WRT 105: Practices of Academic Writing
Fall 2009
T J Geiger Section: M206
Instructor Office: 005 HBC Room: HBC 209
Instructor Phone: 443-1091 Meeting Time: Tues/Thurs 8:00-9:20
tgeigeri@syr.edu--(preferred mode of contact) Office Hours: Tuesday 9:30-10:30am
Let’s start our conversation with others’ words:
[S]tatus-quo stories: worldviews and beliefs that normalize and naturalize the existing social system, values, and norms so entirely that they deny the possibility of change …. [S]tatus-quo stories seduce us into resisting change. Status-quo stories limit our imaginations and prevent us from envisioning alternate possibilities—different ways of living and arranging our lives. Status-quo stories train us to believe that the way things are is the way they always have been and the way they must be.
–AnaLouise Keating Teaching Transformation: Transcultural Classroom Dialogues
I believe that by changing ourselves we change the world, that traveling El Mundo Zurdo path is the path of a two-way movement — a going deep into the self and an expanding out into the world, a simultaneous recreation of the self and a reconstitution of society.
—Gloria E. Anzaldua “La Prieta”
Too often, we pour the energy needed for recognizing and exploring difference into pretending those differences are insurmountable barriers, or that they do not exist at all. This results in a voluntary isolation, or false and treacherous connections. Either way, we do not develop tools for using human difference as a springboard for creative change within our lives.
—Audre Lorde “Age, Race, Class and Sex”
I’m humble...because I don’t know what I’m wrong about today. I’ll speak with confidence, I’ll speak with passion, but I won’t speak with certainty.
—Tony Jones The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier
It requires intention, a revolutionary patience, courage, and, above all, humility. Once this work begins, the temptation to cross narrow boundaries becomes irresistible; connections, once invisible, come into full view.
—M. Jacqui Alexander “Remembering This Bridge Called My Back”
Opening Inquiries: Interrogating Status-Quo Stories
Who do you want to be? How will college help you become that person? What brought you to Syracuse University? What about “this place” have you found compelling? How has this place already challenged you? Demanded something significant of you? Affirmed you? Made you uncomfortable? Harnessed your passions? Invited you to see yourself and others differently than you’re accustomed to? How will you come to know yourself as part of this place—and to think about your work at SU as located in a very specific place and time, saturated with complex and competing interests and ambitions?
How will you choose to engage with the student living in the dorm room at the end of your hallway? With the LGBT activist who offers you a pamphlet? With those who speak in ways your ears are not accustomed to hearing? With a potential romantic interest? With those who understand the world in ways quite different from your own ways? What stories or scripts influence these and other encounters you have? What conversations are happening in campus gyms and Hendricks Chapel, in dining halls and classrooms? Which ones do you care about? And how do you join them? What desires are touched in student centers and laboratories, in tutoring centers and dorm rooms? What do you do with those desires? How do you, in turn, use them to touch and re-make the world—even as it urges you to change? And what exactly does all this business about desire and world-making have to do with writing class?
Together, we will start our writing work by reading several texts and asking a bunch of questions. For example, what exactly does AnaLouise Keating mean by “status-quo stories”? What are the stories that tell us what it means to be “a good student,” “men,” “women,” “straight,” “lesbian,” “transgender,” “American,” “religious,” “secular,” “middle-class,” “white,” “black,” “Korean,” “Native,” “a global citizen,” or however else we or others might choose to identify ourselves. How do such stories “seduce us,” and how might our lives and others’ lives be otherwise—kinder and freer, more generous and more just—if we were able to imagine different stories? On what assumptions does Gloria Anzaldua base her suggestion that our inner lives and social change are deeply connected? How might we take up Audre Lorde’s challenge to generatively, and not reductively, acknowledge and account for differences as well as commonalities within a context of tremendous diversity? Why do Tony Jones and M. Jacqui Alexander both highlight the need for humility in claim-making and in work to make the world a more humane place? Just what is Jones’s problem with certainty? What “narrow boundaries” will we experience the impulse to cross?
Course Description and Rationale
WRT 105 is an introduction to academic writing that focuses on the practices of analysis and argument, practices that carry across disciplinary lines and into professional and civic writing. These interdependent practices of critical inquiry are fundamental to the work you will do at Syracuse University and later in your careers and civic engagements.
Critical inquiry is not a stale and dull endeavor. It’s dynamic and contingent, shifting and imaginative. I’m not talking about the imagination of Walt Disney, or the imagination needed to create the world of Harry Potter; it is the ability to acknowledge and make meaning out of difference, to grasp the complexity of issues and experiences, and to avoid the impulse to reject the unfamiliar. We develop such an imagination by being willing to look closely and critically at the world around us, and to ask questions of what we see, experience, and assume. Such imagination is not the stuff of flip-floppers or those too hesitant to take a stand. It’s the stuff of real kindness and compassion, generous reading and engaged writing. It’s the stuff of scholars and citizens.
