ENGL 296: Critical Literacies in the Natural Sciences Course Guide

This is a somewhat abridged version of my syllabus that outlines the weekly requirements. Consider this a kind of checklist of assignments/expectations you should be completing/meeting each week to ensure that you stay caught up.

Weekly Requirements:

Readings/Videos/Podcasts
- Each week is broken up into 2 - 3 topics with readings, videos, and/or podcasts for each topic
- I recommend starting with the readings and completing all of the material for each topic individually (start with readings for one topic, then move to reading response(s) for that topic, and finally individual homework assignment(s) for that topic, then start over with the next topic, etc., etc.)
Reading Responses
- There will usually be a reading response for each topic every week
- Don't worry about answering every question in the prompt; you only need to answer the questions you feel most confident with
- The entire response should be a long-ish paragraph in length and can be informal (I'll email you if you are not meeting expectations)
- Use quotes, page numbers, and/or references to prove that you completed the reading(s)
- YOU MUST RESPOND TO SOMEONE ELSE'S ANSWERS, TOO!
Video "Lectures" and Updates
- I'll post a brief video discussing each topic every week - these videos will make more sense after the readings and reading responses
- The PowerPoints I use in each video are available on Canvas under the "Extra Resources" in the weekly modules
- I'll also post extra videos discussing things like the syllabus, homework, weekly schedules, and Sequences (bigger projects)
Individual Homework Assignments
- Homework to be completed individually after readings/video "lectures"
- Best to be completed by midnight of the end of the week (Sunday of each week)
Group homework assignments
- Meet with assigned group (on Canvas) once a week
- Can meet face-to-face, digitally, hybrid, etc.
- Make sure to put names of present group members, mode of meeting (face-to-face, digital, etc.), date, and time of meeting at the top of each submitted group assignment
- Best to be completed after everything else is done
- Best to be completed by midnight of the end of the week (Sunday of each week)

Sequences (Bigger Projects):

The Social Life of a Scientific Fact (due week 2)
- In this project, which will take the final form of a deck of slides (a presentation, though we won’t be giving them to the whole class), students will conduct a rhetorical analysis of a piece of scientific research and the various ways it gets communicated (from a research article to a social media post), demonstrating how exigence, convention, and audience expectations all shape the ways that the “facts” get represented.

Ethnographic Vignette (due week 3)
- 4-5 pages, double spaced (excluding works cited page)
- For this assignment sequence, you’ll write an ethnographic vignette to answer a question about how people conduct, live with, think about, talk about, and experience science: a short, descriptive essay that illustrates a scene that you observed, and then uses this observation to explicate an answer for your question. Based on the question you’ve chosen, there are a variety of field sites that you might choose to make your observations: a lab session for one of your science classes, a public lecture and Q&A session, a museum exhibit, or a Facebook group where people circulate misinformation or conspiracy theories. You might also consider a field site that’s less obvious, but where ideologies and rituals about science are still documentable: climate activism demonstrations or organizing, zero-waste food blogs, or even a local hardware store that sells energy-efficient materials.

Personal Science Narrative (due weeks 4-5)
- 4-5 pages, double spaced (excluding works cited page)
- Students will compose their own narratives, exploring how their identities, investments, and intellectual interests have shaped their training. This assignment is a form of reflection, orientation to/within scientific fields, and self-advocacy. To complete this assignment, I will ask that you identify a project that can be useful to you: it can be a draft of a personal statement for graduate school applications, a narrative statement for a grant or fellowship application, an application to a job/internship, or a piece of autoethnographic writing that you want to develop and publish somewhere.

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Tuesday & Thursday 2:00pm - 4:00pm & by appointment

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