Who's your pick? The Saints of the Other Team(just kidding, the Colts)?

What's your caption for these photos?

MAJOR NEWSFLASH!!! CLASSROOM CHANGE!!!

Henceforth, our Mon and Wed classes will meet in Classroom Building Room 105.
See you there on Friday!

Text and Comics

If you see other comic strips about tech issues, email them to me and I'll add them here.

Hmmm, makes you wonder, yes?

The scientist Richard Dawkins says we must "shake off the anesthetic of familiarity." What on earth could that mean?

READING FOR IN CLASS ESSAY: Doggie Cam

Let's admit it, our dogs are our children with less backtalk. Our own personal canines are always glad to see us, we don't have to worry about their friends or more importantly who they marry, unless of course we're breeders, then we care a lot.
That being said watching your dog on the web while you're at work seems like a no brainer for entertainment. After all if parents installed nanny cam to make sure the babysitter wasn't ignoring or worse, beating up on the kids, then why wouldn't any caring pet owner want to make sure Fido or Fifi is safe and sound at the doggie day care center.
This brings me to a recent encounter with dog owner Alfonso Quirzo. He reluctantly leaves Bruno, a 9-month-old Brussels Griffon at The Paw Stop each day before work in lower Manhattan. Believe me, this is no dive; there is air-conditioning, a doggie play set, even a television in the communal room. And there are two of those, one for little bitty dogs and another for the big ones.
What makes this place special, though not as special as a few years ago when there were fewer of them with a web cam set up, is the internet connection allowing pet owners to view their little dears.
Staffer Michelle Areton says clients really like to log on to the store's website and watch the doggie doin's during the day. "They come in to pick up their dogs at the end of the day and may remark, 'I couldn't see him or her on the camera. I guess he was out of range,'" quips Michelle. Blake Wallizer, President of Denver based onlinedoggie.com says use of such cameras and online streaming are becoming a necessity for pet care providers rather than a luxury feature. Wallizer's company supplies and services such doggie cam owners. "People want to know that their canine incarcerated at a care center for most of the day is actually enjoying a healthy experience," he says.
Of course, the dogs don't know they're on camera and their beloved owner can peek in at any time. The four-footed woofers just go about the business of acting like dogs. When Alfonso remarked that he learned a lot about Bruno that he didn't know before because of watching on the web cam, I only wondered how much do you really need to know about a dog? After all, your best friend doesn't have to declare a major, write a job description, or even fill a sale quota. The critter just has to lick your face when you come home and not remind you of all the things you screwed up for the day.
What owners like Alonso really seems to want is a connection with that little creature that warms your heart, makes you smile and feel loved and valued. "I got to see the lady dog he was focused on," says Alonso. If he wasn't able to observe over the web, he might never have known Bruno had a crush. It may seem kind of silly to a non-pet owner, but it's doggone powerful stuff when it's your dog and you're away from it a lot.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roseanne-colletti/doggie-cam_b_299180.html

Padded Poles

Did you know there were 16,000 trips to the emergency room last year from people who ran into something while texting?

Communally Written Restaurant Reviews

Post your reviews here:

Calif. man shoots his way out of sinking SUV

NOTICE WHAT CAUSES THIS ACCIDENT?


ROSEVILLE, Calif. – A driver whose SUV plunged into a Northern California creek after he was startled by his hands-free cell phone device escaped the sinking vehicle by blasting out the window with a handgun. The 28-year-old man, whose name wasn't immediately available, is an armed security guard at Thunder Valley Casino, north of Sacramento. He sustained minor injuries in Sunday's accident.
A spokesman for the Roseville Fire Department said the man was traveling northbound on Industrial Avenue in Roseville when the cell phone device activated. The driver was startled and veered off the road through the guardrail. The SUV landed in Pleasant Grove Creek.
He used his gun to shoot himself out, then flagged down a passerby.

This is from yahoo news.

Body Scanners: Ethical or Not?

How much individual freedom or comfort would you give up to be safe from terrorists?

