Syllabus

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ENG 2150 / Writing II: 
Society and Games

Spring 2024 
4.0 Hours; 3.0 Credits


Professor: Dr. Adrienne Raphel
Class Time & Location:
ENG 2100-HMWC: MoWe 9:55a – 11:35a, A – 17 Lex 1224
ENG 2100-JMWF: MoWe 12:25p-2:05p, B – Vert 6-140
ENG 2100-KMWB: MoWe 2:55p-4:35p, B – Vert 7-205
Office Hours: By appointment, and highly encouraged! Email me to meet via Zoom.
Email: [email protected]
Office: VC 7-288

 

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Texts

 

Join the Conversation, 4th Ed. (ENG 2150 Reader), available in digital format for $26 through the campus bookstore.

  • Create a Perusall account at com
  • The onboarding process will ask you for a course code.
  • Enter the following course code: RAPHEL-VWTR7 or use https://app.perusall.com/join/raphel-vwtr7
  • Go to “Library” and click Join the Conversation.
  • There will then be an option to purchase it there. It costs $27.99.
  • I also will post other readings to our course website, which I’ll expect you to download and have available either digitally or in hard copy when we discuss them in class.
  • Course website: Please use Blackboard for submissions, Perusall for our course textbook, and Blogs@Baruch for course resources: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2150games/

Overview and Course Goals

 

Writing II builds on the learning goals of Writing I, encouraging students to read, reflect on, write about, and synthesize ideas from a range of texts across a variety of genres. Students examine and learn how to employ different styles, various appropriate uses of evidence and counter-evidence, multiple methods of interpretations, and close readings of texts. Students further develop competency in the use and evaluation of multiple external sources as they research ideas related to the course theme, shape and express their ideas, and cast them into well organized, thoughtful, and persuasive argumentative essays. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of composing in multiple discursive modes and media beyond the academic essay.

This course is required for all undergraduate degrees granted by Baruch College. It is required within the Baruch Common Core Curriculum (for students who entered Baruch prior to Fall 2013). For students who entered Baruch Fall 2013 or later under the PATHWAYS General Education requirements (or who “opt-in” to CUNY Pathways), ENG 2150 or ENG 2150T satisfies half of the “English Composition” requirement of the Required Core.

Prerequisite: ENG 2100 or equivalent.

 

After completing ENG 2150 you should be able to:

 

  • Critically analyze texts in a variety of genres: Analyze and interpret key ideas in various discursive genres (e.g. essays, news articles, speeches, documentaries, plays, poems, short stories), with careful attention to the role of rhetorical conventions such as style, tropes, genre, audience and purpose.
  • Use a variety of media to compose in multiple rhetorical situations: Apply rhetorical knowledge in your own composing using the means of persuasion appropriate for each rhetorical context (alphabetic text, still and moving images, and sound), including academic writing and composing for a broader, public audience using digital platforms.
  • Identify and engage with credible sources and multiple perspectives in your writing: Identify sources of information and evidence credible to your audience; incorporate multiple perspectives in your writing by summarizing, interpreting, critiquing, and synthesizing the arguments of others; and avoid plagiarism by ethically acknowledging the work of others when used in your own writing, using a citation style appropriate to your audience and purpose.
  • Compose as a process: Experience writing as a creative way of thinking and generating knowledge and as a process involving multiple drafts, review of your work by members of your discourse community (e.g. instructor and peers), revision, and editing, reinforced by reflecting on your writing process in metacognitive ways.
  • Use conventions appropriate to audience, genre, and purpose: Adapt writing and composing conventions (including your style, content, organization, document design, word choice, syntax, citation style, sentence structure, and grammar) to your rhetorical context.

Major Projects

 

Following are your assignments for the semester, along with the weight each carries toward your final course grade, using a 100% standard grading scale.

 

The major projects, together, will comprise 70% of your grade; attendance, participation, and other written work will comprise 30%.

