Syllabus

Grade Contracts

198 Psych Link Walker Spring 2020 Printed 4-26-20.docx

Syllabus with ugly formatting:

ENGL 198 D Interdisciplinary Writing/Composition:

Social Sciences (writing link with PSYCH 101 B)

Class meeting time & location:  MWF 2:30-3:20, Online!

Zoom Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/960708776

Course website:      https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1376811

Instructor:                                   TJ Walker

Office:                                        Padelford B-30

Office hours:                              MW 3:30-4:30 or by appointment

Email:                                         tjwalker@uw.edu

Course Description

Welcome to English 198, a writing course loosely linked to Psychology 101. Linked writing courses offer a writing-intensive, peer-oriented environment to help students begin reading and writing within the disciplines represented by large lecture courses. In this particular linked writing seminar, we’ll focus on understanding psychology as an academic discipline while also practicing the skills needed for successful writing in other contexts.

You are the primary “link” with the lecture course, and our writing assignments and discussions will presume that you are keeping up with the psychology readings and lectures. ENGL 198 is not designed to reinforce the broad range of information introduced in your psychology lecture. The notion of “writing” in this class is also not limited to certain privileged ways of exploring and communicating ideas in the academic context (i.e. journal articles). The purpose of this course is to give you a sense of how knowledge in a discipline is advanced by means of composition exchanges (in a variety of genres and modes, such as research articles, conference posters, infographics, podcasts, etc.), and to give you some practice composing in, and about, the context of the discipline. Writing well, in college and beyond, requires the ability to “read” a context and to understand the tacit or unspoken rules of that context. The three assignment sequences for this course are designed with these goals in mind:

• To deepen your learning in Psychology 101 through various writing tasks;
• To familiarize you with some common genres in the discipline of psychology, prompting you to consider purpose, audience, context, & medium each time you begin a writing task;
• To give you practice with the type of writing you may be required to do in future psychology or other science-oriented classes; and
• To develop skills (i.e. reading critically, following lines of inquiry, metacognition, collaboration) that would be useful for you as a writer across courses, disciplines, and other intellectual and/or professional spaces

Assignments and Expectations

Details regarding our three assignment sequences will be discussed as the class progresses, but the following is a rough timeline of the assignment sequences. This timeline is subject to change.

Writing Exercises: Participation, Peer Reviews, and Writing Conferences

At a very basic level, participation means regular attendance of classes (including online classes) and timely completion of all assignments. But more importantly, participation means thorough preparation of reading and writing assignments and active engagement in class activities, including discussions, workshops, conferences, and peer review work. It should go without saying that regularly failing to participate in these things will negatively impact your grade. Learning is a collective effort, and engaged students contribute to a better learning atmosphere, while disengaged students can weaken the learning atmosphere. This is especially true for online class sessions, since we will all need to be especially focused given the lack of in-person meetings this quarter!

Class Expectations:

English 198 uses a workshop model emphasizing both independent work and close collaboration with instructors and peers at every stage in the processes of reading and writing; our goal is the development of your critical reading practices and written analysis of psychology-related texts. You will engage in peer review throughout the quarter, providing thoughtful and specific feedback on each others’ works-in-progress. We will also hold two conferences for the major writing assignments to discuss your drafts and strategies for revision. This collaborative work is crucial to this course and to your capacity to reflect on and improve your writing. A major assignment is not complete until it has been peer reviewed, conferenced, and mindfully revised.

Assessment: Contract Grading

I have found that conventional grading often leads my students to think more about grades than about writing; to worry more about pleasing me or psyching me out than about figuring out what you really want to say or how you want to say it; to be reluctant to take risks with your writing.  Grading even makes some students feel they are working against me.  Therefore I am using a contract system for grading in this course.

 –Writing Studies Scholar Peter Elbow

GRADE CONTRACTS

In this course we will use a system of evaluation called “contract grading.” Basically, this means I specify what you have to do to earn a particular course grade, and you decide what you’re willing and able to do and then sign up for the contract that works best for you. There are no surprises: if you fulfill the obligations of your contract, you get the grade you signed up for. Early in the quarter, you will sign up for a particular grade contract. You can re-negotiate your grade contract as the quarter goes on by meeting with me during my office hours. Note: Because of the circumstances this quarter, I understand that some of these requirements may not be possible for everyone.  If you know that you will not be able to fulfill a certain requirement, please propose an alternative and work with me to complete it!