TECHNOLOGY IDEAS

How about this? What impact has gps had on people's ability to find addresses or other places? What impact has the address book in our cellphones had on our memory of numbers? Before cell phones, I used to remember many more telephone numbers.
How have new technologies impacted giving and relief? With the Haiti earthquake, you can text a number that will automatically make a donation to the Red Cross.
With all of this, are people more connected to each other, more sympathetic and closer together, or are the devices and so called advances having another effect on who we are?
Do you have questions or ideas about the impact of technology? Have you ever been lost because you used Mapquest and it sent you the wrong way? Do you think people have less knowledge of directions because of such locational devices?
Is there too much information now? What does information overload do to the human mind and to social relations?
Do you use Skype? Has it brought families closer?
The role of computers in movies: there's often a villain now who is a thinking computer...think about Terminator or the Matrix. On that same note, look at how different Star Wars is from current CGI films.
How has DNA changed criminology?

Assignment #3

3. ASSIGNMENT #3We now get to begin thinking about the final project for this course. Assignment 3 is the research proposal, another short assignment, around two pages, in which you state what you will study, and why you are interested in that. Hence, you should start to search for a topic within that greater framework of the course that interests you. To that end, begin reading the selections I have posted on the blog under “Good Readings on technology” The big theme you need to begin to consider for a larger, 8 to 10 page paper is this: What is the overall impact of modern technologies on human society?

Assignment #2

A. 2 pages, double-spaced, typed
B. Due Wednesday: start of class, typed,
C. submit to turnitin by Wednesday night
WHAT IS THE ASSIGNMENT? Your assignment is to analyze the data. Make these lifeless numbers meaningful.

Look at the results from the experiments conducted by you or your classmates. You may use an individual experiment, two experiments, or all of the experiments. That is up to you. What is crucial is that you understand very clearly right now, you must do very little description. The whole point of this assignment is to test your analytical abilities. How well can you take facts and say what they mean? Make an argument! Find meaning!

RAW DATA

EXPERIMENT 1=TOGO'S VS. RUNNER CAFE

39 CHOSE RUNNER CAFE DUE TO VARIETY

21 CHOSE TOGOS DUE TO FOOD

(MANY SAID TOGO'S HEALTHIER)

EXPERIMENT 2=PREFERABLE STUDY FLOOR

3RD FLOOR=11 SAID 1ST FLOOR WITH STUDY ROOMS

6 SAID COMPANY, MORE PEOPLE ON 3RD FLOOR

3 SAID NO IDEA

4TH FLOOR=14 SAID QUIETER

4 SAID LIKED THE VIEW

2 SAID STUDY ROOMS FULL

EXPERIMENT 3=RAMP VS. STAIRS

STAIRS=16  8 MEN 8 WOMEN

LOCATION OF STAIRS DETERMINED CHOICE

RAMP=25   16 MALES 9 FEMALES

LOCATION DETERMINED CHOICE

EXPERIMENT 4=DOUBLE SURVEY STUDY

"WOULD YOU TAKE THIS SURVEY?"

REC CENTER, RUNNER CAFE, PARKING LOT, DDH

26 PEOPLE SAID YES   10 MEN 16 FEMALE

MAJORITY: BECAUSE ASKED POLITELY AND HAD TIME

14 SAID NO   9 MEN 5 WOMEN

MAJORITY: NO TIME, LATE FOR CLASS

EXPERIMENT 5=DRESS PREFERENCE

24 SAID DRESS FOR STYLE

16 COMFORT, ESPECIALLY IN WINTER BECAUSE IT'S COLDER

MAY BE DETERMINED BY SEASON BECAUSE OF COLD

EXPERIMENT 6=ON OR OFF CAMPUS (STUDYING)

40 STUDY ON CAMPUS DUE TO CONVENIENCE, FEWER DISTRACTIONS

38 OFF CAMPUS

CONVENIENCE (FRIDGE EFFECT)

READINGS ON TECHNOLOGY

I've started a list of readings that will surely spark some thoughts and get you to consider the ways that tech impacts human behavior.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/03/34526 This article is about "Fiddling With Human Behavior."

http://searchengineland.com/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-human-behavior-20921 This article is about the impact of the internet on human behavior.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
Is Google making us stupid? Great article!

http://www.unh.edu/news/docs/UNHsocialmedia.pdf
SOCIAL NETWORKING USAGE AND GRADES AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: A Study to Determine the Correlation Of Social Media Usage and Grades

