Unit 2: Writing Across the Curriculum
Unit Overview:
In this unit, we'll continue our general investigation into issues of citizenship, with special attention to intersections between education and citizenship. As a liberal arts institution, UNCA includes in its mission statement a strong commitment to the notion of producing citizens. This unit offers you an opportunity to reflect on the meanings of such an education and the implications for your future.
On another level, the unit offers you an opportunity to explore discourse conventions in various academic communities. Your first feeder paper will ask you to individually interview a professor to find out about their attitudes towards liberal learning and citizenship as well as the work they do in a particular field and to write up a one to two page summary of the interview. As a group, you will then be asked to analyze the various findings and to offer some conclusions on how the different academic disciplines vary in their approaches to learning and citizenship. Your second feeder will ask you to investigate some of the conventions in a given academic field through writing you find in a journal article.
Your final paper will ask you to investigate a one specific academic field and some of the central issues it investigates. As you progress through this assignment, be aware of the interplays of "insider/outsider" you encounter. This assignment sequence generally asks you to maintain an "outsider" position and to address your final paper to an outsider in the field. What does it take to be an "insider" in academics and/or within the specific field you are investigating? What counts as knowledge? The natural science, for example, will tend to privilege observable and repeatable phenomenon in their studies. The humanities tend to feature artifacts such as texts or paintings or films at the center of their investigations, and then to invite speculative or evaluative readings. How do these different forms of knowledge (or epistemic systems) affect writing styles and conventions?
Prewriting for Unit 1 (due Mon. Oct. 1st):
Read the UNCA mission statement, Hammond and hooks and write informal (but typed) responses to the following questions:
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A liberal arts education is often defined in opposition to a technical or vocational college. What is the role of liberal education in producing workers? In producing citizens?
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How can you imagine your education at UNCA impacting your class status? Your job opportunities? What are the privileges specific to your position as a student? Where are the pressures or moments of oppression specific to being a student? How can you relate your current experiences as student to your imagined future in the workplace?
Feeder 2a:
1-2 pages (individual paper)
Due Wed. Oct. 17th
This interview assignment is designed to help you find out more about how various professors think about the work they do in the academy. It also gives you the opportunity to make contact with a professor who may be potentially useful future resources and to learn more about what kinds of questions interest people in various disciplines within the academy. Your goal as a group is to understand how academics in various fields think about citizenship and the work they do in the academy. Each member of the group will interview professors in various fields (try to get interviews in the social sciences, natural sciences, management and humanities). The first thing that you will need to do is to compose a series of questions for your individual interview. Bring these questions to class on Wednesday Oct. 3rd along with the names of a couple of possible interviewees. In this feeder paper you will need to summarize the interview in a 1-2 page typed paper. Remember to include the professor’s name, position, department, and date of the interview. The interview should be set up before Fall Break.
Feeder 2b:
Due Mon. Oct.15
2-3 pages
Choose an article from a peer-reviewed journal in your field. Briefly summarize
the article information and write an analysis of its conventions in response to
the following questions:
1.
Who is the audience for this article?2.
What does the author assume audience already knows?3.
What kinds of evidence does the author use to argue his/her point?
Unit 2c
due Fri. Nov. 2
5-7 pages
Draw on information from the interview, article, and at least one other article from an academic journal or essay collection to define a professional problem/question/issue that you will analyze in your final paper. Rather than explaining each article/person’s position in the debate, strive for a clear definition of what exactly the professionals are discussing, and why it is significant. We will discuss your thesis in individual conferences Friday Oct. 19th.
This assignment asks you to analyze an academic issue, and to evaluate the different position in the debate. In a 5-7 page paper, describe the issue or problem and its context. Discuss some of the ways members of the discipline approach the problem, and argue logically in favor of one approach. Use information from your interview and at least three academic articles to back up your claims.
Present your argument in a style that is understandable for an audience outside of the discipline, carefully explaining all jargon and assumptions. A successful paper will demonstrate your understanding of the problem and its complexities in a clear and concise style. Document a social science or natural science topic in APA format and a humanities topic in MLA format.
An initial draft is due Wed. Oct. 24th. A version copy is due Friday Oct. 26th, and the final paper is due Friday, Nov. 2nd.