Course Information

ENG 121: Composition II | Lehman College, CUNY | Spring 2023

Class # 51967 (3 credits), 25F

Class Hours: TuTh 2:00PM-3:40PM 

Classroom: Carman 323

Tim Dalton, Graduate Teaching Fellow

Contact Information and Essential Links

Email: tdalton@gradcenter.cuny.edu 

Course Site: listenup3.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ 

Zoom link (as needed): https://ccny.zoom.us/j/4537798403

Our Hypothes.is Group: https://hypothes.is/groups/b6ZvZZzE/eng121-sp23 

Daily Activities (our “Chalkboard” Doc): http://tinyurl.com/lehmanchalkboard 

Student Hours: Friday 10am-12pm, on Zoom.

Course Description

From the college catalog 

ENG 121: English Composition II (3 hours, 3 credits): Continues the work of ENG 111, advancing critical reading skills and essay development. Emphasis on writing analytical essays and papers based on research in various academic disciplines. Classroom instruction supplemented by individual conferences on drafts with instructor, library resources sessions, and appropriate use of available technology. Note: All students, unless exempted, must pass this course in fulfillment of the Common Core Requirement in English Composition. Students who take but do not pass this course should repeat it the following semester. PREREQ: ENG 111 or equivalent or departmental permission.

Section Description: “Listen Up” 

In this course, we will read with our whole bodies. You’ll listen to, annotate, discuss, and respond to nonfiction narratives by audio journalists and creative writers. These podcasts—as we’ll call them despite a likely lack of pods amongst us—pose complex questions. These questions engage many themes: equity, social justice, globalized culture, the power of human creativity to invent machines and art. Those stories, these questions, and our responses to them all draw on the knowledge that emerges from our differences, and from the knowledge and experience all of us bring to class. One reason you’re at Lehman to begin with is you have a lot to say. And we all have a lot to learn from these true-life stories, from the rich resources we have at Lehman, and from the equally rich resources we bring to Lehman. All we have to do is listen up. 

Required Materials 

We’ll also look at secondary texts. Many of these secondary sources will come from the Lehman library; others will come from reliable, cited digital sources on the internet; a few will come from human sources—your peers, your friends, experts on a topic in your own home community. The process of locating, evaluating, and incorporating these sources into, first, your annotations, and, then, our discussions, and, finally, into your brief, original, often multimodal academic essays will be the bulk of our work this semester as readers, writers, and researchers. 

Content Note: These gorgeously produced, thoughtfully written, carefully researched audio narratives don’t shy away from difficult topics. In some cases, I have skipped or made optional certain episodes. This is mostly for time constraints, but also in recognition that some topics—depression, suicide, assassination, addiction, psychological warfare—are heavy. If these topics do interest you, the episodes that include moments touching on them are worthwhile, and you can listen to them on your own, and we can talk about them. Additionally, if there’s a triggering topic in one of the episode that is on our schedule, let me know and I can see if there’s an alternate way to engage the ideas in that episode.

  • With Lost Notes: 1980, you’ll work with relevant music or other writing by Hanif Abdurraqib; 
  • With Mixtape, I’ll suggest a reading from another RadioLab podcast with music, More Perfect (season 3)
  • With La Brega, I’ll have you listen to whatever’s available from the second season, just released this January.

This is really designed for students who are finding it impossible to complete the assigned reading. If this is your situation, find me in advance of the reading deadline to talk about how to approach it. In general, this rule applies to most assignments. If you’re having trouble, talk to me in advance of any deadline. You’ll have a lot of freedom in terms of what you emphasize in your writing and research this semester. We can adjust as needed. 

Course Learning Objectives

Goals

  • Write analytically and creatively—express ideas clearly and incisively in writing in ways required both inside and outside of the academy.
  • Effectively use a range of writing, reading, and research strategies applicable to multiple disciplines.

Objectives

Students will be Introduced to the skills of the discipline and be able to:

  • Compose a well-constructed essay that develops a clearly defined claim of interpretation which is supported by close textual reading.
  • Employ effective rhetorical strategies in order to persuasively present ideas and perspectives.
  • Utilize literary terminology, critical methods, and various lenses of interpretation in their writing.
  • Adhere to the formatting and documenting conventions of our discipline.
  • Locate and critically evaluate print and electronic sources.

Students will have the following skills Introduced and/or Reinforced in this course and they will be able to:

  • Integrate primary and secondary sources into their writing.
  • Employ methods of active reading, including annotating, summarizing, questioning and synthesizing.
  • Utilize current technologies to assist in the research and presentation of critical and creative writing.

Students are Expected to have knowledge of the following skills which will be Reinforced in the coursework and they will be able to:

  • Apply the rules of English grammar.

Technology

Though we are back on campus, the continually evolving COVID-19 pandemic has shaped the design of this course. Much of our work can be completed asynchronously and remotely. This is so that if you are, say, sick, there is a way for your voice to be present, through comments or annotations or other writing. That said: ALL work is imagined to be done in person, with collaboration and discussion, and shared with others in the same room. The general goal is to finish even small-seeming tasks by the time they’re due. Technology enables us to do these tasks. These tasks help us form a discourse community: a group of people with a shared goal whose best path toward achieving that goal is to communicate. 

A few digital tools are going to be central to your success. They include:

In addition to the above, you should be aware that the college offers free access to Office 365. We may use that some, too. 

You’ll need some basic hardware: access to reliable internet and a device that can produce an essay and connect to the aforementioned reliable internet. If any of the technology mentioned above presents a barrier, let me know.