INSTRUCTOR | Emily George

LOCATION / TIME | Thomson 331, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-4:50  

OFFICE | Padelford A507

OFFICE HOURS | Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30-3:30, or by appointment

EMAIL | ecg136@uw.edu

English 199 D

Writing in the Natural Sciences: Biology

A selection of midwater creatures revealed through inventorying one cubic foot from Monterey Canyon, off the coast of California. From the Burke Museum.

Course Description

Welcome to English 199 D! In this composition class, we will practice writing within and about the discipline of biology in academic and public contexts. How do we learn to recognize the expectations of writing in a particular field? How do we adapt to different writing circumstances? How do we best communicate complex, urgent ideas to different audiences, in both academic and public-facing work?

English 199 D is a composition course linked to BIO 180: Introduction to Biology. Although the two courses complement each other, they have distinct goals, activities, and assessments. Your grade in English 199 D is separate from your grade in BIO 180.

All readings for this class are available for free on Canvas.

Required Materials

1. A UW email account and access to the course Canvas page (you should check daily!)
2. Notebook/Journal on a platform of your choice (Google Docs, Canva, Word, etc.)
3. Microsoft Office (free to you as UW students)

Course Goals

Practice research and information integrity.

• Identify and apply appropriate methods for investigating particular research questions.
• Demonstrate academic integrity and ethicality in citing/documenting sources.
• Understand how to critically analyze research, and incorporate research into assigned writing clearly, logically, and ethically.

Practice composing in different forms and genres.

• Meet the needs of your audience and situation by adapting to a variety of professional, academic, and public-facing contexts.
• Communicate effectively and ethically to different audiences and contexts.
• Understand how form and genre shape content and design.

Practice writing as a recursive, collaborative process and develop flexible strategies for revising throughout the composition process.

• Engage in a variety of (re)visioning techniques, including (re)brainstorming, (re)drafting, (re)reading, (re)writing, (re)thinking, and editing.
• Give, receive, interpret, and incorporate constructive feedback.
• Refine and nuance composition choices for delivery to intended audiences in a manner consonant with the genre, situation, and desired rhetorical effects and meanings.

Course Structure and Assignments

This course consists of two major assignment sequences, with a series of short assignments that are steps leading up to a major writing assignment.

Sequence I: Writing Within the Discipline  

In this sequence, you will: 

• Develop a line of inquiry related to anything you are studying in BIO 180 or in our readings for this class
• Explore your line of inquiry through library research and find and assess sources related to your line of inquiry
• Put together a short proposal synthesizing your research and coming to conclusions
• Write a scientific literature review based on your research (major writing assignment one), which will go through a rough draft, peer review, and final draft.

Sequence II: Writing for the Public  

In this sequence, you will:

• Develop a line of inquiry related to anything you are studying in BIO 180 or in our readings for this class
• Explore your line of inquiry through library research and find and assess sources related to your line of inquiry
• Put together a long proposal synthesizing your research, coming to conclusions, and planning the form and content of your project
• Create a final project aimed at communicating complex ideas to a non-academic audience, which will go through a rough draft, peer review, and final draft.

Grading System

In this class, it is important for us to approach the reading, writing, discussions, and research we do as a kind of thinking process and practice, and therefore to see it as the difficult, continuous work that it is rather than as a single skill to achieve. Therefore, the majority of your work in the class is graded Complete (a checkmark on your grades page) meaning you have fulfilled all the requirements of the work, and thus receive full credit, or an “incomplete” (an X or a 0 on the grades page), meaning either you have ignored the work, or you have submitted something that does not fulfill the assignment requirements.* Assignment requirements will always be specified on the assignment prompt. My hope is that this approach to grading will be more equitable and transparent, and will encourage you to take risks with your writing and trust that the failures you will inevitably encounter as you learn and try new things are part of that process and not something that will be penalized. You will have the opportunity to use feedback you receive from me and from your peers to develop the projects that you submit for a formal grade. I believe this will help us feel like this process is collaborative rather than competitive, an honest and generous way of engaging with one another’s ideas and questions and pushing yourselves and each other to develop as thinkers and writers.

If you fully participate in class, demonstrate intellectual engagement, show that you take all class members’ ideas seriously (including your own!), and complete all the assignments for the class, you will earn a course grade of at least a 3.3 (B+).

*On case-by-case occasions in exceptional circumstances, I will provide partial credit on an assignment that’s handed in without meeting every requirement rather than marking it Incomplete/0. However, this is not the norm; you should assume that you need to complete all assignment obligations to receive credit on an assignment. 

Grading Breakdown

Participation Assignments (40%)

Participation assignments include: in-class free writes, brainstorms, and other class notes; field notes; reading responses; shared annotation assignments; peer review; and group discussion and other in-class group work. While some participation assignments will be activities submitted in class, many will be part of your 199 Journal. Work in the “participation” category is graded Complete/Incomplete—in other words, credit or no credit. 

