreading.
  • Rhetoric and Style: Students learn rhetorical and stylistic choices that are appropriate and advantageous to a variety of genres, audiences and contexts.
  • Claims and Evidence: Students learn to develop logical and substantial claims, provide valid and coherent evidence for their claims and show why and how their evidence supports their claims.
  • Research: Students learn to conduct research (primary and secondary), evaluate research sources, integrate research to support their ideas, and cite sources appropriately.
  • Sentence Fluency: Students learn to write clear, complete and correct sentences and use a variety of complex and compound sentence types.
  • Conventions: Students learn to control language, linguistic structures, and punctuation necessary for diverse literary and academic writing contexts.

Grading

We will have 3 units this semester, each focusing on a different genre/style of writing, as well as some additional short assignments at the beginning and end of the semester.

You have two options for how I will grade you in this course. After each unit, you can choose to switch to the other option for the next unit if you wish.

Option One: Structure and Accountability

Many students last semester said they wished I’d required attendance, because thought they would have participated more and gotten more out of the class that way. If this sounds like you, you can choose a grading option based around regular participation and completion-based assignments, as well as the writing projects for each unit.

Option Two: Autonomy and Flexibility

If you would like to prioritize maximum flexibility for your work this semester, you can instead choose to only be graded on the writing projects and reflections for each unit, plus the mini-assignments at the beginning and end of the semester. You will not be required to come to Zoom class (although you are always welcome to come!), or do the participation/completion-based activities.

Unit 1 (Humanities Criticism Inside and Outside the University): 20%
Unit 2 (Natural Science and Science Communication): 20%
Unit 3 (Social Science, Bias, and Perspective): 20%
Beginning and End of Semester Assignments: 20%
Portfolio: 20% 

Technology

Most of our class activities will take place on our class website on the CUNY Commons (https://eng201spring21.commons.gc.cuny.edu/). We will also use Blackboard for grades and for final draft submissions, with optional use of Google Docs during class and for asynchronous activities.

Many people learning from home have technology-related difficulties. Please feel free to stay in communication with me about your needs throughout the semester— I am happy to adjust and adapt course materials so that technology is not a barrier to your learning.

Late Work Policy

For most assignments, I will not deduct points for lateness. There are two exceptions, for cases where your timely participation (or not) impacts others:

  1. Peer review (drafts and feedback)
  2. Annotations/Examples.

You are permitted UNLIMITED revisions of your assignments up until the end of the semester.

You do NOT need to ask me for permission to have an extension (the answer is yes). 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s ideas, research or writings as your own. The following are some examples of plagiarism, but by no means is it an exhaustive list:

  • Copying another person’s actual words without attributing the words to their source
  • Presenting another person’s ideas in your own words without acknowledging the source
  • Using information that is not common knowledge without acknowledging the sources
  • Failing to acknowledge collaborators on assignments 

Full overview of John Jay’s academic integrity policy: https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/academic-integrity-0 To be clear: Unless I explicitly ask you to find examples of other people’s writing, you should be the author of everything you submit for this class. 

Resources

Accessibility:

The Office of Accessibility Services can be reached at [email protected]. Students seeking accommodations can contact the office or fill out this form online: https://doitapps2.jjay.cuny.edu/accessibility/. For more information, please visit: http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/accessibility. Or you can just email me with your accessibility needs.

Mental Health:

Please treat your mental/emotional health with the same seriousness you would your physical health. Rhetoric and writing are important, but being healthy/well is more important.

John Jay’s Wellness Center offers FREE confidential counseling and psychiatry to all students, available in English and Spanish. The Counseling Center’s email is [email protected].

For immediate after-hours assistance in crisis, you can call the National Hope Line at 1-800-784-2433 or the LIFENET network at 1-800-543-3638 (available in multiple languages). If you are unable to use the phone or if you have phone anxiety, you can speak with a crisis counselor via texting at the Crisis Text Line (https://www.crisistextline.org/) by texting HOME to 741741. Students may also call The Trevor Project hotline at 1-866-488-7386 for LGBTQ-specific support.

For more mental health crisis resources, please visit: http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/emergency-crisis-contacts

Academic and Other Support:

For a full list, visit https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/student-resources

The Writing Center

The Writing Center offers online consultations for anyone who wants to talk about their writing with someone! Writing centers are not just for people who are “bad” at writing. They’re for anyone who wants an outside opinion on their paper.