151UWS-32A-1 : ETHICS AND INNOVATION Spring 2015

151UWS-32A-1 : ETHICS AND INNOVATION

Class location –Brown 115

Gordon Ruesch, Instructor -- 781 325-8136

Office/Tutorial Hours: M W Th10-12 and by apt., meet in Library (unused office-Rabb 223)

Innovation, Effects, and Ethics—Course Description

Weighing the ethical implications of emerging technologies will be our semester’s focus. Our parallel writing goals will include lucid close reading and interpretation, precise restating and representation, incisive unpacking of argument, judicious inspection of claims and warrants, and persuasive assembling of argument—essentials for achieving excellence in academic discourse.

Our semester’s goal will be mastering the academic writing process: we will brainstorm, test reader reaction, draft strategically, get big-picture feedback, revise globally, then get close feedback for achieving sentence-level precision of expression By rigorously engaging critical thinking and argumentation skills, writers will achieve mastery of the university-level writing skills that secure academic success—and, increase chances of affecting what happens to the world, to human culture, on this generation’s watch.

Required Course Texts

  • The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015 – ed. Deborah Blum

Houghton Mifflin

  • The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future—Oreskes and Conway; Columbia UP, NY,2014
  • Writer’s Help--E-Handbook (Bedford) and Writing in Response-- (req. in spring UWS)
  • Write Now (collection of exemplary UWS writing by Brandeis students
  • A Good English-English Dictionary

Course Design and Rationale

UWS should help you become familiar with mainstay academic writing formats, scope, and style. Through a series of reading-response and analytic writings of graduated complexity (from one-page summaries to an extended essay using multiple sources), you will have a valuable rehearsal of essential academic writing forms as well as a vigorous writing workout. Our course approach originates partly in the notion that with challenging practice opportunities, each writer can realize her or his own personal best success as a college writer and thinker.

Course Focus on Writing Process

College writing (any writing) is not merely about recording one’s thinking according to a certain academic rubric. Rather, it is about a way of finding out what we think. That is, it is a process we use to closely inspect our reasoning, a means of moving toward greater clarity in our thinking even when we start (as we often do) in a fog, anxious and uncertain. Trusting ourselves to start writing without knowing quite where we are going can be scary; certainly we feel better when we devise a provisional plan, a set of preliminary steps before we start out. We’ll work at trusting the writing process to help us find out what we think and what we have in mind to say.

A Word about Course Texts and Focus:

We will explore our course theme, “Innovation, Effects, and Ethics,” through assigned readings in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015, in short articles, and in the dystopic fiction The Collapse of Western Civilization. The commentary in these texts bears closely on important contemporary reading, writing, and learning issues; our primary concerns, meanwhile, are with the practice of writing, careful reading, critical analysis, and argumentation. Through these readings, we’ll be honing writing skills by scrutinizing, then practicing punctuation, paragraph structure, argumentation, and response to counterargument. We’ll also rely on our Writer’s HelpE-Handbook and the accompanying Writing in Response.

Oral Presentations and Readings:

Facilitating class discussion in our friendly, low-anxiety seminar format helps students gain confidence and comfort invaluable in semesters to come. After choosing selections from a sign-up sheet, student partners will be responsible for leading discussions on individual chapters from The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015 .You will meet outside of class with your partner to devise strategies that draw classmates into focused, insightful discussion of readings,

Key Course Skills

We’ll also observe requisite protocols for incorporating and crediting source support and develop a sense of possible variations in essay structure, sentence form, and paragraph organization well beyond the five-paragraph high school formula. Writings assignments of graduated complexity will hone skills in summarizing, paraphrasing, properly crediting sources, knowing when to quote or paraphrase, developing effective thesis-first introductions, devising effective paragraph structure and variation, using transition devises to link paragraph sections smoothly, and especially, editing for clarity and precision, honing proofreading and critical skills through peer review exercises.

