Course Syllabus

Instructor:  Dr. Julia Voss Contact Info:  jvoss@scu.edu

Class Meeting Times: T/Th, 12:10-1:50 pm Location:  Varsi 114

Office Hours:  M/W, 9:00-10:30 am Location:  St. Joseph Hall 203

Campus Life and Learning at Santa Clara

This course functions as an introduction to college writing and to thinking critically about the mission and culture of American colleges, Santa Clara University in particular. We will examine American college culture, a topic being hotly debated in popular and academic media by government officials, researchers, parents, and students using readings by higher education officials, sociologists, cultural critics, anthropologists, and others. The major writing assignments in this class will ask you to

1. compare the coverage of an issue affecting American colleges from popular and academic perspectives
2. compare competing ideas about major issues/concerns on college campuses to articulate your own view of the purpose of college and the challenges to achieving this purpose
3. identify an issue on the SCU campus and the relevant person/office responsible, appealing for this issue to be addressed
4. propose an ethnographic research project that will investigate an issue brought up in our readings in SCU's local context

This topic will span English 1A and 2A and serve as the focus of our approach to writing as a critical, systematic way to understand the university experience. The learning objectives of this course center around critical thinking and writing, which you will develop through reading, discussion, writing, peer review, and revision. You will craft persuasive and expository prose in response to course readings informed by our readings and discussions on rhetoric and writing, and use their arguments as jumping-off points for textual and empirical research projects that apply and speak back to their ideas in light of the SCU student experience. Over the two courses, your work will incorporate both written text and other media, providing the opportunity to practice analyzing and creating with multimedia. In addition to thematic readings, we will spend considerable time in both courses learning about, practicing, and polishing your composing skills.

Course Texts, Devices, and Communication

Course Texts

• My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student – Rebekah Nathan
• Assorted readings/other media about American higher education (on Camino)
• Research and Documentation – Diana Hacker and Barbara Fister (available free online at http://www.macmillanhighered.com/Catalog/static/bsm/hacker/resdoc/home.htm 
• Other materials accessible through our course Google Drive folder (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0qPac_wr4v9WE4zNTg0MDlqWVE) 

Devices & Materials for Class

• Bring your laptop or tablet computer to class every day.
• We will use these devices for in-class activities, and you can use them to refer to readings and your out-of-class writing work. 
• Bring to class the books, articles, and/or pieces of writing indicated on the course schedule for that day.

Communication 

• I will communicate with you outside of class via your Santa Clara email address, which means you need to check your email between classes. 
• To make checking your email easier, I strongly recommend setting up access to your SCU email account on your phone and/or tablet. Instructions for how to do this:
• Step 1: Set up a Google Apps mobile password -- https://it.scu.edu/connect/set-your-google-apps-mobile-password
• Step 2: Set up Google Apps on mobile devices -- https://it.scu.edu/connect/using-google-apps-mobile-devices 
• Or visit the Academic Technology desk on the 1st floor of the library, where they can walk you through this process. You're also welcome to ask me for help with this. 

Assignments/Grade Breakdown

Assignments will be graded using rubrics to calculate percentages (rounded to the nearest whole number), which will be converted into letter grades, following SCU standard grade conversions:

   

Participation

Participation in- and outside class are vital to the critical thinking and writing learning goals for this class. We will spend class time discussing homework readings, practicing analytical and research methods, writing, and revising. Most days, we'll do a pair-and-share partner activity to review the homework reading and jump-start the day's work. These and other in-class activities are designed to help you meet the critical thinking and writing expectations of this course and require your full participation. you'll do out-of-class writing to prepare for in-class use of ideas or techniques from the readings. These activities require your active participation and are central to meeting the learning objectives of the course. This course’s variety of in-class activities are designed to draw on a variety of learning styles and strengths, encouraging you to participate in ways that showcase your strengths and push your boundaries.

