E350R, FALL 2012; TTh 2-3:30 PAR 104 w* e/l**

Jerome Bump

* w "This course carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will also have the opportunity to revise one or more assignments, and to read and discuss your peers' work. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work."

**e/l "This course carries the Ethics and Leadership flag. Ethics and Leadership courses are designed to equip you with skills that are necessary for making ethical decisions in your adult and professional lives. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from assignments involving ethical issues and the process of applying ethical reasoning to real-life situations."

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PUBLIC SYLLABUS

Par 104: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2-3:15. Instructor: Bump, J. Unique #:35495. Semester: Fall/ 2012.

Goals: A primary goal of this course is that students will "graduate with the flexible skills they need to be leaders in our communities." Those skills include ethics, critical thinking, independent inquiry, time management, digital literacy (multimedia and web skills), information literacy, and print literacy. In other words, to prepare students for their college and later careers we will practice college-level writing, speaking, listening, discussing, and analyzing ideas.

More specific goals of this course are to meet the requirements for writing flag courses, ethics/leadership courses, service learning courses, and the comparative/interdisciplinary course requirement for the English major.

For a detailed description of these and related goals consult

http://www.la.utexas.edu/users/bump/350/goals.html Overview: This is a leadership/ethics “flag” course devoted to experiential and service learning, requiring students to go out into the community and write a story to facilitate the adoption of a dog or cat who was or is on death row at the animal shelter.

    Because our primary approach to ethics will be emotive (compassion) rather than philosophical (rights), emotional literacy will also be one of our goals. Two of our basic ethics questions are [1] What would I have done about the Holocaust if I had been in Germany and known what was going on at the time? [2] What would I have done about slavery if I had been in east Texas and known what was going on at the time?

We are trying to learn ethics experientially. In this case, your assignment is to become an actor, acting as if the analogies are basically true. This "willing suspension of disbelief," as Coleridge put it, is essential to the effectiveness of all novels, plays, movies, etc. In this case, We temporarily relinguish our disbelief in order to experience a little of what that person might have thought and felt who lived by a concentration camp or a plantation supported by slavery. We know that a comparison is not an equation, but as we try to accept the connection, as we mount our defenses against the analogies between factory farming and the Holocaust, we can thus consider the possibility that we would have mounted similar defenses had we been that person who lived by a concentration camp or a plantation supported by slavery.

     Of course it is all too easy to be ethical about events that happened long ago.To make these questions come alive for us now, we will make our ultimate ethical goal to “widen the circle of compassion,” as Einstein put it, not only to all kinds of people but also other species. Analogies between factory farming, slavery, and Nazi concentration camps made by various writers and philosophers, and especially by the shocking documentary Earthlings, will challenge us to become more mindful of ethical decisions we make daily about food, clothing, entertainment, and nonmedical animal research on this campus. Whatever we decide, the goal is to become aware of the importance of ethics in daily life.

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Readings: We will explore the ethics of the representation and treatment of animals in Sewell's Black Beauty, Dobie's Longhorns and Mustangs, Morpurgo's War Horse, and J. M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello. (Coetzee, awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, earned his Ph.D. in this English Department.) Costello, set in Africa and Australia, will give us a sense of global cultures, as will our readings of  Black Elk, Rilke, and Kafka. We will also construct a brief history of the evolution of compassion for all creatures in world religions, especially Indian mythology, religion, and ethics. Our course anthology will include the Bible and authors such as Hogarth, Bentham, Carroll, Alice Walker, Ted Hughes, Richard Adams, John Graves, Rick Bass, and Amy Hempel.

Required Texts: [1] the course anthology*; [2] J. S. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello; [3] Anna Sewell's Black Beauty and [4] Michael Morpurgo's War Horse (0-545-40335-9; Scholastic; 2011). *FOR THE FIRST ASSIGNMENT, students will need the course anthology, which is a collection of xeroxed materials from Jenn's, 2000 Guadalupe (basement of the Church of Scientology at 22nd and Guadalupe, 473-8669). It will cost about $60. Jenn’s takes major credit cards, of course. If you don’t get there within the first few days you might want to call ahead to make sure they have a copy reserved for you.

Requirements:

Service Learning. The experiential, discovery learning aspect of the course will be most obvious in the service-learning writing project on ethics. Each student will be required to leave campus and enter the surrounding community to meet with a cat that has been saved from the animal shelter's death row by the nonprofit, Austin Pets Alive! For the second writing project, they will write a story from the animal's point of view to help it get adopted. This is an exercise in the sympathetic imagination, a basic requirement of all morality.

Digital Literacy. Because the "Five Characteristics of a Successful Student at U.T." include "Good computer skills" as well as "Strong writing skills," students should be familiar with keyboarding, operating systems, word processing, electronic mail, web-browsing, downloading and uploading files, and Blackboard. Students are required to check their email frequently (maintaining the correct email address in the U.T. Direct system), keep track of their grades in Blackboard and use its Blogs to talk about the readings and critique the papers of other students.

