DANBY | IA&S 300 SYLLABUS
BIS 300C: Introduction to Interdisciplinary Inquiry
Fall Quarter, 2009, Monday and Wednesday 5:45-7:50 UW1-202 (new room; we’ll move during break October 5)
Colin Danby,
Office: UW1-245 (425) 352-5285
danby@u.washington.edu
Office Hours Monday and
Wednesday
4:00-5:00 PM, and by appointment.
Purpose
This course is an introduction to the
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program. One goal of higher education
is to help you become a more critical consumer of knowledge, and a producer of
knowledge yourself. This means learning to think carefully about claims
are made, and paying attention to what questions are being asked. In this
class we will stress close, attentive, and critical reading. In your
writing you will be asked to discuss, interpret and critique readings.
In the past, you may have been asked to write
summaries. You may also have learned to
write "personal" essays that express an opinion. Summaries and personal essays are fine
things, but they are not what we do in this class.
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Pure fact
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Interpretation, analysis
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Pure opinion
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This class is all about the middle category. Interpretations and analyses are not simple,
easily-ascertainable facts, and intelligent people of good will can have
different interpretations. But on the other hand, they are not just about
making stuff up. We will be interested in how you assess interpretations.
Universities combine teaching and research; they
create knowledge as well as communicating it. As you move into the upper
levels of an undergraduate education, you come closer to what are sometimes
grandly called the "frontiers of knowledge." This is the difficult project of trying to
figure out what the world is like and how it works. This class will give
you a better sense of what scholars do, and better abilities to interpret and
think critically about what scholars write and say. Just because
something is printed in a book or journal doesn't mean it's true or right or
even carefully thought out, and one of the benefits of a good university
education is that you will develop better defenses against bad arguments, spurious evidence, and inappropriate
claims of expertise.
This is one reason that we will stress questions as
much as answers. If there is one thing that I would like you to get out
of this class, it is the ability to identify the question or questions that
people are responding to. This class is, in a lot of ways, at
right-angles to a traditional course. It is not "about" anything in the
sense that it covers no set subject area. (If it makes you more comfortable to
name a theme for this class, the theme is truth.) We are interested in uncovering rather than
covering, circling back for another look rather than moving on, rereading,
rewriting, rethinking. It will frustrate you at times, because it's different
from what you're used to. The commitment I can make to you is that (a) if you
keep up with the work, engage with the material in class, and talk to me
whenever you have questions you'll do well and (b) this class will help you do
better in future IAS courses.
This is a portfolio-based course, designed to give you
a good start in keeping a portfolio of your work as you move through the IAS
program. We will spend considerable time
on the collection, reflection, and assessment of a portfolio.
Expectations
Above all, engage with the course. Talk back to it. Talk back to
me. My hope is that you will see this course as a way to take a more
active role in your own education.
Keep me informed about how the course is going for you.
Evaluation
Participation includes small-group work in class as
well as larger discussion; it also includes our library session work and in-class writings that we will do
from time to time. I am interested in
quality of participation at least as much as quantity, and I am always
impressed when people respond thoughtfully to each other. Response papers
will be assessed on the seriousness of the effort grapple with the assignment,
and a good effort should get full credit. With the three essays, I will
grade more stringently on organization, clarity, insight, and quality of
writing. The first two essays can
be resubmitted, for a better grade, within one week of when they are returned
to you. Portfolio assessments will evaluate of the level of care and
sophistication with which assignments are being done, and the care with which
your own assessment is written.
Policies
Late work: The first two essay assignments will be subject to my normal
late-paper policy, which is that late submissions will be penalized 15% (of the
total possible grade) up to the first week they are late; 30% thereafter.
They will not be accepted after the last day of class meetings (Dec. 9
2009). Due to the volume of short assignments that this course produces,
no other late work will be accepted, but I will review late-completed assignments
as part of your portfolio. It's your responsibility to organize your life
so work gets done on time, reliably. Please do not tell me about
malfunctioning computers and so forth. There are no exceptions to the
late-work policy -- there simply is no way that I can fairly assess the
personal emergencies, job pressures, and other factors that impinge on
different people's lives, and adjust their assignments accordingly.
Please do not try to show me doctors' notes, court orders, or anything like
that. There is however one appeal: if you feel that for any
reason, part of your grade does not reflect your learning in the course, write
me a short e-mail explaining why, and I will take that into account when
assessing the final grade.
We will use this
electronic drop-box to submit assignments.
They will be due at 5:45 PM on the relevant day. If you have computer difficulties I’ll accept
assignments on paper before the beginning
of class.