Feedback/Assessment on Participation: You’ll get credit/no credit for completing each small in- and outside of class activity. “Completing” participation and engagement assignments entails submitting assignments on time for in- and out-of-class work and actively participating in in-class activities.

I don’t expect you to talk in every discussion, lead every small group presentation, or complete every single out-of-class writing assignment. I do expect you participate in most of these activities. When I calculate participation and engagement grades at the end of the quarter, 85% of the total # of possible points will be an A, and Participation and Engagement grades will be scaled to that. I will keep track of these in an online spreadsheet (click here to view spreadsheet) that I’ll update weekly.

Popular/Academic Treatment Comparison Essay

College culture is a topic frequently covered in the popular press and media, but in different ways than the academic sources we'll be using in this class. To look at the different ways these sources discuss similar material, you'll choose an issue covered in one of our class readings, find a popular source that also discusses it and compare them, considering things like the publication, author's credentials, claims made, use/presentation of evidence, relationship between evidence and conclusions. Based on your analysis of the 2 sources, you'll discuss how each should be used to study this aspect of college culture.

Scope: 5 pages

Feedback/Assessment on Popular/Academic Treatment essay: On drafts you will receive revision-oriented feedback from me during a 1-on-1 conference. On the final draft, you will receive a grade and written feedback from me focusing on the clarity and validity of your analysis, use of specific evidence, and drawing of logical conclusions based on that evidence about the utility and appropriateness of the 2 sources you're working with, organization of your essay, and polish of its final presentation.

Competing Arguments about College Culture

Using Graff and Birkenstein's argument analysis and position-taking techniques from They Say, I Say, choose a particular issue affecting college culture that is discussed across several readings and compare what different scholars have to say about it. How do they define the issue and explain its significance? What do they think should be done about it? Based on this argument-analysis research, develop your own position on how this issue should be handled in higher education, using Graff and Birkenstein's techniques for distinguishing your own perspective from those of the researchers who influence you. Your paper will also include an "evaluation and response" portion where you'll get feedback from your classmates (during peer review) on the substance of your position, which you'll incorporate into a final "reflection and evaluation" section to talk about how you refined your position in response to other experts' (your classmates') evaluation of it and comment on its persuasiveness/validity.

Scope: 7 pages

Feedback/Assessment on Competing Arguments essay: On drafts you will receive 2 sets of revision-oriented feedback from classmates during an in-class peer review activity. You will also have a 1-on-1 conference with me about a revised version of your essay. On the final draft, you will receive a grade and written feedback from me focusing on the clarity and validity of your thesis, persuasiveness of your evidence, organization of your essay, and polish of its final presentation and your discussion of how your essay evolved.

Acting on a Campus Issue

To prepare for your own  research project on college culture at SCU, you will identify something you'd like to change at SCU. Using the research, argument, and persuasion techniques we've discussed, you'll identify the appropriate person/group on campus responsible for the issue you'd like to change and present your case. For this assignment, you'll choose the appropriate medium for persuading your audience, and your persuasive piece will be accompanied by a reflection in which you discuss your research and development process. 

Scope: 3 pages 

Feedback/Assessment on Campus Issue Action: In-class discussion and writing activities will help you develop your ideas for this assignment. No peer review or meeting with me is required, but I highly recommend that you take the opportunity to discuss your paper with your classmates and exchange drafts to get revision-oriented feedback and or visit the HUB writing center. On the final draft, you will receive a grade and written feedback from me focusing on the clarity and persuasiveness with which you present the issue and suggest a solution for it, the polish of your final presentation, and the critical thinking that went into the research/development process you describe.