Students also need to know or learn how to create websites and blogs, with images. In other words, writing projects will require digital literacy (multimedia and web skills) as well as print literacy. The Blogs will "help students develop a small community within the larger whole" (Carnegie's Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities ).

Grades.

Daily class participation grades: up to six points per class, sometimes more if you demonstrate good listening, less if you don’t. You always get up to five class participation points for (1) bringing the books assigned for that day; (2) a printout of your blog, if you made one; and (3), on Tuesdays, a copy of your grades from Blackboard. Students who don't bring a book the first day it is assigned will be fined -5 points per day until they produce the book. Half way through the semester you get two additional points for putting next to the total points on the copy of your grades an “=” sign and then the letter grade those points are worth according to the course description as in “= C-“ When you do this you raise your class participation points for Tuesdays to eight points.

Being on time: Students prepare for class discussion by being on time.  There will be heavier penalties for being late than for being absent. Why? Basically, because being absent does not disrupt the class and coming in late does, especially if we are watching Earthlings or meditating or doing experiential learning or .....

There are in fact three important reasons for penalizing lateness in this way: [1] To prepare you for the real world. Employers will not tolerate this kind of behavior. [2] To be courteous and respectful of your colleagues, not interrupting the class to make your tardy entrance. [3] To avoid "enabling," to encourage repeat offenders to learn the lessons they need to learn.

The ultimate reasons are found in this essay by Dr. Carl Pickhardt The key sentences in that document for a teacher are: “Maintain adult demands and expect young people to meet them. Accept no excuses, make no exceptions, and attempt no rescues. Listen respectfully and empathetically and do not criticize the young person for not measuring up to what college expected. Encourage learning more responsibility from facing consequences of how one chose to act. And support the courage to keep growing forward in life.”

Hence, there will be no attendance or class participation credit for the first late appearance, -5 points for the second, double the penalty for the third, triple for the fourth, etc.  If anyone chooses to open the door for someone who comes late, they will receive the same penalties: no attendance or class participation credit for the first disruption, -5 points for the second, double the penalty for the third, triple for the fourth, etc.

Class discussion grades and ethics. The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. The first place responsibility and ethical behavior is required is in the course itself, in the classroom and in the assignments. Actions that hurt other students’ educational opportunities, such as tardiness in class or in peer critiques will not accepted. In the classroom, students who talk to others while the speaker is talking and/or encourage this rude behavior with a willing ear, will have fifteen points deducted from their class participation/attendance grade for each incident. Egregious behavior such as sleeping in class, reading materials other than ours, using your cellphone, iPod, or computer during class, acting out, disrupting class, etc. will be subject to a thirty-point penalty for each incident. Students who insult, threaten, or harass others will have fifty points deducted from their grade for each incident, and be referred to the Dean of Students. In sum, each member of the university is expected to uphold our core values through integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community.

Grades for writing projects will be based in part on meeting the two expectations employers have of college graduates: time management, and the ability to read, analyze, and follow complex, detailed directions.  To pass the course students must complete all basic requirements of both leadership and ethics projects satisfactorily.

Course Grades. About 50% of the final grade will be determined by two multimedia web projects, one on leadership and one on ethics (250 points each); 40% by quizzes and informal writing (400 points); and at least 10% by class discussion (100 points). 1200 points (out of 1,300 or more) are required for an A+ (unofficial grade); 1100 for an A; 1000 for an A-; 965 for a B+; 945 for a B; 900 for a B-; 865 for a C+; 845 for a C; 800 for a C-; 765 for a D+; 735 for a D; and 700 for a D-. Because more than 1200 points will be available, students can emphasize formal over informal writing or vice versa. At the end of the course, assuming they have met the basic requirements of the projects, students will receive exactly the grade recorded in the online gradebook, even if it is one point short of the next higher grade.

Academic Ethics: Training in practical ethics also means that any work, any paragraph, any sentence submitted by a student in this course for academic credit must be the student's own work, unless the source is explicitly acknowledged. Paraphrasing the work of others without acknowledgement will result in an "F" in the course. Plagiarism will be punished more severely. For additional information on academic integrity, see

http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acadint.php

FERPA: students will be asked to give written permission to share certain graded documents with class members. (FERPA = http://registrar.utexas.edu/students/records/ferpa/)

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The following recommendations regarding emergency evacuation from the Office of Campus Safety and Security, 512-471-5767, http://www.utexas.edu/safety/ :

- Occupants of buildings on The University of Texas at Austin campus are required to evacuate buildings when a fire alarm is activated. Alarm activation or announcement requires
exiting and assembling outside.

- Familiarize yourself with all exit doors of each classroom and building you may occupy. Remember that the nearest exit door may not be the one you used when entering the building.

- Students requiring assistance in evacuation shall inform their instructor in writing during the first week of class.

- In the event of an evacuation, follow the instruction of faculty or class instructors.

- Do not re-enter a building unless given instructions by the following: Austin Fire Department, The University of Texas at Austin Police Department, or Fire Prevention Services office.

- Behavior Concerns Advice Line (BCAL): 512-232-5050

- Link to information regarding emergency evacuation routes and emergency procedures can be found at: www.utexas.edu/emergency