Writing and Rhetoric 305: Travel Writing Spring 2013

Transcription

1 Writing and Rhetoric 305: Travel Writing Spring 2013 View of [Sonoran]Desert. Source: (best way to reach me) Welcome! Welcome to Writing and Rhetoric 305, Travel Writing! This is one of my favorite courses to teach here at URI, not only because I love to travel myself and relish the opportunity to live vicariously through students' travel experiences, but also because students typically really enjoy their travel and writing experiences and learn a lot about writing and marketing their writing, which makes the course fun for everyone. It s also a really nice class online, since your homework is to be out and about and writing from wherever you are, and you can take this course from anywhere you have Internet access! Course Objectives WRT 305 is an upper- level writing course designed for Writing & Rhetoric majors and minors as well as General Education students. It counts toward your ECw requirement. As a Gen Ed class, this course provides extensive practice in writing effectively, reading complex texts and understanding human difference. These three skill areas, required for the general education program at URI, are integrated into the assignments and activities of this course.

2 2 Upon successful completion of WRT 305 you will have: Gained experience in writing effectively, reading complex texts, and understanding human difference Completed a sustained inquiry into an unfamiliar place Identified typical features and tropes of travel writing genres Learned basic blog features and created a travel blog you can share publicly Evaluated and responded to others' writing Identified rhetorical situations calling for a wide range of responses Evaluated the appropriateness of your rhetorical choices/reflected on your writing Practiced organizing/crafting your writing for different genres and purposes Produced sophisticated texts that demonstrate coherence and cohesion Considered, applied, and controlled different stylistic options in crafting your texts Forged collaborative relationships with classmates online Taken responsibility for your own learning Course Introduction: Fieldwork and Project Expectations WRT 305 is a four- credit class. The fourth credit is comprised of something called fieldwork. For the purposes of this class, fieldwork can be defined as a form of experiential study sustained observation and participation in a fieldsite. Two teachers who have written a textbook about it, Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri- Strater, define fieldwork as "the process of living and studying among people in their own context, with their permission and cooperation. Fieldworking involves gathering, interpreting, and validating data via note- taking, interviewing, collecting material artifacts, and other methods" (Fieldworking 501). For this class, fieldwork will mean, spending a few hours at a time in the same neighborhood or other smallish location multiple times over the course of the semester (the total should be about 10 hours; you can include travel time). You'll document those visits with interviews, fieldnotes, pictures, possibly videos, and other artifacts you gather from the site at different times, using the information you gather to help you write your major projects. At least two of your projects 1-3 will focus on the fieldsite you choose, though you're welcome to write all of your projects about different components of that area. You ll document your fieldwork through your projects, uploaded notes, and your blog posts- - one of your major projects is a travel blog you ll keep over the course of the semester. You may have noticed this class came with a lab fee. That fee pays for your access to a really cool training site called Lynda.com. You ll watch training videos there to learn how to build yourself a travel blog at wordpress.com. Directions for how to access that will show up on Sakai under Assignments soon. For three weeks of the semester, when you ll have homework tied to Lynda.com, you ll be able to access that site from any computer anywhere. You can access it anytime in the Production Lab (3 rd floor of Roosevelt Hall) and the HUB (in Swan Hall).

3 3 Required Materials Regular and sustained Internet access throughout the course, obviously. Orlean, Susan. The Best American Travel Writing. Houghton Mifflin, Zobel, Louise. The Travel Writer s Handbook, 6/e. Surrey Books, 2007 Access to The Writer s Market in a local public or college library Access to a digital camera and/or scanner so you can upload images. Access to any recent handbook and/or the Online Writing Lab: owl.english.purdue.edu Special Needs If you have a documented disability, let me know right away so we can work out reasonable accommodations to support your learning. Please contact Disability Services for Students, Office of Student Life, 330 Memorial Union, Course Components/Grade Breakdown 50% Formal Writing Projects (includes Fieldwork requirements) Drafts and responses will be shared in Discussion and Private Messages. You ll revise based on peer feedback and submit the projects to me under Assignments. Project 1: Walking It: The Local, Unfamiliar Project (Draft due M 4 Feb; Peer responses W 6 Feb; Submit revision to me F 8 Feb) Project 2: Mapping It: A Neighborhood Profile (Draft due 25 Feb; Peer responses W 27 Feb; Submit revision to me F 1 Mar) Project 3: Eating It: Food and Culture Essay (Draft due M 18 Mar; Peer responses W 20 Mar; Submit revision to me F 22 Mar) Project 4: Blogging It: A Travel Blog (Draft due M 8 Apr; Peer responses W 10 Apr; Submit revision to me F 12 Apr) Project 5: Selling It: Query Letter (Draft due M 22 Apr; Peer responses W 24 Apr; Submit revision to me F 26 Apr) 25% Timely and Thoughtful Online Participation Weekly+ Reading and/or Video Discussions o All reading/video response posts are due on Wednesdays. Responses to two peers are due Fridays. Prompts are offered each week, and I ll usually be able to post those a week or so early for those who like to work ahead. It s always okay to post those early, just remember to go back and respond! o When more than one prompt is offered, you can choose one or more to write about. Aim for about 250 of your own words per entry, no need to write more than 400. For peer responses, respond thoughtfully ( Yeah! Totally! isn t really going to work for those), but you can keep them under 300 words, unless you re truly inspired to write more!)

