Class Syllabus for Summer 2010

Professor Wanda Sabir Course Code 30008/30013
Class Meetings: June 21-July 29, MTWTh Room D-205, 10 AM-12:15 PM Independence Day Holiday Observance: July 5


Syllabus for English 5/211: Critical Thinking in Reading and Writing

English 5/211 develops the ability to analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas. Critical thinking looks at the relationship between language and logic, introduces rhetoric or persuasive writing and tools students can use to evaluate information based on facts, perceptions, assumptions, evidence, reasons, inferences, judgments, induction, deduction and conclusions. Vocabulary is introduced so that students have the proper tools to discuss faulty thinking or flaws in the reasoning process and name the more common fallacies.

This level composition assumes competency in prose writing and reading ability so that more attention can be devoted to ideas rather than to grammar and mechanics. Because this is an accelerated course, the student who will most likely succeed in this course passed English 1A with a “B” or better.

We will look at the role of language and semantics in critical thinking, social communications and propaganda. Students will also look at the fundamentals of problem solving, including considering and evaluating alternative solutions and perspectives. We will write a series of four (4) – 3-4 page essays which are 1. analytical, 2. argumentative and 3. comparative evaluative essays on pertinent topics around the theme: privilege.

Topics will come from our texts, films, and discussions, current event topics, or historical issues with current relevance. Each essay will utilize one of the text books: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise; Black Like Me by John Howard; The Known World by Edward P. Jones; and From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King. Required in these essays will be inclusion of at least one scholarly article on the topic and a works cited page which is not counted as part of the 3-4 pages.

While there are no women writers selected for this semester's reading, the female voice is included here and for student essays, certainly students are encouraged to address the women's participation or absence of participation in the discourse on privilege.

Essays
We will start all the essays in class and have peer reviews; however, I expect the first draft to receive a passing grade. If this is not the case, I suggest said student in list the support and assistance of a competent tutor.

If any paper does not receive a passing grade, said student will have to write an essay wherein he or she discusses in third person how the writer can correct the errors, and revise or rewrite the essay. These essays are due the following day.

Readings
We will read a book every week or two, beginning with White Like Me: June 21-24. Essay started June 24. Final draft due: June 28 for peer review. Turn in June 29.

The Known World: June 28-July 6. In-class essay writing assignment: July 7.
The Known World debate: Monday, July 8. Summary arguments and self-reflective essay on the process due: July 8-9 (cyber-assignment).

An important question here is: How do we know what we know given the flawed process in coming up with the answer to this question? How do Jones’s characters illustrate this reasoning process? What do you think about the idea of a world view given the events of the novel? How do people think outside their narrow windows; why do several characters prefer the familiar to the challenging and shifting terrain around foregone conclusions? Use the novel to support all answers.

July 12-15: From the Bottom of the Heap. Question: Is predestination or fate a socially prescribed outcome? Compare Wilkerson’s life to Wise’s.
In class essay: July 15, 2010

July 19-22: Black Like Me. How is this dress rehearsal useful? To whom? How is it not? In class essay or a series of short skits: July 22

Revisions: July 26-28
Students will take 1 of the 4 essays and expand it for the final presentation: July 26-28. The group presentations are also due this week.

Finals: Portfolio Due: July 29 via Internet
We will work on this 7/29/2010 in class.

I like to use films as teaching aides. If there are any films, we will watch them on Mondays. The film assignment will be a cyber-assignment we will most likely start in class. Cyber-assignments are turned in on-line and are about a 250 word fast draft. Each student needs to respond to two other posts. Be respectful in your comments.

We’ll write in-class essays (2-3 pages) on Thursdays; class presentations will be on Wednesday. Students will present each week. There will be one group project and presentation on logical fallacies (both inductive and deductive reasoning - one each) inspired by the texts (indicate the passages) or taken from the field of commercial art or politics.

The Plan
We will use the textbook: Writing Logically Thinking Critically, Sixth Edition, by Sheila Cooper and Rosemary Patton. It will give students theoretical basis to talk about the argument process. The book has exercises which we will complete in and outside of class meetings. Students are encouraged to develop study groups.

We will run the book chronologically:
Week 1: A Quick Guide to Integrating Research into Your Own Writing 210-214. Practice pp: 210-214
Week 1: Chapters 1-2
Week 2: Chapters 2-3-4
Week 3: Chapters 4
Week 4: Chapters 5-6
Week 5: Chapters 7-8

I will add the Elements of Style readings later and give to students as a separate handout.