Requirements for A grade of A (4.0):

1. Participate in class activities with good faith, interacting with others in appropriate and productive ways.
2. Miss no more than one day of class activities (or provide “make-up” work sufficient to count for each class activity missed).
3. Complete all writing exercises on time and have them ready to use during class.
4. Submit substantive and complete “rough” drafts of all three major assignments on time.
5. Submit final drafts of all three major assignments on time.
6. Complete “High quality” peer reviews of your classmates’ drafts and fully participate in two writing conferences (we will discuss more what “High Quality” means in class).
7. Use feedback from your peers and me to revise the drafts of all three assignments. Strive to apply feedback on previous assignments to later ones.
8. Submit a full reflection of at least 300 words (Writer’s Memo) with each final draft that tells me how the drafting, peer reviewing, conferencing, and revising process went for you and explains the major revisions you made (from your first draft to your final draft).
9. Complete the midterm evaluation with sincere self-reflection.
10. Come to my virtual office hours at least twice. At least one of those visits should be substantive. (If my office hours don’t work with your schedule, we can make appointments.) Please note that “coming” to my office hours to renegotiate your contract won’t count as one of these visits.
11. Volunteer your work for in-class workshopping at least once. This means we will work through an aspect of your work together, as a class. Google Docs, Google Slides, and other such collaborative programs can assist in this.
12. Propose, design, and complete a “Class Enrichment Project.” You will have a lot of freedom with these projects. The main goal is to enrich our class by providing your classmates with a valuable resource, presenting on something interesting, teaching us about a helpful concept in the discipline of psychology or giving us some valuable information or resources for multimodal composition, etc. You should plan to spend about 6-8 hours on these projects, including the time you spend researching, reading, or otherwise gathering ideas.
13. Take notes on at least two of the class readings and post a summary of the reading for your classmates on the “Reading Summaries” Discussion Thread.

The choices for grades in this course are: 4.0, 3.7, 3.3, 3.0, 2.5, 2.0, or below 2.0.

To earn a 4.0 grade, complete requirements 1-13

To earn a 3.7 grade, complete requirements 1-11 with this “wiggle room”: you may miss one writing exercise.  You may also miss (or not make-up) up to two days of class activities.

To earn a 3.3 grade, complete requirements 1-9 with this wiggle room: you may miss up to two writing exercises. You may also miss (or not make-up) up to two days of class activities.

To earn a 3.0 grade, complete requirements 1-9, with this wiggle room: 1) you may miss two writing exercises; 2) your reflections accompanying final drafts may be as short as one paragraph; and 3) your peer reviews, while they should be complete, may not be as full or detailed as “High Quality” peer reviews; 4) you may miss (or not make-up) up to three class sessions.

To earn a 2.5 grade, complete requirements 1-8, with this wiggle room: 1) you may miss four writing exercises; 2) your reflections accompanying final drafts may be as short as one paragraph; and 3) your peer reviews, while they should be complete, do not need to be “high quality”; 4) you may miss (or not make-up) up to four class sessions.

To earn a 2.0 grade, submit rough and final drafts of each major paper, write a reflection of at least one paragraph to accompany each final draft, submit assigned peer reviews on time, and show up and participate in major-assignment conferences.

---------------------------------------------------

A NOTE ON GRADES BELOW 2.0

The instructor reserves the right to award a grade below a 2.0 to anyone who fails to meet a contractual obligation in a systematic way. 

Some logistics:

• If you know you will not be able to meet an obligation (e.g. you are on a sports team with UW sanctioned travel) or learn that you will not be able to meet an obligation (e.g. you are diagnosed with an illness), then communicate with me as soon as possible so we can discuss alternative obligations.
• If you accidentally miss an obligation, then you must communicate this mistake with me and do an “Extra Credit Opportunity” assignment on Canvas to make up for it. This can only happen TWICE for things besides class attendance, and after that, you will need to renegotiate and change your grade contract to a different grade level.
• In week three of the course, you will be asked to choose a grade contract that seems suitable to you, and we will “sign” the grade contract. We will revisit your progress in this class periodically to make sure you are fulfilling the contractual obligations you signed up for.