4 4 Drafts and Workshops o Post Drafts of your Projects under Project Drafts and Peer Feedback in Discussion and Private Messages. o Drafts will be due on Mondays, Peer Feedback and Revision Plans on Wednesdays o Revised drafts submitted to me in Assignments will then be due on Fridays). 25% Final Portfolio Due Friday, 3 May, under Assignments. The portfolio asks you to revise your query letter and the project you pitch in the query letter as if you were actually submitting the piece for publication. Expectations. Aka, habits that will make this course successful for you : 1. Engage actively online. Post thoughtfully, and on time. 2. Read carefully. 3. Post complete and solid workshop drafts on time. 4. Give thorough, timely, helpful, critical feedback to your peers. 5. Revise thoroughly and thoughtfully after every workshop. Your drafts and postwrites must show evidence of your careful consideration of your readers suggestions and your own reconsideration and revision of your writing. 6. Produce complete, thoughtful, carefully revised and on- time drafts of every project, both in- line and attached. (Note: Use paste in Word, that icon with the W in it, to paste. Pasting directly into the boxes can produce some pretty wonky, unreadable text.) 7. Turn in every submission draft (aka revised project) to me on time. (!) Note: Because I know life can get crazy, I give everyone one freebie an extended deadline (from a Friday due date to a Monday) on a submission draft. No excuses required, though a quick note e.g., I m using my freebie and will turn this project in on Sunday! Thanks! is always helpful. Note: The freebie only applies to submission drafts of projects 1-5 (the revised drafts that come to me.) It cannot apply to a workshop draft or to the final portfolio. 8. Proofread submission drafts. Eliminate distracting surface errors and typos. If you have questions about grammar or spelling, ask a peer, ask me, and/or use a recent handbook or online source such as 9. Avoid plagiarism. Be generous about attributing and citing work that has influenced your own. If you have questions, ask me, or read about academic honesty in a recent handbook or

5 5 online source such as Plagiarized work will earn a zero on the assignment and your dean will be notified. (No one likes it when that happens.) 10. Show respect for your classmates and your instructor. Take each other s ideas seriously, and be friendly and supportive of one another. 11. Complete fieldwork expectations (~10 hours). Document your investment in fieldwork through posted notes, travel blog posts, and by weaving interviews, images, and other documentation of fieldwork into your related projects. 12. Submit a complete, fully revised and polished portfolio that meets all outlined requirements by the due date. Other Stuff I Haven t Mentioned Yet This might sound counterintuitive for an online class, but PLEASE print out this syllabus, and print out the assignments for all major projects. Having a physical paper reminder of the course requirements, etc., will be extremely helpful for you. All major projects need to be turned in on time (and in the proper place) for you to pass. I know all online classes are different. This is not the kind of online class where you can disappear for 3 weeks and still pass. I want you to pass actually, I want you to do very well! so be sure to show up every week, meet your deadlines, and have some fun in the process. It will help to treat this class like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday class. All our deadlines are on those days. If you log in every M/W/F and do what you re supposed to do (namely: write, read, and visit cool places) in between, you will keep up. I m available via ([email protected], in case you don t want to scroll back up to the top), but not 24/7 available. I don t have a phone with , for example, and I have little kids and I go to bed pretty early so just know that if you me at 9:30 pm about an assignment due at 11:55 pm, I m not going to see that until the next morning. Also remember that I don t know you all yet, so it s a good idea to include your full name and some context with any s or private messages, at least as we get started. You can message one another, which will, if everyone does the set- up assignment as I ask, result in their receiving an so that should end up being an easy way to communicate with one another outside the discussion space. I ve tried to put everything into Assignments and have it show up in the Schedule, too. It s also pretty clear under Discussion and Private Messages what needs to happen when. But here s one tip for keeping track: Because most things are due by 11:55 pm (the latest Sakai will accept something in Assignments), the Schedule can be deceiving if you look at it by day you can change the view to by month, which makes it easier to see what s due when without having to scroll down and click around much.