Grading
The essay based on readings are a fourth of your grade, the daily essays and/or homework are another fourth, your midterm and final are another fourth and your portfolio is the final fourth. (Save all of your work.) You can average the grades to see how to weigh the various components. Participation is included in the daily exercises and homework portion of the grade, so if your attendance is exemplary, yet you say nothing the entire six weeks, you lose percentage points.

You will also need to spend four-six hours in the Writing Lab (L-234), or as needed this summer, and have a teacher or tutor sign off on your assignments. If you are having trouble with grammar, then work on that. If you trouble is the essay writing process itself, work on that.

Have a tutor of teacher sign off on your essays before you turn them in; if you have a “R,” which means revision necessary for a grade or “NC-” which means “no credit,” you have to go to the lab and revise the essay with a tutor or teacher before you return both the graded original and the revision (with signature) to me. Also due is the essay about the essay which identifies the errors and how to correct them. Use a grammar/style book such as Diana Hacker Rules for Writers. Revise does not mean “rewrite,” it means to “see again.”

The summer intensive composition courses offer invigorating discourse or dialogue for those students who love a challenge, and approach the task eager, prepared and ready for what the course requires: English language fluency in writing and reading; a certain comfort and ease with the language; confidence and skillful application of literary skills associated with academic writing. Familiarity if not mastery of the rhetorical styles used in argumentation, exposition and narration.

We will be evaluating what we know and how we came to know what we know, a field called epistemology or the study of knowledge. Granted, the perspective is western culture which eliminates the values of the majority populations, so-called underdeveloped or undeveloped countries or cultures. Let us not fall into typical superiority traps. Try to maintain a mental elasticity and a willingness to let go of concepts which not only limit your growth as an intelligent being, but put you at a distinct disadvantage as a species.

This is a highly charged and potentially revolutionary process - critical thinking. The process of evaluating all that you swallowed without chewing up to now is possibly even dangerous. This is one of the problems with bigotry; it is easier to go with tradition than toss it, and create a new, more just, alternative protocol.

Audience
This is not the class for the student who is not comfortable with writing essays, or whose handle on grammar is shaky or loose, and whose reading skills - interpretation, critical analysis, comprehension and vocabulary, are limited. Obviously, in six weeks you cannot become an expert on anything, however, the hope is that when you leave the course, you will be a stronger writer than when you arrived, and understand clearly what you need to do next.

We will be honest with one another. Grades are not necessarily an honest response to work; grades do not take into consideration the effort or time spent, only whether or not students can demonstrate mastery of a skill - in this case: essay writing. Grades are an approximation, arbitrary at best, no matter how many safeguards one tries to put in place to avoid such ambiguity. Suffice it to say, your portfolio will illustrate your competence. It will represent your progress, your success or failure this summer session in meeting your goal.

I’d like to wish everyone good luck. I am available for consultation on Wednesday afternoons, 12-2 p.m. by appointment in L-236. Let me know the day before, if possible, when you’d like to meet with me. My office number is (510) 748-2131, e-mail coasabirenglish5@gmail.com. The class blog is: I do not keep regular office hours in the summer.

I also don’t check my e-mail on weekends so I’d advise you to exchange phone numbers with classmates (2), so if you have a concern, it can be addressed more expediently. Study groups are also suggested, especially for those students finding the readings difficult; don’t forget, you can also discuss the readings as a group in the Lab with a teacher or tutor acting as facilitator. Keep a vocabulary log for the term per book and for the textbook. Also keep a reading log for each book. List the words you need to look up in the dictionary, also list where you first encountered them: page, book and definition, also use the word in a sentence. You will turn these logs in with your portfolio.

Students are expected to complete their work on time. If any work comes in late after week one, the assignment is marked down one grade each day it’s late. All assignments prepared outside of class are to be typed, 12-pt. font, double-spaced lines, indentations on paragraphs, 1-inch margins around the written work (see Hacker: The Writing Process; Document Design.)

Cheating
Plagiarism is ethically abhorrent, and if any student tries to take credit for work authored by another person the result will be a failed grade on the assignment and possibly a failed grade in the course if this is attempted again. This is a graded course.

