Learning Goals

Assignment Descriptions:

The Google Sites E-Portfolio:

All major projects in this class will be assembled into a course E-portfolio showcasing the students’ writing process and revised products. For instance, the Google Sites Eportfolio will include workshop drafts which you will submit for peer review. After you have revised your written work based on peer review, you will turn in that developing piece to your teacher, who will provide you with extra feedback on your composing process. All revised and processed work will be curated into your course Google Sites E-portfolio. Therefore, we will spend the entire semester composing and curating the Google Sites E- portfolio. You will complete ALL major writing projects and other critical literacy tasks into your Google Sites Eportfolio. Attached to each major unit writing project will be a self-assessment cover letter reflection that describes your reading, thinking, writing, and researching processes.

Major Writing Projects and Reflective Self-Assessment Cover Letters:

For each units’ major writing project, the student will attach a self-assessment cover letter reflection -self-assessing their reading, writing and research processes. The cover letters are crucial to the student’s self-assessment and evaluation to monitor their progress in understanding their own writing purpose and processes. Each project will vary on the topic but is assigned to provide the student with optimal opportunities for meeting the course learning outcomes. You will include your cover letters in your Google Sites Eportfolio to situate your reader on your composing process and discuss your developmental processes as a reader, thinker, writer, and communicative researcher.

Letter to My Teacher- Writing Diagnostic

The purpose of this assignment is to prompt the student to introduce themselves formally to their instructor and to provide the instructor with insight as to what the student values about language, culture, and communication. In addition, this letter will allow the student to express how they see themselves as readers, thinkers, and writers; thus, my hope is for the student to express their current attitudes about their literacy practices, strengths, and weaknesses.

Major Project 1 Linguistic Landscapes Presentation and Reflection Essay

The purpose of this assignment is twofold: one, the student will learn how to adapt a professional presentation into a reflection essay using theoretical frameworks learned in class and two, this assignment will heighten the students’ awareness of the linguistic landscapes at Sac State and possibly their hometown, or another geographical space to discover symbolism using the concepts we will learn in class about the study of semiotics and linguistic landscapes. Linguistic landscape is the “visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region”(Landry & Bourhis 1997, p.23).

Linguistic landscape has been described as “somewhere at the junction of sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology, geography, and media studies” (Landry & Bourhis 1997). In François Bogatto and Christine Hélot (2010), they write: “Like other researchers before us Shohamy and Gorter, (2009) we assume that language in the environment is not arbitrary and random; “rather there is a goal to understand the system, the messages it delivers or could deliver, about societies, people, the economy, policy, class, identities, multilingualism, multimodalities, forms of representation and additional phenomena”(p.3). Thus, the student will collect concrete linguistic evidence, images, or symbols from two distinct geographical spaces that speak to how culture influences language and social relations in society.

Major Project 2 Writing about Research- Annotated Bibliography

The purpose of this assignment is to prompt the student to practice evaluating, synthesizing, recording, and organizing reputable sources for the social issue topic they will be researching. This assignment will help you develop critical and ethical research strategies and processes. You will gain multiple perspectives on your social issue by completing the annotated bib to incorporate and adapt this knowledge into a Podcast Script & Audio for our Mass Communications Unit with the intention to educate an intended audience.

Major Project 3 Podcast Script & Audio

A podcast typically coincides with or replaces short essays, personal experiences, or research papers. A good podcast communicates a message effectively and creatively. Before the student begins to record their podcast, they must write a script to follow. This script should be 2–3 pages (200–700 words) of typed, double-spaced writing. Because the student will be reporting to their audience on a social issue, they will need to supply context for their listeners. The student should set the tone, scene and reveal the purpose of their podcast by using effective audio rhetorical devices. In addition, the research and analysis they conduct for their annotated bib will allow them to provide their listeners with reputable information that they will adapt and publish for a specific audience. The students podcast should deliver their message as a call to action. That is, offer their listeners how they may help prevent or offer solutions to the social issue problem using the research and sources they found in their Annotated Bib as reference guides for their listeners.

