Attendance & Participation

Since your writing, responses to the reading, workshopping, etc. are central to the course content, attendance for our small group and full class meetings is expected for each small group or class meeting. While I hope you attend every meeting, two absences are permitted as long as you communicate with me and have a good reason for it (i.e., life happens). Three absences may result in a full one-grade penalty to your final grade; more than three absences can be grounds for failure. Should you miss a class, it’s your responsibility to get the assignments, class notes, etc. from a classmate and/or follow up with me.

All this said, I do understand that life happens and am here to work with you to do what I can to help make sure you can manage health/personal crises with school. More to the point: we are in a once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) pandemic right now! I will be very flexible with you. So, if you have an issue, the first thing to do is to stay in contact with me as much as you can so we can come up with a plan, together, to put you in the best position to succeed in this class. I am completely on your side from the start and want to see you succeed.

Lateness is also important to consider. We only have one hour a week together synchronously, so you need to be there on time if you can be there at all. If I notice a pattern of lateness, we will be talking about it and will find a solution together.

Grading for participation factors in attendance, completing informal assignments (e.g., Learning Module activities), and general participation during synchronous sessions. Please reach out to me if you have difficulty participating. I do my best to vary activities and discussion formats to make sure everyone has a chance to contribute, but if you are struggling with participating, let me know.

Recording Class Sessions

I will not be recording any of our class sessions. I also ask that you do not record any of our class sessions (e.g., by using your smart phone to record your computer screen) unless you get consent of all participants. I have chosen not to record because I believe people feel less comfortable speaking when they know they are being recorded. There are also tricky privacy issues once a video exists in the world. Almost always, there are alternatives I can provide to you if you needed to miss class. That said, if recording class sessions becomes an absolute necessity, let me know and we can work something out.

Accessible Participation

Baruch has a continuing commitment to providing reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities. Like so many things this fall, the need for accommodations and the process for arranging them have been altered by COVID-19 and the safety protocols currently in place. Students with disabilities who may need some accommodation in order to fully participate in this class should contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible at [email protected]

Deadlines

Professionally, deadlines are everything—think job applications, meeting agendas, annual reports. Likewise, deadlines matter for this course. Assignments are due on the date they’re listed on the schedule. Every day an assignment is late, the grade may be reduced up to one letter grade. Nevertheless: should you have an emergency, let me know as soon as possible so that we can try to devise a plan for keeping you on track.

All writing should be turned in by the date and time as listed on Blackboard and on the Course Schedule. All assignments are submitted through Blackboard. You will note that first drafts of major writing assignments will typically be due on Thursdays at 11:59pm so you can get some feedback from other students in peer response activities and then you can (if you want to) apply that feedback to your draft after class.

Backing up Your Work^[1]

As you may have learned the hard way in the past (I know I have!), it’s a good habit to save important files such as course work to a location aside from your primary computer –  for example, Dropbox, Google Drive, or an external hard drive. Unfortunately, laptops can crash or be stolen, and it’s your responsibility to make sure you back up your work.

Technical Aspects of Submitting Work

Unless we have spoken about an exception, please upload assignments as .doc or .pdf files. I do not accept Pages, Notes app files, etc.

Policy on Workshopping and Publishing Writing

I like to use examples from your writing when I teach because I feel like it is immediately useful to draw from writing you all are making. And, also, because, well, you all will do some really cool things and I want to highlight that. Any writing I use in class will be anonymized. You have no obligation to reveal yourself as author if we are discussing something from your writing in class, but you are welcome to do so if you choose.

Furthermore, I want to note that sometimes our writing will be posted on the class website. If, for any reason, you are not comfortable sharing your writing on the class website, let me know and you may submit it to me via email or Blackboard instead.

Writing Center[2]

I encourage you, in addition to my comments and those of your peers, to get feedback on your writing from professional writing consultants at the Writing Center, all of whom are trained to help you improve your written English. The Writing Center offers free, one-to-one (online) support to all Baruch students. They provide both 50-minute, online sessions (where you chat in real time with a consultant—by text, audio, or video) and written feedback (where you get comments on your document by email). You can schedule an appointment at: https://bc.mywconline.com/. Log on to their website, writingcenter.baruch.cuny.edu, to learn more.

