Académique Documents
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Course Aims
Our Modes and Methods of Composition
Genre Awareness
Writing looks and works differently in different places. Because of this, our course is designed to help you practice
different kinds of writing and to see how modes of writing surface connections across various networks. By focusing on
rhetoric and modes of communication, I hope you come to see writing and analysis as practices that expand beyond
individual writers, practices that can help you learn to account for connections across the places you occupy both here on
campus and in your life outside of college. In order to do this work together, well spend a lot of time thinking about genre
and genre expectations while working and writing in various genres.
Writing in All of Its Wonderful Forms (A Lot!)
Writing is part and parcel of nearly every human endeavor. As Walter Ong, S.J., suggests, no matter the course of ones
life, writing is one of the primary ways we navigate lifes complexities. In this class, we will trace the roll of writing
through a variety of endeavors. My aim is to help you make some sense of how to approach the moves you will find in
the writing of others and how to produce moves of your own. Youll write to make meaning for the places in which you
find yourself throughout the course. In short, you will spend 10 weeks with me, writing!
While it may be that you already write all the time, our writing practices will be as purposeful as we can make them. That
is, writing wont be merely how we communicate knowledge made elsewhere. Rather, writing will be the subject and
practice of our course. Well spend lots of time and effort looking at our writing and reflecting on how it might better
surface meaning and affect others. Well also practice responding constructively to peers' work and soliciting and using
peer feedback effectively.
Closely Read, Annotate, and Do Different Things With a Range of Texts
The texts well encounter together vary a great deal. Well engage with scholarly articles, images, YouTube videos, your
own writing, student examples, articles written for the web, even places here in Bellingham. In this course, well push to
not only read for understanding, but well also work together to try and read well enough that we can do something with
the material we encounter. Well extend the arguments, remix the content to produce possible new meanings, articulate
underlying values, and always work from our texts in such a way that allows us to make something of our own
something that carries our own specific angle. Simply put, reading in this class is an active, participatory practice.
Asking Questions For Which You Dont Yet Have Answers
Learning to create or begin work from a position of not knowing is challenging given that we tend to believe that our job
is to compose texts after weve decided what we think and what we want to communicate. Here, however, well slow
down. Theres a lot written about cultivating beginners mind in regard to mindfulness and creativity. Much like the
practices that drive great science, well practice asking questions that often lead to better, more interesting questions
before they lead to answers. Well try and be productively critical, constantly exploring the ideas we surface as we learn
to keep asking questions that push us to see more and more connections.
Research
Well try some practices that help us understand what research is about, such as:
Working ethically with each other and others writing
Locating, evaluating, and using print and online information selectively for particular audiences and purposes
Triangulating sources of evidence
Selecting appropriate primary research methods such as interviews, observations, and surveys to collect data
Course Projects
The projects for the course are varied, but they are all in service of our overall course questions about what writing is and
what writing can do. The projects are also rooted in our guiding metaphor: Writing as Mapping. Meaning, writing as a
way of seeing and understanding multiple networks and the connections between those networks. Another way to think
about this metaphor is by creating work that helps others locate themselves inside your ideas, stories, arguments, and
spaces, helping them see such things in different ways.
Electronics
During the quarter, you will need regular access to the internet and email. Because the Canvas site is the main hub for
community documents, you are responsible for reading and keeping current with all content posted there, including what
has been submitted by your fellow classmates. In addition, I dont want cell phone use to be disruptive in class. I consider
you all adults, and as such I expect you to respect your peers and not be distracted by your phone during discussions and
other work time.
Readiness
Readiness relates specifically to being prepared by the start time of the class period (and completing any outside-of-class
work that we negotiate to do). This can be a tough, busy course in that what were working with what might be new
composing methods and communication technologies. So you need to dive into your work and come at the course with
questions and confusions and contentions. That is to say, not fully understanding one of our texts or projects is fine. But
not spending the time it takes to figure out where things break down for you is not. Be ready.
Participation
I recognize that we are all comfortable participating in different ways in classroom settings. Participation does not only
mean speaking in class, although I am excited to hear your thoughts and hope youll speak in class every day. More than
that, class participation means being engaged with class material every day. It means being involved in the work at hand,
open to revision and new ideas from course content and your peers. Well often begin class by writing, and while I dont
evaluate the quality of these fastwrites, active participation means doing the work I ask of you during these exercises.