 

Major Project 1 / New York City Neighborhoods (25% of course grade)

 

Part 1: Op-Ed based on research

  • 500-word op-ed
  • Writer’s Cover Letter

 

NYC NEIGHBORHOODS RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION: Using Data to Initiate Inquiry. Using the “Extremely Detailed Map” and “Extremely Detailed Guide” to NYC neighborhoods as our launchpad, and also drawing on research that you find independently, you will write a ~500-word op-ed about a specific neighborhood.

Extremely Detailed Map: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/upshot/extremely-detailed-nyc-neighborhood-map.html?unlocked_article_code=1.90w.8M4o.sGfEhl6TWmJn&smid=url-share

Extremely Detailed Guide: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/29/upshot/new-york-neighborhood-guide.html?unlocked_article_code=1.90w.vfcS.1Ml3btTt-EXS&smid=url-share

 

Part 2: Ad campaign (I <3 NY)

  • ~1000 words + at least 4 images
  • Writer’s Cover Letter

 

Building on the extremely detailed guide to New York City, you will create an ad campaign to highlight a particular neighborhood or set of neighborhoods. You may use Canva, PowerPoint, Google Slides, or another layout program if you like; Word processing will also work just fine.

 

You must include Works Cited that lists at least three external sources.

 

In your ad campaign, please include the following:

-A logo for the neighborhood plus a 250-word description about what the logo represents and why you chose to represent the neighborhood in this way.

-A 250-word description about the neighborhood’s demographics

–500 words including a least ten special facts about the neighborhood, such as: historical facts, landmarks, traditions, stores, secrets, etc. Remember, you’re creating a campaign, so you’ll want to highlight these stories for someone who doesn’t know the neighborhood

 

You will also include a Writer’s Cover Letter about your process and to help contextualize your work for your reviewers/writing group in the class.

 

 

Major Project 2: Analyzing Monopoly (15% of course grade)

 

  • 750-word analytic essay
  • Writer’s Cover Letter

 

As a primer for our major research paper, we will all research Monopoly. Analyzing texts is a key skill for being a good reader and writer and forms one of the core goals of this course. It involves a number of processes that we do all the time intuitively but which you may never have thought of or which you may not be able to name. Such naming (and learning new ways to name) may be the most valuable part of education, and certainly vital to being able to maneuver within various discourse communities.

 

As a class, we will start with Monopoly as our object of analysis, but we will develop different paths of research and arguments based on this game.

 

 

Major Project 3 / Games: The Research Paper (30% of course grade)

  • 1200 word research paper
  • Writer’s Cover Letter

 

Building on our analysis of Monopoly, your research paper will require you to conduct original research based on a specific game of your choosing that is in some way related to Monopoly – but the way in which it relates is up to you, as long as you can justify the relationship. You’ll investigate the topic, form a guiding question for your research, and attempt to answer the question, using course texts and sources outside the course. You’ll integrate these sources into your own writing, ultimately coming to a (perhaps tentative) conclusion or claim (thesis) from your research and learning.

  • 1200 words / ~8 double-spaced pages (plus a Writer’s Cover Letter)
  • 30% of course grade

 

** What Is a Writer’s Cover Letter?

For each major project, I require a cover letter of ~300-500 words (roughly 1.5-2pp. double-spaced). The cover letter does not need to be in a formal style; pretend you’re sending a casual email to a friend. However, your cover letter does need to fulfill the following tasks:

  • Start with where you are physically located while writing the letter: what time is it? Where are you?
  • Describe your writing process: how did the paper evolve over various drafts?
  • Give one to three specific strengths of your paper: what aspects of the assignment do you feel like you accomplished most successfully?
  • Give one to three specific questions about the paper: are there areas where you think you could have made different choices?

