First-Year Seminar: Language's Power to Write Our Worlds |
English 140 Fall 2003 Professor Portnoy Email Address: alisse@umich.edu Office: 4172 Angell Hall, 763-4279 Office Hours: Tuesdays 10 - 11 am and Thursdays by appointment between 4 and 6 pm |
Course Information |
Welcome If you participate fully in this course and complete the course requirements successfully, you can expect to understand language as action, rather than as representation. You will begin to imagine language as a means by which power dynamics are created, deployed, sustained, altered, and redeployed and even as a means by which we can create, deploy, sustain, alter, and redeploy power dynamics. You will be able to describe (at an introductory level) the ways that language operates to constitute, normalize, prescribe, restrict, facilitate, and support identities and worldviews. You will increase your abilities to critically evaluate the discourse that surrounds and influences you, and to transfer the knowledge you learn in the classroom to other areas of your studies and your life. Because our reading, listening, discussing, observing, concluding, interpreting, inquiring, and evaluating will be intense and sometimes quite challenging, you will improve your oral, aural, and written communication skills. And, if all goes as planned, you (and I) will have a great time and be inspired to continue thinking about language’s power to write our worlds for years to come. |
What Does it Mean that this Course is a First-Year
Seminar? I want to emphasize three things central to my understanding of academic life at Michigan that will be a part of our first-year seminar. First, being at a great research university means that you are surrounded by some of the most intellectually active and varied thinkers in the world—and I mean the people sitting next to you in class and in the Union, as well as the teachers of your classes. Talk with them and listen to them! Get started by actively participating in our class discussions. Second, to do the kind of intellectual work required of UM students, you’ll need to think critically: go beyond memorization, passive acceptance of ideas, and old patterns of thinking. Critical thinking means that you are evaluating, comparing, synthesizing, and integrating. It doesn’t require that you change your mind, but it does require that you understand and own your ideas, rather than accept without question ideas other people espouse. Critical thinking is an active process, and one which you must practice in this class to meet its requirements. Third, intellectually engaged people don’t make sharp distinctions between their academic and “extracurricular” lives. They think critically about things outside the classroom walls. They transfer the knowledge they learn in class or in their scholarship to other aspects of their lives. To that end, you will bring materials in to class that you encounter outside of class. You will use those materials to better understand the concepts we’re studying in class. You’ll also use the concepts we’re studying in class to better understand those materials. That interactive work will take place informally every day, and formally in at least one presentation you will make to the class. |
Texts for the Course The readings have been compiled for your convenience and they are being stored at Excel, a test preparation and copy center. You may use this set of readings to make a copy for yourself at Excel. Their copies cost $.07 per page, with optional additional charges if you want your copies bound or three-whole punched. Excel is located at 1117 South University Avenue, above Ulrich’s computer and engineering store. Their phone number is 996-1500. Other texts will be available online, on reserve, or through venues including the University’s Film and Video Library. Details on these texts will be announced during the semester. I ask people to refer directly to texts during discussion. Please bring assigned texts to class so that you easily and quickly can find the passage(s) or image(s) under consideration. |
Primary Activities Texts Presentations Exams Essays Participation Some active participation is taken as a given. Intelligent, frequent participation which forwards class discussion or consideration of relevant issues will raise your grade (questions you ask, by the way, may be as interesting as the answers we come up with). Failure to participate at a basic leve, including by virtue of excessive absences, will reduce your grade, as will negative or inappropriate participation. I expect you to come to each session prepared, with assignments completed. I also expect you to be attentive and responsive to other members of this class—your colleagues. This classroom must be one of mutual respect and open exchange. The University's Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities explains that the University of Michigan "is dedicated to supporting and maintaining a scholarly community. As its central purpose, this community promotes intellectual inquiry through vigorous discourse. Values which undergird this purpose include civility, dignity, diversity, education, equality, freedom, honesty, and safety." If you have any questions, please review this Statement at <http://www.umich.edu/~oscr/20010701SRR.html> or call the Office of Student Conflict Resolution at 936- 6308. Attendance You may have two absences without penalty. Do not miss your scheduled presentation or an exam. For each absence after the first two, your final grade will be lowered by one-third of a grade (for example, a “B” becomes a “B-”). Two late arrivals or early departures (of less than fifteen minutes) convert to one absence. If you miss more than fifteen minutes of a class, you will be considered absent. Adapting the Course Procedures and Requirements |
Services for Students with Disabilities |
Office Hours I will hold office hours throughout the semester. Office hours are an extension of the classroom. You are welcome to come by with questions, comments, and concerns. If you are enjoying a reading and would like to discuss it further, if you are having a problem with something in the course, if you don't understand something, please come and see me. |
Communication I will use email to contact class members in case class is canceled because of snow or some other emergency, or if I want to pass on useful information about the course. I also will post this sort of information on the website for the course, http://www.umich.edu/~alisse/ENGL140f03/index.html. With Your Classmates |
Grading |
Academic Integrity Academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, cheating, double submission of papers, aiding and abetting dishonesty, and fabrication, will not be tolerated. Please read carefully the Department of English Language and Literature's memo on plagiarism which is posted at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/undergraduate/plag.htm. If you have any questions about "what counts," see me. |
Some Final Notes Changes in the Policies and Schedule of Assignments |
Most recent update: August 26, 2003.