Major Writing Assignment Sequence Steps (40%)

You will go through two Major Writing Assignment Sequences throughout the quarter. Each of these sequences will include a Line of Inquiry, Source Assessments, Project Proposal, and Working Draft. Work in the “Sequence Steps” category is graded Complete/Incomplete—i.e., credit/no credit.

Major Writing Assignments (20%)

Your Major Writing Assignments are your showcase pieces for the two major sequences. The first, “Writing Within the Discipline,” will demonstrate your ability to write a biology essay that responds to the genre expectations of the discipline. The second, “Writing for the Public,” asks you to make strategic decisions about how best to communicate work in biology to the broader public. These assignments are graded on a 4.0 grade scale.

Expansion Assignments (up to 3%)

Participation, Sequence, and Major Assignments add up to 100% of your grade. However, you may choose to complete one optional “Expansion Assignment” between Week 2 and Week 9, which provides a boost of up to 3% of your final grade. Expansion Assignments are informal research projects that provide a benefit to the class by learning something on your own time that expands on or deepens something from course content (this class or BIO 180) and produces a handout, study guide, short video, audio guide, or some other form that explains what you’ve learned to others in the class.

Course Policies

Classroom Conduct

Our classroom will be a small community, and we will do a lot of experiential learning inside and outside of the classroom. It will also be a supportive and inclusive place. That means that we will all engage (take seriously and pay attention to) each other’s ideas. We will learn with and from each other–discussing and writing about ideas, giving and receiving feedback on writing, and supporting one another in class and out. By signing up for this course, you’re agreeing to:  

• Be respectful: Help each other learn through the reading and writing processes
• Be prepared: Come to class with necessary materials for that day, having done the assigned reading and work.  
• Use Laptops, Phones, and Tablets Appropriately: Please use electronic devices during class to do things relevant to class; any inappropriate use of technology will impact your participation. 
• Be punctual: Arrive to each class session or field-based activity on-time and stay until the end of class.

You’ll be asked to complete our Community Agreement on Canvas during the first week.

Late Policy

Assignments are sequenced purposefully so that they build on each other, and completing them in the correct order is the best way to make sure that you’re learning as much as possible from them. Therefore, I hope you will make your best effort to submit all assignments on time. However, I also understand that this isn’t always possible for a variety of reasons. Therefore:

• You may use a 48-hour extension for any assignments (see exceptions in the next bullet) that you are not able to complete on time, up to 3 times. To use this extension and ensure your assignment will not be marked incomplete, you can email me any time before the assignment is due to let me know you are using an extension. As long as you’ve done this, your assignment will not be marked late. You do not need to offer any excuse or documentation.
• Exceptions: Because our course includes opportunities for peer review, and students receive credit for performing peer reviews for each other, your classmates will be relying on you to complete assignments that will be submitted for peer review on time, and they will also be relying on you to give them your own peer reviews on time. Therefore, the 48-hour extension does not apply to peer reviews you are giving to others or to drafts of your work that will be receiving peer review. If you have extenuating circumstances that make this impossible, please contact me before the due date so we can find a solution together.
• Late work submitted outside of an arranged extension will receive half credit (see peer review exceptions above). I accept late work for one week.

Ignored Work

Ignored work is work that is:

1) never submitted and, thus, remains ungraded; or

2) an assignment is submitted, but is marked “incomplete” (an X on the grade page, 0 points) and which is not revised accordingly within 1 week of receiving the “incomplete” grade.

An assignment is “incomplete” if it does not meet ALL expectations outlined on the assignment sheet or prompt. If an assignment is submitted on time but marked incomplete, I will note the reason why it is incomplete in my comments, and you will be given 1 week to correct and complete it. If you have questions or concerns about the “incomplete” designation, reach out to me as soon as possible. Work that is not corrected in this timeframe will be considered “ignored.” Peer reviews that are not submitted will be marked “Incomplete” without the possibility of correction.

Note: in order to know when you have received an “Incomplete,” it is important that you regularly check your grades on Canvas. You should also set up Notification Settings on Canvas to alert you whenever you receive a grade. You can find instructions here.

Missing Class

If you must miss class, you may request alternative participation assignments twice throughout the quarter, as long as you request them ahead of our class meeting. Otherwise, missing class means losing the opportunity to participate in the day’s activities, and subsequently not gain any credit for in-class work. If you miss class, you are responsible for any assignments or handouts for that day. Make sure to get a classmate’s contact information during the first week of class. For longer absences due to extenuating circumstances, you’ll need to set up a meeting with me so that we can make more specialized arrangements and discuss your options.