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6070486/US-doctor-offers-British-couples-chance-to-choose-sex-of-child.html
US doctor offers British couples chance to choose sex of child

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23600001/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/
"Lose cell phone, get cast away from societyIn wireless world, living without a mobile like living on a desert island."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/dont-knock-blogging-ndash-its-the-answer-to-our-literacy-problems-1832593.html
"Don't knock blogging – it's the answer to our literacy problems"

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/216/cell-phone-society
"Cell Phone Society: Many Americans now can't live without them - but sometimes they can't live with them."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/28/earlyshow/living/main683377.shtml
Cell Phone Saturation

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/117976/cell_phone_use_in_polite_society.html
"A Psychological Revelation About What Happens when You Use Your Cell Phone."

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/338079/Texting_Rules_
Opinion: The business benefits of texting

http://www.emissourian.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20399730&BRD=1409&PAG=461&dept_id=616938&rfi=6
Study: Texting Could Benefit Language Skills

http://www.thefutureoffood.com/
Food engineering.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704538404574539910412824756.html
"Chicago's Camera Network Is Everywhere:
Extensive Surveillance System Integrates Nonpolice Video, Raises Concerns About Possible Privacy Abuses."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2007/07/surveillance_cameras_fighting_1.html
"Surveillance Cameras: Fighting Crime or Invading Privacy?"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4851765
NPR story about Drones being flown over Afghanistan remotely, by pilots who are in rooms outside of Las Vegas, at Nellis AF Base.

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Wired_News_How_Does_The_iPod_Affect_Society/
Wired News: How Does The iPod Affect Society?

http://healthcare.change.org/blog/view/top_medical_breakthroughs_to_start_2010
"Top Medical Breakthroughs to Start 2010"

Quotes regarding Technology

". . . the moment man first picked up a stone or a branch to use as a tool, he altered irrevocably the balance between him and his environment. From this point on, the way in which the world around him changed was different. It was no longer regular or predictable. New objects appeared that were not recognizable as a mutation of something that had existed before, and as each one emerged it altered the environment not for a season but for ever. While the number of these tools remained small, their effect took a long time to spread and to cause change. But as they increased, so did their effects: the more the tools, the faster the rate of change."
--James Burke, Connections

"Technology is the application of organized knowledge to practical tasks by ordered systems of people and machines."--Arnold Pacey

TURNITIN.COM INFO

Class Id: 3049381
I'll give you the password in class.

Legalize Pot? What impact would legalizing marijuana have on society?

Describe this photo.

Has your opinion of Tiger changed in the last few weeks? Does character matter these days?

Any guesses where this is? What does it look like?

A Bus with a soccer team on it is attacked in Angola...does this sort of thing make you think that people are inherently evil?

The team's bus was in Angola, six miles from the border of Congo, when it was ambushed.Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/soccer/01/09/togo.tournament.ap/index.html#ixzz0cBegoy3l

YOUR EXPERIMENTS!

Do you have questions regarding your experiments? Are you as excited as I am? Good, add your thoughts or questions or ideas here.

LIBRARY LAB INFO

Jan. 21, Lab 7, 12:20

JOHANNA ALEXANDER

654-3256

EXPERIMENTS

OK, here it is. Sorry for the delay. Here are three reports detailing two social experiments. Both are written about by Dan Ariely, author of the fabulous book Predictably Irrational. Read them and respond on here with any questions or thoughts you have.


---------------RESEARCH REPORT #1The Psychology of Gift-Giving
20th December 2009, 08:21 am
Here it is again: holiday gift-giving season – the best win-win of the year for some, and a time to regret having so many relatives for other

Whatever your gift philosophy, you may be thinking that you would be happier if you could just spend the money on yourself – but according to a three-part study by Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin, and Michael Norton, givers can get more happiness than people who send the money on themselves.

Liz, Lara and Mike approached the study from the perspective that happiness is less dependent on stable circumstances (income) and more on the day-to-day activities in which a person chooses to engage (gift-giving vs. personal purchases).