Baruch and Other Resources: Tech, Food, Health, and More

You are another human being, so if I can do anything to help you right now, I will. More specific to the classroom: Learning does not happen in a vacuum. If you are stressed, if you are hungry, if you do not have adequate technology or space to study—all of these things (and more) can impact learning in a negative way. There is help. First and foremost, please be in touch with me about anything I can help with. Second, Baruch College has several resources you can use to help with technological issues, food insecurity, housing issues, workspaces, and more. Third, there are also resources in the larger New York City area that may be of help to you (see especially the Dean of Students page under COVID-19 resources, providing stuff on food insecurity and unemployment). On our course website, I have a listing of these resources under Community Resources—but don’t be shy about reaching out to me about getting in touch with any organization or person and I can try to help.

Academic honesty[3]

The goal of this class is to improve your writing, and cheating in any form undermines your efforts to learn. Most importantly, as your instructor, I am interested in your own, original work, and in your own, individual effort; both should be yours, not someone else’s. Academic writing practices vary across cultures, and I will teach you how to use others’ words in your writing in a way that is appropriate for the American academic culture; this process may take some time, and it is easy to make mistakes.

However, intentional plagiarism or cheating on assignments and quizzes will not be tolerated. I am required by Baruch College to report any and all cases of academic dishonesty to the Dean of Students whose office keeps a record of such offenses. You will receive an F for a plagiarized assignment, an F for any copied homework or quiz, and in the most serious cases, an F for the course; you will be dropped and forced to repeat the course.

Baruch College’s Academic Honesty website states that “Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s ideas, research or writing as your own, such as:

• Copying another person’s actual words without the use of quotation marks and footnotes
• Presenting another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging them
• Using information that is not considered common knowledge without acknowledging the source

If you ever have any questions or concerns about plagiarism, please ask me. You can also check out the online plagiarism tutorial prepared by members of the Newman Library faculty at https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/newmanreference/2016/02/03/plagiarism-tutorial-and-quiz/

Enrollment & Withdrawal[4]

As the instructor, I can offer advice about enrollment, but ultimately you are responsible for making all decisions regarding your enrollment status. Should you decide to withdraw from this course, you must drop via CUNYFirst. If you are failing the course and do not officially withdraw, you will receive a final grade of F.

Email Communication Policy

Like you, I am also expected to check my email on a regular basis. Therefore, I should usually have a response to you within 24-48 hours. I review my email fairly regularly from about 9:00am to about 4:30pm, Mondays to Fridays. Usually I work Saturday and/or Sunday, so one of those days I should be checking email at some point. Please also know that there may be some days where I have meetings or other obligations that prevent me from responding to you within the day you send the email. This year, you never know what might be going on in any given day (especially with 2 small kids!). Just know I will get back to you as soon as I can, usually within 24-48 hours.

Classroom Climate Policy^[5]

While I encourage an open debate on any number of topics in my classes, we will refrain in our discussions and writing from personal attacks and abusive language generally. We will not make disparaging comments about another’s appearance, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or anything else that dehumanizes anyone inside or outside of our class. We will try, as best we can, to abide by the following practices of ethical argumentation:

• Honesty. We will make arguments based on what we understand to be the truth of the case, consistent with our experience of it, and we will avoid deliberate deception, distortion, and equivocation.
• Accountability. We will support our claims with good reasons, the best evidence available to us.
• Intellectual Generosity. We will listen carefully, thoughtfully, and respectfully to the other side in arguments. We will endeavor to understand others’ views before arguing against them.
• Intellectual Humility. We will acknowledge the possibility that in any argument we might be wrong. If we find we are wrong, we will readily acknowledge it.
• Intellectual Courage. We will speak clearly and forcefully, when necessary, for ideas or persons that may be unpopular. We will try to find the courage to speak for the weak before the strong, the outsider before the insider, the just before the unjust, the afflicted before the comfortable.
• Judgment. We will work to develop the wisdom to know which ethical practices of argument apply in which situations, and how to apply these practices in ways that contribute to the common good of the class.

[1] Adapted from Dr. Brooke Schreiber’s Writing I syllabus.

[2] Adapted from Dr. Brooke Schreiber’s Writing I syllabus.

[3] Adapted from Dr. Brooke Schreiber’s Writing I syllabus.

[4] Adapted from Dr. Brooke Schreiber’s Writing I syllabus.