Homework
If you do not identify the assignment, I cannot grade it. If you do not return the original assignment you revised, with an analysis essay, I cannot compare what changed. If you accidentally toss out or lose the original assignment, you get a zero on the assignment to be revised. I will not look at revisions without the original attached- no exceptions.

Textbooks
We will travel through our five textbooks concurrently: Cooper, Sheila and Rosemary Patton. Writing Logically, Thinking Critically. Sixth Edition. New York: Longman, 2010; Wise, Tim. White Like Me. New York: Skull Press, 2005; Hacker, Diana. Rules for Writers. Sixth Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008; The Elements of Style. Any edition. Strunk, William Jr. and E.B. White.

Students also need a dictionary. I recommend: The American Heritage Dictionary. Fourth Edition.

Along with a dictionary, the prepared student needs pens with blue or black ink, along with a pencil for annotating texts, paper, a stapler or paper clips, a travel drive to save writing, a notebook, three hole punch, a folder for work-in-progress, and a divided binder to keep materials together.

Week 1: Warm-ups and stretches
Writing Logically, Thinking Critically: Introduction, Chapter 1: Thinking and Writing

Day 1: In-class assignment: Aptitude Test; freewrite: Define Critical Thinking; film: Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, director: Shakti Butler

Homework: Begin reading chapter 1. Complete exercises. You can write in the book. Note questions. Post freewrite on class blog.

Chapter 2: Inference—Critical ThoughtAssignments: p.17 due Wednesday, June 22, 2010

The writing assignments from the text (some) will be cyber-assignments (turned in or posted on-line at the class blog). Keep a copy for yourself. Exercises: 2J, 3, 4, or 2K. Extra Credit: 2L due June 25.

Week 1: A Quick Guide to Integrating Research into Your Own Writing 210-214. Practice pp: 210-214

Readings
White Like Me: June 21-24. Essay started June 24. Final draft due: June 28 for peer review. Turn in June 29.

Review: Rules for Writers (Hacker):
The Writing Process (2)
Document Design (60)
The Basics (530)

Week 2: Establish routine
Chapter 3: The Structure of Argument (53)
In class exercises: 3B (58-59), 3C. Homework Exercise 3E (cyber-assignment).

Chapter 4: Written Argument (77)
Cyber-assignment: Writing Assignment 7 (98-99), Writing Assignment 8 (102). Posted by July 2.

Hacker
Argument (358)
Conducting Research (381)
Clarity (79)

The Known World: June 28-July 6. In-class essay writing assignment: July 7.
The Known World debate: Monday, July 8. Summary arguments and self-reflective essay on the process due: July 8-9 (cyber-assignment).

An important question here is: How do we know what we know given the flawed process in coming up with the answer to this question? How do Jones’s characters illustrate this reasoning process? What do you think about the idea of a world view given the events of the novel? How do people think outside their narrow windows; why do several characters prefer the familiar to the challenging and shifting terrain around foregone conclusions? Use the novel to support all answers.

Week 3: Fitness testing

Chapter 4 con’t. Review
Chapter 5: The Language of Argument—Definition (104)
Cyber-Assignments: Exercise 5A (110-111), Writing Assignment 10 (124)

Hacker:
Grammar (148)
Punctuation (269)
Mechanics (317)

Readings and Midterm
July 12-15: From the Bottom of the Heap. Question: Is predestination or fate a socially prescribed outcome? Compare Wilkerson’s life to Wise’s.
In class essay: July 15, 2010 (midterm)


Week 4: The race
Chapter 5 review
Chapter 6: Fallacious Arguments (131)
Cyber-assignments based on in-class assignment (145); Exercise 6B
Test

Readings
July 19-22: Black Like Me. How is this dress rehearsal useful? To whom? How is it not?

In class essay or a series of short skits: July 22


Week 5: Learning curves
Chapter 7: Deductive and Inductive Argument (157)
Cyber-assignments Exercises 7G (180) or 7H (181)
Cyber-assignment (Writing Assignment 13 (196)

Students will take 1 of the 4 essays and expand it for the final presentation: July 28-29

Week 6: Finish Line
Review and quiz

Essays presentations given (M-W)

Last date of class: Wednesday, July 28.
Portfolios due: Thursday, July 29, via Internet

Jot down briefly what your goals are this semester. List them in order of importance.

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This syllabus is subject to change based on instructor assessment of class progress.