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English 245
Popular Culture Issues
Arizona State University
Fall 2008
| Dr. Katherine Heenan |
Office Hours: W 10 -12, Th 9 - 10 & 1 - 2 & by appointment |
| E-mail: K.Heenan@asu.edu |
| Office: LL 309B |
Line #84046 |
| Phone: 480-965-8881—note: it is best to email me rather than call me. I am bad about checking my phone messages. |
English 245 will explore the ways in which each of us is both a user of and is used by popular culture. In this course we approach popular culture rhetorically—as a body of widely shared and contested beliefs, practices, and material objects that influence how we think, how we feel, how we vote, and how we live our lives in countless ways. Our readings will help us examine the role of popular culture in our lives, inform our general conversation, and provide us with a theoretical framework on which to develop our own ideas.
We will begin by considering the terms “rhetoric,” "culture" and "popular," and developing working definitions for the purpose of our class. As we turn to the second half of the semester, we will analyze how such critical factors as ethnicity, race, gender, class, age, region, and sexuality are shaped by and reshaped in popular culture. The end goal is to gain control of, rather than be controlled by, the texts of popular culture.
Throughout the course, we will consider the following:
- What is the apparently inescapable force of American popular culture?
- Of what value is popular culture—and to whom is it valuable?
- Is there really anything more to popular culture than “just entertainment”?
- Who controls popular culture, what are they doing with it, and should we be worried about this?
- Does it reinforce and support existing structures of social power? Or does it serve as a source of healthy resistance to the status quo?
- And why should we study this popular culture stuff anyway?
Bear in mind that few (if any) of the questions we’ll address this semester have easy answers. How well you do in this class will depend on your ability to think critically about the role of popular culture in contemporary society and to argue your position(s) well, not your ability to memorize and repeat the “right” answers.
Brummett, Barry. Rhetoric in Popular Culture. Second Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006.
Kushner, David. Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. New York: Random House, 2004.
University Policies/Student Affairs Office: Student Code of Conduct, including: Student Academic Integrity, Sexual Harassment, Class Disruption
a portable USB “jump” drive
Stapler and staples (standard size—trust me on this one) OR binder clips
An ASURITE id and email account
[Note: you must send me emails using your ASURITE account. Otherwise your emails run the risk of being regarded as Spam and automatically deleted]
| COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: |
All assignments must be completed in order for a student to pass the course with a C grade or higher. It is expected that all participants will have read carefully all the essays assigned for each meeting. This is not a course where I lecture and you take notes. You will be responsible for participating in class discussions, discovering informative sources, and engaging in the material. I see this class as an intellectual partnership and expect you to do the same.
| READING AND PARTICIPATION : |
I expect you to engage in intensive, “interactive” reading with course material. I will conduct class on the assumption that you have read the material and are prepared to raise questions or observations illustrated with examples, to dis/agree based on evidence and experience, or simply to define a text’s key terms and ideas. Your comments and insights will be an important element of the class’s success.
Students are expected to risk opinions, questions, and critique. You are expected to respect each other and the process of inquiry by engaging alternative perspectives, challenging interpretations and judgments put forward by authors, and inviting counter-argument—and doing so with appreciation for both difference and points of agreement. Remember, there are very few (if any) “right” or “wrong” answers generated through critical inquiry—only those that are well justified and those that are not.
You cannot lose credit by making positive additions to our discussions. All intelligent comments, particularly those that illustrate a careful reading of the materials, will contribute to your participation grade.
For this class, you will complete a series of both informal and formal assignments that will work together to help you experiment with, develop, and refine skills and strategies that you will need to do powerful and purposeful research and to construct forceful arguments.
Informal Writing Assignments
These may include in-class exercises, free-writes, and other types of informal writing
Reading quizzes
These short quizzes will be given at the beginning of the class seven times during the semester. No make-up quizzes will be given. Instead, I will drop one lowest grade if you have taken all seven quizzes (and drop one missed quiz if you have taken only four).
Essay Assignments
Three papers, a rhetorical analysis, an examination of the changing nature of popular culture, and an extended investigation of a popular culture artifact.
I will provide detailed information about each project as it is assigned and will post an overview of these during the first week of classes. All major writing projects must be completed to pass the course.
Workshops and other in-class exercises will be announced in class, ordinarily one or two days ahead of time. Ordinarily workshops and in-class activities produce writing that I include under the header “in-class writing.” I do not grade such work, but I do record its completion. “Participation” means that you are prepared for class by having done the assigned reading, for example, and that you take part in class discussions, workshops, and other in-class activities.
At the end of each class period, I will award you credit for participation: a 3 or 4 if you were there the whole class period and contributed positively, a 1 or 2 if you showed up but didn't contribute positively, and a 0 if you were absent. A student who is chronically late to class, leaves early, or is not prepared to participate in the day's class work will not receive attendance and participation credit.
| Project 1: Rhetorical Analysis |
15% |
| Project 2: Changing Nature of Popular Culture |
20% |
| Project 3: investigation of a popular culture artifact |
30% |
| Reading Quizzes |
20% |
| Participation, Informal, inclass writing activities & assignments |
15% |
| POLICY ON CLASS ATTENDANCE: |
You are responsible for completing all the assigned reading before class, preparing assigned discussion questions, and bringing your book to every class. Class attendance and participation are both critical to success. You will not be able to pass the course should you miss more than four classes. Also, students who are chronically late to class, leave early, sleep through class, engage in off-task activity, or are not prepared to participate in the day's class work will be penalized for each such occasion and these penalties will adversely affect the students’ final grade.
I encouraged each of you to speak with me at any time about your projects and your standing in the course.