The Instructor’s Role

I see myself as your writing coach, trying to encourage you toward your best performance. I need to encourage, inspire, sometimes cajole, even coerce. I need to be able to see your strengths as a writer and also help you achieve your improvement goals (each writer will help me identify individual goals in the first tutorials of weeks three and four.) I also will help you advance toward your personal best by offering close analysis of your writing at the global level (big picture: content, thesis, structure, argumentation; local level: sentence mechanics, rhythm, word choice, grammar. At my best, I need to encourage you to discover a legitimate confidence about your best. I need to help each of you glimpse the next level of excellence within your reach, then help you motivate you. I can’t get you there, but I can guide you toward on how best you can get yourself there, and, how after this semester, you can sustain your growth as a writer and continue to reach for a new writing level of personal best.

Syllabus/Assignments Outline

We’ll undertake three major papers, along with a host of shorter exercises. The major papers prepare writers for UWS expectations, as described on the Brandeis web page:

Close-Reading Essay

The close-reading essay requires students to slow down and read their given text(s) carefully, whether those texts are a work of art, a public space, or another piece of writing. The goal is to recognize the move from observation to analysis in the writing process.

Lens Essay

With the lens essay, students will take a piece of critical or theoretical writing and use it to examine another text in order to create an analytical dialogue between the two texts.

Extended Essay with Multiple Sources

In this more elaborate culminating exercise of the semester’s skills, writers will develop a focus of interest from the semester’s reading to explore, interrogate, and develop a line of critical inspection and discovery. Topic focus and scope of inquiry will be negotiated individually in tutorial with the instructor, then gradually developed and sharpened at designated progress checks. Using skills acquired in the previous essay assignments, including careful close-reading, textual analysis through a given theoretical or critical lens, and crafting a strong argument, students will integrate their selected source-text illumination to create a polished and thesis-driven final essay.

How Much Work?

We will be writing every week, sometimes for a new assignment, sometimes for a revision, or for one of the many preliminary exercises accompanying each major paper (total: two major papers and one longer final project, an extended essay with multiple sources). You should expect to write a lot. The pace and workload must be manageable, certainly, so I’ll look for a reasonable timetable once I see how people are doing. If we were to do only a modest writing load, you’d agree, the gain in skill would be correspondingly modest; conversely, a full workout gets us gains in competence, confidence, and academic success that stand to be great.

Using Writer’s Help Online: Before class, in preparation for each “Five-Minute Skills Review” segment, as well as for other topics announced in class, students need to consult Writer’s Help . Students will sometimes be asked to do Writer’s Helpreview exercises and send the results to the instructor viaWriter’s Help.

Academic Honesty

UWS aims at providing guidance on avoiding academic dishonesty by demonstrating and practicing proper source citations and avoiding illicit use (unquoted, uncredited) of Internet material. Students who submit work incorporating uncited language not their own (that would include work written by mentors, friends, genius siblings, internet Wiki-pickings) will enjoy no benefit of the doubt, so, as a moral and as a practical matter, honesty is essential. Please think carefully if you find yourself confused about what is or is not honest, or if you find yourself tempted by deadline pressures, a desire for A’s, etc. to take the plagiarized way out, expect Draconian (flunk/leave) consequences.

Attendance and Grading

Class attendance is required. Missing class means missing discussions on which writing assignments depend. Should an emergency arise, please notify me before class by email or telephone. Necessarily, students who are late or absent learn less and take lower final grades. Missing three sessions means automatic email to academic dean. Course grades come from quizzes, in-class exercises, from class preparation and participation, and, primarily, from grades on writing. Revision is encouraged, but must be negotiated after we discuss your revision plans. (Revision does not equal fixing grammar.)

Grade Components

35% grade = Quizzes, attendance, class participation, in-class writing, use of tutorials, class presentations

35%=Close-Reading and Lens Essay Revisions

30%=Extended Essay with Multiple Sources

Learning Disabilities Act

Please let me know of any special learning circumstances; I’ll make appropriate accommodations.

1