COMPOSING RESOURCES

I encourage you to take advantage of the following writing resources available to you at no charge!

(Double-Check the “Virtual Hours” for each of these resources during Coronavirus quarantine)

The CLUE Writing Center in Mary Gates Hall (141 suite, CUADSS lobby) is open Sunday to Thursday from 7pm to midnight. The tutors here can help you at any stage of your composition process. You do not need to make an appointment, so arrive early and be prepared to wait. https://webster.uaa.washington.edu/asp/website/clue/home/

The Odegaard Writing and Research Center is open in Odegaard Library Monday - Thursday 9am to 9pm, Friday 9am to 4:30pm, and Sunday 12pm to 9pm. This writing center provides a research-integrated approach to composition instruction. Find more information and/or make an appointment on the website:   www.depts.washington.edu/owrc.

Media Arcade – 381F Third Floor of Allen Library (Probably not an option this quarter ☹)

The Media Arcade is an audio/video viewing and makerspace where the UW community can watch and create videos, listen to and edit music, watch TV, play and critique video games, digitize and preserve vintage media. Open 9am-9:50pm M-TH, 9-5pm Fridays. 1-4:50pm Saturdays. http://www.lib.washington.edu/media

Psychology Writing Center serves undergraduates writing in UW psychology courses and psychology majors writing research papers and graduate school statements. It is located in Guthrie Annex 1, Room 142, accepting both 30-minute appointments and drop-in visits. For more information, including scheduling an appointment online, visit http://www.psych.uw.edu/psych.php?p=335

Code of Academic Integrity

Students are expected to be committed to the principles of truth and academic honesty and to follow the Code of Academic Integrity, the full text of which is available at:

https://depts.washington.edu/grading/pdf/AcademicResponsibility.pdf

The full Student Conduct Code for the University of Washington is available at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=478-121.

Plagiarism is a tricky topic.  A good guideline to follow is: If you know that you are expected to write or create something yourself, don’t use someone else’s creation or ideas without letting your audience know! If you are uncertain how to borrow ideas and properly cite sources, ask TJ!

ACCESS AND ACCOMODATIONS: 

Your experience in this class is important to me. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course.

If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), please contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu or disability.uw.edu. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions.  Reasonable accommodations are established through an interactive process between you, your instructor(s) and DRS. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law.

RELIGIOUS ACCOMODATION CLAUSE

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Faculty Syllabus Guidelines and Resources. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the  Religious Accommodations Request form available at https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/.

CAMPUS SAFETY

Preventing violence is everyone's responsibility. If you're concerned, tell someone.

• Always call 911 if you or others may be in danger.
• Call 206-685-SAFE (7233) to report non-urgent threats of violence and for referrals to UW counseling and/or safety resources. TTY or VP callers, please call through your preferred relay service.
• Don't walk alone. Campus safety guards can walk with you on campus after dark. Call Husky NightWalk 206-685-WALK (9255).
• Stay connected in an emergency with UW Alert. Register your mobile number to receive instant notification of campus emergencies via text and voice messaging.

Sign up online at www.washington.edu/alert.

For more information visit the SafeCampus website at www.washington.edu/safecampus

FIUTS

The Foundation for International Understanding through Students: FIUTS is an example of a campus organization that can bring together your social and academic learning. "FIUTS is an independent non-profit organization which provides cross-cultural leadership and social programming for UW's international and globally minded domestic students. FIUTS is local connections and global community!" FIUTS also offers a free international lunch on the last Wednesday of every month. Consult FIUTS' web site for a detailed calendar of events and links to many resources http://www.fiuts.org/

COUNSELING CENTER

UW Counseling Center workshops include a wide range of issues including study skills, thinking about coming out, international students and culture shock, and much more. Check out available resources and workshops at: http://depts.washington.edu/counsels/

