WRITING ON THE NEW YORK TIMES Program for Writing and Rhetoric Continuing Education: University of Colorado Boulder

FALL 2011, WRTG 3020-589 Instructor: Dalyn Luedtke Office: Temporary Building #1, Rm 02 Phone: 303.492.5286 E-mail: dalyn@colorado.edu Office Hours: Mondays 8:30-10, Thursdays 12-1:45 (and by appointment) Though this class takes place online, I am more than willing to meet with you face-toface. I hold regular office hours each week, during which you are welcome to come speak to me about this class. If my scheduled office hours do not work with your schedule, Im happy to set up an alternative time to meet with you to discuss coursework. If you need to get a hold of me during office hours, calling my office is the fastest way, but, for the most part, I am difficult to reach by phone. I am, however, good with email. I am notoriously fast at answering emails and it is definitely the most effective and efficient way to contact me. COURSE DESCRIPTION: Recently, traditional news sources have struggled to find a place within the new media landscape. In 2009, Colorados oldest business, The Rocky Mountain News, closed its doors for good. And they werent alone. That year, over 100 newspapers were shuttered, thousands of jobs were lost, and both print ad sales and circulation declined. Many people assumed that, just as video killed the radio star, the Internet was killing the newspaper. Indeed, in this class, we will consider how the landscape of traditional journalism has changed in the age of new media. What is/has been the role of newspapers in the US? What are the strengths and limitations of traditional news reporting? How exactly has new media affected journalism? How have newspapers attempted to integrate new media into their reporting? What is the role of social media and bloggers on news reporting? How are different interactive media being used to enhance news reporting? We will begin to answer all of these questions and more through careful, critical inquiry into The New York Times. Many NYTimes reporters have taken journalism to the next level, making sophisticated use of multimedia, multi-platformed reportingproof that the war between old and new media is both unproductive and untrue. By the end of this course, we should not only have a engaged thoroughly with The New York Times, but we should have a good sense of the way new media is both challenging traditional journalism and providing opportunities for better, more engaged news reporting and storytelling. Students will be required to subscribe to The NYTimes and read it regularly and use a variety of multimedia tools to craft texts with visual, written, and oral components. COURSE GOALS: Meant for juniors and seniors in the College of Arts and Sciences, this course will help you: gain familiarity with popular writing genres; assess the rhetorical situation for a particular text;

address the needs of a specific audience using a variety of rhetorical strategies; recognize the rhetorical differences between public and private discourses; navigate the ethical dimensions of writing for the public; apply your disciplinary expertise to issues in journalism and news reporting; gain familiarity with a variety of popular online news sites and apps; hone your writing and critical thinking skills; use new media rhetorically to engage the reader in a variety of ways; expand storytelling through the use digital technologies; gain experience with video and audio composing and editing techniques; experience the process and benefits of writing multiple drafts; expand revising and editing strategies; give effective feedback on other peoples writing; develop awareness of writing as a collaborative act; create communities and engage in respectful dialogue; engage in thoughtful dialogue about contemporary journalism; increase awareness of events on local, national, and international levels; and, develop further understanding of conventions of standard linguistic usage and their application, including proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation, as you compose, revise, and edit your writing across a range of rhetorical tasks and genres.

REQUIRED MATERIALS: The New York Times subscription (M-F) One copy of The New York Times, Sunday, 28 August 2011 (keep the magazine) Regular access to D2L The NYTimes offers a special student subscription rate that includes both the physical paper and unlimited online access. It is cheaper than the regular online only access and provides a completely different reading experienceone that millions of people shared in until recently. Reading the paper also gives you an understanding of the way The NYTimes is organized and help you begin to understand the benefits and drawbacks of both paper and digital news sources. In other words, you need to experience both. You need to sign up for a subscription immediately. As of week two, I will assume that you have begun your weekly reading. Also if, for some reason, you didnt get the Sunday edition of the Times before class started, you may get the next one and complete the assignment a week later. We will also be using a number of different websites and apps, which may require that you create an account, such as Google, NYTimes.com, Flikr, Storify, and so forth. For the most part, I will offer you a variety of apps and websites to use, so you can choose the one that is most comfortable. I will also let you know which ones youll need at the beginning of each unit and Ill walk you through the process of registering an account for each one. You should know, however, that you are responsible for learning the technologies we will use in this class. I dont expect you to be an expert now or in the future, but I do expect you to be willing to learn and to seek out the appropriate help.

