Course Outline

Schedule Expectations

Subject to Override by Daily Agendas

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Deadlines

MIDNIGHT SUN and MIDNIGHT TUE.
Unless otherwise indicated in the official assignment, the deadline for “weekend assignments” is Sunday just before midnight. The deadline for “midweek assignments” is midnight Tuesday.

Weekend Assignments:
For example, if an assignment is due before class MON JAN 28
the deadline for publishing your draft is 11:59PM SUN JAN 27.

Midweek Assignments:
For example, if an assignment is due before class WED JAN 30,
the deadline for publishing your draft is 11:59AM TUE JAN 29.

Penalties

Portfolio Assignments:
The Short Arguments and other Portfolio items will undergo revisions during the semester, so grade penalties and deadlines are somewhat flexible. One thing is certain: Portfolio materials MUST be available for professor feedback and student revision WELL BEFORE the end of the semester.

No student can pass the course whose work has not been reviewed early in the semester and thoroughly revised in response to feedback. The penalty, therefore, for failure to post drafts and revisions timely will ultimately be a course grade of F.

Students who are not keeping up with the publication schedule will be advised to drop the course during the Withdrawal or Late Withdrawal periods to avoid ultimate failure.

Non-Portfolio Assignments:
The Stone Money Argument, the Purposeful Summary Assignment, the Critical Reading Assignment, and several other tasks are not eligible for Rewrites and will not be part of the end-of-season Portfolio. For these Non-Portfolio assignments, late penalties are severe but the impact is smaller than for Portfolio failure.

  • Early posts are eligible for early feedback before the first draft is graded.
  • On-time posts published before midnight or noon on the due date: Full Credit
  • 0-24. Posts published within 24 hours of the deadline: 10% Grade Penalty
  • 24-48. Posts published 24-48 hours late: 20% Grade Penalty
  • 48+. Posts published more than 48 hours late: Maximum grade 50 for a perfect essay (can’t pass regardless of quality)

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Daily Class Plans

Week 1

CLASS 01 | WED JAN 22

  • Class Photos
  • Text your Professor at (856) 979-6653
    • Text your Name plus C2 SP18
  • Introduction to Blogging
    • Open and Write a Post
    • Check off the appropriate Categories
    • Publish
    • Open in Edit, Revise, Update
    • Find in the Sidebar
  • Lecture/Demonstration: Narrowing the Topic to a Counterintuitive Hypothesis
  • Task: My Hypothesis

Week 2

CLASS 02| MON JAN 27

CLASS 03| WED JAN 29

Week 3

CLASS 04| MON FEB 03

CLASS 05| WED FEB 05

  • Lecture/Demonstration: Stone Money
  • Class Discussion Stone Money Source Material
  • Task: Stone Money
    • Incorporate the lesson of Purposeful Summary
    • Use Informal In-Text Citation and References Page (APA style)

Week 4

CLASS 06| MON FEB 10

  • Blog Mechanics
    • Navigation Tips
    • Uncategorized
    • Feedback Please
  • A Good Hypothesis
    • Essay writing is like the scientific process, designed to test hypotheses with experiments, not prove preconceptions.
    • Research is the targeted search for evidence to test a hypothesis.
    • “Analyze Data and Draw Conclusions” (not “Prove Hypothesis”) is the last step.
  • Hypothesis Illustrated
  • USAID tested the theory that direct aid to the poor would improve childhood nutrition more than trying to engineer nutrition programs for them, on the theory that the poor know what to do; they simply lack the resources.
  • Writing Workshop
    • Cows and Chips
      • This post contains lecture material, demonstrations of the “Cows and Chips” technique in action, examples of advice I have given other student authors for enlivening their posts with livestock, and the details of a simple exercise.

CLASS 07| WED FEB 12

  • A Note about the Hypothesis / Research / Thesis Process
    • Identify a Hypothesis
    • Read in the topic
    • Investigate sources
    • The purpose of assigning a Hypothesis very early in the semester was not to put you behind or thwart your progress, it was to get the ball rolling.
    • Summarize sources in your White Paper
    • Let the research alter your hypothesis
    • Develop a thesis you can prove
    • Write early drafts along the way
    • Moving forward is always the solution
    • Revise your drafts as many times as needed
    • Combine short arguments into the 3000-word Research Paper
  • Today’s New Material
  • Task: Critical Reading, PTSD Claims

Week 5

CLASS 08| MON FEB 17

  • Research Tips
    • I Can’t Find Any Sources!
  • Writing Mechanics
  • The White Paper Task
    • White Paper First Draft
      • 5 New Sources
      • Link to sources in your White Paper
      • Sketch the Bibliographic data
      • Purposefully Summarize New Sources
      • Use Research Tips to find New Sources at Google Search or Rowan’s Campbell Library Database

CLASS 09| WED FEB 19

  • Wake up
  • Claims
    • Another look at the Claim Types list
      • Claims defined and modeled using the article “Is PTSD Contagious?” as its subject matter.
    • Link to the Lasik Surgery Claims Demonstration
      • A lecture on claims that includes a chart for applying several claims types to your own hypothesis.
  • Definition/Categorical Argument
    • Your Professor’s Model Definition Essay
      • Attempts to answer the question, “Does polio belong to the category of eradicable diseases?”
    • Model Definition/Categorical Essay
      • The editors of the New York Times defines a crucial constitutional term: protected class that deserves heightened scrutiny.

Week 6

CLASS 10| MON FEB 24

  • Housekeeping
    • 123 Uncheck this Box
    • Linking to sources in your posts
    • Feedback please
  • Visual Rhetoric

    • Visual Rhetoric Argument
    • Visual Rhetoric, Static Image
      • The first assignment destined to end up in your Portfolio will be the Visual Rhetoric analysis. You’ll receive provisional analysis of your first draft, then post a Visual Rhetoric Rewrite, which you’ll add to your Portfolio at the end of the semester.
    • A Sample Analysis: Thai Life Insurance
      • Here we examine just 10 seconds of a 2-minute long-form commercial produced by the Thai Life Insurance company to promote the universal human good of doing small selfless gestures for others. How in the world is that supposed to sell life insurance?
    • Portfolio Assignment Visual Rhetoric Argument

CLASS 11| WED FEB 26

Week 7

CLASS 12| MON MAR 02

CLASS 13| WED MAR 04

Week 8

CLASS 14| MON MAR 09

CLASS 15| WED MAR 11

SPRING BREAK
MON MAR 16—SAT MAR 21

Week 9

CLASS 16| MON MAR 23

CLASS 17| WED MAR 25

Week 10

CLASS 18| MON MAR 30

CLASS 19| WED APR 01

The Rhetoric Unit

Week 11

CLASS 20| MON APR 06

  • Rebuttal In-Class Workshop by Request

CLASS 21| WED APR 08

Week 12

CLASS 22| MON APR 13

  • Writing Advice
    • Just Passed Scenic Views
  • Writing Center Help When You Need It
  • Prepping for the Portfolio
    • White Paper Becomes Annotated Bibliography
  • Task: Annotated Bibliography
  • Wield Your Statistics
  • Examine An Argument: Ag-Gag Laws

CLASS 23| WED APR 15

Week 13

CLASS 24| MON APR 20

CLASS 25| WED APR 22

Week 14

CLASS 26| MON APR 27

  • Last Call for Course Evaluations of Instructor Effectiveness
  • Invitation to post at RateMyProfessor
  • Grade Levels 2
    • An “in reverse” unpacking of dense, content-rich statements into their component parts: backwards advice.
  • Stephen Hawking Was Wrong
    • Revision advice on how to grab reader attention with bold claims you can actually support.
  • Not a Crank
    • How to present your personal views without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.
  • A Good Model for Citation and References
    • BeezKneez has updated the in-text citations and References section to meet our class standards (even gone beyond our class standards for linking text to the sources).
  • Building Refutation Language into your Refutations
    • This links to the same post by BeezKneez as the Citation model above. Read the feedback chain for examples of “refuting while reporting” on the claims made by your “opponent.”

CLASS 27| WED APR 29

Portfolio Readiness Double-check

  • Open each Portfolio item in Edit one at a time.
  • For each item, check the category UsernamePortfolio, where Username is YOUR username, of course.
  • Remember to Update the item.
  • Look for your UsernamePortfolio in the blog sidebar with a number in parentheses indicating how many items it contains.
  • Your target number is 8 items.
    • (1) Self-Reflective Statement
    • (1) Research Position Paper
    • (2) Two Short Arguments (Definition, Causal, Refutation)
    • (2) The Rewrites for those Two Short Arguments
    • (1) Visual Rhetoric Rewrite
    • (1) Annotated Bibliography
  • Prof will Certify your Portfolio on WED MAY 01.
  • Your Grade Conference appointment can be Confirmed when your Portfolio is certified complete.
  • You will be dismissed.

Week 15—FINALS WEEK

CLASS 28| MON MAY 04

Final Grade Conferences

CLASS 29| WED MAY 06

Final Grade Conferences

Final Grades

GRADES POSTED TO BANNER BY MIDNIGHT FRI MAY 08