LEADERSHIP WITHOUT BORDERS

I am trained as an Undocu Ally. Undocu Ally training is intended to provide UW staff and faculty with knowledge about resources, services, best practices, and allyship for undocumented students. In 2003, House Bill 1079 was signed into law in Washington State, allowing eligible undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. Resources, support, and services for undocumented students are available from the Leadership Without Borders (LWB) Center and the Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center.

http://depts.washington.edu/ecc/lwb/

Q CENTER

The University of Washington Q Center is a fierce, primarily student run resource center dedicated to serving anyone with or without a gender or sexuality – UW students, staff, faculty, alum, and community members.  They host and support student groups, put on regular programming events, house a lending library, and amplify student voices on their Student Blog.  Explore their website for more information or stop by the Husky Union Building, Room 315 http://depts.washington.edu/qcenter/wordpress/

STUDENTS IN DISTRESS

College can be a period of high stress. If you encounter psychological problems that interfere with your life as a student, services are available to you at Hall Health at 206.583.1551 during business hours or 206.731.2500 after hours, http://depts.washington.edu/hhpccweb/

FOOD INSECURITY

If you have difficulty accessing sufficient food or lack a safe and stable place to live, and if you believe this need may affect your academic achievement, you are urged to contact the Office of Student Life at http://www.washington.edu/studentlife/. Please also be aware that there are resources available to help address food insecurity in the UW community. http://www.washington.edu/anyhungryhusky/home/get-food/

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS

If you have questions or concerns about this course, please do come talk with me during office hours or email me. If you are not comfortable discussing your concerns with me, you may wish to contact Interdisciplinary Writing Program Director Megan Callow mcallow@uw.edu or Chair of English Anis Bawarshi at bawarshi@uw.edu.

Tentative Schedule Overview

Our course schedule will need to be flexible to accommodate the scaffolding of assignment sequences; any schedule changes will be posted on Canvas and announced in class. All readings and assignment materials are available on Canvas.

• Readings and Writing Exercises: Writing exercises and assignments are due at the beginning of class unless otherwise noted. Readings should be completed prior to class. All readings will be posted on Canvas. Bring readings to class to facilitate discussion.

Grade Contract Full Description

Evaluation: Contract Grading

The advantage of contract grading is that you, the student, decide how much work you wish to do this semester; if you complete that work on time and satisfactorily, you will receive the grade for which you contracted. This means planning ahead, thinking about all of your obligations and responsibilities this semester and also determining what grade you want or need in this course. The advantage of contract grading to the professor is no whining, no special pleading, on the students part. If you complete the work you contracted for, you get the grade. Done. I respect the student who only needs a C, who has other obligations that preclude doing all of the requirements to earn an A in the course, and who contracts for the C and carries out the contract perfectly. (This is another one of those major life skills:  taking responsibility for your own workflow.) -- CUNY Professor Cathy Davidson

In this course we will use a system of evaluation called “contract grading.” In brief, that means I specify what you have to do to earn a particular course grade, and you decide what you’re willing and able to do and then sign up for the contract that works best for you. There are no surprises: if you fulfill the obligations of your contract, you get the grade you signed up for.

I use grade contracts because I would like the final course grade to reflect your learning and work rather than just my final, unilateral evaluation of the final drafts of your compositions. I’m guessing that we’ve all been in classes where someone comes to class with a lot of knowledge and skill and basically does no work and learns almost nothing because they’re confident that they can pull a relatively high grade just because they already know a lot of the knowledge and skills required to get an “easy A.”  And we’ve all seen—or been!—the student who comes to class curious, puts in the work, and gets a lower grade because they took risks, experimented, or because they came into the class with much less initial experience.

I will assess your compositions, but that score or assessment will not have much direct connection to your course grade. I think you should know where a particular composition stands in relation to others’ work and our course goals, but I think that it is more important that your grade reflects your actual learning and work. So you’ll see that revision and reflection matter a lot. In fact, a large portion of your work this quarter will be in the form of revision and reflection!

You may propose a contract for a grade not offered as an option on the Grade Contract Chart, and you may renegotiate this contract if necessary. Renegotiation requires a meeting with me during office hours.