"A" Qualifying Assignments

Critical Discourse Analysis

The purpose of the following assignments will allow you to develop critical discourse analysis practices to build on your cultural and historical competence. This means discussing elements of texts beyond structure and rhetorical appeal. To increase your consciousness of how language is used to dominate or reinforce social inequalities, such as those between people of different ethnic, economic, social, or intellectual groups, and to analyze changes taking place in social organizations, these critical reading tasks are crucial to your development as a global citizen, critical thinker, reader, and writer and you will be required to incorporate two of the critical discourse analysis tasks into your Google Sites E-portfolio. The tasks are:

1. Music Video Discourse Analysis

The student will be asked to analyze social, cultural, and historical rhetorical strategies used in a music video that is communicating a social issue. Further, the student will analyze their choice of linguistic utterances (words, phrases, lyrics) and unpack their meanings with relevance to social, cultural, and political histories. In addition, they will analyze the visuals and art of the music video by discussing the symbolism and power relations the authors speak to in relations to society and history.

2. Genre & Discourse Analysis

The student will be asked to analyze two genres that are communicating similar aspects of a social and historical issue. One genre will be a government document and the other document is a form of poetry. The student will discuss how the two forms of writing are structured, examine their intended purposes, and analyze both texts’ power and social relations that speak to issues of government policy, human rights, and historical and contemporary representations of The First Indigenous Peoples of America.

3. Literary Essay Analysis

The purpose of this assignment is to raise your awareness of the genre conventions of literary essays you will read in this class. Further, it will allow you to discover and analyze features of a text by paying attention to language, organization, and writing prose. This task will allow students to reflect on some of the content discussed in the readings. It will require the student to practice using reading strategies to familiarize themselves with genre conventions and to help them develop critical reading skills.

Students will read 2 of the 5 readings below and choose 1 of 5 readings to complete the Literary Essay Analysis:

Abu Lughod, Layla- From Honor and Shame

Anzaldua, Gloria – How to Tame a Wild Tongue

bell hooks- Keeping Close to Home

Lorde, Audre- The Fourth of July

Malcolm X- Discovering the Power of Language

Collaborative Discussions on social issue topics

You will be required to listen to and respond to two special social and historical issue topics in a discussion post and comment on at least two of your classmates’ thoughts. Two of your formal responses will be incorporated into your Google Sites Eportfolio to show your ability to analyze how culture and communities shape language and communication. Further instructions will be supplied online via Canvas. Critical topic discussions will be on the following and again you will only be required to respond to 2 if you want to receive an ‘A’:

Unit 1- Jamila Lyiscott “3 Ways to Speak English” Poetic Performance

Unit 2- Titus Kaphar “Can Art Amend History” Ted-Talk

Unit 3- Verna Myers “How to overcome our biases?” Ted-Talk

Assigned Readings Rationale

The readings and listening activities I have assigned reflect how powerful institutions, culture, and the politics of language have affected people and communities. I share these authors and their messages to communicate how language has evolved over time, and how it has affected our social, educational, and professional communities. The readings are assigned to enrich your learning about language and literacy practices and will help provide you with supporting evidence for your major project assignments. *Assigned readings are subject to change. Other readings may be assigned throughout the course to stimulate discussion and to help facilitate further understandings on certain topics.

Post-Reading Reflection Discussions

During the course, I will ask you to reflect on some of the content discussed in the readings to promote thinking and peer collaborative engagement with the texts’ positioning. It is important to be aware of how our minds respond to certain texts and why- that is, it is important to engage with a texts’ complexities to better understand an authors’ positioning.

Free writes:

Consider free writing to be an opportunity to write about what you are thinking -do it freely without self-judgment. This will allow you to take part in the composing process. During the course, I will ask you to think and write about topics that relate to an upcoming assignment, a current socio-political event or simply to get you thinking about how and why language is used to communicate ideas.