ENVR 201 Syllabus (Fall 2015)
| Dr. Chris Stevenson GOTW C-209, 289-8635 cstevens@richmond.edu | Office Hours MW: 2-3pm TTh: 10:30-11:30am also by appointment | Textbooks (1) Readings in Environmental Studies, compiled by Chris Stevenson. (2) Talking Sides: Clashing Views on Environmental Issues, 16th ed (exp), Thomas Easton (ed) |
|
| ||||||||||||||
Attendance
Due to the heavy discussion component, class attendance is mandatory. Unexcused absences will result in a deduction from your class participation grade. Acceptable excuses for missed class are: personal or family illness, or participation in a university-sponsored event.
Class Participation
Your class participation grade has two components: (1) daily Summary Sheets, based on the required reading for that day; and (2) attendance and participation in class/minigroup exercises. These are described below.
Summary Sheets
Various (1-3) articles will be assigned reading for most class periods. You are to prepare a short, typed summary (typically about one page) of each article assigned and bring it to class. In your summary you should clearly answer two questions:
- what is (are) the author's main conclusion(s)?
- what is the reasoning offered in support of the conclusion(s)?
At the end of the article there are several questions on the material. You should probably consider these questions when preparing your summary. In a few cases I will specifically ask you to address one or more of these questions in your Summary Sheet. The Summary Sheets should be largely in your own words. If you lift quotes from the source, make sure you include them in quotation marks and attribute them to the proper source. You do not want to use them unattributed in a test (which would be plagiarism).
In addition to being useful during the test itself, detailed and accurate Summary Sheets are invaluable aids in preparing for the tests. Here is a suggested guideline to preparing your Summary Sheet for a particular assignment:
- Read the article while highlighting/underlining the important points and concepts.
- I have included a list of questions at the end of each article. These questions represent MY ideas of what is important about the article. After finishing reading/highlighting, read through the questions and try to match them up with the text you highlighted. If you didn't highlight the answers to the questions, then try to locate the portion of the article that the question is concerned with. These questions sometimes appear in tests!
- Write your summaries based on the highlighted material. Use your own words for the most part; if you lift a quote directly from the article, be sure to use quotation marks and cite it properly.
- Your summaries can be in any format you wish: prose, bulleted items, whatever. If you want, you can even just answer the questions as your summaries, though that can sometimes be time-consuming.
Submit your Summary Sheets by uploading them to Blackboard before class. You should also bring a printed copy of your Summary Sheet to class for discussions.
Only Summary Sheets that are submitted on time will receive full credit and will be included in the "test packet" that you may use on tests. See below for my policy on late submissions, and for more details on test packets.
Background Readings and Extra Credit
In addition to the assigned readings, additional readings are noted in the Class Schedule. Neither are required. There are two types of additional readings:
- Background readings. The material in these readings are strongly connected to the material that is to be presented in class. While it is recommended that you read the articles before class---and study them for the test---a summary sheet is not required unless the instructor announces otherwise. However, if you submit a Summary Sheet for a background reading, it will be included in your Test Packet (but it will not count towards your participation grade).
- Extra Credit readings. The content of these readings often has a more tenuous connection with the class material; reading these articles will enrich your understanding of the topic at hand. If you submit a Summary Sheet, it will count towards your Participation Grade on a two-for-one basis: in other words, missing one day's required Summary Sheets can be made up by submitting summaries of two days' worth of an extra credit reading.
During the semester, there may be some talks or other events on campus with significant environmental content. Attending these events may lead to extra credit towards your Participation grade; details will be given as announcements in class or via email.
Minigroup Discussions and Exercises
Many class periods will follow a typical pattern. You will have done the assigned reading (and prepared summary sheets) before coming to class. At the beginning of class, I will provide some background and context for the reading. Then I will pose several questions and you will break up into small groups to discuss. After some time, we will come back together as a class for a general discussion and conclusions. The primary purpose of the questions and the minigroup is to foster discussion about the readings in a small setting, since typically larger class discussions are typically dominated by a few people (or the instructor).
Occasionally I will have the group write down the answers to their questions or perform some other group exercise whose results will be submitted at the end of class. These materials will be added to the test packets of the students who are present to complete the assignments. Unexcused absences will also count against one's participation grade.
