INTD 105 17 — Writing Seminar: Secrets and Secret Codes

Time and Place: MWF 9:30 - 10:20, Fraser 114

Instructor: Doug Baldwin
Office: South 307
Phone: 245-5659
Email: baldwin@geneseo.edu
Office Hours: Any time Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, when I’m not committed to something else. See my Calendar for details and to make appointments electronically. You don’t need to make appointments to see me, but I recommend it in order to be sure I’ll be available. Also note that “office” hours for this course will be via video chat. We can chat at Google meeting https://meet.google.com/boo-wyaj-hcr, or you can set up another method (Zoom, Skype, telephone call, etc.) when you make an appointment.

Online Course Materials: https://canvas.geneseo.edu/courses/24207

Teaching Mode

This course is designated as “face-to-face.” I interpret that to mean that class meetings will be in person as much as possible, but not to preclude all forms of online learning. In particular, there may be days when I want you to work in small groups, which will probably be safest if we meet via Zoom or a similar video meeting tool instead of meeting in person. I will warn you about these classes well in advance. So that these meetings can run smoothly, please be sure you have Zoom installed on your computer before the first one.

For each topic we study, I will generally follow a pattern that begins with you reading (or maybe watching a video, etc.) about the basic ideas of that topic, then talking about it in class. After each class meeting, I will produce a summary of the key ideas, questions, and answers from it, and post the summary online. Perhaps every one to two weeks, I will ask you to try working with ideas more on your own via a homework exercise. You will also meet with me to discuss each of these exercises and to hear my feedback. Each of these aspects of the course, i.e., readings, class conversations, notes, homework, and meetings, contributes to your learning; you will find it easiest to get the most out of the course if you do all of them. However, there is also a certain overlap between the different parts of the course, so that if you can’t do one, especially if it’s only for a limited time, you can probably make up for it by working a little harder with the others. So if, for example, you have to miss some class meetings for illness or family emergencies, don’t panic! You should still be able to participate and succeed in the course through the other channels. Naturally, not engaging with enough of the course will eventually lead to an unrecoverable situation, but the course format deliberately accomodates occasional situations in which you can’t do everything.

In the event that we switch to fully online instruction, we will continue the pattern described above, but with class meetings via video chat instead of face to face. All other components of the course (e.g., readings, summary notes, etc.) will continue unchanged.

Books and Other Resources

Books

We will read the following works in this course. Some are available online, and others in print. I have given URLs for the online readings below. The print ones are available from the College bookstore and other sources.

Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold Bug Available online in The Works of Edgar Allan Poe at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2147 (easiest to read) or http://www.archive.org/details/worksedgarallan00markgoog (greater variety of formats).

Robert Harris, Enigma Available in print

Hugh Whitemore, Breaking the Code Available in print

The (required) writing manual is

Graff & Birkenstein, They Say, I Say (4th ed.); available in print.

Supplemental Materials

We will occasionally refer to material in Geneseo’s self-enrolled, non-credit “Conventions of College Writing” Canvas resource. To enroll yourself for access to this resource, visit

https://canvas.geneseo.edu/enroll/6KRFRT

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold Bug” makes occasional use of the racial epithet “n----.” This word is an overt symptom of a much deeper racist thread running through much American entertainment, which we will look at in detail when we read the story. Until then, if you would prefer to read a version of the story in which the word is censored (as in the preceding sentence), you can find one at

https://www.geneseo.edu/~baldwin/intd105/poe_sanitized.html

Other supplemental readings that you may find interesting, and that I will probably assign at least parts of, are…

Descriptions and demonstrations of many classical cryptosystems:

http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/chamberguide.html

An account of the portrayal of African Americans in American media:

http://black-face.com/

An introduction to the linguistics of African American Language:

https://www.languagejones.com/blog-1/2014/6/8/what-is-aave

A technical description of the German Enigma cipher and techniques used to break it

http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/enigma/index.htm

A short biography of Alan Turing

http://www.turing.org.uk/bio/part1.html

Other Resources

Lecture notes and exercises from last time I taught this course are online at

http://www.geneseo.edu/~baldwin/intd105/fall2019/course.php

Course Schedule

The schedule for this course is really two overlapping schedules: one for the things you will read and discuss in class, and the other for the things you will write and the classes or readings that help you with that writing. For the details, see the table below.

Note that the following dates are best estimates. They may change as our actual needs become apparent. Refer to the Web version of this syllabus for the most current information; I will keep it as up-to-date as possible.

Grades and Such

Grading in this course will be very different from what you are used to. The main reason for the unusual grading is that I am trying to consciously undo some of the small ways in which conventional grading unconsciously disadvantages certain students. But beyond removing disadvantages for some, I believe that what I am doing also offers significant advantages to everyone.

Key Ingredients

There are 3 main ways in which grading in this course will probably differ from what you have seen before.

• Mastery Grading. “Mastery grading” is a grading system that, as far as possible, bases your grade for the course solely on whether you achieve the learning outcomes listed earlier in this syllabus. You won’t be graded on whether you participate in class, meet deadlines, etc., only on whether you achieve the course outcomes by the end of the semester.
• Distributed Oral Exams. There are no standard paper exams or quizzes in this course. Instead, I will gauge your mastery of outcomes by discussing exercise solutions or other course work with you. Although the phrase “distributed oral exam” may sound scary, what it means is that the function of traditional exams is distributed over the entire semester instead of being concentrated in a few high-stakes tests, and that it is accomplished mainly through oral discussion instead of in writing.
• Individual Meetings. I want to meet every so often with you to talk about exercises, answer questions, stay in touch with how this course is going for you, etc. I will generally say when I want to have one of these meetings and how long it should be as part of a homework handout, class announcement, etc. You may also meet with me at any time you have anything you want to talk about, of course. We will hold meetings as office hours visits, which I described above.

