syllabus

=WRT 205= =Critical Inquiry and Research: A “Public” Education=

Day & Time: M/W/F 9:30-10:25 Room: Hall of Languages 211 Instructor: J Haynes Office hours: Mondays, 10:30-11:30

Course Description:
Welcome to Writing 205, Syracuse University’s sophomore level writing course focusing on research as critical inquiry. At its best, research affords us an opportunity to simultaneously acknowledge the limits of our understanding, and to seize the opportunity to complicate and enrich our understanding. And at the same moment that research brings us up against voices, discourses, ideas and worldviews that are strange and seemingly incomprehensible, it also provides us with the opportunity and inspiration to work with and within new discourses, ideas and worldviews.

This course recognizes that we all now compose in an informationally rich environment, so it’s extremely important that we grow comfortable with (and adept at) asking researchable questions and locating, evaluating and writing research. Good questions, rather than making us vulnerable or revealing our ignorance, trigger active engagement with ideas and issues and concepts. Our good questions will inspire us to gather more information, so we will learn to access information on the web, in databases, at the library, and through primary research such as interviews and surveys. We will evaluate our sources knowledgeably and critically. We will locate ourselves in the middle of complex and competing claims, and produce texts in various genres (white papers, proposals, reports, arguments, analyses, explanations, summaries, “samples,” etc.) that advance our collective understanding of these claims and arguments.

Course Goals:
Goal #1: Students will compose texts that investigate a focused topic of inquiry that raises issues of diversity and community and that offers multiple points of entry based on their interest and expertise. Goal #2: Students will develop a working knowledge of strategies and genres of critical research. Goal #3: Students will learn critical techniques of reading through engagement with research-based texts.

Course Texts and Materials:
Blakesley & Hoogeveen. //The brief Thomson Handbook// (available at the bookstore) Various pdfs available on blackboard approximately $20 for copy expenses over the course of the semester Other materials as needed--all students are responsible for working with, saving, and transporting any technological materials that they will be using for the class, including electronic copies of papers, presentation materials, electronic projects, etc. Students may need to invest in a travel drive or data cds.

I will mount course materials on blackboard—http://blackboard.syr.edu/—with great regularity. You will need your Mymail ID and password to access our course and I ask that you check your syr account at least once a day, since it is the only email address blackboard provides me to communicate with you.

Attendance and Participation:
Attendance and active engagement in the course is critical. Your absences will affect your classmates’ work as well as your own. All the work is designed to develop your research skills and will feed directly into your writing.

Each unit calendar will outline the following weeks’ assignments, but we may shift assignments around or change direction occasionally as it seems appropriate, necessary, or interesting. If you must miss a class, you are responsible for making up the work and getting yourself back on track. Please realize that you cannot make up class time.

If you miss the equivalent of three weeks of classes or more without any official documented excuse you will not be able to pass the course. I don’t anticipate any of you will be in that position, however, so let’s all agree to do the work, come to class, learn a lot, and make the course a meaningful experience.

Policy on Student Writing:
All texts written in this course are generally public. You may be asked to share them with a peer, the class, or with me. It is understood that registration for and continued enrollment in this course constitutes permission by the student for the instructor to use any work resulting from the course.

But even more importantly, SAVE ALL YOUR WORK. It is all meaningful. Date and save every text—formal and informal—including notes, free writes, brainstorms, drafts, etc. You will have a difficult time properly citing research, assessing your work, and writing a final bibliographic essay you haven’t saved all of your writing.

Statement on Plagiarism:
The academic community requires ethical behavior from all of its participants. For writers, this means that the work we claim as ours must truly be ours. At the same time, we are not always expected to come up with new ideas; we often build our thinking on the ideas of others. We are expected, however, to credit others with their contributions and to clearly indicate the boundaries of our own thinking. In cases where academic dishonesty is detected (the fraudulent submission of another's work, in whole or part, as your own), you may be subject to a failing grade for the project or the course, and in the worst case, to academic probation or expulsion. For a more detailed description of the guidelines for adhering to academic honesty in the College of Arts and Sciences, go to http://www-hl.syr.edu/cas-pages/PromAcademicHonesty.htm

Special Needs:
If you require consideration for a special need or circumstance of any kind, please see me. And I invite all of you to make use of the Writing Program’s Writing Center on the ground floor of HBC; it is staffed by consultants with experience in a range of learning situations.