English 297 C: Social Science Writing Seminar
Writing in the Social Sciences
Spring 2022
Instructor: James Rushing Daniel
Email: daniej9@uw.edu
Office: Padelford A-16
Office Hours: Tuesday (10am-12pm) (on Zoom only https://washington.zoom.us/j/2766825815)
English 297 is a writing seminar focused on the writing conventions of the social sciences. In the course, we will spend much of our time studying, discussing, and practicing these conventions to prepare you to write more effectively in social science disciplines and, more broadly, to strengthen your critical and analytical skills. Some of this work will be collaborative and workshop-based, allowing you to approach writing in the social sciences from the perspective of an engaged learning community. In addition to this approach, the course will also explore broader discussions about the value and the future of the social sciences and social scientific inquiry.
Our inquiry will begin with an exploration of definitions of social science and debates over the utility of the social sciences. We will continue with an in-depth exploration of a book length work of social science research, Hadas Weiss’s We Have Never Been Middle Class. Such an exploration will allow you to discover how arguments are made in the social sciences and how social science research bears on the social world. The course will continue by engaging you in one of the genres of social science writing—the research proposal. The course will end by engaging you in the increasingly common task of translating research in the social sciences to a broad audience.
Learning Outcomes:
- To immerse you in the practices and contexts of writing in the social sciences
- To help you develop your abilities to read, think, and write as a social science scholar
- To understand the social science methodologies
- To guide you in accurately assessing your own and your peers' work in relation to our specific writing criteria
- To practice collaborative, public-facing writing, and multimodal composition
Required Texts:
We Have Never Been Middle Class by Hadas Weiss, Verso, 2019.
Grades
The grades for this course will be tabulated as follows:
Essay #1: 10%
Essay #2: 20%
Essay #3: 25%
Essay #4: 35%
Reading Reflections: 5%
Canvas Discussion: 5%
Grade Conversion
≥ 95% = 4.0 88 = 3.3 81 = 2.6 74 = 1.9 67 = 1.2
94 = 3.9 87 = 3.2 80 = 2.5 73 = 1.8 66 = 1.1
93 = 3.8 86 = 3.1 79 = 2.4 72 = 1.7 65 = 1.0
92 = 3.7 85 = 3.0 78 = 2.3 71 = 1.6 64 = .9
91 = 3.6 84 = 2.9 77 = 2.2 70 = 1.5 63 = .8
90 = 3.5 83 = 2.8 76 = 2.1 69 = 1.4 62 = .7
89 = 3.4 82 = 2.7 75 = 2.0 68 = 1.3
Expectations: This course is designed to lead you through the steps of a developed writing process. You are required to complete every step. This includes:
1) actively participating in class discussions, small group work, and conferences;
2) providing timely, thoughtful, and engaged written feedback on peers’ drafts (when assigned);
3) completing informal writing/pre-writing assignments on time; and
4) submitting all drafts and revisions of the major essays on the date they are due.
My Role: to engage—to take seriously and read attentively—your work in progress. I will coach your writing, helping you hone your critical reading skills, develop nascent ideas, analyze others’ arguments, and push your own arguments further in conversation with your classmates and professional/scholarly texts.
Your Role: to grapple with the ideas in lecture and readings and in your peers’ writing
and conversation. You should puzzle through the texts we read, not skim them; consistently demonstrate engaged, critical intelligence in your writing; and come to class and conferences prepared. Perhaps most importantly, you will need to think through your own and your peers’ writing critically and engage in significant revision of your own thinking and writing. In return, you can expect your classmates and me to read your writing with care and take your reflections seriously.
The IWP & Anti-Racist Pedagogy: The Interdisciplinary Writing Program (IWP) is committed to engaging with anti-racist pedagogies. These pedagogies may take various forms, such as curricular attention to voices, communities, and perspectives that have been historically marginalized inside and beyond academic disciplines; inclusive classroom practices; discussions of racism; and consideration of other forms of prejudice and exclusion. We believe that countering the cultures and practices of racism in an academic institution is fundamental to developing a vibrant intellectual community. The IWP is happy to talk with you about your questions as well as to support student-led initiatives around anti-racist work, and we invite you to contact IWP faculty member James Daniel at daniej9@uw.edu or IWP Program Director Megan Callow at http://mcallow@uw.edu. If you’re interested in how teachers of English as a professional community have taken up anti-racist work, check out the National Council of Teachers of English Statement on Anti-Racism to Support Teaching and Learning at http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/antiracisminteaching
Policies and Administrative Details
Plagiarism: All work for this course must be your own and written exclusively for this course. The use of sources (including ideas, quotations or paraphrases) must be properly documented. Talk to me if you have any questions regarding what constitutes plagiarism. When in doubt, document!
Written work: Except for in-class writing, all written work must be typed and double-spaced in Times New Roman font with one-inch margins and 12-point font.