Research Project Proposal -- Partner Project

Design an ethnographic research project to study some aspect of campus life and learning at SCU that extends, critiques, or speaks back to our readings on/discussion of college culture, using the approach described in "Proposing the Ethnographic Research Project." Your proposal will describe

• what research question(s) you hope to answer (drawn from our discussion of Nathan and/or other texts)
• the site you plan to study (the specific space/phenomenon/population you plan to study)
• how that site relates to college culture issue discussed in readings/class
• the significance of this research
• how you plan to conduct your fieldwork in your research site and document the data you gather (specific methods and media)
• the ethical and ethical concerns apply to this research site
• a detailed timeline describing how you'll conduct this research during Winter quarter

Scope: 5 pages

Feedback/Assessment on Proposal: You'll work together during week 10 to develop your proposal, and will receive feedback from your classmates to help you develop your research question and methods. There will be time in class during week 10 for you to meet with me to discuss your proposal draft, and I strongly encourage you to meet with me outside class to discuss your proposal. On the final draft, you will receive a grade and written feedback from me focusing on the focus and clarity of your proposed research questions, the appropriateness of your methods of data collection, the clarity of the connections you make to college culture issues, the plausible significance you claim for your project, how thoroughly you consider practical and ethical complications, and the detail/plausibility of the research timeline you create.

Learning Goals & Objectives 

Learning Goals: Critical Thinking, Complexity, Communication

Meta-Learning Goal: Intentional Learning

Learning Objectives: You will

• Read and write with a critical point of view that displays depth of thought and is mindful of the rhetorical situation. (Learning Goal: Critical Thinking, Complexity, Communication; Linked to Participation, Acting on a Campus Issue, Competing Arguments, Research Project Proposal)
• Develop a deliberate, systematic process for reading and writing. (Learning Goal: Critical Thinking, Complexity, Communication; Linked to Participation, Competing Arguments essay, Acting on a Campus Issue)

• Write essays that contain well-supported arguable theses and that demonstrate personal engagement and clear purpose. (Learning Goal: Critical Thinking, Communication; Meta-Learning Goal: Intentional Learning; Linked to Participation, Popular/Academic Treatment Comparison Essay, Competing Arguments essay)

• Recognize, analyze, and evaluate the rhetorical differences (both constraints and possibilities) of different modes of presentation. (Learning Goal: Critical Thinking, Complexity; Meta-Learning Goal: Intentional Learning; Linked toPopular/Academic Treatment Comparison Essay, Competing Arguments essay, Acting on a Campus Issue)

• Reflect on the writing process as a mode of thinking and learning and prepare to generalize it across a range of writing and thinking tasks. (Learning Goal: Critical Thinking, Complexity; Meta-Learning Goal: Intentional Learning; Linked to Linked to Participation, Competing Arguments essay,Acting on a Campus Issue, Research Project Proposal)

Course Policies & Resources:

HUB Writing Center: In addition to writing exercises and peer review workshops, the HUB Writing Center (Links to an external site.) offers additional support for writing assignments like the ones you’ll complete for this course. I encourage you to use their services, which follow the model of peer review and feedback we will use for in-class writing workshops.

Accessibility: Everyone is entitled to equal access to learning resources in this class. I am happy to work with you to make this course accessible, according to arrangements made with the Office of Disabilities Resources. If you have already arranged accommodations through Disabilities Resources, please initiate a conversation with me about your accommodations face-to-face or via email within the first two weeks of class so that I can arrange accommodations. Students who are pregnant and parenting are also be eligible for accommodations. 

Academic Integrity: From the SCU Undergraduate Bulletin: “The University is committed to academic excellence and integrity. Students are expected to do their own work and to cite any sources they use. A student who is guilty of a dishonest act in an examination, paper, or other work required for a course, or who assists others in such an act, may, at the discretion of the instructor, receive a grade of “F” for the course.” We will cover source use and citation in more depth in English 2A. In this course, the bottom line is that the work you turn in must be your own. In addition to the fact that passing off someone else's ideas or writing as your own is illegal (i.e. fraud and possibly theft), you won't learn what you need to to do well in this class if you don't do the work yourself. 