[5] Permission to use and adapt from Dr. John Duffy, University Writing Program, University of Notre Dame.

Revision is an essential part of the class. The first reading of the course by Donald Murray is about revision and that is a very intentional choice on my part. Rather than wait until the end of the semester, the expectation will be that you are revising with each and every writing assignment. At the absolute very least, though, you will be using Process Documents as ways to “revise forward” to larger writing projects and you will turn in second drafts of each of the major writing assignments. You will also have the opportunity to turn in third drafts of major writing assignments by finals week, if you wish to do so.

There will be three kinds of grading during the term: grading for completion, intermediate grading, and grading according to rubric.

• Grading for Completion. The first kind of grading is just based on “did you do it or not do it?” If you did it, you get full credit. If you didn’t, you get no credit. Typically, this will be according to word count or meeting some minimum criteria of some kind. The Reading Annotations, Learning Module activities, participation during small group meetings as well as full class meetings, and some of the Process Documents fall under this type of grading.

• Intermediate Grading. This second kind of grading is mostly like the previous, but there may be some additional criteria to meet. For instance, you may be asked to address three different questions in a prompt and while you technically do this maybe one of the questions only gets one sentence in response that does not go into much depth. If you did it but did not go into much depth, you get a “1.” If you did it and did go into a lot of depth, you get a “2.” If you did not meet the minimum criteria, you get a “0.” QSRs and some of the Process Documents fall under this kind of grading.

• Grading According to Rubric. All the major writing assignments will be accompanied by a rubric. In the rubric there will be very specific criteria that will be subjectively evaluated by me.

• Reading Annotations (50 points): Because reading is so important for developing your writing, one of the ongoing assignments for the course will be to complete Reading Annotations. We will go over these during the first week of the class, but these assignments will more or less be graded for completion (with some pointers from me in the early part of the term). Essentially, you will show how you are taking notes on the readings for the course to get practice with making the steps from reading to writing.
• Process Documents (50 points): Process Documents are spaces to work out some initial ideas that will extend to larger pieces of writing. Sometimes these pieces will respond to readings about topics related to learning goals associated with assignments (e.g., rhetorical analysis, finding sources, narrative writing). Sometimes these pieces will be more directly associated with writing projects: goal-setting document, proposals, and the annotated bibliography for the research-driven writing project.
• Participation (50 points). This relates to completing activities during Learning Modules, participating during Zoom calls, completing work for Writing Groups, and anything else that might come up that helps to assist maintaining a classroom community and assisting in learning material related to the course.
• Questions for Second Reading (QSR) (50 points): Some readings will require deeper reflection, and, so, we will take a second turn in reading them to explore them further. In the QSR, you will write in response to a prompt to work out your thinking when encountering the reading for a second time.
• Midterm Learning Narrative (50 points): This project is a chance for you to reflect back on your goals for the semester and consider how you are doing based on a close analysis of your own writing.
• Literacy Narrative (100 points): The first major writing assignment of the semester, this project is geared toward getting some experience with making explicit your writing process, developing a writing practice, and considering the relationship between writing and your identity (and the relevance of that relationship to how you interact with audiences and work with other writers and readers).
• Literacy Narrative Revision Project (100 points): The first major writing assignment gave you practice with just getting your thoughts down and generating material about your relationship to language, rhetoric, and writing. In this revision, you are asked to use this material generated in the first draft to revise around something you thought was exciting that you would like to develop further. As a separate project, you will get practice in learning about your revision process.
• Rhetorical Analysis (200 points): The second major writing assignment of the semester, this project asks you to continue to develop your expertise as an analyst of texts of various genres and to begin to synthesize your ideas with the ideas of others. After submitting a first draft, you will turn in a second draft responding to the same prompt a few weeks later.
• Research-Driven Writing (200 points): The third major writing assignment of the semester, this project asks you to begin to get experience with finding, evaluating, and integrating the ideas of others in order to make an argument or tell a story about a topic important to you. After submitting a first draft, you will turn in a second draft responding to the same prompt a few weeks later.
• Experiential-Learning Document (150 points): The final writing project of the semester, this document, like the midterm learning narrative, asks you to reflect back on your goals by analyzing the writing you have completed for the course. Unlike the learning narrative at midterm, this document is a bit more detailed and substantive.