To that end, they surveyed a representative sample of 632 Americans on their spending choices and happiness levels and found that while the amount of personal spending (bills included) was unrelated to reported happiness, prosocial spending was associated with significantly higher happiness.

Next, they took a longitudinal approach to the topic: they gave out work bonuses to employees at a company and later checked who was happier – those who spent the money on themselves, or those who put it toward gifts or charity. Again they found that prosocial spending was the only significant predictor of happiness.

But because correlation doesn’t imply causation, they next took one more, experimental, look at the topic. Here, they randomly assigned participants to “you must spend the money on other people” and “spend the money on yourself” conditions — and gave them either $5 or $20 to spend by the day’s end. They then had participants rate their happiness levels both before and just after the experiment.

The results here were once more in favor of prosocial spending: though the amount of money ($5 vs $20) played no significant role on happiness, the type of spending did.

Surprised by the outcome? You’re not the only one: the researchers later asked other participants to predict the results and learned that 63% of them mistakenly thought that personal spending would bring more happiness than prosocial purchases.

Happy holidays

Dan

--------------RESEARCH REPORT #2

The so-called ultimatum game contains a world of psychological and economic mysteries. In a laboratory setting, one person is given an allotment of money (say, $100) and instructed to offer a second person a portion. If the second player says yes to the offer, both keep the cash. If the second player says no, both walk away with nothing.

The rational move in any single game is for the second person to take whatever is offered. (It’s more than he came in with.) But in fact, most people reject offers of less than 30 percent of the total, punishing offers they perceive as unfair. Why?

The academic debate boils down to two competing explanations. On one hand, players might be strategically suppressing their self-interest, turning down cash now in the hope that if there are future games, the “proposer” will make better offers. On the other hand, players might simply be lashing out in anger.

The researchers Carey Morewedge and Tamar Krishnamurti, of Carnegie Mellon University, and Dan Ariely, of Duke, recently tested the competing explanations — by exploring how drunken people played the game.

As described in a working paper now under peer review, Morewedge and Krishnamurti took a “data truck” to a strip of bars on the South Side of Pittsburgh (where participants were “often at a level of intoxication that is greater than is ethical to induce”) and also did controlled testing, in labs, of people randomly selected to get drunk.
The scholars were interested in drunkenness because intoxication, as other social-science experiments have shown, doesn’t fuzz up judgment so much as cause the drinker to overly focus on the most prominent cue in his environment. If the long-term-strategy hypothesis were true, drunken players would be more inclined to accept any amount of cash. (Money on the table generates more-visceral responses than long-term goals do.) If the anger/revenge theory were true, however, drunken players would become less likely to accept low offers: raw anger would trump money-lust.

In both setups, drunken players were less likely than their sober peers to accept offers of less than 50 percent of the total. The finding suggests, the authors said, that the principal impulse driving subjects was a wish for revenge.

Lets see if this trend continues….

-------------RESEARCH REPORT #3If you remember from Predictably Irrational, at some point we carried out a cheating study that assessed the value of moral reminders. In the experiment, we asked participants to complete a test, told them they’d receive cash for every correct answer, and made sure they knew they had ample room to cheat. Now here’s the kicker: prior to starting, we had half the participants list ten books off their high-school reading list, and the other half recall the Ten Commandments, a manipulation that turned out to have a marked effect on the results: While many in the first group deceitfully reported a higher number of correct answers, no one in the second group cheated.

How do we explain the findings? A tempting conclusion to draw would be to equate the religious with a higher morality; however, this argument doesn’t hold, since in a follow-up study with atheist participants, the Ten Commandments had the exact same effect. Rather, what was at play here was the power of a moral reminder: Prime a person to think about ethics right before they have an opportunity to cheat, and they’ll avoid immoral behavior.

This experiment also suggests to me that religion can be a good source of ideas for social science research. If you think about religion as a social mechanism that has evolved over time, then you can ask what purpose its many rules serve and how they can help us to better understand human nature.

For example, though religious leaders may not have understood the exact psychology of moral reminders, they’ve certainly had enough of an intuitive sense of their importance to circulate the Ten Commandments and emphasize a whole score of other religious tenets, statutes, and regulations. Whether or not they could cite the causes for it, somewhere along the line they gathered that a good way to keep people in check was to present them with a moral benchmark to keep in mind.

