WRT 205-283 Syllabus, Spring 2004

Rebecca Moore Howard
Office: 237 HB Crouse
Office hours: Tuesdays 1:15-2:15; Thursdays 11:15-2:15; and by appointment
Telephone: 443-1620
E-mail: rehoward@syr.edu
Home page http://wrt-howard.syr.edu

Syllabus
WRT 205-283
Critical Inquiry and Research:
Engaging Presidential Politics

Assignment schedules

Attendance policy

Spring 2004
Time: TTh 2:30-3:40
Place: 323 HB Crouse
Course website: http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Syllabi/205S04/Syl205S04.html

Course description

Writing 205 is about research as critical inquiry. This course recognizes that we all now compose in an informationally rich environment. We have to learn to access information on the web, in databases, at the library, and through primary research such as interviews and surveys. We have to contend with print, visual, digital, and oral sources. We have to assess those sources knowledgeably and critically. We have to locate ourselves in the middle of complex and competing claims, and produce texts in various genres (white papers, cartoons, reports, argumentative essays, etc.) that advance our collective understanding of these claims and arguments.

In this section of WRT 205, you will learn and practice these techniques of writing and critical inquiry by investigating the U.S. Presidential campaign that is underway. We'll ask questions such as these:

How might you vote in this election--or how might you vote, if you were eligible to? On what principles will or would you make a decision? What would motivate you to go to the polls--or to stay away?
What issues are the candidates taking up? How specific are their stands on these issues? How do their positions resemble and differ from those of other candidates?
What issues are not being taken up by the candidates, and why?
How do the issues taken up in this election compare to those of previous presidential campaigns?
How do the issues taken up in this election compare to those in the political campaigns of other countries?
How is this campaign being covered in the U.S. press?
How is this campaign being covered in the international press?
How much access do we have to the candidates' actual speeches on campaign topics?
What can we learn about this campaign by looking back at previous presidential campaigns?
What can we learn about this campaign by consulting scholarship on political campaigns, political rhetoric, the role of the media, and the issues being debated by the candidates?
How much attention should we pay to how candidates present their ideas? How much attention should we pay to their choices of language and visual images?
How does the candidates' rhetoric represent ideas like community, freedom, America, and democracy?
How much is the current campaign about the personal characteristics of the candidates? How might the country (and the world) benefit from more or less attention to these personal characteristics?
How big an influence should public opinion exert in elected officials' decisions?
How big an influence should corporate interests exert in elected officials' decisions?
How important (or not) is it for individuals to become informed about or involved in presidential politics?
What kinds of information should be most important to voters' decisions?
How can voters gain access to the information they need for making well-informed decisions?

The research you do in this course will be various, drawing on personal reflection, library research, online research, archival research, and collaborative debate. You'll be working with print, digital, visual, and oral texts. My intention is for us to explore the connections and disconnections between our "private" lives, our academic studies, and our engagement in our civic and public spheres. Investigating the presidential primary campaign is a vehicle for developing that understanding. Whether, how, or why you vote is not an objective of this course, nor are your political convictions at issue in my evaluation of your work for WRT 205.

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Required texts

Anson, Chris M., Robert A. Schwegler, and Marcia Muth. The Longman Writer's Companion. 2nd ed. New York: Longman. This book is available at the university bookstore.
Howard, Rebecca Moore. Writing Matters: A Handbook for Writers. New York: McGraw-Hill, forthcoming. I'll make chapters available from this book as PDF files. There will be no charge for the chapters, but it will be your responsibility to print them out.
Copies of at least three national newsmagazines

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Grading

Grading in this course will be on the basis of my judgment of the quality of your assigned writing.

20% paper #1, due Thursday, February 5, 5:00 p.m.
25% paper #2, due Thursday, March 4, 5:00 p.m.
25% paper #3, due Thursday, April 8, 5:00 p.m.
30% final research paper, due Thursday, May 6, 12:15 p.m.

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Attendance policy

Our class convenes 29 times, including individual and small-group conferences. You should plan to attend all class meetings and conferences. Most of the informal writing you do in this course will be in class, often unannounced. You will not succeed in this class if you do not attend faithfully.

Important notes

Public writing: All the writing you do for this course will be public within the classroom. I will often make copies of class members' writing and distribute them for analysis. This analysis will never be critical in the sense of "tearing up the paper"; instead, we will approach class members' work in a spirit of inquiry, asking what options for revising the author has at his or her disposal. If you hand in work that you specifically do not want me to make public, please write a note at the top of the page to that effect--something like "private" or "confidential" will do.

Plagiarism: Work you submit for this course must have been written by you for this course. You may not submit work in this course and in another, and you may not submit under your name work written entirely or in part by someone else. These are ethical issues whose violation could result in disciplinary action against you.

Late papers: Your successful completion of this course depends upon your submitting assigned work on schedule. Late papers are a problem for your learning process and for my time management. I will accept late papers, but I may not return them until the end of the semester, and when I do return them, it will be with a grade but no comments. Still, if you find yourself in a situation in which a paper is due but you haven't finished it, come to class anyhow; don't penalize yourself.

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Getting extra help

My office hours are listed at the top of this syllabus, and you should feel free to drop in during these hours to ask questions and get advice on work in progress. I will also be happy to consult with you on writing you are assigned in other courses. Let me know if you'd like an appointment outside office hours. And feel free to ask questions over email; I'm online a lot and will usually be able to respond fairly quickly.

Also avail yourself freely of the resources provided by the Writing Center (101 HB Crouse Hall), which is open from 9-9, Monday through Wednesday, and 9-5, Thursday and Friday. The consultants there can help you not only with your writing but also with your research. And from 6:30-8:30 each Wednesday evening, librarian Wendy Bousfield will be available in the Writing Center to answer research questions.

Whenever Bird Library is open, its reference librarians are on duty to help you choose, narrow, and develop a topic and to help you locate and evaluate sources. Online assistance is also available, and the library's homepage provides a list of "research tools" that will be invaluable to your work in this course.

Assignment schedules

Unit 1, January 13-February 4, "Media Coverage of the Presidential Primary"
Unit 2, February 5-March 4, "Political Rhetoric"
Unit 3, March 16-April 6, "Engaging the Issues"
Unit 4, April 8-May 6, "Taking a Stand"

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Back to Rebecca Moore Howard's homepage

http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Syllabi/205S04/Syl205S04.html