Assignment Submission: Unless otherwise specified, you will turn in assignments in digital format using Camino, and I will return them to you in the same format. Some assignments will have particular submission instructions—i.e. to submit your work to a Camino dropbox AND to Google Drive folder—that you must follow to receive credit for the assignment. Some assignments may also have particular file format submission instructions, which you must also follow to receive full credit. I will provide specific directions about this. 

Late Work: Assignments must be turned in on time. I will only accept late assignments if you have made prior arrangements with me, at which time we will discuss grading penalties (if appropriate--see Attendance policy below). Absences and technological mishaps do not excuse missed deadlines. Save early and save often, and make sure you back up your work. Contact me in advance to discuss any deadline issues. 

Attendance: Attendance is essential to the success of this class and to your development as a thinker and writer. Therefore, each unexcused absence after 2 will lower your final grade by 1/3 of a letter (i.e. from A- to B+). Excused absences—such as those for documented illness, family tragedy, religious observance, or SCU athletics travel—will not affect your grade. Extreme lateness--arriving more than 20 minutes late to class--will count as an absence.

To arrange an excused absence, you must

• notify me before you miss class,
• make up any missed in-class work by its original deadline (unless otherwise specified)
• submit your excuse documentation no later than the day you return to class.

Tardiness: Missing part of class also affects your learning and therefore your grade. Three tardies will be equal 1 absence (i.e. every 3 tardies will lower your grade by 1/3 of a letter grade). You are tardy if you

• arrive late to class
• sleep, text, do non-class-related Internet tasks, etc. during class interfering with your participation, or
• come to class unprepared to discuss the day’s assigned readings. I may give in-class quizzes to check for preparedness.

Technology Use: You will bring in their own laptop, tablet, etc. for use in class every day. In addition to technology-mediated activities I'll ask you to do each day, I invite you to use your devices productively during class for other purposes, for example to find relevant resources during class discussions or to pull up notes during in-class writing activities. Technology use that interferes with your participation will count as tardiness. If digital distraction is a persistent problem I will ask you to leave class, which will count as an absence.

Conduct: This class is an intellectual community created by the contributions of each member of the class. This entails both active participation (described above) and refraining from negative participation. Disagreement is a valuable part of vigorous discussion, but verbal and non-verbal slurs or mockery are not. Intellectual exploration and spirited debate are welcome; personal attacks are not. You will treat yourself and your classmates as serious thinkers and writers, keeping in mind that we spend 20 weeks together.

Mandatory Reporting Disclosure: 

While I want you to feel comfortable coming to me with issues you may be struggling with or concerns you may be having, please be aware that there are some reporting requirements that are part of my job at Santa Clara University.  

For example, if you inform me of an issue of harassment, sexual violence, or discrimination, I will keep the information as private as I can, but I am required to bring it to the attention of the institution’s EEO and Title IX Coordinator. If you inform me that you are struggling with an issue that may be resulting in, or caused by, traumatic or unusual stress, I will likely inform the campus Student Care Team (SCU CARE).

If you would like to reach out directly to the Student Care Team for assistance, you can contact them at www.scu.edu/osl/report. If you would like to talk to the Office of EEO and Title IX directly, they can be reached at 408-554-3043 or by email at bguthrie@scu.edu. Reports may be submitted online through www.scu.edu/osl/report or anonymously through Ethicspoint: www.ethicspoint.com. Additionally, you can report incidents or complaints to the Office of Student Life (OSL), Campus Safety Services, and local law enforcement. For confidential support, contact the Counseling and Psychological Services office (CAPS), the YWCA, or a member of the clergy (for example, a priest or minister).

Finally, please be aware that if, for some reason, our interaction involves a disruptive behavior, a concern about your safety or the safety of others, or potential violation of University policy, I will inform the Office of Student Life. The purpose of this is to keep OSL apprised of incidents of concern, and to ensure that students can receive or stay connected to the academic support and student wellness services they need. 

Course Schedule: see Home page for Course Schedule