Given religion’s role in society and the way it evolves over time, I think we could benefit from using its wisdom to direct social science research. The key is to zero in on a religious tenet and ask why it’s there and what it suggests about human behavior, and to then empirically test the hypothesis with the hopes of deriving science from religious texts.

God bless.

COURSE SYLLABUS

English 110 (10355)
MWF 12:20-1:40
Mon and Fri: MUSIC BUILDING 114
Wed: Classroom Building 101

Thursday: LIBRARY LAB: 12:20-1:40 WSL Lab 7

Winter 2010
Section 5
Office: Faculty Towers 201A
Instructor: Dr. Schmoll
Office Hours: MWF 9:30-10:30
…OR MAKE AN APPOINTMENT!!!
Email: bschmoll@csub.edu
Office Phone: 654-6549

Required Reading:
Do not buy any books until you come to class.

Weight of Course Work
Assignment #1= 5%
(Reading List)
Assignment #2= 5%
(Experiment Response)
Assignment #3= 10%
(research proposal)
Assignment #4= 10%
(literature review)
Assignment #5= 5%
(introduction)
Assignment #6= 5%
(complete rough draft of final)
Assignment #7= 30%
(Final Research Paper)
Participation= 10%
Library Lab 10%
In Class Essay= 10%
(write 2, count 1)


Course Schedule: KEY ASSIGNMENT DATES LISTED

1/6 intro to course
1/8 HOMEWORK DUE:
1. sign into blog with your name
2. read the whole syllabus on the blog
3. bring signed statement promising that you read the whole syllabus
4. do the reading on the blog on experiments

1/11 Assignment #1 Due
1/13 Conduct Experiment
1/15 Discuss Experiment

1/18 MLK Day=Campus Closed
1/20 Assignment #2 Due/Discuss Assignment #3
1/22 wonderful class

1/25 Assignment #3 Due
1/27 In-Class Essay #1: Remember the policy:
To be eligible for a C in English 110, students must earn a C or higher on at least one in-class writing assignment and a C average on all other course assignments.
1/29 wonderful class

2/1 wonderful class
2/3 wonderful class
2/5 wonderful class

2/8 wonderful class
2/10 wonderful class
2/12 FURLOUGH DAY=NO CLASS

2/15 wonderful class
2/17 wonderful class
2/19 Assignment #4 Due

2/22 wonderful class
2/24 In-Class Essay #2
2/26 FURLOUGH DAY=NO CLASS

3/1 Assignment #5 Due
3/3 wonderful class
3/5 FURLOUGH DAY=NO CLASS

3/8 wonderful class
3/10 Assignment #6 Due
3/12 wonderful class

3/15 Assignment #7 Due


Dear Class,
Welcome to this course. This quarter, we will enjoy numerous experiences together, traveling on countless mental journeys. To start things off, I have constructed a syllabus that will guide the class, hopefully answer many of your questions, and become the official constitution and law of this course.
Why is this syllabus so long, you may ask? As a student, you realize what you must do to succeed in college, right? Some students, rather than doing what is necessary and accepting the consequences of their decisions, would rather abuse the system by searching for loopholes in each professor’s syllabus. One of the best professors to ever teach at this institution never even gave students a syllabus; how would he fare in our overly legalistic climate today? I’ll let you ponder that, but for now, it’s important to say that this ridiculously long syllabus represents my desire to state all rules and regulations and to clarify what this course is all about.