Late or Missed Work: It is important that you complete your assigned work on time since it affects both your progress and the progress of others in the course. If you are not able to finish an assignment on time, please notify me in advance with a compelling reason. Otherwise, late essays will be marked down 10 points for each day late. Missed peer critiques and/ or workshops or written responses to the readings cannot be made up.
Office Hours: I hold office hours on Tuesday from 10 to 2. If these times don’t work for you let me know and we can make an appointment to meet at another time. Always bring printed material for any writing you would like to discuss.
Electronics Policy: I strictly limit the use of technology in the classroom. Unless by otherwise agreed upon arrangement, I ask that you bring in paper copies of all texts to be discussed in the class. Notes should be taken by hand rather than on your laptop. There will be times when laptop use will be permitted, but I will announce these beforehand. Texting is likewise prohibited. If I observe you texting or using your computer at an unauthorized time, I will ask you to put your device away.
CLUE writing center, open 7 pm until midnight, Sunday through Thursday in Mary Gates 141. CLUE is a first-come, first-served drop-in writing center located in Mary Gates Hall. CLUE also offers study sessions and other academic support. http://depts.washington.edu/aspuw/clue/home/
The Odegaard Writing and Research Center (OWRC) offers students, staff, and faculty at UW Seattle free, one-to-one, 45-minute tutoring sessions for any writing or research project, as well as for personal projects such as applications or cover letters and resumes. OWRC tutors and librarians are trained to collaborate at any stage of the writing and research process, from brainstorming and identifying sources to making final revisions and tying up loose ends. For more information, or to schedule an appointment (more than 500 available per week!), visit (https://depts.washington.edu/owrc) or to OWRC in person on the first floor of Odegaard Undergraduate Library.
On Accommodations: Please let me know if you need accommodations of any sort. I am happy to work with the UW Disability Service Office (DSO) to provide what you require, and I am very willing to take suggestions specific to this class to meet your needs. More information on support at UW may be found on the DSO web site at http://www.washington.edu/admin/dso/
Religious Accommodations: 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/
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 at mcallow@uw.edu or Chair of English Anis Bawarshi at bawarshi@uw.edu.
Canvas Discussion Guidelines
The class will hold an online discussion on the reading nearly every week. These will count for a substantial percentage of the course grade and should be treated as seriously as a writing assignment.
Every Monday morning of a week in which we are holding a Canvas discussion, I will be putting up a new discussion thread under the “Discussions” tab. The discussion prompt will do a bit of framing of the readings and include both a set of questions and a list of instructions. Please read these carefully as the details will change from week to week. Typically, though, I will be asking for you to answer one or more of the questions in a post of at least 250 words. I will typically also be asking you to reply to other posts at least twice totaling at least 250 words total. This means that you will need to be an active participant on the discussion board—you can’t just put up your post on a Friday afternoon and be done. Rather, posting on the discussion board is something that you should be doing on most days and starting as early in the week as possible. Ideally, you would be putting up your own post by Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning and then starting to post your replies on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. This will give you able time to gather your thoughts and to be thoughtful in your responses.
Here’s the thing—because we are not holding classes in real time, the discussion board is where our class is going to actually “happen.” This is all the more reason for you to approach them as the central work of the course. Yes, the papers are important too, but these discussions are arguably going to be where the real work of the course happens. That said, I’d encourage you to think about how your posts are contributing to the culture of the course. I’d like to see you engage thoughtfully and kindly with one another and to try to make this class a welcoming place for the next few weeks.
When you are engaging in the discussion, two things I want you to be constantly thinking about are 1) argument, and 2) evidence.
Let’s say I pose a question for discussions that asks, “How does X characterize Y?”
A good post would, first, make a concrete argument that clearly responds to the questions. To be clear, I’m not saying how I “feel” about the text. Rather, I’m talking about what the text does. Because of this, bringing up concrete examples would will be extremely helpful for grounding your points. Rather than just speak in vague terms about the text, point to specifically sections.
All in all, think of each post like a short, informal essay that contains an argument, evidence, and a discussion.
A less effective post, on the other hand, will offer an opinion or stance that can’t really be supported or can’t be agreed or disagreed with. For instance, “This book is pointless” or “I hated the narrator” aren’t going to be effective.
Responses to posts can be far shorter and don’t need to be as structured. Nevertheless, they should contain the core elements of argument and evidence. As you will know from social media, responses can take a variety of different shapes. In this case, you can agree with the person by suggesting that their comment is correct. But, in this case, it is also important to say why. If you say, “I think you’re absolutely right, Claire,” this wouldn’t be quite enough. You might talk about why the post has the right take on the text or, even better, add one or more additional examples from the text to further support the writer’s position.
You might go with the “yes, but” tactic in which you praise something about a post but then seek to reframe it or disagree with an aspect of it. For example, you might write, “I think you’re correct about X but I think there are some additional implications to what Y is saying that you haven’t considered.” Or you might say, “I think you’re argument is solid, but you haven’t named the most glaring example of this…” Either of these have some nominal disagreement but then take the text in another direction.