Requirements for a grade of A (4.0):

1. Participate in class activities with good faith, interacting with others in appropriate and productive ways.
2. Miss no more than one day of class activities (or provide “make-up” work sufficient to count for each class activity missed).
3. Complete all writing exercises on time and have them ready to use during class.
4. Submit substantive and complete “rough” drafts of all three major assignments on time.
5. Submit final drafts of all three major assignments on time.
6. Complete “High quality” peer reviews of your classmates’ drafts and fully participate in two writing conferences (we will discuss more what “High Quality” means in class).
7. Use feedback from your peers and me to revise the drafts of all three assignments. Strive to apply feedback on previous assignments to later ones.
8. Submit a full reflection of at least 300 words (Writer’s Memo) with each final draft that tells me how the drafting, peer reviewing, conferencing, and revising process went for you and explains the major revisions you made (from your first draft to your final draft).
9. Complete the midterm evaluation with sincere self-reflection.
10. Come to my virtual office hours at least twice. At least one of those visits should be substantive. (If my office hours don’t work with your schedule, we can make appointments.) Please note that “coming” to my office hours to renegotiate your contract won’t count as one of these visits.
11. Volunteer your work for in-class workshopping at least once. This means we will work through an aspect of your work together, as a class. Google Docs, Google Slides, and other such collaborative programs can assist in this.
12. Propose, design, and complete a “Class Enrichment Project.” You will have a lot of freedom with these projects. The main goal is to enrich our class by providing your classmates with a valuable resource, presenting on something interesting, teaching us about a helpful concept in the discipline of psychology or giving us some valuable information or resources for multimodal composition, etc. You should plan to spend about 6-8 hours on these projects, including the time you spend researching, reading, or otherwise gathering ideas.
13. Take notes on at least two of the class readings and post a summary of the reading for your classmates on the “Reading Summaries” Discussion Thread.

The choices for grades in this course are: 4.0, 3.7, 3.3, 3.0, 2.5, 2.0, or below 2.0.

To earn a 4.0 grade, complete requirements 1-13

To earn a 3.7 grade, complete requirements 1-11 with this “wiggle room”: you may miss one writing exercise.  You may also miss (or not make-up) up to two days of class activities.

To earn a 3.3 grade, complete requirements 1-9 with this wiggle room: you may miss up to two writing exercises. You may also miss (or not make-up) up to two days of class activities.

To earn a 3.0 grade, complete requirements 1-9, with this wiggle room: 1) you may miss two writing exercises; 2) your reflections accompanying final drafts may be as short as one paragraph; and 3) your peer reviews, while they should be complete, may not be as full or detailed as “High Quality” peer reviews; 4) you may miss (or not make-up) up to three class sessions.

To earn a 2.5 grade, complete requirements 1-8, with this wiggle room: 1) you may miss four writing exercises; 2) your reflections accompanying final drafts may be as short as one paragraph; and 3) your peer reviews, while they should be complete, do not need to be “high quality”; 4) you may miss (or not make-up) up to four class sessions.

To earn a 2.0 grade, submit rough and final drafts of each major paper, write a reflection of at least one paragraph to accompany each final draft, submit assigned peer reviews on time, and show up and participate in major-assignment conferences.

---------------------------------------------------

A NOTE ON GRADES BELOW 2.0

The instructor reserves the right to award a grade below a 2.0 to anyone who fails to meet a contractual obligation in a systematic way. 

Some logistics:

• If you know you will not be able to meet an obligation (e.g. you are on a sports team with UW sanctioned travel) or learn that you will not be able to meet an obligation (e.g. you are diagnosed with an illness), then communicate with me as soon as possible so we can discuss alternative obligations.
• If you accidentally miss an obligation, then you must communicate this mistake with me and do an “Extra Credit Opportunity” assignment on Canvas to make up for it. This can only happen TWICE for things besides class attendance, and after that, you will need to renegotiate and change your grade contract to a different grade level.
• In week three of the course, you will be asked to choose a grade contract that seems suitable to you, and we will “sign” the grade contract. We will revisit your progress in this class periodically to make sure you are fulfilling the contractual obligations you signed up for.