Analysis, as Rosenwasser and Stephen claim in Writing Analytically 5th edition, “is a form of detective work that typically pursues something puzzling, something you are seeking to understand rather than something you are already sure you have the answers to. Analysis finds questions where there seem not to be any, and it makes connections that might not have been evident at first” (4). You analyze when you think carefully enough to recommend a course to a friend, or explore why a particular college sports team is so dominant, or decide who you will vote for in the local election, or come to understand better the geopolitical situation produced by the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Argument involves analysis – and moves into making claims to a specific audience about how the world is or should be. In other words, by engaging in argument, you become a maker of worlds. And careful analysis allows your world-making work to be much more thoughtful and ethical as well as more abundant. Argument here goes beyond pro/con debates on abortion or gun control and extends into situated social practices (and we might think of them as informed by status-quo stories) such as deciding who your sorority will invite as panelists for its diversity forum, or persuading your parents that, or taking a stand in an education class on the value of anti-racist pedagogy, or making the case that “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a suitable policy for the US military. Evidence for your arguments comes from analysis, from discussion with others, from your personal experience, and from research in the library and on the web.
Course Goals for WRT 105
• Students will compose a variety of texts as a process (inventing, drafting, revising, editing) that takes place over time, that requires thinking and rethinking ideas, and that addresses diverse audiences and rhetorical contexts.
• Students will develop a working knowledge of strategies and genres of critical analysis and argument.
• Students will learn critical techniques of reading through engagement with texts that raise issues of diversity and community and encourage students to make connections across difference.
• Students will include critical research in their composing processes.
Work of the Course
You will devote time, thought, and energy to a variety of informal and formal reading and writing practices. During the course you might be asked to annotate readings, keep a record of ideas and responses, jot down observations, take notes on class discussions, experiment with different styles and organizational choices, and engage in a variety of drafting and revision activities. All these activities are important and will have an impact on your development and success as academic writers (and your final grade). As you will see in the grade breakdown below, 30% of your final grade comes from invention work and reflection, work which I will collect on a regular basis and grade on a check scale: check (assignment was completed with some thoughtfulness and/or competence), check + (assignment demonstrates exceptional engagement and thought), check – (assignment shows minimal effort). You will get a zero for work you do not complete or that you don’t submit on time.
Writing well depends upon reading well. The course texts will provide you with ideas and arguments, facts and statistics. They will prompt thought as you agree or disagree or qualify those ideas. They enlarge the context for our class discussion. And they illustrate choices other writers have made as they composed. Writing and reading are interdependent practices, and you will move between the two regularly throughout the course.
Course Texts and Materials
(available at both the University Bookstore and Follett’s Orange Bookstore)
Blakesly, David & Jeffrey Hoogeveen. Writing: A Manual for the Digital Age
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. Writing Analytically, 5th ed.
Readings from Blackboard (print these out or download them to your laptop)
You should also be prepared to provide copies of your work for everyone in the class (or in your peer response group) at various times during the semester. These can be xerox copies (CNY Printing and Copy Services in Marshall Square Mall, Alteracts, and the library offer low cost, self-service copying) or additional copies printed out from your computer. Plan on spending as much as $20 over the course of the semester.
Feedback
You will receive many different kinds of feedback during this course. Some will come from fellow students and some will come from me. Both are important; they tell you in various ways how your readers are responding to your writing. This feedback will also help you learn how to assess your own work.
Communications
I reserve 8:30-9 a.m. Mon-Thur, 9:30-10 a.m. Fri, and 1-2pm Saturday for responding to emails and phone calls. However, I’m not likely to get phone messages after 3pm on Friday until Monday morning. I don’t check email on Sunday.
Grading
The breakdown is as follows:
| Unit 1: jumpstart essay | 10% |
| Unit 2: analysis essay | 30% |
| Unit 3: argument essay | 30% |
| Course invention work and reflections | 30% |
Attendance and Participation
Writing studios are courses in language learning, and language is learned in communities; therefore, it is essential that you attend class and participate. Absences and lack of preparation for class will affect your classmates' work as well as your own. The work you do in class, the work you do to prepare for each class, is as important as any polished assignment you turn in for a grade. In addition, our syllabus is only a projection and may be subject to occasional changes and revisions as it seems appropriate, necessary, or just interesting. That is another reason why your attendance is vital.
