English 102 – Composition II Cyberpunks : Technology and Society Instructor: Christy Scheuer E-mail: CScheuer@sccd.ctc.edu Course Location: CC3446 Office Hours: 1:30 - 2:30 p.m. M-F and by appointment Office: IB2320A Office Phone: 206-527-5663 Course Website Angel.northseattle.edu “For the cyberpunks . . . technology is visceral. It is not the bottled genie of remote Big Science boffins; it is pervasive, utterly intimate. Not outside us, but next to us. Under our skin; often, inside our minds. . . . Certain central themes spring up repeatedly in cyberpunk. The theme of body invasion: prosthetic limbs, implanted circuitry, cosmetic surgery, genetic alteration. The even more powerful theme of mind invasion: brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence, neurochemistry—techniques radically redefining the nature of humanity, the nature of the self.” —Bruce Sterling, Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology COURSE OBJECTIVES As a literary genre, Cyberpunk refers to a series of science fiction novels that share a preoccupation with highly advanced technology coupled with a radical breakdown in the social order. William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), which is considered the first and archetypal cyberpunk novel, is credited with popularizing the word “cyberspace.” So why read these novels now? Although Cyberpunk was a relatively short-lived literary movement, the world depicted in these novels has many parallels to our current reality, and these works all ask questions that are critically important in this technological age: How does technology affect the way that our minds work? How does technology change social interactions between humans or groups of humans? How do our bodies interact with machines? Where do we draw the line between humans and machines? Is that line important? What is the relationship between real and virtual reality? How has cyberspace altered our understanding of the world? How does cyberspace itself continue to evolve and how might it evolve in the future? In this class, we will examine our current reality in light of these cyberpunk fictions. REQUIRED TEXTS Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash (any version) Andrea Lunsford, Easy Writer (4th Ed.) Additional readings will be available on the web or in handout form. You should also have a notebook in which you keep all of your drafts, class assignments, and class notes. COURSE OBJECTIVES/LEARNING OUTCOMES The English Department at NSCC has established the following course objectives for English 102. This course is designed to help you improve your ability to: 1. Read critically in order to analyze, discuss, evaluate, and respond to texts. 2. Access, evaluate, and apply information from a variety of sources. 3. Write in order to discover the meanings in other texts. 4. Write in order to discover your own ideas in relation to the writing of others. 5. Write to communicate ideas to a particular audience. 6. Paraphrase, summarize, quote, and cite sources according to MLA form and integrate source materials smoothly into your own words to add support and emphasis to your own writing. 7. Understand the importance of intellectual honesty and avoid plagiarism. 8. Take responsibility for producing writing that has been revised, edited, and proofread. 9. Continue the development of your own voice as a writer. 10. Work and communicate effectively in both large and small groups, which requires that you recognize the value of divergent views, tolerate ambiguity, and develop both listening and speaking skills. GRADES Three Major Units Essay 1: Source Analysis Seminar Paper (1 x 25 pts) Reading responses (2 x 10 pts) Paper Proposal Introduction and Outline Draft Full Rough Draft Peer Review Final Draft 50 points 20 points 10 points 10 points 20 points 20 points 100 points Essay 2: Synthesis of Multiple Texts Seminar Paper (1 x 25 pts) Synthesis Handouts (3 x 10 pts) Paper Proposal Introduction and Outline Draft Full Rough draft Peer Review Final Draft 25 points 30 points 10 points 10 points 20 points 20 points 150 points Essay 3: Research Paper Project Seminar Paper (1 x 25 pts) Reading Response (1 x 10 pts) 25 points 10 points Project Proposal (short) Project Proposal (extended) Pecha Kucha Presentation Annotated Bibliography Introduction and Outline Draft Full essay draft Peer Review Final Draft Final Seminar Paper In-class writing and quizzes (10 x 5 pts) Participation Grade Total: 5 points 15 points 50 points 100 points 10 points 20 points 20 points 200 points 25 points 50 points 75 points 1100 points DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY OF WRITERS Students come to this class with a broad range of educational, writing, and personal experiences. This diversity enhances our class by expanding its range and providing us with new ideas to discuss. It is very important that you are supportive and respectful of every student’s work and opinions so that the classroom is an environment in which everyone feels welcome. Writing can be difficult and frustrating at times, but the writing process is much more enjoyable and rewarding if we work through it together. I hope that, during the course of the quarter, you will become increasingly comfortable and confident with the writing process. Please communicate with me at any time regarding any concerns or questions you have about the course. You can come to my office hours or make an appointment if you would like to talk about your progress in the class, specific assignments, or any other concerns or questions that arise during the quarter. I’m here