College One Core Course
Winter 2020
Instructor: (Ms./ Mrs./ Dr.) Marilyn Patton
Office Hours: Crown 113 – 10:30-11:30 Mon., 1:30-2:30 Weds. and by appointment
mapatton@ucsc.edu 831-234-1697, text or call
Course Description: You are going to be in charge of the world. What are your plans? How are you going to make life better for humans and make the planet a better place to be? Can you do right while doing well? This quarter will be your chance to develop strategies and guidelines for making ethical decisions and to think about those plans with your fellow students before you implement them.
Class Design: College 1 introduces students to university-level thinking, reflection, and inquiry through active engagement with texts, each other, and the instructor. Students are challenged to find meaning in the texts they read and to apply these skills across the curriculum, reading with or against the grain and taking risks with their critical responses. Students will be encouraged to consider opposing points of view and to engage in analysis, critical thinking, metacognition, engagement with others, and self-efficacy.
Course Requirements:
· Willingness to work hard, engage new ideas, respect your classmates, and use your sense of humor.
· Attendance is mandatory. If you are sick, email or text me and explain. Don’t just disappear.
· No lateness.
· Regular reading. Always come prepared to discuss the assigned readings.
· Maintain a metacognition blog and a vocabulary diary.
· Open class (with another person) one day.
· Contribute once a week to the online discussion about the question of the week.
· Active participation in class is a significant part of your grade. Try to talk at least once during each class
· All students must have a UCSC email account and check it regularly; there will be periodic updates.
· There will be times during many classes when using a laptop or smartphone is helpful. However, in general, keep them in your backpack until you are requested to use them.
Learning Outcomes:College 1 provides students with the analytical and critical thinking tools needed to succeed in many courses. This course will help you to
· Understand and analyze texts critically
· Recognize the relationship between genres, a text’s purpose, audience, and the rhetorical strategies it uses to persuade its readers.
· Reflect critically on the relationships among sources of information.
· Recognize and analyze differences, oppositions, and contradictions in texts and in your own and classmates’ thinking, speech, and writing.
· Foster cooperative and critical discussion among all members of the class
· Take risks in reading, writing, and discussion by advocating or appreciating unusual, different, or unpopular points of view.
· Respond productively to conflict generated by fundamental questions, controversial topics, and unpopular ideas.
Useful Information
Notes about opening the class discussion. This is worth 50 points and you should get most of the points without difficulty. Plan to take 15 minutes or less of the class time.
Why? I am trying to have this class resemble a seminar more than a lecture class. That means student involvement and leadership.
What and How? You may start with questions to the class about the reading. You may give a quiz. You may show a connected video. You may set up a debate about a topic within or connected to the reading. You may make a crossword puzzle or a Jeopardy game or Kahoot. Or you may just argue that the writer is completely wrong.
Who? Everything is up to you and the other people who have signed up for the same day, but I would like to hear your ideas at the previous class just to make certain I allow enough time and don’t have overlapping plans.
Where? Sign on the sheet I pass around and then I’ll print out the entire calendar so you will know when your day is coming around.
Ten Quizzes: 100 points.
My quizzes tend to be fun to do, but still measure whether you have done the reading or not. I use crossword puzzles plus a type of quiz called “Provocative Questions” where you work in teams. Sometimes the quiz is just showing me how you have marked up the reading for that day.
Vocabulary Diary: 100 points. Due March 9
I suggest
1. Quoting the sentence in which the word is used in your reading.
2. Please add in the dictionary definition.
3. Next, write what it means to you in your own words.
4. Then, as the quarter goes on, add to that entry by putting in quotes whenever you see the word used again, whether with the same meaning or with a different (possibly nuanced) meaning.
I expect to see at least 20 vocabulary words during the quarter. If you already have a fantastic vocabulary, then explicate words which are being used in new ways.
Metacognition Blog or Website: 100 points. Due March 11(Use Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, or any free site)
I will regularly ask you questions about your own reading strategies, your ways of doing analysis, what type of learner you are, and many more like that. I expect you to answer them by posts within your blog or by putting all the writings on a website. Please put in illustrations, links, music, art, and anything else you can to make it your own.
I will check the blog two or three times during the quarter.
You may use the Blog to pre-assess yourself (what you already know about a topic), to write about any and everything that confused you within a reading or while undertaking an assignment, and to look back and think about how you have changed and what you have learned. Keeping the Diary or Blog is itself an act of metacognition.
“Metacognition is, put simply, thinking about one’s thinking. More precisely, it refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance. Metacognition includes a critical awareness of a) one’s thinking and learning and b) oneself as a thinker and learner” (Chick). It includes the ability to adapt what you already know to new contexts and tasks. “Metacognitive practices help students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses as learners, writers, readers, test-takers, group members, etc. A key element is recognizing the limit of one’s knowledge or ability and then figuring out how to expand that knowledge or extend the ability” (Chick).
Weekly online (Canvas) writing:150 points, worth 15 points each.
This means writing at least a paragraph every time there is a question in the Discussions section of your Canvas account. Your post introducing yourself has already given you 15 points! For the questions after that, please reference the reading(s) in some way that shows you are keeping up. The answers may be written any time until 15 minutes before the class where we will discuss that reading. Putting in quotations from the reading is a good idea. Using the vocabulary or explaining the vocabulary – great! Using terms from ethics, logic, or logical fallacies – great! Connecting to your own experiences, other readings, and your own ideas – please do!
What does not count: grammar, spelling, perfect MLA format, works cited, etc.
Grading System for College One
Opening class with questions & ideas 50
Class participation (discussion, on-time) 50
Metacognition Blog 100
Vocabulary Diary 100
Final Presentation (includes progress reports and one meeting with Dr. Patton
125
Final co-written paper 75
Canvas Discussions (10 questions) 150
Ten quizzes 100
In-class paper 50
Total 800
(A=720-800, B=640-719, C=560-639, D=480-559)
Extra Credit: Up to 50 total points possible.
Individual
· Attend the performance of 1984
· Attend the Social Fiction Conference
Group:
· Include a creative component in your Presentation (dramatization, multi-modal, etc.) (5-20 points)
· Bonus for primary research (Interviews/ surveys): Groups who support their research project with a significant number of interviews or surveys get extra credit of up to 10% of the grade for the presentation.
Classroom Accommodations:
If you qualify for classroom accommodations, or if you just need them and may not fit the bureaucratic rules, please let me know as soon as possible, outside of class.