The Details

“Achieving” an outcome has two components: content, i.e., what ideas you know, and depth of understanding, i.e., how thoroughly you understand those ideas. This course’s learning outcomes define both components. Generally speaking, the nouns in the outcomes correspond to content, i.e., things you will learn about. Verbs in the outcomes indicate depth of understanding, i.e., things you will understand the content well enough to do.

I will give you a numeric grade for each outcome in an exercise, based mainly on the discussion of solutions and similar problems — in other words, getting the right answers matters, but is not the only, or even the main, determiner of your grade. Grades range from 0 to 4, as follows:

Although I will grade each exercise, mastery grading isn’t about how you do on any specific one. It’s about how well you’ve achieved outcomes by the end of the course. To that end, there are two other important points about exercises and their grades:

• You can redo grades. If you don’t reach the mastery you want on some outcome on some exercise, I will give you an additional related exercise to do. When you show me your solution to that exercise, I will grade it as, effectively, an additional exercise for that outcome. You can have up to one redo per outcome per exercise (unless the nature of the exercise makes redoing it infeasible, e.g., a major project).
• Only the best and most recent grades count. Your official grade for an outcome, i.e., the one I will use when assigning a grade for the course as a whole, will be the average of your most recent grade on that outcome and the highest two previous ones (or all previous ones if there are fewer than two). “Redo” grades count as separate grades in this average. For example, if you do a total of 4 exercises and redoes related to some outcome, with grades of 4, 2, 5, and 3, your most recent grade is 3, and the highest two previous grades are 4 and 5, so the official grade for that outcome is the average of 3, 4, and 5, or 4.

You will “turn in” each exercise by sharing your solution with me during one of your individual meetings. During that meeting, we’ll go over your solutions and answer any questions you have about them, and we’ll also discuss how you came up with those solutions and how you would approach similar problems.

Finally, when this course ends I will give you a letter grade for it based on the numeric grades. My approach to this is that B grades (including B- and B+) indicate that you generally met the expectations of the course, A grades that you distinctly exceeded them, and grades below B- that you fell short to varying degrees. However, I won’t decide the exact cut-offs between grades until the end of the semester, when I see how grades actually worked in practice. During the semester, you can use the mastery rubric as a qualitative guideline to how you’re doing — for example, it says that 3 out of 4 points, or 75%, is “approaching the required mastery,” so an overall average of 75% should indicate that you’re doing OK but maybe not quite as well as desired. I will be happy to discuss your grades with you at any time during the semester and give you my sense of what letter grade, or range of letter grades, I think you are heading for.

Attendance

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital that we all do what we can to protect the health and safety of each other. If you are feeling unwell on a day that class meets, do not attend. It is better to stay home if you are not feeling well than to attend class and risk spreading illness to others. I have designed this course so that you can progress through it without some or even all of the in-person class meetings, so not coming to class won’t affect your success in it. However, please do communicate with me about absences, and contact the Dean of Students if you expect to be out for an extended period of time.

Face masks are required in all instructional spaces (including classrooms, lecture halls, and laboratories) and all common areas including residence halls and academic buildings. If you forget your mask, please pick up a disposable one before entering the classroom. Masks must be worn for the duration of class. If you do not have a mask or are unwilling to wear one, do not come to class — I cannot safely hold class unless all students are wearing face masks.

Similarly, seating in the classroom has been arranged to preserve social distancing. Please respect it, and do not rearrange classroom furniture. Try to maintain a safe distance between yourself and others at all times, including when entering and exiting classrooms.

This policy applies to me as well as to you. If there is a day when I am feeling ill, I will switch the class to online activities instead of holding an in-person class. Similarly, I will wear a mask throughout class and other meetings, and try to always keep an appropriate distance between myself and others.

Working Together

Assignments in this course are fundamentally learning exercises. You are therefore welcome to help each other with them, unless specifically told otherwise in the assignment handout. However, solutions that you turn in must represent your own understanding of the solution and must be written in your own words, even if you got or gave help on the assignment.

If you use sources other than this class’s textbook or notes in order to do an assignment, you must include a comment or footnote citing those sources in your solution. Similarly, if you get help from anyone other than me you must acknowledge the helper(s) somewhere in your solution. (But note that I generally think learning from outside sources and people is a good thing, not a bad one.)

I will penalize violations of this policy. The severity of the penalty will depend on the severity of the violation.

Academic Support Services

The college provides a range of support services to help students thrive in their classes. Of these services, the one best suited to this course is the Writing Learning Center. For more information, including hours and procedures for scheduling a visit, see the WLC website at https://www.geneseo.edu/english/writing_center.

Also, the SUNY-wide STAR-NY system (www.starny.org/tutoring_schedule) provides online tutoring in a wide variety of subjects.

For more information on these and other academic support services, see the Academic Support Services website at https://www.geneseo.edu/academic-support-services.

Disability Accommodations

SUNY Geneseo is dedicated to providing an equitable and inclusive educational experience for all students. The Office of Accessibility will coordinate reasonable accommodations for persons with physical, emotional, or cognitive disabilities to ensure equal access to academic programs, activities, and services at Geneseo. Students with letters of accommodation should submit a letter to each faculty member and discuss their needs at the beginning of each semester. Please contact the Office of Accessibility Services for questions related to access and accommodations.

Office of Accessibility Services
Erwin Hall 22
(585) 245-5112
access@geneseo.edu
https://www.geneseo.edu/accessibility-office

In addition, if there is anything I can do to make this class or its materials easier for you to access or use, please let me know.

Geneseo offers many other services to help students succeed. For a list of some, see https://wiki.geneseo.edu/display/PROVOST/Syllabus+Resources+Related+to+Student+Success.