to help you, and I enjoy talking to students about their writing. COURSE POLICIES: Attend daily. The importance of attending regularly cannot be overestimated. Please arrive at class on time and expect to remain until class is over. Your attendance and participation will figure into your final grade in the form of points assigned for in-class exercises. These exercises cannot be made up. If you arrive late or leave early and miss an in-class exercise, you will not be permitted to complete the exercise you missed. Papers must be typed. All assignments (including drafts) should be typed, doublespaced, using 12 point Times New Roman font. I will not accept handwritten drafts. Save your work. It is your responsibility to keep an extra copy of all assignments that you turn in. Submit your work on time. An assignment is counted late if you do not submit it during class on the date it is due. In-class exercises, seminar papers, and drafts (the small stuff) will not be accepted late. The major papers may be submitted late, but for each class period an assignment is late, your grade on that assignment will be reduced by one letter grade. For example, an A paper that is received one class late will be reduced to a B; two class periods late, a C; three classes late, a D; and four classes late, an F. If an assignment is turned in even 1 minute after class time on the day it is due, it will be counted as one day late. Absolutely no late work will be accepted after March 18. Work that is due should be brought to class in paper form. Only in a documented emergency will I accept homework or essay drafts via email. It is a good survival policy for you to locate several possible printer locations on campus where you could print out your work if your home printer is not working. A printer not working is not a valid excuse for missing the due date of a piece of written work and does not allow you to turn that work in late. Drafts and revisions are required for the three major papers. The major papers will go through a typed draft version and a final, corrected version before a grade is assigned. In terms of the grading system, drafts and final versions constitute separate assignments, with drafts receiving point for completion. If a draft is handwritten, haphazard, or incomplete, you will not receive full points. Failure to bring a draft to class on the assigned date will result in a zero. Drafts will be turned in with final version in a two-pocket folder. RESOURCES Accessibility and Disability Services: My goal is to make the classroom as accessible as possible to all students. If you require any disability-related accommodations, please contact me by e-mail, phone, or in person. In addition to talking to me, please contact disability services office to make arrangements for the most appropriate accommodations. To make an appointment, contact the Disability Services office by phone at (206) 527-3697, TTY at (206) 526-0079 modem, or e-mail at ds@sccd.ctc.edu. Their website can be found here: https://northseattle.edu/disability-services. The Loft Writing Center: Need feedback on your writing? Visit the Loft Writing Center Plus on the top floor of the library to get help during every stage of the writing process from brainstorming and outlining through the final polishing phase. You'll find more information including hours of operation at https://northseattle.edu/loft-writingcenter Library: The library is a phenomenal resource to use if you have questions about research or sources—or really questions about anything. We will head to the library a few times as a class so that you can become more familiar with all that it has to offer. You can find useful information at https://library.northseattle.edu/ E-MAIL E-mail is usually the most effective way to get a hold of me. Please e-mail me at any time with any questions that you may have about the course. I will have office hours each week, but feel free to e-mail me if these hours do not work for you, and we can set up a different time to meet. We can also arrange e-office hours (over the internet) if it becomes difficult to meet in person. In this class, we will focus on developing effective rhetorical skills; therefore, I expect your e-mails to be written in clear and communicative prose and proofread for mistakes. A NOTE ON (AND AGAINST) PLAGIARISM Plagiarism is the intentional use of someone else’s words or ideas without giving that person credit. This includes submitting someone else’s essay in its entirety or in parts as your own, using any words, phrasing, and/or ideas from a source (this includes the Internet) without proper citation, having someone else write your paper or assisting so much that the phrasing and ideas are no longer your own, and re-submitting an essay previously written for another class. Plagiarism is absolutely prohibited and may result in receiving a “0” on the paper and/or discipline on the part of the college administration. One of the primary objectives of this course is to learn and implement proper methods for documenting sources so that you can avoid accidental plagiarism, both in this class and in your other courses. WEATHER-RELATED EMERGENCIES In the case of a weather-related emergency (such as a snow storm), I will post information about the status of the class on the class Angel cite and e-mail you. We will try to maintain our course schedule even in the midst of potential cancelations; therefore, if you have an assignment due on a day when school is canceled, you should e-mail me that assignment on the day that it’s due. This way, we can avoid getting behind schedule.