CONTRACT FOR A GRADE OF A (4.0) IN ENGLISH 198

To earn an A (4.0), complete the appropriate requirements as stated in the Grade Contract Checklist.

CONTRACT:   By signing this contract for a grade of “A” in English 198, I agree to all of the terms at the appropriate level on the Grade Contract Chart.   

Name:

Signature:

Date:

Co-signed by instructor TJ Walker:

Date:

CONTRACT FOR A GRADE OF A- (3.7) IN ENGLISH 198

To earn an A- (3.7), complete the appropriate requirements as stated in the Grade Contract Checklist.

CONTRACT:   By signing this contract for a grade of A- in English 198, I agree to all of the terms at the appropriate level on the Grade Contract Chart.   

Name:

Signature:

Date:

Co-signed by instructor TJ Walker:

Date:

CONTRACT FOR A GRADE OF B+ (3.3) IN ENGLISH 198

To earn a B+ (3.3), complete the appropriate requirements as stated in the Grade Contract Checklist.

CONTRACT:   By signing this contract for a grade of “B” in English 198, I agree to all of the terms at the appropriate level on the Grade Contract Chart.   

Name:

Signature:

Date:

Co-signed by instructor TJ Walker:

Date:

CONTRACT FOR A GRADE OF B- (2.8) IN ENGLISH 198

To earn a “B-” (3.0), complete the appropriate requirements as stated in the Grade Contract Checklist.

CONTRACT:   By signing this contract for a grade of “C” in English 198, I agree to all of the terms at the appropriate level on the Grade Contract Chart.   

Name:

Signature:

Date:

Co-signed by instructor TJ Walker:

Date:

CONTRACT FOR A GRADE OF C+ (2.5) IN ENGLISH 198

To earn a “C+” (2.5), complete the appropriate requirements as stated in the Grade Contract Checklist.

CONTRACT:   By signing this contract for a grade of “C+” in English 198, I agree to all of the terms at the appropriate level on the Grade Contract Chart.   

Name:

Signature:

Date:

Co-signed by instructor TJ Walker:

Date:

---------------------------------------------------
A NOTE ON GRADES BELOW 2.0
The instructor reserves the right to award a grade below a 2.0 to anyone who fails to meet a contractual obligation in a systematic way.   A 1.0 grade denotes some minimal fulfilling of the contract.  A grade of 0.6 is absence of enough satisfactory work, as contracted, to warrant passing of the course.  These grades signal a breakdown of the contractual relationship implied by signing any of the contracts above.    

Course Description

Welcome to English 198, a writing course loosely linked to Psychology 101. Linked writing courses offer a writing-intensive, peer-oriented environment to help students begin reading and writing within the disciplines represented by large lecture courses. In this particular linked writing seminar, we’ll focus on understanding psychology as an academic discipline while also practicing the skills needed for successful writing in other contexts.

You are the primary “link” with the lecture course, and our writing assignments and discussions will presume that you are keeping up with the psychology readings and lectures. ENGL 198 is not designed to reinforce the broad range of information introduced in your psychology lecture. The notion of “writing” in this class is also not limited to certain privileged ways of exploring and communicating ideas in the academic context (i.e. journal articles). The purpose of this course is to give you a sense of how knowledge in a discipline is advanced by means of composition exchanges (in alphabetic and other modes, such as research articles, conference posters, infographics, podcasts, etc.), and to give you some practice composing in, and about, the context of the discipline. Writing well, in college and beyond, requires the ability to “read” a context and to understand the tacit rules of that context. The three assignment sequences for this course are designed with the following goals in mind:

• To deepen your learning in Psychology 101 through various writing tasks;
• To familiarize you with some common genres in the discipline of psychology, prompting you to consider purpose, audience, context,& medium each time you begin a writing task;
• To give you practice with the type of writing you may be required to do in future psychology or other science-oriented classes; and
• To develop skills (i.e. reading critically, following lines of inquiry, metacognition, collaboration) that would be useful for you as a writer across courses, disciplines, and other intellectual and/or professional spaces