GRADING: Your final grade is broken down into the following proportions: Reading Quizzes 10% Week in Review Posts 20% The Opinion Page 15% Review 10% Lens Submission 15% Feature Article 25% Reflection 5% ASSIGNMENTS: In this class, you will be asked to switch between very different genres of composition and do so in a way that is explicitly rhetorical. You must turn in all the major assignmentsthe Opinion Page, Review, Lens Submission, and Feature Article in order to pass the class. Please keep all the work related to the major assignments, such as drafts or any pre-composing activities, as I may ask you to turn them in with the assignment. This means you need to save your compositions as drafts. Do not simply start revising and editing on the original draft. For example, you may name your draft Feature Article. Before you begin revising, copy it into a new document and name it Feature Article2. Saving drafts allows you to see the progress every draft goes through and makes it easier for you to answer questions I may have about your drafting process. All assignments must be submitted to the appropriate Dropbox folder on D2L by the specified time.. Computer problems, Internet disruption, and other tech problems are not legitimate reasons for failing to post your assignments on time. Please plan ahead. I will not accept any papers or homework assignments via email, so do not ask. READING QUIZZES: Because we do not meet in person, I want to make sure that you are keeping up with the assigned readings and understand the information being presented to you. The supplemental readings will give you a theoretical framework for your writing and reading, which will serve to make you a better writer and thinker. There will be one quiz per unit that will cover all the supplemental readings I assign; in other words, anything that is not The NYTimes. After we have finished the reading and discussion components of each unit, I will make the quiz available to you. You will have two days to complete it. Obviously, you may use the readings to help you with the quiz, but they will be timed. You should have read the materials beforehand and you should be familiar with the concepts. WEEK IN REVIEW POSTS: In the midst of a busy fall semester, it is all too easy to get behind on reading the paper. That said, it is also imperative that you keep up on the reading and increase your familiarity with The NYTimes. Reading it on a regular basis will help you recognize the rhetorical choices journalists make in order to connect with their audiences, give you insight into the kinds of stories that the paper focuses on, and, quite simply, keep you up to date on the events happening in local, national, and international communities. I do not expect you to read the whole paper everyday, but I do

expect that you will at least read the front page articles, the op-eds, and any other sections that interest you. For the actual post, Id like you to reflect on what happened this week in the news as whole and any stories in particular that you found compelling. You can trace the trajectory of a couple stories, examine one news story and how the editorial contributors responded, or engage with the articles, reviews, or editorial pieces. The post should be a mix of summary, analysis, and opinion of 500-700 words in length. You need to post your Week in Review every Friday by 5:00pm in the Discussion forum. I will create a folder for each weeks post labeled by date. Additionally, in order to facilitate community, you need to post three comments in each weeks Week in Review discussion forum. I want to create multiple opportunities for us to interact as a class. Commenting on each others posts will not only further our interaction as a group, but it will also help you expand your thinking about the news each week. Critical dialogue furthers critical thinking, which makes you a better writer. Comments should be substantive, 100-200 words, and should either attempt to instigate or continue the dialogue started by the post. You can either comment on someone elses post or respond to a comment that is left on yours. Both count for this assignment. Comments are due each week by midnight on Sunday. ALL THE NEWS THATS FIT TO PRINT: Because the goal of this course is to rhetorically analyze and construct compositions using traditional journalistic strategies and new media technologies, we will be composing a variety of texts that appear in The NYTimes: THE OPINION PAGE: For this assignment, you will write a piece for The Opinion Pages of The NYTimes. You may write for any subsection of The Opinion Pages, but the piece must be a total 1000-1250 words. Your editorial should adhere to the purpose of a NYTimes opinion piece and the style or appearance of one as well. Most importantly, the topic should be timely, well argued, and clearly written. You will also use Storify to track your issue, which will be turned in along with your opinion piece. REVIEW: For this assignment, you will write a review for The NYTimes. You may choose to write the review for any section of the paper that regularly features them: Movies, Television, Books, Theatre, and so forth. You must choose a text that has premiered within the last two months. You, as the reviewer, need to introduce the text and argue whether or not the audience should spend their money on that performance. The review must give an overview of the text, a clear opinion, and reasonable evidence to support such claims. You must also avoid spoiling the text for those who have not yet seen it. LENS BLOG: The Lens Blog features photography, video, and visual journalism. These visual essays focus on a variety of topics ranging from the intimate to the truly spectacular. Each story is told predominantly through a visual lens with a title, introduction, and captions that guide the audience through the storytelling processwhile still letting the pictures speak for themselves. For this

assignment, you will pick a local event, person, or activity to cover and tell the story from a photojournalists perspective. You need to begin thinking about this assignment now. If you know of something happening in the area, you may want to photograph it before we get to this unit, which I will make accessible so you can look for opportunities ahead of time. The essay must consist of 12-20 photographs. FEATURE ARTICLE: A feature article is the centerpiece of a publication, whose main purpose is to both inform and entertain. For this assignment, you will be writing a feature article for The New York Times Magazine. Because the article is informative, it should be descriptive as opposed to argumentative. Youll need to consider the role you, as the author, want to take in the piece, the overall impression of the subject youd like to convey, the tension that will drive the article, how its relevant today, and so forth. The article should be engaging, interesting, well written and enjoyable. It should also be about 2500-3000 words. You will also use Storify to track your issue, which will be turned in along with your opinion piece.