On the use of “Artificial Intelligence,” ChatGPT, and other AI writing programs

Artificial intelligence is a subject with tons of branches and tools, and sometimes, the results of AI research and projects are useful, creative, and ethically well-thought-out. However, this is not true in many instances. ChatGPT and other forms of “AI” have repeatedly been shown to provide you with misleading or outright false information; to unethically scrape the labor of creators (artists, writers, researchers, programmers, engineers, and other workers) and use it without proper compensation or permission; to hallucinate, providing nonsensical responses or non-existent citations; to make huge energy demands with major environmental impacts. Moreover, some current research suggests that relying on LLMs in writing has cognitive costs on your language skills, memory, and capacity for independent thinking. All of these are important reasons for being wary of using AI for research, writing, or fact-checking. Whenever you use AI, remember that the results are not created out of nothing; they are created out of someone’s labor, and we should all consider, each time, how that labor was obtained and valued. You should also consider the security of your own data; many tools will collect data on you when you use them.

But in the case of this class, the most important thing to remember is that English 199, as I have designed it, is a class designed to guide you through a particular process of writing and thinking, learning about and reflecting on your own learning process, and revising your work. Good writing is not a product; it’s a process of thinking, one that forces us to slow down and struggle in order to grow. AI might be able to produce an essay that is coherent, follows “standard English grammar,” addresses a given topic, and sounds intelligent. It cannot, however, demonstrate how your ideas have changed over the course of reading and discussing a topic, or how your claims have been revised to accommodate new information or perspectives you’ve encountered, or how you have read and researched different sources and made your own judgments about their reliability, their usefulness, their connections to one another, the ways that they challenge your own thinking—the things I am most interested in seeing in your work. We are rarely afforded the opportunity to learn in an environment where unsuccessful ideas, messy drafts, and uncertainty are a valued part of the process, but you have that here. I hope you take advantage of it.

Because those are habits and skills we are practicing and evaluating in English 199, I ask that you avoid using generative AI unless you have a specific proposal for using it that I approve. I will consider proposals that are well-thought-out, consider the ethics of how specific AI programs work, and reflect on how this tool impacts your learning.

University Policies

Access and Accommodations

It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please activate your accommodations via myDRS so we can discuss how they will be implemented 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), contact DRS directly to set up an Access Plan. DRS facilitates the interactive process that establishes reasonable accommodations. Contact DRS at disability.uw.edu.

Whether or not you have a DRS accommodation, your presence, belonging, and success in this class are very important to me. We all have a lot to learn from each other about what it feels like and looks like to create an accessible environment, including navigating potential conflicts and tensions in access needs (what works for one person may be frustrating to another, for instance). Naming and communicating about your needs will be an important element of supporting your own and your classmates’ success in this class.

With regard to assignments and course expectations, if there are circumstances that may affect your performance in this class, please let me know as soon as possible so that we can work together to develop strategies for adapting assignments to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course. I am happy to work with you so that we can generate any needed accommodations and build a classroom environment conducive to your learning.

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 Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Academic Integrity

Plagiarism, or academic dishonesty, is presenting someone else's ideas or writing as your own. In your writing and composing for this class, you are encouraged to refer to other people's thoughts and writing--as long as you cite them. If you’re uncertain about if something is academic misconduct, including plagiarism (representing the work of others as your own without giving appropriate credit to the original author[s]), ask me. I am willing to discuss questions you might have. Concerns about plagiarism or other behaviors prohibited by the Student Conduct Code will be referred for investigation and adjudication.

Complaints 

If you have any concerns about the course or your instructor, please see the instructor about these concerns as soon as possible. If you are not comfortable talking with the instructor or not satisfied with the response that you receive, you may contact the Director of the Program for Writing Across Campus Jonathan Isaac, jisaac3@uw.edu. If, after speaking with the PWAC Director, you are still not satisfied with the response you receive, you may contact English Department Chair, Habiba Ibrahim, hibrahim@uw.edu, (206) 543-2690.  

Writing Support and UW Libraries Research

This course may ask you, among other things, to craft research questions, analyze a diverse range of texts, and engage in meaningful “conversation” across ideas, texts, and situations’ patterns with appropriate citational practices. If you’d like assistance, guidance, or a second opinion in doing so at any point, you can book an appointment with one of the Odegaard Library’s peer research consultants. The OWRC offers free, one-to-one, 45-minute tutoring sessions for undergraduate, graduate, and professional writers in all fields at the UW.

CLUE Writing Center: The Center for Learning and Undergraduate Enrichment (CLUE) is the UW's largest free tutoring program. It is open from 7 pm – 11 pm nightly during the academic year.

Odegaard Writing and Research Center: The OWRC offers free, one-to-one, 45-minute tutoring sessions for undergraduate, graduate, and professional writers in all fields at the UW.

*** See “Policies and Resources for UW Students” on our Canvas site for further resources***

ENGL 199 D Tentative Calendar of Major Deadlines