STS/INFO 634

Assignments

The assignments in this course are designed to foster the development of critical reading and argumentation skills essential to the humanities. Many humanities seminars culminate in one large paper at the end of the semester, but I have found it is easier on students and more conducive to learning, especially when students have disparate backgrounds, to maintain a 'steady burn' of work and feedback throughout the semester.

Your work for the class will consist of the following components: a fairly substantial reading load, with brief weekly reading responses and 3 short papers building on course materials which build up to a group final project.

Regular attendance is expected and is essential to acquire a full understanding of course content.

Reading Responses

The most important work you will do in this class are the course readings. They contain the core course content and are designed to deepen your reflection on issues of interpretation that will pay off in a wide variety of research areas. You are expected to have thoughtfully read the day's reading prior to coming to class. I strongly encourage you for your own benefit to keep written notes of your reading annotated with page number. Course reading varies considerably in difficulty; be aware that reading length does not greatly correlate to expected reading time.

To encourage your engagement with the readings, you will do brief weekly reading responses, which are due on the discussion boards on our Blackboard site by Monday at 1pm. These responses have two components.

1. One-paragraph description of one of the week's readings (or, in the case of a book, one chapter of the readings), that summarizes the argument made and the evidence being used in support of that argument. The best description of each reading will be chosen to add to an annotated bibliography for the course we will develop over the course of the semester. Please post your description to the "Bibliography" bboard.

Reading descriptions will be graded on a check-plus, check, and check-minus basis. You may skip two descriptions over the semester without penalty.

2. One-paragraph response to the reading you have summarized. You may choose the form of your response; some examples include:

• Discussion of an issue or problem raised by that reading that you find interesting.
• A link to a related news article or short piece from outside of class with brief discussion of the relationship.
• A comment on or further discussion of someone else's reading response.

Please post your response to the "Responses" bboard. Reading responses are graded on a pass/fail basis. During the course of the semester, you may skip 2 of them without penalty.

Final project

The final project for this course will be a collaborative group project involving all course members on the interpretation of in-car GPS navigation systems. These systems are becoming ubiquitous in higher-end new cars, but remarkably little has been written about how users appropriate them and make them meaningful in their everyday driving activities, nor about how designers interpret the expected activities of users in their design. Our goal for the final project will be to address this hole in the literature by developing an empirically and analytically grounded analysis of GPS navigation systems. We will develop this project over the course of the semester and use itas a platform to explore course topics.

Short papers

You will write three short (5-7 pages) papers for this class. The topics of the papers are as follows:

• Paper I: You may write on any topic you choose related to the course content in the unit on "Faith and Suspicion." You are strongly encouraged to choose topics related to your research interests outside of class.
• Paper II: You will write up one carefully selected incident around the use of in-car GPS navigation systems, in the style of ethnographic writing (ca. 4 pages). You will also reflect on your ethnographic observations and link your thoughts to the literature in the unit on "Understanding being in the world" (ca. 2 pages).
• Paper III: You will choose a topic related to the final project. You must discuss to some extent reading from the previous unit ("Juggling Meanings") but may discuss equally or more any other content from the course, as appropriate for your argument.

Your short papers should include proper citations to the literature in a consistent format. A good paper will include balanced, strong, original argumentation engaging with the course readings and on-going discussion. You will hand in a one-paragraph informal paper proposal for each short paper to get early feedback on the topic you have chosen.

Grading

Alterations to these assignments are always possible upon approval of the instructor.

Grading formula:

• Weekly Responses: 15%
• Short Papers: 45%
• Final project: 30%
• Class and on-line discussion: 10%

Grading is not just a matter of numbers, but also of judgment. The instructor reserves the right to adjust grades by up to half a letter grade based on knowledge of your performance not summed up in this tidy formula.