If you must miss a class, you are responsible for work assigned. Please realize, however, that class time cannot be reconstructed or made up, and that your performance, your work, and your final course grade will be affected by absences. If you miss the equivalent of three weeks of classes or more without any official documented excuse it is unlikely you will pass the course. I don’t anticipate any of you will be in that position, however, so let’s all agree to do the work, come to class, learn a lot, and make the course a meaningful experience.
Blackboard
Our course is loaded on blackboard, a University on-line teaching support system. I will teach you how to access our section of WRT 105 on blackboard, and will then expect you to be able to locate, download, and link to a range of course materials with some regularity throughout the semester. I will also contact you regularly via the blackboard course listserv, which has already been created using each student’s “syr” email address. Please check your syr account at least once daily throughout the fall.
The url for blackboard is
Once you access the main page you will be asked for your user ID and password. The following is from the student help page of blackboard:
Once a student registers for a course that is using Blackboard, a student account is set up for them and they are automatically enrolled in the appropriate course(s). Users login to Blackboard using their NetID and password. Your NetID is the portion of your SU email that appears before the @syr.edu. Your NetID password is also your Blackboard password. If you do not know what your NetID and password are, visit the ITS website at http://its.syr.edu/netid/to obtain this information. You can also obtain this information by calling 443-2677, or by going to the Student Computing Support Center in your dormitory.
Commenting on Student Writing
You will engage in great deal of formal and informal writing over the course of the semester. How I respond to this work will differ depending on whether it’s a freewrite or a report on a topic assigned for homework or a discussion lead handout or a brief synthesis paper or a unit essay. Sometimes I will return short assignments with a sentence or two at the end, asking a question or responding with a comment about the ideas in the piece and their development. Sometimes I may return them with no comments, but with a check on top and will use your writing to inform how we discuss something in the next class meeting (and I try to make the connections between your writing and how they shape our class agenda clear). In marginal comments (those items written next to specific sections of your text) and endnotes (comments written at the end of the paper with the whole piece in mind) to rough and final drafts of your essays, after identifying those elements of your work that are strong and praiseworthy or show promise, I will call your attention to areas where you could extend or complicate your thinking and development as well as issue you challenges to consider for future writing. Sentence level, usage, and grammar concerns do matter, and we will work on those issues. However, I’m not in the business of “fixing” papers because your writing is not broken.
Returning Graded Work
Given how little time we have in summer sessions and the intensity of doing fifteen weeks worth of material in six weeks, I will strive to get your graded assignments back to you as quickly as possible. If you wish to speak with me about my comments on any graded assignment or the grade itself, wait a minimum of 24 hours before contacting me. Getting papers back is often an emotional as well as intellectual experience—the heart beats faster, the pulse races a bit, the stomach moves. This lag time allows you a chance to process my assessment of your work and to clearly express any questions or concerns you might have.
Special Needs and Situations
Students who need special consideration because of any sort of disability or situation should make an appointment to see me right away.
Use of Student Writing
It is understood that registration for and continued enrollment in this course constitutes permission by the student for the instructor to use any student work constructed as a result of said enrollment in the course.
Computer Use
Most of the work you do for this class will be handed in word processed. Use an easily readable font, size 12 point. Include one inch margins and follow the page layout used by the MLA format described in your handbook.
We will also be using email for contact outside class. Use email to contact me about your coursework, to set up an appointment to meet with me outside class, or to ask a question.
Finally, we will be looking at a variety of sites on the Internet at times during the course. Please let me know if you have not had any experience using a browser such as Netscape or Explorer.
While computers save us great amounts of time over typewriters and make corrections much simpler, they are also susceptible to crashing and freezing. Save your work frequently, always make backup copies, and plan your projects with extra time allowed for those inevitable glitches.
The Writing Center
Experienced writing consultants at the Writing Center (101 HB Crouse Hall, on the Quad) can teach you how to succeed on individual assignments and ultimately become a better writer. They’re prepared to work one-on-one with you at any stage of your process and with any kind of writing you’re attempting while attending SU. Whether you need help understanding an assignment, brainstorming ideas, revising subsequent drafts, or developing editing strategies, face-to-face and online appointments are available for 25- or 50-minute sessions throughout the semester and can be reserved up to seven days in advance via their online scheduling program, WCOnline. In addition, drop-in appointments are welcome Monday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and brief concerns or questions can be emailed to consultants via the eWC. For more information on hours, location and services, please visit http://wc.syr.edu. This is a free resource to all students and highly recommended for every assignment you work on in this class.
Academic Integrity
All writing submitted for this course is understood to be your original work. In cases where academic dishonesty is detected (the fraudulent submission of another's work, in whole or part, as your own), you may be subject to a failing grade for the project or the course, and in the worst case, to academic probation or expulsion. For a more detailed description of the guidelines for adhering to academic integrity in the College of Arts and Sciences, go to:
