COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course introduces you to collaborative learning practices in higher education and academic publishing. You will reflect on your own learning and literacy histories to understand how your past experiences shape your current writing practices. In addition to reading examples of collaborative authorship, we will practice collaborative authorship in our classroom community. You should expect to write individually and in groups on multiple platforms using a range of tools (pen, paper, word-processing platforms, websites, AI, etc.).

COURSE OUTCOMES

This ENGL 201W course is designed to facilitate the following outcomes:

understand communication as a social act, where groups of people develop standards for writing in community with each other;refine collaboration skills, including active listening, addressing conflict, and respect for others in the service of a common goal;attain competency in understanding audience and genre expectations in a variety of modalities and rhetorical situations; andgain greater understanding of writing as a recursive process of invention and revision.

COURSE DESIGN & GRADING POLICY

Assignment	Points
Participation & Class Work	25
Blog Posts: 10 short responses of individual writing over the course of the term	50
Project 1: Discourse Community Analysis	75
Project 2: Collaborative Histories Project	100
Coding Towards Project 3	25
Project 3: Autoethnographic Essay	125
TOTAL POINTS	400

All content related to our course will appear on our course website, with additional readings and materials provided on BrightSpace.

To fulfill the Participation & Class Work portion of your grade, I ask that you attend every class session on time and stay in class until the end of the period. Students receive 1 point for every day they are in class on time, prepared to take notes, have the day’s readings and writing assignments available, work productively with fellow students, listen attentively to what others have to say, and contribute meaningfully to class discussion.

For our purposes, a Blog Post is informal writing of about 300 words (or about two paragraphs). You will write 10 blog posts over the course of the semester, each one worth 5 points. You will earn the full credit for these posts by addressing the prompt and including the appropriate assigned source. Most of the time, you will begin your blog writing during class; so if you miss class, you miss the opportunity to make progress on this low stakes writing.

Your three Projects are all collaborative, in that you will work with your peers in an intentional way on each one. I consider these assignments to be high stakes writing since they are scaffolded by low stakes assignments, involve a longer process of pre-writing, writing, and revising with others, and account for a higher portion of your total grade. Your third project involves a “coding exercise”—this involves coding written language, not writing computer code!—that we will practice together and for which you can earn up to 25 points.

Course Policies

Your Attendance in this course directly affects your grade. Students earn one point towards their final grade for every class period. If you miss class, you will miss points towards your final grade, and you will miss in-class writing assignments that cannot be made up. If you miss four classes, you will be at risk of failing the course.

Deadlines are real, but life happens. If you feel you have a unique circumstance that requires extra time for a major project, it is your responsibility to be in touch with me at least 48 hours before the assignment is due. If you do not contact me in advance and you hand-in an assignment late, you risk not receiving credit for the late work.

This is a Writing Intensive (W) course, which means there will be a significant portion of time devoted to writing instruction. This may include activities like drafting and revision workshops, discussion of rhetorical strategies, and reflective writing. I’ll often ask you to write in-class—and receive credit for that work—so it is important that come to class regularly and be prepared to engage with our community.

Use the Queens College Writing Center! All students are invited and encouraged to use the Writing Center, located in Kiely Hall 229 and online, for free writing support from a peer. To make your account and create appointments, go to https://www.qc.cuny.edu/academics/wc/, call 718-997-5676, or visit in person.

Various technologies will be present in our class; I encourage you to have a tablet or laptop available during class, as well as paper and pencils. If I find a particular technology distracting to you or other students, I will ask that you temporarily set it aside.

This course welcomes conversations about how to use artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly in writing; while AI can be a useful tool, students should not represent AI as their own writing. Writers in this class must disclose if and how they use AI for any assignment.

Academic Integrity refers to ways scholars identify and give credit to the sources that shape their ideas. Citing sources happens differently across disciplines and genres. I will indicate my expectations for citing sources throughout the semester. Please read CUNY’s Academic Integrity Policy to understand consequences for academic dishonesty: https://www.cuny.edu/about/administration/offices/legal-affairs/policies-resources/academic-integrity-policy/.

Students with disabilities needing accommodations should register with and provide documentation to the Office of Special Services, Frese Hall, Room 111. For more information about the services available to QC students, contact the Office of Special Services at 718-997-5870 or https://www.qc.cuny.edu/sp/.

During the final weeks of the semester, you will be asked to complete a Course Evaluation. I will share that link at the end of the term and appreciate your participation.

You can find a complete guide to Queens College’s Grading Policy at https://www.qc.cuny.edu/aac/academic-and-grading-policies/.