course information
Course Numbers: WA 01301, Section 4, 22641
Course Hours: W 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Course Location: Education Hall 2108
Printable Syllabus: wolff-wrt-syllabus-s08.pdf
Required Texts | Office Hours | Contacting Each Other | Students with Disabilities | Attendance and Late Work | Grading
Required Texts and Materials
All texts are available at the Rowan Bookstore or at your preferred online bookstore.
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Sante, L. (2006). Evidence: NYPD Crime Scene Photographs: 1914-1918. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (Note: This title is very hard to get. Do not wait for the bookstore to get it. You can buy used copies online from bn.com (hard cover or paperback) or amazon.com. There are also several copies available on reserve in the library.)
Tufte, E. (2006). Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics P, 2006.
- Various photocopies and online readings.
- Computer with Internet access
- Microsoft Word or any of many online alternatives (papers must be turned in in .doc or .rtf; no other formats will be accepted)
- Rowan email address
- Other materials as needed
Office Hours
Office hours are designed for you, giving you a more private environment in which we may talk about your work, your performance in class, etc. If you are unable to see me during my office hours, do not hesitate to make an appointment to see me at a different time. We will have at least one required conference during the second half of the semester.
Contacting Each Other
There will be times during the semester when I will need to contact the class and you will need to contact me. I will contact you via your Rowan email account, so please be sure that you are checking it regularly and/or forwarding it to the email service you use most regularly. I am in my office only during office hours and the brief times before and after class. As a result, calling me in my office will not get you an immediate response.
I strongly suggest you contact me via email, which I check every all day long. Email, however, tends to be seen as an informal medium. This, however, should not always be the case. All emails that I send to you will have a meaningful subject line and a proper salutation (“Hi Class,” or “Hi Jane,” etc.). The first sentence will notify you of the purpose of the email, and then will get to the heart of the matter. It will end with a formal closing (“Thanks, BW”). I expect the same from any email you send. Any email that does not will immediately be deleted and not responded to.
Students with Disabilities
Your academic success is important. If you have a documented disability that may have an impact upon your work in this class, please contact me. Students must provide documentation of their disability to the Academic Success Center in order to receive official University services and accommodations. The Academic Success Center can be reached at 856.256.4234. The Center is located on the 3rd Floor of Savitz Hall. The staff is available to answer questions regarding accommodations or assist you in your pursuit of accommodations. We look forward to working with you to meet your learning goals.
Attendance and Late Work
Much of your time in class will be spent in activities, not in lectures. Therefore, it is more than usually important that you come to class faithfully and that you participate in the activities planned. If genuine disaster should befall you and you must miss a class, please check with other students and the course web site to find out what you have missed.
After FOUR absences for any reason you will fail the course. After ONE absence your final grade will drop one full grade for every absence. For example, if a student has 2 absences, they will receive no higher than a B in the course; 3 absences no higher than C; 4 absences no higher than a D. A student is considered late if they arrive after the sign-up sheet has gone around the room; lateness equals .5 absences.
For every missing major assignment (including peer responses, rough drafts, and final drafts) your grade will be lowered by one full letter grade. For every 3 missing other assignments (including weekly blog postings) your grade will be lowered by one full letter grade. It is better to complete an assignment late then to not complete it at all.
Grading
Grades in this course are determined on the basis of a Learning Record, which accompanies a portfolio of work presented both at the midterm and at end of term. These portfolios present a selection of your work, both formal and informal, plus ongoing observations about your learning, plus an analysis of your work development across five dimensions of learning: confidence and independence, knowledge and understanding, skills and strategies, use of prior and emerging experience, and reflectiveness. This development centers on the major strands of work:
Rhetoric
Students will develop their ability to look critically at the way text and images are represented in various media, and will gain the tools necessarily to discuss what they observe in rhetorical terms.
Research
This course will consider research in terms of its definition "to reconsider or to look at anew" and not in terms of conducting library or internet research. By placing texts in conversation with one another students will develop an ability to re-consider an author’s ideas.
Critical Thinking, Writing, and Reading
Students will develop their ability to analyze events in the media and in the texts they read and then filter that information in terms of the theories and other texts being read. Students will learn to write academic expository texts in which they uses sources–both scholarly and primary–to support and further their own ideas on a subject.
Technology
Students learn how to use various online tools and technology-related skills which can help them develop their abilities in the other course objectives.
Collaboration
Students will develop the ability to work collaboratively in activities that range from online discussion postings to peer reviews to in-class discussion.
All work is expected to be the student’s own. Any plagiarism—intended or not—will result in a failing grade for the course.