CLL 405 Writing for Environmental Science Professionals
Sec 01 TuTh 9:30 - 10:50 BRAY 300
SEMESTER: Spring 2009
INSTRUCTOR: Donald K. Wagner
OFFICE: 340A HBCrouse Hall
Office phone: 443-4946
Home phone: 1-315-337-6463 (before 9 p.m.)
Email address: dkwagner@syr.edu
BLOG: cll405.blogspot.com
Course Objectives:
In this writing course, students have an opportunity to examine their own writing processes, learning to revise and edit their own work. Students improve their writing through peer review, audience analysis, revision, and collaborative work. We look carefully at style, organization, grammar/punctuation, format, and development. Students critique the writing of their peers (both in the classroom and in the field).
Students have the opportunity to analyze writing as a way of learning and thinking. Science and scientific thinking are bound up with the way we live our lives. Science occupies a particularly influential position in our modern world, whose power is not always evident, and whose effects are often beyond our understanding. So, in this course we analyze the way language is used by the environmental science community and examine some of the communication problems between the environmental science community and the rest of the world. We use writing to examine controversial issues and challenge some of the basic assumptions held by the environmental science community.
Writing projects include: a written interview with a professional, blog comments about course topics, class minutes, a grade contract, summaries, brief argumentative essays, email memos, definitions, effective analysis and proposal, abstract, report, and oral presentation.
Textbooks:
Online Technical Writing (http://www.io.com/~hcexres/textbook/)
Science and Society, Richard Grinnell, 2007
The Technical Communication Handbook, Laura Gurak, 2009
This course prepares ESF students for the transition to post-college writing by having students learn to write and to communicate in an heteromedia environment, with an emphasis on electronic communication. Heteromedia, in this situation, refers to the variety of ways that we communicate in the workplace, face-to-face, by cel & telephone, text messaging, business memos and letters, Email, bulletin boards, conferences, iChat, blogs, weblogs, informal meetings, podcasts, video, videoconferencing, etc. It is a complex technological environment, which crosses spatial and temporal boundaries. Heteromedia is a word processor, an idea processor, a graphics designer, a resource library. Heteromedia environments become dynamic and interactive.
Students taking this course will plan, write, and revise documents and also practice related skills, including analyzing audiences and evaluating documents (their own and those of others) electronically, that is, via the computer. As an advanced writing course, it offers guidelines for clear writing and practice in revising and editing, but assumes that the student knows basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation. (It assumes students can use spell & grammar checkers online.) Students will be expected to use handbooks and dictionaries (electronic or paper) on their own or to take advantage of the writing consultant resources offered by the university writing program.
Along with some skill in writing in heteromedia environments, I hope you'll experience:
1. Language Awareness--With regard to language as a major part of the acquisition of culture, how concerned have I been with what might be called, "signal transmission?" In other words, who am I as a writer (researcher, professional)? What signals am I transmitting to others via my writing--about myself as a person, about my topic? What shifts in language do I make when I shift modes or genres of writing? For example, why do I make a particular choice or decision while writing? Do I know and understand the range of possibilities when I write for a different purpose.
2. Audience Awareness--Furthermore, who am I writing for? Who is my audience? What is that person's position, not only within the organizational hierarchy, but also within the social structure and accompanying social network? Who is my reader culturally? What about cultural influences such as social class, politics, gender? Do I understand the cultural perspective of my audience? Am I aware that they have one? What is my own cultural perspective?
What does this tell me about objectivity? Is there such a thing as value-free research and writing? Is such a thing desirable or even necessary? If my writing doesn't express some commitment to a value position, whether consciously or unconsciously, is it useful?
3. Situation Awareness--How do I write? How do I fit my writing into the culturally determined structure we call the organization–the classroom, the office, the government, etc.? What are my cultural values that I bring to my professional endeavors, including my professional writing? How do I shape, and how am I shaped, by the situation? Readings and discussions may explore how our own attitudes are shaped by the socio-politico climate and prevailing attitudes toward the environment.
