English Comp II – sections 17 & 21
Course Description: Herd Thinkers
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“Today, we are all less conscious of our severe mental
shortcomings and less inclined to be skeptical of our own opinions. We have confirmation bias; we pick out
evidence that supports our views. We
are cognitive misers; we try to think as little as possible. We are herd
thinkers who [adapt] our perceptions to fit in with the group.” -David Brooks Herd Thinkers The goal of this course is to help you strengthen your reading and writing skills as well as your ability to ask questions and think critically. We will do this by reading, discussing and writing about issues of conformity, “groupthink,” and obedience to authority. We will read some classic social psychology studies of conformity and obedience: Solomon Asch’s “Opinions and Social Pressure,” Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments as described in “The Perils of Obedience,” and Irving Janis’s description and analysis of the concept he termed “groupthink.” Our class discussions of these readings are at the core of the reading and thinking part of this academic writing course. I will try not to lecture but to facilitate your discussion by providing discussion questions (see the link on the left) and by organizing the discussion and keeping you focused. But my hope is that you will come to class ready to discuss the readings knowledgeably and to work collaboratively with fellow students in order to develop your own analyses and judgments. If you take advantage of these discussions by preparing well for them and by participating in them, you will find it easier to write a good paper on the writing tasks because they will be based on the readings and grow out of our class discussions. Read about the basic Course Requirements & Policies to be sure you know the rules of the game. Any questions? Post them to the "Question Box" or else contact me via Campus Cruiser at robertgr9050@portal.middlesexcc.edu. There are no required print textbooks for this class. All the readings will be available online from our class pages on Campus Cruiser. You would probably be wise to print them out though rather than speed reading them online. This is an English class where close, thoughtful reading is encouraged and valued. If you have a comp handbook from English 121 that you like, use it. But links in some assignments and other course pages will refer you to help with all matters covered in a typical college composition handbook. These links – to such helpful web pages as Purdue's On-Line Writing Lab and Capital Community College’s online Guide to Grammar and Writing – will also be found on our Internet Resources page. Since
the course pages are all on Campus Cruiser, you will be expected to print
them out beforehand and bring your copies to class. This means that you must plan far enough ahead
to avoid problems created by such technical difficulties as “my printer ran
out of ink,” “Campus Cruiser was down when I tried to read the article,” “Campus Cruiser was too slow,” or “my
sister wouldn’t let me on the computer.”
In this course, I will ask you to print your final papers and bring
them to class. (Be sure each paper has
your name on it and an apt, catchy paper title too.) But I will also ask you to submit them online using the Campus Cruiser
Submission procedure in "My Assignments": i.e., choose the relevant
assignment, click "Submit Your Assignment," and follow
instructions. This allows me to keep
track of lost or revised papers, use sample passages or papers for class
discussion, etc. But I won’t have time
(or ink) to print out everyone's paper from Campus Cruiser. So I need to ask you to submit them in both
ways.
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