Attendance:
Just to be clear, to succeed on tests and papers you really should be in class. That’s just common sense, right? To pass this class, you may not miss more than two classes. Why is that? Does it sound harsh? Every class meeting matters. If you miss two classes that’s bad; how can you expect to do well doing that? Certainly your participation grade will suffer if you do that, but we’ll talk about that later. For now, if you miss that third class meeting, you are missing 10% of the quarter. You cannot do that and pass. So, here’s what we do. Do your darndest to not miss any class unnecessarily. Let’s say your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife calls and wants to take you to Tahiti this weekend, but you won’t be back until late Tuesday night. Here’s what you say: “Honey, I love you, but Dr. Schmoll seems to value my education more than you do, so we are breaking up.” Ok, that may be harsh, so don’t do that, but just make sure that you do not miss any class until the 8th week. What I’ve found is that it seems inevitable that those who miss two classes early for pathetic reasons like doctor’s appointments that should have been more carefully scheduled get to the 8th week and then have to miss for a legitimate reason (like a surprise meeting at work, a sick child to take care of, or a flat tire). If you get to that 8th week and then have to miss your third class, it’ll be bad. By that point, I’ll be kind, compassionate, a real shoulder to cry on, if you want, when telling you that you’ve now failed the course. Now, if you make it to the 8th or 9th week and you have not missed those two classes, then you have some wiggle room, so that if, heaven forbid, your cat Poopsie gets pneumonia and you have to sit up all night bottle-feeding her liquid antibiotics, you and I don’t have to have that ugly conversation where I tell you that Poopsie gets blamed for you failing the course. Let’s put this another way; do you like movies? No way, me too! When you go to the movies do you usually get up and walk around the theatre for 15% of the movie? Let’s say you do decide to do that, out of a love of popcorn and movie posters, perhaps. If you did that, would you expect to understand the whole story? Okay, maybe if you are watching Harold and Kumar, but for anything else, you’ll be lost. So, please, get to class.

Being Prompt:
Get to class on time. Why does that matter? First, it sends the wrong message to your principal grader(that’s me). As much as we in the humanities would like you to believe that these courses are objective (at what time of day did the Battle of the Marne begin?), that is not entirely the case. If you send your principal grader the message that you don’t mind missing the first few minutes and disturbing others in the class, don’t expect to be given the benefit of the doubt when the tests and papers roll around. Does that sound mean? It’s not meant to, but just remember, your actions send signals. Being late also means that someone who already has everything out and is ready and is involved in the discussion has to stop, move everything over, get out of the chair to let you by, pick up the pencil you drop, let you borrow paper, run to the bathroom because you spilled the coffee, and so on. It’s rude.
So, what are the consequences of persistent tardiness? What do you think they should be? Remember that 10% participation? You are eligible for that grade if you are on time. Get here on time. And no, I’m not the jackass who watches for you to be late that one time and stands at the door and points in your face. If you are late a few (that means three) times, you will lose the entire 10% participation grade. One time tardiness is not a problem precisely because it is not persistent. It’s an accident.
Remember also, if you are late when an assignment is due, the assignment will not be accepted. The assignments are due at the beginning of class on the day they are due, not 5 or ten minutes after class has begun. If you are late, it is late. If it is late, it is not accepted. No late assignments accepted!

The Unforgivable Curse:
Speaking of one time issues, there is something that is so severe, so awful, that if it happens one time, just one time, no warning, no “oh hey I noticed this and if you could stop it that’d be super,” you will automatically lose all 10 percent of the Participation grade. Any guesses? Cmon, you must have some idea. No, it’s not your telephone ringing. If that happens, it’ll just be slightly funny and we’ll move on. It’s a mistake and not intentional, and the increased heart rate and extra sweat on your brow from you diving headfirst into an overstuffed book bag to find a buried phone that is now playing that new Cristina Aguilera ringtone is punishment enough for you. So, what is it, this unforgivable crime? Texting. If you take out your phone to send or receive messages you will automatically lose 10% of your course grade. That means, if you receive a final grade of 85%, it will drop to 75%. If you receive a final grade of 75%, it will become a 65%. Why is that? The phone ringing is an accident. We laugh at it; we move on. Heck, my phone my even go off during class. Texting is on purpose and is rude. It, in fact, is beyond rude. It wreaks of the worst of our current society. It bespeaks the absolutely vile desire we all have to never separate from our technological tether for even a moment. It sends your fellow classmates and your teacher the signal that you have better things to do. Checking your phone during class is like listening to a friend’s story and right in the middle turning away and talking to someone else. Plus, the way our brains work, you need to fully immerse yourself, to tune your brain into an optimal, flowing machine (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s incredible book Flow) that can grasp and can let itself go. Students now tend to see school as a stopover on their way to a career. Brothers and sisters, that’s deadly! I wish that I could pay for you all to quit your jobs and just focus on the mind. I can’t yet do that but if I could I would, because it’d be worth every penny. Devoting time to the mind and to thinking deeply about your world will change who you are and how you approach your future, your family, your job, and your everything. Is that overstated? I believe it to be true. So, until my stock choices really take off so that I can pay all of your bills, promise me one thing. When you are in class or preparing for class, you have to be fully here. Oh crap, now it’s going to sound like a hippy professor from the 1960s: “I mean, like, be here man, just be here.” Maybe the hippies had something. Devote yourself fully to your classes by unplugging from the outside world for awhile.