There is no reason to tell me if you are going to miss
class. However if a serious illness or personal emergency is going to
affect course work over a week or more, please tell me so we can plan how to
get you back on track as quickly as possible. For a few other
points see Occasionally-Asked
Questions, How I
Assess Writing, and Notes on Formats
for written work.
Our scheduled classes are times for work.
Focusing on the task at hand is vital for your own learning; it also makes you
a better participant in small-group discussions and other activities that will
help others learn. It is therefore expected that you will use class time
for class work, and most importantly that you will not do anything to
distract other students from class work. This means, for example,
avoiding private conversations and noisy food, and turning off and putting away cell phones and any
other portable electronic devices. In
the interest of avoiding distraction this
will be a laptop-free classroom, and when we work with computers at the
library, you are asked to confine your activity to the work at hand. If you have to arrive late, please walk in
the back door as quietly as possible. It is my responsibility, and prerogative,
to determine what is appropriate classroom behavior.
If you believe that you have a disability
and would like academic accommodations, please contact Disability Support
Services at (425) 352-5307 425.352.5303 TDD, 425.352.3581 FAX, or at dss@uwb.edu.. After an
initial intake appointment, you should be prepared to provide documentation of
your disability in order to receive assistance. See www.uwb.edu/students/services/
You are reading a web document. It can usually
be located by putting "danby" into the
faculty directory accessible via the main uwb page,
or by putting "colin danby"
into a search engine like google. Changes
in readings or assignments will be made on the web version, as well as being
announced in class. If you miss classes, you need to check for any
modifications to assignments.
I find contact with students outside of class
extremely useful in improving what I do in the classroom, and I encourage you
to see the regular class time as only part of the service provided to you in
this course. Please feel no hesitation contacting me outside of class, using
the scheduled office hours, and setting up meetings at other times. Aside from
visiting during the scheduled office hours or chatting after class, the best
way to get in touch is e-mail. I don't use the voice mail system. On e-mail: the university provides you an
e-mail account. You’re responsible for your
own forwarding arrangements if you use multiple e-mail accounts, and for
service interruptions if you forward to an outside provider. E-mail that I receive from non-university
addresses may be harder for me to identify amid the daily flood; please be sure
that any e-mail account you use to contact me shows your full name in the
“from” field. On response times: I’ll
usually get back within 24 hours during the M-F week. If I can, I’ll be faster, and I often check
in during weekends, but don’t depend on that.
Given that (a) e-mail is hard to control and (b) there are federal laws
around educational records disclosure (google FERPA),
I think it’s best not to use e-mail to discuss grades or anything sensitive.
Academic Integrity: This course includes writing, and
it is assumed that written work is your own, and that when another person’s
ideas or words are used they are fully acknowledged. Please see the UWB
General Catalog, the documents you signed upon admission to IAS, and the
policy statements at http://www.uwb.edu/academic/policies/academic-conduct for crucial information regarding academic
integrity. The writing center has a useful page at
http://www.uwb.edu/writingcenter/writing/plagiarism and the library also has useful website with
resources at http://library.uwb.edu/guides/research/plagiarism.html. You are responsible for knowing what
constitutes a violation of the University of Washington Student Code, and you
will be held responsible for any such violations whether they were intentional
or not. Proper crediting boils down to two things:
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First, in
anything that you hand in, your own
writing must be clearly distinguished from other people’s writing. The normal way to do this is with quotation
marks around the words that are not yours.
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Second, quoted
material, or anything that you got from another source (a fact, an idea,
something paraphrased) must have a
reference clearly attached to it that tells your reader precisely where it
came from.
See these additional notes on
plagiarism. On the positive side, we will spend some time in this course
practicing different ways to bring other people’s voices into your writing.
Writing: A Few Notes
Texts
Electronic Forum: https://catalysttools.washington.edu/gopost/board/danby/13052/ I’ve found it helpful to have an
easily-accessible space where I can put things up, and where we can sometimes
pursue discussions that overflow class time.
It’s a good place when there is a question that really interests only a
few people in the class. All of you have
access to it and can post anything course-related you like. On the other hand there is no requirement to
participate in this thing. Do remember
that whatever you post here is public: that is, accessible to anyone with a UWNet ID.
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Topics, The schedule and assignments
may be changed as we go along, but you will always know at least a week in
advance what you need to do.
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This course is a collaborative effort. I have borrowed freely from the work of colleagues who have taught it before me. My thanks to Professors Constantin Behler, Bruce Burgett, JoLynn Edwards, Bruce Kochis, Ron Krabill, Diane Gillespie, David Goldstein-Shirley, Dan Jacoby, and Linda Watts. Thanks also to students who took this class in past years for all their interest and work, which has taught me a lot about what can be accomplished in this kind of class.