Collaborative Work
We will be making a great deal of stuff together and supporting one another in differing ways, so honest collaboration is
crucial in this course. Youre responsible for reading/listening to other peoples work, being kind in class, asking good
questions, and working toward really hearing each other before responding. I expect moments to arise that might call for
some vulnerability, and I want us to try and build a space together that not only allows for the powerful actions that can
grow from vulnerability, but welcomes and encourages them. As Ive written, some of this work will be hard; let us all be
supportive, learning from the risks we encourage others to take. Im going to work hard to foster this kind of collaborative
spirit. I ask that you help me in this work.
Late Work
The majority of missed class assignments cannot be made up, nor will I accept late projects. This class is carefully
scaffolded so that each action leads us to the next; falling too far behind is troublesome. If a serious and unavoidable
problem arises, however, you should contact me prior to any deadline to determine what we can do. The answer to any
problems you run into is always come and talk to me as early as you can.
Academic Integrity
WWU students and their instructors are expected to adhere to guidelines set forth by the Dean of Students in Academic
Honesty Policy and Procedure," which students are encouraged to read here.
Accommodations:
Students with documented disAbilities have the right to reasonable accommodations. Please click here for the resources
available to you.
Attend class regularlynot missing more than three classes. Attend all out-of-class meetings you agree to attend with your
classmates.
Prepare for and attend conferences with me to discuss your work as they are scheduled.
Meet due dates for all assignments, fulfilling all the criteria that I put forth in each assignment. (If you dont understand the
criteria, ask me about it before its due.)
Complete all out-of-class informal, low stakes assignments according to the criteria for those assignments (e.g. drafts, letters,
reading responses, design plans, etc.).
Make substantive revisions in accordance with the feedback you get from me and your peers. In other words, the revision
work you encounter in this course will be about extending or changing the thinking and/or organization of your projects
not just editing or touching up. You are required to revise and, often, explain those revisions in letters to me.
Thats it!
Again, what this contract means for you is that you earn the grade of B entirely on the basis of what you do, or as Peter Elbow says,
based on your conscientious effort and engagement with your work in the course. What that means for me is that I dont have to
measure what youre doing all quarter against an already established rubric that may or may not adequately evaluate your diverse
products. Instead, I get to value the labor, the time, and the energy that I know it takes to be an engaged learner in a new community of
practice. This evaluation style gives us both the opportunity to take real risks and to really care about our own processes for generating
and analyzing meaning.
Grades higher than a B are still possible, of course. They can be earned when projects are of exceptionally high quality.
What does exceptionally high quality mean? Good question. Exceptionally high quality work is about the quality of the project, not
necessarily the labor. That is, the answer will always depend on the project. So for each project, well discuss what exceptionally
high quality work might look like. Most the time, this kind of work exhibits some risks, moving beyond the basics of the assignment.
Exceptionally high quality work will often show clear signs of careful revision and carefully constructed language that responds to the
kinds of audiences the project is geared toward; all this to say, producing exceptionally high quality work is difficult.
You can also earn a grade lower than a B. If you do not meet the stipulations of the contract, then I will still use our qualities for
what constitutes exceptionally high quality work to evaluate your projects. The difference, however, is the place from which I start
the grading process. Heres how it works:
Number of Stipulations Not Met
0
1-2
3
4
5
Baseline Grade
B
BC+
C
C-
Again, this is straightforward. If you do not complete all the stipulated requirements for 1-2 items on the contract, then I would start
you at a B-, which means you could still earn an A- in the course. There are three steps up from any grade you start from. That is,
if you missed 5 items on the contract, you would start at a C-, yes. But you might produce really exceptional work, which could get
you back up to B. If you started with B because you completed the contract, there are three steps up to an A. That is, the easiest way to
approach the evaluation in this course is complete the contract and pour yourself into the projects. Youll make stuff that you can be
proud of and youll start to figure out that, indeed, writing looks and works differently in different places.
Attendance
Review:
Rough draft
Draft 2
The final draft of the review
The rhetorical analysis of the final draft
The Medium revision of the review
The rhetorical analysis of the revision posted on
Medium
Podcast:
Proposal:
Website:
Draft 1 of homepage
Complete homepage
Webtext presentation
Final webtext (finals week)
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
Revision work
Make substantive revisions in
accordance with the feedback you get
from your peers and me. Im looking
for more than simple proofreading
here. Revisions should involve
rewrites, reorganizations, re-imagings
for deep, substantive change.
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