How do others write? What do they do with the 9-5 structure of the workaday world? Suppose I write best at 3 a.m., but I have a deadline for a piece of writing on 2 p.m. on Friday? How can I fit my writing style into the needs of my profession? How do others do it?
What do I need/want to learn to write? What will be most useful to me in my profession? What types of writing belong in my professional portfolio, and what belongs elsewhere? Can I become aware of my own writing process and my own objectivity or lack of it? How far can I go in learning to be more objective, and in learning about other perspectives?
Course Activities:
Course activities will include becoming familiar with electronic communications, in-class writing and revising, assigned readings and original research. You will be expected to make the transition from writing in a "low-tech" medium (with pen and paper) to a "high tech" medium–the computer. Warning: Please expect to do most of your writing outside of class. Although you will be writing during class and in the computer lab, you will not be able to complete all the writing necessary for this course during class time. That means you will have to access computers outside of class time–in the evenings and on weekends. A good deal of class time will be spent rehearsing various heteromedia communications, as well as related activities, like conferencing with me, or with members of your group. At other times, you will be free to manage your time and organize your communications tasks independently.
You will be assigned to a peer group of other students who can act as readers/respondents to drafts, who can help brainstorm ideas for a writing project; who can keep you informed of class assignments or announcements if you should have to miss a class. As part of the course, you'll be expected to discourse with me via email or our blog about your texts. You may also be required to receive help with your writing from the Writing Project. That help may be tutoring, either in person, or electronically, depending on the writing consultant's preference.
Over the semester, you will have assigned readings as well as occasional additional readings including poetry and prose by selected writers, poets and essayists of the 19th and 20th centuries who use nature or the environment as their subject, as well as addressing the writing process, trends in communication, and locating and presenting yourself as a professional who writes. These additional readings will be either available electronically or put on reserve in Moon (or Bird) Library. Responses to the readings may be requested, and we may discuss some in class.
Description of Assignments
Class Discussion & Class Minutes
Participate in the oral and written class discussions. At the beginning of each class, we’ll read the minutes from the previous class, engage in a commentary (questions, insights, observations), and then post it to our blog. We’ll alternate responsibility among class members for taking, reading and discussing class minutes.
Comparative Analysis Summary
The comparative analysis is a summative evaluation of a scientific, technical, or other type of text. Each student will take a turn discussing a selection from Grinnell’s anthology or bringing to class an example of an assigned text: poem, environmental policy statement, non-fiction book, scientific article, etc., ready to share and discuss with the group, elements of writing: the chosen genre, the purpose, audience, language, tone, readability, etc. of the text and whether it does its job of communicating its message to the reader well, or not well.
Grade Contract – you will write a grade contract based on the following information about grading for this course.
The final grade for this course is performance-based. Some course tasks are process-oriented, so participating in group activity is necessary to achieve the minimum grade. Each student will compose a literacy autobiography in the first few weeks of the course, which will include a grade rationale, citing the grade you will work towards, a reason you want the grade, skills you want to improve, and expectations you have for this course. At semester's end, you will write a final reflection and self-evaluation of your performance in the course, and will have an opportunity to adjust your original grade rationale based on that self-evaluation.
Final decisions about grades are reserved for the instructor who will use the following rough guidelines when determining if the grade you've contracted for was earned:
To receive a "C" in the course, a student must participate in *all classes and conferences, respond to selected reading materials, satisfactorily complete all assignments on time, and turn in a portfolio at semester's end with a self-evaluation. To receive a "B," students must follow all points mentioned for the "C" grade, as well as revise any texts determined by the instructor to be "unsuccessful." To receive an "A," students must agree to all the requirements for "C" and "B" and have all final drafts in "publishable" form.