You can also just flatly disagree with someone, but you must do this without being rude or attacking the other person. The best way to do this is to, first, restate the person’s argument. You could begin by saying, “Claire, if I’m reading you correctly, you’re arguing that social media is…” Then, clearly state your opposition to the argument rather than to the writer herself: “I don’t think this is entirely right because there are a number of other instances where social media has…” Here, you are articulating your argument and doing so by providing evidence that counters the person’s claim. This then offers a way for you to offer some additional examples from the text or from another source that provides evidence to your counterclaim.
While your contributions to canvas will be graded, the grade will be based solely on labor rather than content. What this means is that I will be checking to see that you hit the posted minimums here—at least 250 words in your initial post, at least two replies and at least 250 words across your total replies (this, again, will vary from week to week), and that this is all done by 5 pm on Friday. Also, and this hopefully goes without saying, these comments cannot contain any attacks on students or any disparaging or harmful language. If you hit these marks, you will receive full credit for the week.
Reading Reflections
Like our Canvas discussions, reading reflections will be a core component of the course. On the weeks in which this is assigned, I’ll be putting up the assignment on Monday morning, asking you to collect your thoughts on the reading in an unstructured 500-word statement. While the Canvas discussions will be focused around a set of specific questions designed to generate a productive discussion, the reading reflections are designed to be much more personal. These reflections will allow you to consider what you thought of the texts, what you liked or disliked about them, what you found most salient about them, what you found confusing about them, or what they made you consider in terms of your own beliefs, values, or experiences. In other words, these are your opportunity to get your thoughts together about the texts before you begin writing about them in more high stakes assignments. These are also an opportunity for me to get a sense of how texts are landing and what people are getting out of them.
Like with the Canvas discussions, you will be able to complete your reading reflections at any point before the 5pm, Friday deadline. However, I strongly suggest that you complete the reading reflections first, before you start tackling the discussion board. This is because the reading reflection will give you the opportunity to really work through the text and your own reactions before you get into the more focused discussion of the group discussion. Please note that however you choose to do it, your reading reflections and your writing on the discussion should be different. Please, no cutting and pasting. Do your best to respond to the specific questions of each.
Like the Canvas discussion, the grading on the reading reflections will be only based on labor. This means that as long as your post is original, contains complete sentences, and hits the 500-word minimum, you will get full credit. This means that you should feel free to take the reflection in whatever direction you wish.
Course Calendar
Week 1 (March 28th to April 1st) – ONLINE ONLY
Watch
“What is Social Science? Part 1” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUApnFN2vGk&feature=youtu.be)
“What is Social Science? Part 2” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DTRjAqC61s)
Reading Due
“Social Science Palooza” by David Brooks (https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/opinion/07brooks.html)
“How Reliable are the Social Sciences?” by Gary Gutting (https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/how-reliable-are-the-social-sciences/)
Responses to Gary Gutting (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/opinion/the-value-of-social-science.html)
Assignments Due
Reading Reflection (by 8pm April 1st)
APRIL 4th, in-person class begins
Monday, April 4th
Reading due:
“Overcoming ‘Physics Envy’” by Kevin A. Clarke and David M. Primo (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/the-social-sciences-physics-envy.html)
“Let’s Shake Up the Social Sciences” by Nicholas A. Christakis (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/lets-shake-up-the-social-sciences.html)
Responses to Christakis (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/opinion/an-overhaul-of-the-social-sciences.html)
Wednesday, April 6th
Reading due:
“Quoting, Summarizing, Paraphrasing” handout on Canvas
Essay #1 due on Friday, April 8th by 8pm (on Canvas)
Monday, April 11th
Reading Due
We Have Never Been Middle Class by Hadas Weiss, pp. 1-51
“Writing a Thesis Statement” handout (on Canvas)
Wednesday, April 13th
Reading Due
We Have Never Been Middle Class, 52-87
Monday, April 18th
Reading Due
We Have Never Been Middle Class, 88-158
Essay #2 Rough Draft due (by 8pm April 22nd)
WEEK OF APRIL 25-29 CANCELLED FOR CONFERENCES
Monday, May 2nd
Reading Due
“What Academics Misunderstand About ‘Public Writing’” by Irina Dumitrescu (on Canvas)
Wednesday, May 4th
Reading Due
“You Want to Write for the Public, but About What?” by Katie Rose Guest Pryal (on Canvas)
AFTER MAY 4th, COURSE MOVES ONLINE
Essay #3 Rough Draft Due (by 8pm May 6th)
Week 7 (May 9-13)
INDIVUDAL CONFERENCES
Week 8 (May 16-20)
Reading Due
TBA
Assignments Due
Canvas Discussion (by 8pm March 20th)
Essay #3 Due (by 8pm May 20th)
Week 9 (May 23-27)
Reading Due
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES
Week 10 (May 30-June 3)
Assignments Due
Essay #4 Final Draft (by 8pm June 3rd)