For the purposes of this class, we are not writing for an academic audience. Instead, we are writing for The NYTimes and we will adhere as closely as possible to their style, usage, and citation practices. Pay attention to how they introduce people and cite sources; pay attention to the style of the writing, including diction and grammar; pay attention to the types of people and events they focus on. There is no handbook. You need to rhetorically analyze their practices to learn about them. REFLECTION: At the very end of the semester you will write a short blog post reflecting on the work youve done throughout this class. What was difficult for you? What did you enjoy? What kind of revisions did you make? How has the writing for this class been different than the type of writing you usually do? How has it affected your engagement with the news? How has your thinking about writing changed throughout the course of the semester? What lessons did you learn from composing visually that you can apply to your writing or vice versa? Take your time and reflect thoughtfully on your progress as a writer and thinker. The reflection should be engaging and detailedand about 750-1000 words. Each of these assignments is the capstone to each unit/module in the course, which will be available during the time period specified on D2L. In the module, you will get a more detailed prompt from me with guidelines for composing and the rubric Ill be using to assess the assignment. You will turn in all major assignments by submitting them to the appropriate folder in D2Ls Dropbox. PEER REVIEW: Writing classes are, by necessity, small. As a result, everyone needs to participate for the class to be successful. Writing is also inherently collaborative and we will work in groups as much as possible at every step of the composing process. Perhaps the most important group work we do, however, is peer reviewan integral part of any writing class.

The goal of peer review is to make revision easier. You will get feedback from me and from several of your colleagues for each of the major assignments. Each workshop is composed of two parts. First, you will post your draft to Googledocs by the appointed date and time. Each group member of your peer review group will annotate and comment upon the other members drafts. Comments and annotations will be due within 24 hours of the posting date and time. You can expect my comments in 24-48 hours. If you do not post your draft in Googledocs by the designated time, your draft will not be peer reviewed, resulting in an automatic 10% deduction in the grade for that assignment (ex. If you get a C+ on the paper, but missed the review, your grade will be reduced to a D+). Once you have gotten feedback, you will write up a short (100-250 words) revision plan, detailing what you plan on revising and how, in what order, and when. You will email me a copy of the revision plan by the designated due date. Each major assignment will be formally peer reviewed once, and I will be checking Googledocs to make sure you have annotated and commented. Take the workshop seriously by engaging with the drafts, asking content-related questions, providing constructive feedback and concrete suggestions for improvement, and present your responses in a respectful manner. Again, peer reviews are integral to the course. Other people depend on your feedback. Your writing will be greatly improved by the feedback. People who miss the peer review not only lose 10% of their paper grade, but they also tend to get lower grades on the paper to begin with. So, please do not miss your scheduled peer reviews. TIMELINESS Because this is an online class, timely participation with your peers and course materials is imperative to obtaining the most valuable experience from the class and course assignments. As a result, late major assignments will be docked 10% for every day they are late unless you make arrangements with me ahead of time. If you know you will be unable to turn in your final draft on time because of unforeseen circumstances, please let me know at least 24 hours in advance. Extensions will not be given if requested within 24 hours of the due date. We are producing a lot of texts, using a lot of different mediums, so the class will move quickly. Any extensions you may get will inevitably cut into the time you have for the next project. The quizzes and Week in Review posts and comments will not be accepted late under any circumstances. Manage your time wisely. On my end, I will do my best to grade the assignments and give you considerable feedback in a timely manner, but please be aware that the grading process may take as long as two weeks.

NOTICES: If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities. Contact: 303-492-8671, Willard 322, and http://www.Colorado.EDU/disabilityservices Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Those who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student's legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. See polices at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/classbehavior.html and at http://www.colorado.edu/studentaffairs/judicialaffairs/code.html#student_code The University of Colorado at Boulder policy on Discrimination and Harassment, the University of Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and the University of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships apply to all students, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member who believes s/he has been the subject of discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at 303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. Information about the ODH, the above referenced policies and the campus resources available to assist individuals regarding discrimination or harassment can be obtained at http://www.colorado.edu/odh All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council (honor@colorado.edu; 303-7252273). Students who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions from the faculty member and nonacademic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion). Other information on the Honor Code can be found at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/honor and http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/

PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism, the act of passing off someone elses work as your own, is both dishonest and illegal. Stealing, buying, or using someone elses work without proper documentation and permission constitutes plagiarism and violates university policy. Such behavior is taken seriously by the University and the Honors Council, to whom such incidents will be referred. If you get caught plagiarizing, you will receive an automatic

0 for the paper, an F in the course, and a report will be filed with the Honors Council. It simply is not worth it.