Taking Sides Issues
Some class periods will be spent on a controversy from Taking Sides. Minigroups will be assigned a task for these days and will present their results to the class: they will summarize the context/background of the issue, or they will present a critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments presented in one of the two articles. As with minigroup exercises, unexcused absences will count against your participation grade.
Current Events
On the last class before a test we will have a 'current events' day. You will be given topics relating to the material covered for the test. Your task is to find some fairly recent (last five years or so) article or story relating to those topics. The article/story should be substantial enough that you can speak for five minutes to describe it. It might be a magazine article or a peer-reviewed journal article. If it is a (short) news item, you may need to do some additional research to "flesh out" the story and provide details and context.
Each student will write a short (1 page) summary of the article and submit it via Blackboard, as well as (a link to) the source article.
During class you will gather in your minigroups and each of you will describe your 'current event' article to the others. Your group will choose the most interesting or significant article and that person will present it to the class and receive some extra credit toward the participation grade. The class will also vote on which article is most interesting/significant. Members of the minigroup whose article received the most votes will each get some extra credit toward the participation grade; a minigroup cannot vote for its own article.
As with other minigroup exercises, an unexcused absence will result in a deduction from the class participation grade.
Tests
There will be three in-class tests given during the semester. The third test will be given during Finals week (you will have extra time on that test). You will be allowed to use a Test Packet during the tests. The packet contains all your Summary Sheets that were submitted on time, and submissions from minigroup exercises.
The third test will also cover Taking Sides articles from the whole semester, not just those applying to the third module of the course. The instructor will provide more details prior to the test.
Your Test Packet will be turned in with your test, and is covered by the Honor Code. There should be no handwriting on the Summary Sheets in your packet (highlighting and underlining are allowed), or any other unapproved additions to the Test Packet.
Preparing for Tests
The following are the source materials to use in studying for tests:
- the reading assignments, any required presentations, and your Summary Sheets of them ;
- the Powerpoint class notes posted on the class schedule;
- the notes you collect during class, if any; and
- old tests and test keys.
The best preparation you can do for the test is to prepare detailed and accurate Summary Sheets. The reading assignments are voluminous and you may not have time to re-read all of them before the test. Your Summary Sheets are valuable aids in studying, in addition to the fact that you will have them available to you during the test. Become very familiar with your Summary Sheets. You cannot add testable information to them, but I will allow you to do things that make them easier to use: adding page numbers, for example. You should compare your Summary Sheets to the Powerpoints -- you will need to learn any information in the Powerpoints that is not in the Summary Sheets.
Remember that the tests are timed. You should be very familiar with the contents of your Summary Sheets because you won't have enough time to thumb through them looking for every single item. In fact, ideally you should barely need them during the actual test.
Some concepts and readings are undoubtedly more important than others. If you have time, re-read all your assigned articles; if not, just read the highlighted portions and answer the questions at the end of each, paying particularly close attention to the more important articles and events.
Once you've studied the articles, Summaries and Powerpoints thoroughly, move on to the old tests. Remember that the course has evolved over time; the more recent tests are probably more applicable to the material covered for your test. If something in an old test looks completely unfamiliar, it may be from a reading or topic that is no longer covered. Conversely, there may be some new topics or readings that won't appear in old tests at all.
For each question in an old test, think of all the important components of a proper answer and jot them down. Then look at the answer key and see if you missed anything. I spent quite a bit of time on the answer keys; in the absence of a real textbook, they can be valuable aids in learning. Just keep in mind their limitations (ie, that some topics might not be covered on old tests).
In reviewing old tests, look for recurring topics. I consider some things quite important, to the point where some aspect of that topic will appear on almost every test. Look for such things and learn them well.
Policy for Late Assignments
Summary sheets are due before class begins on the due date. Late submissions will not be included in your Test Packets, except in the case of an excused absence (eg due to illness or participation in a school event). If you submit a late Summary Sheet within one week of the due date then there will be a 50% penalty towards your participation grade. Summary Sheets later than one week will not receive any credit.
No other late assignments will be accepted for credit.
Honor Code
All work submitted under your signature in this course is pledged as being your own work. The honor code applies to Summary Sheets, the term paper, and tests. In particular, using someone else's Summary Sheet to prepare your own is considered a violation of the Honor Code. Certain assignments are group projects, and are considered to be a collaborative effort of the entire group. Every student in the group will receive the same grade.
The honor pledge is "I pledge that I have neither given nor received unauthorized assistance during the completion of this work."