Class Climate:
No, I don’t mean whether it’s going to rain in here or not. Sometimes I’ll lecture at you, but even then, your participation is vital. How can you participate when someone is lecturing? Any ideas? Turn to a neighbor and tell them the story of your first day at school in kindergarten. Now, if you are the one listening to the story, right in the middle look away, look at your watch, sneer at them, roll your eyes, yawn, wave to someone across the room, nudge a person next to you and tell them a joke, all while the other person is telling about his or her first day of kindergarten. If this happens in social setting we call it rude, and we call the people who listen in that way jackasses. They are not our friends precisely because we deeply value listening and do not put up with those who do not listen well. Right? So, there will be lecturing, and if you abhor what we are doing, then fake it. I used to do that sometimes too: “oh no, professor, I love hearing you talk about President Reagan’s supply side economics.” If we listen to psychologists, by faking interest you’ll be learning much more than if you show your disinterest. The next time you are sad force yourself to smile and you’ll see what I mean. So, sometimes there will be lecture. At other times there will be discussion of short readings that we do in class. During these times, it’s crucial that you do the silly little exercises: turn to a neighbor; find someone you don’t know and discuss this or that; explain to your friend what we just went over in lecture; pick something from the reading to disagree with; find two people on the other side of the room; throw cash at your professor…ok, maybe not that last one. This class is a bit unique in that it violates the normally accepted activity systems of college history classrooms. What we do in discussion will help solidify the concepts of each section of this course in your brain. If you are active in class, you will have to study less, and you’ll find yourself remembering much more.

Mining:
Have you ever wanted to be a miner? They do have those cool helmets with the lamp on top. Think about what miners do. They dig and dig, into the earth, looking for gold, coal, silver, or other valuable rocks. Sometimes all their digging amounts to nothing. They have to stop, change directions, and dig again. But sometimes they hit a productive vein. Our class will be a little like that. We’ll do some exercises that will amount to nothing and go nowhere. Who is the best judge of that? That’s right; you are! Sometimes we’ll do a written piece that will be fabulous and will produce beautiful golden prose. You will want to polish those pieces with your writing group and turn them into even more brilliant and shining jewels.

Reading:
How many of you love reading? I did not read a book until I was 18, so if you have not yet started your journey on this ever widening path, it’s never too late. In any course, there’s no substitute for reading. Jim Moffett says that “all real writing happens from plentitude,” meaning that you can only really write well about someone once you know about it. Reading is one way to know—not the only, by any means! I want you to have experiences with great texts. I can show you voluminous research proving why you nee to read more, but then if I assign a stupid, long, expensive textbook you probably will end up not reading, or only reading to have the reading done, something we have all done, right? The economy now requires much high literacy rates (see The World is Flat), and even though reading levels have not gone down in the last 40 years, it is crucial that you start to push your own reading so that your own literacy level goes up. For these ten weeks, diving wholeheartedly into the course reading is vital. Remember to read in a particular way. As reading expert and UCSB professor Sheridan Blau has argued, “reading is as much a process of text production as writing is.” Reading involves revision? Does that sound silly? As you read, think about the different ways that you understand what you read. Most importantly, when you read, think about the words of E.D. Hirsch, who says that we look at what a text says (reading), what it means (interpretation), and why it matters (criticism). Hey, but if you are in a history course, aren’t you supposed to be reading for exactly the number of miles of trenches that were dug in World War One, how many railroad workers died from 1890 to 1917, or what the causes of the Great Depression were? Anyway, the answer is yes and no. There are two types of reading that you’ll do in college. As the literary goddess theorist Louise Rosenblatt explains, there is aesthetic reading, where you are reading to have an experience with the text, and there is efferent reading, where you are reading to take away information from the text. You do both types all the time. Think about a phone book. You have probably never heard someone say of a phone book, “don’t tell me about it, I want to read it for myself.” Reading a phone book is purely efferent. In this course you will practice both types of reading. I have chosen texts that you can enjoy (aesthetic) and that you can learn from(efferent). I want to see and appreciate the detail in our reading, but in this course I’ll give you that detail in class lectures. In the reading, it’s much more important that you read texts that will live with you forever and to inspire you to think more thoroughly about your world. As you read, you should be working hard to create meaning for yourself. As Rosenblatt asserts, “taking someone else’s interpretation as your own is like having someone else eat your dinner for you.” Please, don’t let the numbskulls as wikipedia or sparknotes eat your dinner for you.