Since professionals don't receive a "grade" on the writing they produce, I will be evaluating your documents initially on the basis of their "success." The appearance of √+ will indicate that a paper is very successful (professional), needing little or no revision. A √ will indicate that the document is successful, and with some revision, would be acceptable. A √- will indicate that a paper needs major revision, and is at this time, unsuccessful. Students will revise texts up until the final portfolio review. The portfolio will be worth 50% of your final grade. Class participation, being involved in discussion and class-related activities, will be worth 30% and the end-of-semester presentation will be worth 20%.
*Please note that attendance can have a direct impact on your grade. If you're not in class, you cannot properly "participate." Therefore, more than 3 absences, except in documented emergency situations, will necessarily lower a final grade.
Summary, analysis, and description will focus initially on the readings from the Grinnell anthology. From the readings we will generate discussions about how science impacts our natural environment, and examine how the essays present issues that engage us. Using the readings as models, we will bring to surface rhetorical strategies and try to understand the relationship between those strategies and science.
Memos – status reports are a type of short report used in the workplace to report to a client or a manager, where a particular project is in terms of start up and completion. Students will send email status reports to me on a regular basis to determine their status with regard to keeping the terms of their grade contacts.
Proposals – students will learn how to use a direct and/or indirect approach when writing a proposal for their final topic. The final topic will be discussed in class, but will be defined and described in a formal proposal.
Final Report – students will draft a formal final report based on general guidelines for these documents and following the requirements for good written communication considering purpose, audience, socio-political attitudes, etc. This report will be about a topic approved by me, and will be submitted in sections (abstract, table of contents, illustrations, introduction, body sections, conclusion, bibliography, etc,) during the second half of the semester, with the final version due the last day of class. That way, components can be revised in a timely fashion.
Technical elements – some elements of good technical writing will be discussed and rehearsed. We’ll examine graphic display of information (e.g., charts, graphs, etc.), talk about visual literacy, and practice representing some of our data graphically. Also, we’ll analyze the readability factors of our final report using the Gunning Fog Index, and practice making more educated judgments about reading levels.
Oral Presentation – the elements of a good oral presentation will be discussed and rehearsed in the presenting of your final report to your professional/lay persons audience.
Schedule Week by Week
Week One (w/o Jan13) – introductions to course, grade contract, elements of good professional and technical communication, establish procedures for class minutes, class discussions, and variable assignments. Interview professional, considering social and writing “practices”.
Week Two (w/o Jan20) – Begin comparative analyses –on Index of TCH, on Definition (TCH 523-24), Chapter 1(S&S) and will continue each week unless otherwise announced. Short summaries and memos.
Week Three (w/o Jan27) – Comparative analysis, Description (TCH 15-17), Chapter 4 (S&S) via email.
Week Four (w/o Feb3) – Comparative analysis, Chapter 2 (S&S), Argumentation & Persuasion tactics (TCH 15-17)
Week Five (w/o Feb10) – Comparative analysis, Chapters 3 & 5 (S&S), proposals
Week Six (w/o Feb17) - Comparative analysis, proposals cont’d, conferencing – proposal topics due.
Week Seven (w/o Feb24) - Comparative analysis, Final Report topics discussed and begin research methods. Research Strategies & tools (TCH Chapter 4)
Week Eight (w/o Mar3) Comparative analysis, Elements of Long Reports – abstracts, introductions, conclusions.
March 9-14 – SPRING BREAK
Week Nine (w/o Mar17) Comparative analysis, Elements of Long Reports – methods, discussion, graphics and tables, conferencing
Week Ten (w/o Mar24) Comparative analysis, preparing an oral presentation
Week Eleven (w/o Mar31) Comparative analysis, work on final reports and presentations.
Week Twelve (w/o Apr7) Comparative analysis, work on final reports and presentations.
Week Thirteen (w/o Apr14) – Visual media and presentations and on self-evaluation to justify your grade contract - conferencing
Week Fourteen (w/ Apr21) – Begin Oral Presentations
Week Fifteen (w/o Apr28) – Oral Presentations, turn in written final report and summative evaluation.
