Dynamic Subspace

Tag: syllabus

  • Spring 2025 Semester Begins

    an anthropomorphic tuxedo cat wearing pants, shirt, suspenders, and tie, standing in front of a chalkboard covered in equations
    Image created with Stable Diffusion.

    While Spring 2025 semester classes began this past Saturday at City Tech, my teaching schedule begins today. I’ll be teaching two classes in the Professional and Technical Writing Program: Introduction to Language and Technology (ENG1710) and Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing (ENG2700).

    In Introduction to Language and Technology, I have students read an article (though, we begin with Ted Chiang’s “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling), which they write about in the following class and we discuss it. We work out what we mean exactly when we say “language” and “technology” before looking more closely at how these two aspects of humanity interrelate, interoperate, and influence one another. In parallel to our class discussions, students research and write a paper about one specific technology and its relationship to language. I’ll include a past final exam review below, which will need updating due to some additions to the reading list.

    For Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing, I developed a dual approach that combines theory and praxis as a general welcoming of students to what the field they are entering is like. For each class, students read about the history, work, and deliverables created by technical communicators, which they write about in short in-class assignments and we discuss together. The final readings in the class include one paper about how reading Science Fiction can make you a better technical writer and William Gibson’s “Burning Chrome.” Additionally, students are given short deliverable assignments (e.g., write an email, a letter, a memo, a technical definition, an instruction manual, etc.) each week or so. They receive one grade on these first drafts, and they revise them and write reflections on them for creating a final portfolio, which receives a separate grade.

  • My Georgia Tech ENGL1101 Syllabus Version 1.1, “Writing the Brain: Composition and Neuroscience”

    engl1101-syllabusI am currently teaching three sections of ENGL1101 at Georgia Tech. The class’ theme, “Writing the Brain: Composition and Neuroscience,” remains the same as my earlier syllabus that I taught in Fall 2012 [available here]. However, I have made some fundamental changes to the reading list (two books instead of only one: John Medina’s Brain Rules and Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal), reading schedule (began with WOVENtext, then three fundamental essays/excerpts from O’Shea’s The Brain, Gary Marcus’ Kludge, and Geoffrey Miller’s The Mating Mind), and major projects (still three major projects, but now the first project incorporates Storify and ComicLife and the third project is an individual Pecha Kucha presentation instead of a group presentation–students will continue group work on the second project’s video). In the readings, I am encouraging more discussion about WOVEN and rhetoric in addition to discussion about the content and its application to composition. I have also integrated Twitter into the class’ daily rhythm and added daily reading presentations as a core component of the class. I have given the new syllabus a version 1.1 designation. Find out more by reading the new syllabus here.

    I should also note that I had planned on teaching ENGL1102 in Spring 2013, but the school asked for a volunteer to teaching ENGL1101 again. This seemed like a terrific opportunity to put some of my ideas from reflection into practice right away. I do plan to teach ENGL1102 in the future, and I will be ready with this syllabus (unless, of course, I find the time to develop another syllabus, which is something that I would like to do by continuing the “Writing the Brain” theme into the second tier class with neuronovels and neuronarratives).

  • My ENGL 1101 Syllabus for “Writing the Brain: Composition and Neuroscience”

    My English composition students at Georgia Tech are now well into their second major project, so I figured that I should get in gear and post my syllabus for my newly designed, WOVEN (written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal) focused ENGL 1101 syllabus. The title of my class is “Writing the Brain: Composition and Neuroscience.” Unlike the previous iteration of this class at Kent State called “The Brain and Writing,” I overhauled the whole class to only use nonfictional readings and more strongly emphasize multimodality in assignments and discussion. So far, I am very pleased with the results as demonstrated by the great work and commitment of my students. If you would like to read my syllabus, you can download it as a PDF here: ellis-jason-fall2012-1101-syllabus.