Students must earn a grade of C or higher in English 110 to satisfy the General Education requirement for A2 (Writing and Reading). This grade is also a prerequisite for upper-division composition courses and the Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement exam.

To be eligible for a C in English 110, students must earn a C or higher on at least one in-class writing assignment and a C average on all other course assignments.



You are responsible for attending the Library Lab that is assigned to your class. The grades you earn in this Library Lab are 10% of your English 110 grade. This lab will meet four times, beginning the third week of the quarter. Your thesis statement must be approved by your English 110 instructor before the first meeting of the lab.


Attendance Policy

Because mastering skills in writing requires regular, sustained effort, students in English composition classes should attend class regularly and punctually. A student who has more than two absences should not expect to receive a passing grade.


Waiting List Policy

On a waiting list, you are eligible for a place in the class
1. if you come to every class and
2. if you turn in the work while you are there.

Being on a waiting list does not mean you are guaranteed a place in the class. It simply means you are welcome to wait for an opening in the class if you so desire. If no one drops out of the section you’re attending, no students can add.

As a result, you should be aware of the last day to add and have a back-up choice if you need another class. This plan is especially important for financial aid recipients and for F-1 and J-1 visa holders, who must carry a full load to receive their financial aid. Being on a waiting list does not count as a class toward your full load.


Instructor-Initiated Drop Policy

Many students are trying to get into composition courses. As a result, this course is subject to the policy on instructor-initiated drops. If the class is full and has a waiting list, I have the right to have you administratively dropped from class by the end of the second week of the term if you have missed three consecutive class sessions and have not contacted me. However, you should not assume that you will be automatically dropped from this course if you have not attended.


Academic Honesty Policy

This course is subject to the academic and disciplinary sanctions established by CSUB for plagiarism as outlined on the university website: www.csub.edu


Humanities/Behavioral Sciences 277/477: This individualized Online Lab provides web-based tutoring to meet your reading, writing, research, and study skills needs. For more information, visit the OASIS Tutoring Center or contact Brooke Hughes (bhughes@csub.edu) or Randi Brummett (rbrummett@csub.edu).

Note: Humanities 277/477 does not apply to English 80 and 100 since these courses already require a Web-based Writing Workshop lab.


Individual, Drop-in Tutoring

Your instructor may also require that you complete individual, drop-in tutoring for certain aspects of your writing, in which case you will receive a Tutor Referral Form with your graded essay. If you receive a referral form with any of your papers, you are required within one week to take the form and your paper into one of the main CSUB tutoring centers (OASIS, STAAR, and CAMP) for individual assistance. Your instructor may withhold your essay grade until after you have completed this requirement.



Turnitin.com

Turnitin.com is a tool to help you avoid plagiarism. Approximately two hours after you submit your paper to this online program, you can access a color-coded report with details about your use of sources in your paper. Because this site does not detect problems with paraphrasing that is not cited properly, you should use this site only as a guide. To use turnitin.com, you will need to register on the site and set up a password. Once this is done, you will then need to create a “user profile” specifically for this class and any others that may use the site. You will need the following information to set up your user profile:

Class ID___given in class
Class Enrollment Password___english

After your profile is created, you can log onto and use the site.
Note: Submitting a paper to turnitin.com does not mean you have submitted your paper to your instructor; you must also hand in a copy of your paper to your instructor.