 

 

Major Due Dates

 

Mon Feb 12: Op-Ed Due [NYC Neighborhoods]

Weds Feb 28: Ad Campaign Due [NYC Neighborhoods]

 

Weds Mar 20: Initial Draft, Analysis Essay [Monopoly]

Weds Apr 3: Final Revision, Analysis Essay [Monopoly]

 

Weds May 1: Initial Draft, Research Paper [Games]

Weds May 15: Final Revision, Research Paper [Games]

Participation and In-Class Writing (30% of course grade)

 

In addition to the major projects above, you’ll also have weekly reading and writing assignments. Much of the work you’ll do on a weekly basis will help build directly toward writing your major papers/projects. Think of these weekly assignments as prep work that you can insert directly into your major papers, in a sense writing them as you go along. If you do the weekly work, in other words, you’ll save yourself a lot of time when your major papers are due, because you’ll have been writing them all along. Most readings will occur in the first half of the 14-week course; the second half of the course you will have a smaller number of readings, and the focus will be on your own writing and your research project. Below you’ll find the components of this part of the course; for details on Reading Notes and Reading Responses, see the Projects page of our course blog.

 

  • Informal writing: Mostly in-class, and occasional outside-of-class, responses to our work. These will take a variety of forms, including annotations, creative responses, games, etc.
  • Peer feedback: Notes and letters about your classmates’ drafts in workshops and in small writing groups
  • Other assignments that build toward your major papers

 

Grading 

I use Baruch College’s 100% grading scale to assess individual assignments and your final course grade. If at any time you have a question about your grade in the class, please bring it to my attention immediately.

 

 

B+   87-89

C+   77-79

D+   67-69

A   93-100

B     83-86

C     73-76

D     60-66

A-  90-92

B-    80-82

C-    70-72

 

FAQ about being successful in this class:

 

How much time will the class require?

  • The college standard is that students spend about two hours working outside of class for every hour spent in class. For a four-hour course such as this, that equals an average eight hours of time outside of class per week. Outside work includes reading course texts, writing blog responses to course readings, and drafting and revising your major projects.

 

I have a disability. Are accommodations possible?

  • If you require any accommodation for a disability of any kind, please contact the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities at [email protected], and let me know as soon as you can, ideally during the first two weeks of class, so that we can design the class in a way that is accessible to your learning. I encourage you to meet with me to co-design accommodations. For additional information check out the Student Disability Services webpage.

 

What if I fall behind in the course?

  • If you fall behind in the class for any reason, I encourage you to talk to me or see an academic advisor. I’m your ally and will work with you to figure out a way forward if at all possible.
  • Rather than suffering the consequences of a failing grade, you may wish to consider dropping the class. If you feel you must withdraw, you must do so by the dates on the academic calendar (usually the 9th week of the 14-week semester).
  • Please not that no longer attending class is not the same as withdrawing from the course. You will not be dropped automatically if you stop coming to class; you still will receive a grade for the course if you do not withdraw.

 

What about ChatGPT?

 

  • Over the course of the semester, we’ll be experimenting with ways to engage playfully and ethically with ChatGPT and other modes of writing using AI tools, and we’ll be discussing the role of AI in our lives. ChatGPT and other intelligent technologies must never substitute for your own original work.
  • If you use AI in your reading and writing practices, I expect you to be transparent about how these tools intersect with your relationship to writing and language. The cover letter is a great place to do that, for example.

 

For additional information, please read the following carefully:

 

Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Model Policy (Originally written by Katy Pearce at the University of Washington) 

 

We know that artificial intelligence text generators like ChatGPT are powerful tools that are increasingly used by many. While they can be incredibly useful for some tasks (creating lists of things, for example), they are not a replacement for critical thinking and writing. Artificial intelligence text generators are “large language models” – they are trained to reproduce sequences of words, not to understand or explain anything. Learning how to use artificial intelligence well is a skill that takes time to develop. Moreover, there are many drawbacks to using artificial intelligence text generators for assignments and quiz answers. Some of those limitations include:

  • Artificial intelligence text generators like ChatGPT are sometimes wrong. If the tool gives you incorrect information and you use it in your writing, you are held accountable for it.
  • Most, if not all, artificial intelligence text generators are not familiar with our readings or class discussions and will not draw from that material when generating answers. This will result in writing that will be obviously not created by someone enrolled in the course. 

