Here's the Plan: How the Course is Organized

To understand how this course is organized, I want you to think of just three simple categories:

I. Course textbooks and other reading
II. Written assignments
III. Classroom work and discussion

If you consider the components of each of these two, the overall organization of the course starts to become very clear.

Here's the expanded outline, with all the sub-categories:

I. Course textbooks and other reading

A. Essays, articles, & other sources (4 units):
1. Global Warming and Environment
2. Who Controls Public Opinion and Policy, & How?
3. Rich & Poor, Discrimination & Oppression
4. War, Intervention, & the Military-Industrial Complex

B. Rhetoric & handbook

C. Reading your peers' work

II. Written assignments

A. Frequent ungraded assignments for reflection & practice:
1. Responses to readings and other sources
2. Summaries of readings and other sources
3. Annotated bibliographies
4. Practice writing introductions, outlines,
and other writing exercises, including peer feedback

B. Graded papers:
1. Explaining a Concept
(Who Controls Public Opinion and Policy, & How?)
2. Speculating about Causes
(Global Warming & Environment)
3. Argument, or Persuasion
(Rich and Poor, Discrimination & Oppression)
4. Proposing a Solution
(War, Intervention, & the Military-Industrial Complex)

III. Classroom work and discussion (which will include things related to all categories in I and II above, and at times more).

That was the outline version. Read on for the more detailed version:

I. Course textbooks and other reading
Our texts and reading fall into just three categories:

A. Essays, articles, and other research sources
B. Rhetoric and handbook
C. Reading of your peers' work
Here's a brief explanation for each of these:


A. Essays, articles, and other research sources
These are found in the Blair Reader (BR), online, in the library, and in movie documentaries.

To write well, you have to have something good to say. To develop what you have to say, you read essays and articles, do research, watch documentaries. It's not enough to have good grammar. You need good ideas, and need to take time to reflect on them carefully, taking notes, noticing important points, comparing one source with other sources, asking good questions.

Our reading and research from these essays, articles and other sources will be divided into four units, each about three weeks long. They are as follows (not necessarily in this order):

1. Global Warming and Environment
2. Who Controls Public Opinion and Policy, and How?
3. Rich and Poor, Discrimination and Oppression
4. War, Intervention, and the Military-Industrial Complex

These four unites were developed after more than 14 years of teaching, reading and researching with my students. My students, their research and essays played a big role in shaping the choices of topics or units.

My main criteria in developing these units was to ask myself this question:

If I were a new college student today, what kinds of issues would I want my classes to inform me about regarding the world they're preparing me to enter and participate in?

Some of the essays and articles are by women, some by men. Some represent conservative viewpoints, some represent liberal views, but my main critieria is not representing the seven or more mains sides to various issues. My main criteria is to help students reflect on and discover the truth, and which sources they can trust.


B. Rhetoric and handbook. Besides reading and research to develop good ideas, we will do some reading about different writing strategies and about how to write according to traditional conventions or standard English, and how to use the Modern Language Association (MLA) format for college papers.

The rhetoric we'll use is
St. Martin’s Guide to Writing (SMGW).

The handbook we'll use is
The College Writer’s Handbook (CWH),
supplimented by the 2006-2007 Manual for Written Communication (MWC).


C. Reading your peers' workThe third form of reading you'll do often is to read one another's assignments and essay drafts, as well as the self-evaluations of your peers, as you strive to develop your ideas and skills, and to learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses.


II. Written assignments
Written assignments will usually be posted to a designated forum on D2L, and will fall into the following categories:


A. Ungraded Assignments for reflection and practice:
Frequent ungraded assignments that give students opportunities to reflect on readings and sources, and to learn and practice writing skills. Examples:

1. Written responses to readings and other sources (ungraded-but-required, or "pass-fail").

2. Written summaries of main points in readings and other sources. As the semester progresses, these will include integrated quotes from the sources, citations, and lists of works cited

3. Written annotated bibliographies, which will become relatively easy to do after the practice of writing summaries.

4. Practice writing introductions, outlines, and other writing exercises.

All of these ungraded exercises will prepare you to develop ideas and master skills so that you're ready to use them well when you write papers, which are graded.


B. Graded papers. Students will write four graded papers, which will be posted to D2L. The first drafts will not be graded, but will also be posted to D2L. Each of these essays will correspond to one of the reading units listed above, which I list here again:

1. Who Controls Public Opinion and Policy, and How?
2. Global Warming and Environment
3. Rich and Poor, Discrimination and Oppression
4. War, Intervention, and the Military-Industrial Complex

Furthermore, each of these essays will have a special focus related to the rhetoric text and a certain style of essay or writing strategy:

1. Explaining a Concept (Who Controls Public Opinion and Policy, and How?)
2. Speculating about Causes (Global Warming and Environment)
3. Argument, or Persuasion (Rich and Poor, Discrimination and Oppression)
4. Proposing a Solution (War, Intervention, and the Military-Industrial Complex)


III. Classroom work and discussion (which will cover things related to all categories in I and II above, and at times more). Discussion will take place not only in class, but perhaps even more, on D2L (Desire to Learn), in the Discussion Forums, where students will post their work, as well as comment on each others' work, and hopefully, carry on good conversations about what unfolds in the course.

If you have any questions about how the course is organized, email me, or talk to me during my office hours or after class.