Beyond this policy, I expect students to make every effort to attend all meetings and to miss class only in rare and unavoidable circumstances. Should you arrive after I have called the roll, it is your responsibility to ensure that I correct the roll at class end.
| ATTENDANCE: FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES: |
According to university policy, students who are registered but do not attend any of the first week of classes may be dropped.
If I need to cancel class because my car broke down, or if I am ill, etc., I will try to get someone to post a sign. I also will try to email you all, before class. However, if you come to class and I am not here by the time 15 minutes has elapsed (from when class is to start) , please assume that class is cancelled.
Grading for Writing Projects will follow English Department standards, which are based on content, organization, expression, and mechanics. To compute final course grades, the following values are assigned to the standard letter grades of A through E:
| A+ |
4.3 (only used internally at ASU) |
| A |
4.0 |
| A- |
3.7 |
| B+ |
3.3 |
| B |
3.0 |
| B- |
2.7 |
| C+ |
2.3 |
| C |
2.0 |
| D |
1.0 |
| E |
.3 |
| No paper = 0 |
Generally speaking, I expect all work to be turned in on time except in the most extreme circumstances. However, as a rule, I try not to penalize students for late work when something unexpected prevents completion of a particular assignment on time. However, I accept no unexcused late work. You must receive permission to turn in a late assignment without being penalized; if you fail to do so, your grade will be lowered 1 full letter grade for each day that assignment late.
Also note that I will never give permission to turn in an assignment late on the day it is due. So if you come across a problem, talk to me ahead of time. Also, you may not email me a copy of your paper unless prior permission from me has been received.
I am not sympathetic to work that has not been reviewed in workshop unless its author has been excused from those class sessions for some reason. Late homework, activities and participation in Blackboard activities will not be accepted and cannot be “made-up.”
| KEEP ALL COPIES OF YOUR WORK: |
A writer never gives her or his only copy of a text to anyone. Save both a hard copy and an electronic copy of each draft of each text you write for this course. This means you will need to form the habit of duplicating a document before making changes to the new version. Keep hard copies of your work for this course, along with any comments you receive on it, in a binder or folder. Save electronic copies of all drafts of all your writings on a usb drive or back-up disk, or learn how to post them to your personal space on the ASU servers. You will need these copies to complete your work for this course—since when you turn in a revised version of an essay, I will ask you to track and reflect on the changes you have made in moving from one draft to the next.
Please complete reading and writing assignments before class meets on the day they are due. Please bring Rhetoric in Popular Culture and any additional readings to class every day that we discuss work contained therein.
Most of our class time will be devoted to discussions and workshops, with an occasional lecture, announcements, and other in-class activities. Regardless of the class format, you are expected to be prepared, to listen, to contribute, and to participate in an appropriate fashion. Among other things, this means:
no off-task use of your computer (e.g., no personal e-mail, Web surfing, or other computer based activities that are not specifically course related)
computer monitors are to be turned off during class discussions, lectures, and announcements or when otherwise directed
do not print files during class time unless otherwise directed
personal communication devices (cell phones, beepers, and other devices) must be turned off for the entire class period. Unless you are part of an emergency on-call organization--Fire Department, Police Department, EMT, etc.), you should not and will not receive calls during class. Doing so will result in a 0 for the day's participation credit.
On days when a draft is due, you will be expected to have an accessible electronic copy available as well as a printed copy. Failing to do so affect your peer review grade and your attendance/participation
grade. Nevertheless, even if your draft is incomplete, it is better to come to class than to miss since missing too many classes could result in your failing the class. Moreover, if you come, you will earn some participation credit. We will also spend class time writing, and you should give your best effort to these writing activities since your participation grade will be affected by this work.
| All writing for this class must be written for this class |
All writing for this class must be written for this class
To pass this class all major writing assignments must be completed, and note that all writing for this class must be written for this class. Reusing a paper you wrote for another class, or back in high school, constitutes academic dishonesty.
In the “Student Academic Integrity Policy” manual, ASU defines plagiarism as “using another's words, ideas, materials or work without properly acknowledging and documenting the source. Students are responsible for knowing the rules governing the use of another's work or materials and for acknowledging and documenting the source appropriately.” You can find this definition at:
http://www.asu.edu/studentaffairs/studentlife/judicial/academic_integrity.htm#definitions
Academic dishonesty, including inappropriate collaboration, will not be tolerated.
There are severe sanctions for cheating, plagiarizing and any other form of dishonesty.
The policies and procedures listed here are a supplement to those listed in the ASU Writing Programs Guide
Withdrawals: University deadlines
| Course Withdrawal Deadline |
Oct 31st in person Nov 2nd online |
Complete Withdrawal Deadline |
December 9th |
| DISABILITY RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS: |
ASU complies with all federal and state laws and regulations regarding discrimination, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). If you have a disability and need a reasonable accommodation for equal access to education at ASU, please contact Disability Resources for Students at 480-965-1234. Please feel free to discuss the special accommodations with all of your teachers.
All of us struggle with our limits, and I sometimes suspect that no one is more conscious of that than students in writing courses. Keep in mind, as you set your priorities, that I am very moved by students who visibly struggle with their limits.
I encourage you to see me during office hours, e-mail me, or make an appointment anytime you wish to discuss issues connected with this class and/or your performance. Students frequently tell me that the most helpful feature of the class was coming to my office and discussing their writing projects and/or classroom concerns. Please discuss concerns with me while we still have options. I tend to be generous with students who take the initiative to consult with me about concerns while they are still `situations,' i.e., not-yet-crises, and downright testy with those who permit things to slide until a crisis is unavoidable. |