 

It is okay for you to use artificial intelligence text generators in this course, BUT:

  • You must use them in a way that helps you learn, not hampers learning. Remember that these are tools to assist you in your coursework, not a replacement for your own learning of the material, critical thinking ability, and writing skills.
  • Be transparent: I expect that you will include a short paragraph at the end of the assignment –– or in the cover letter –– that explains what you used the artificial intelligence tool for and why. For example: “I used Grammarly to give me feedback on my sentence structure.” Or “I did not understand a term in the textbook and I asked ChatGPT to explain it to me.”
  • If you are using artificial intelligence text generators to help you in this class and you’re not doing well on assignments, I expect that you will reflect upon the role that the tool may play in your class performance and consider changing your use. If artificial intelligence text generators are used in ways that are nefarious or unacknowledged, you may be subject to the academic misconduct policies detailed in the syllabus.

 

What does it mean to write and research ethically? A Note About Academic Integrity

 

  • I’ll expect you to compose your projects ethically, meaning that if you use the work of others you cite that work, and that all work in this course is original, composed for the first time for this course, and is entirely your own, to the degree that anything we write is entirely our own. All students enrolled at Baruch are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty, as defined in the Baruch Student Handbook.
  • Plagiarism is presenting another’s ideas, research, or writing as your own, such as:
  • Copying another person’s actual words without the use of quotation marks and footnotes (a functional limit is four or more words taken from another’s work)
  • Presenting another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledgement
  • Using information that is not considered common knowledge without acknowledging the source
  • Plagiarism may result in a failing grade on a particular assignment, at the least, and, depending on the circumstances, a failing grade in the course. It is a serious offense that, if done knowingly and depending on the severity and other factors, can result in a failing grade (or worse) and a mark on your permanent academic record.
  • 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 http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/help/plagiarism/default.htm and Baruch College’s academic integrity policy at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.htm.

 

Your Peers

Throughout the semester, you will very frequently work with a Writing Group, which is 4-5 of your classmates. You’ll do your own writing and get your own grade, but these are your people—they’ll be your sounding board for the term and who will give you feedback on your weekly writing and your Major Projects.

 

Meet with the Professor one-on-one for help with your projects

You and I will meet for individual conferences during the term about your writing projects. These meetings likely will be over Zoom, and you will sign up in advance.

 

Grammar Resources

Questions about grammar, usage, style, editing, and source citations? Check out the Purdue OWL.

 

Baruch Writing Center 

 

As a writer you’ll want to seek feedback from many different readers. Writers at all levels of experience get feedback on their writing. Asking for and receiving feedback is not a sign of weakness and it does not equal weak writing; it’s actually a sign of wisdom and makes your writing much stronger. You’ll give feedback to and get feedback from your fellow writers in your writing groups in this class throughout the semester and at all stages of your projects. I also encourage you to get feedback on your writing from professional writing consultants (some of whom also teach first-year writing courses) at the Writing Center.

The Writing Center offers free, one-to-one (in-person and online) and small-group workshop writing support to all Baruch students. The Center’s consultants work collaboratively with you to deepen your writing and English language skills. At any step in the process, they’ll help you become a more confident and versatile writer. I encourage you to schedule your appointment well in advance of when your writing is due. You can schedule an appointment at: https://bc.mywconline.com/.

 

The Newman Library 

Great resource for online sources in your research for this class and all classes at Baruch.

 

Support for English Language Learners

 

 

Student Life Resources at Baruch

The Student Resources Portal is a one-stop resource for students for help with the following and more: