Syllabus

BCSC 163: Syllabus

Fall 2025

Welcome to class! In this class, we’ll be learning to think about writing as a cognitive activity. What goes on in writers’ minds when they write and in readers’ minds when they read? Can learning about what goes on in both writers’ and readers’ minds help writers make their writing more effective? We will delve into the cognitive processes underlying writing and reading: how writers generate ideas, translate those ideas into words and sentences, organize those sentences into arguments, and do all of this while managing things like spelling and typing, and how readers actually interpret the message being conveyed by a piece of writing. We’ll also explore the extent to which research in cognitive science can inform what we do as writers by experimenting on ourselves with research-grounded strategies.

Time & Location

Tuesdays and Thursdays: 2:00pm-3:15pm in LeChase 122

Personnel

Dr. Whitney Gegg-Harrison (she/they). You can simply call me “Whitney”, or you can call me “Dr. Gegg-Harrison” or “Professor Gegg-Harrison” — any of those 3 are fine!

  • I strive to respond to emails within 24 hours of receiving them; as a general rule, I do not check my email between 8pm and 8am, so please plan appropriately (e.g. if you email after 8pm, I will not see it until the following morning!)
  • If you’re sharing materials via Google Drive, please use my gmail

How this class works

How to prepare for classes: Come to class having read & commented everything that is assigned for that class period, and having completed any assignments that are assigned for that class period. You’ll find readings and assignments on the Schedule/Checklist, as well as in the relevant Unit/Week folders on Blackboard Ultra. Be ready for discussion and in-class writing activities! Please know that this class respects and welcomes students of all backgrounds and abilities, and that I invite you to talk with me about any concern or situation that affects your ability to participate in the class or complete your academic work successfully.

Using the schedule/checklist: The schedule/checklist is a Google Spreadsheet where I have broken the class down into individual activities, such that each reading, assignment, and class has its own “checkbox”; this is intended to help you make sure you’re on track, and I encourage you to use “File→Make a Copy” to make your own copy to use as a checklist. I also provide an estimate of how much time you should expect to spend on each activity. This is of course just an (informed!) estimate, but if you are finding that you are spending a LOT more time on readings/activities than is listed on the schedule, please reach out to me! [Click this link to access the Schedule/Checklist]

How I’ll communicate with the class as a whole: All announcements to the full class will come through Blackboard Ultra’s Announcements. These will show up on our “Announcements” page in our class Blackboard, and will also come to your UR email address. Check your email regularly!

What if you need to miss a class?

  1. Email me at least 30 minutes before the start of class time to let me know you’ll be absent. (I do not need to know why! I just need to know who to expect not to be present.)
  2. Check the class notes for the day you missed. (Each set of class notes will have a slide near the end listing what you need to do to make up the missed material.)
  3. Within 3 days of missing class: Complete the in-class activities as described in the class notes. (This always ends with emailing me (again)!)

What’s the difference between the two types of office hours? My Thursday office hours (in my office) are ideal for 1x1 conversation with me, while my Friday office hours (in Rush Rhees G-122D) are designed to be “co-working”/ ”body-double” time; in other words, I’m welcoming you to work alongside me and possibly other peers, for support and accountability (and will be available to answer questions throughout the hour). Outside of office hours, you can also schedule a 1x1 Zoom meeting with me using Calendly.

Credit Hour Policy: This course follows the College credit hour policy for four-credit courses. This means that you should expect to spend around 8-10 hours per week on this class between readings, assignments, and class participation.

Classroom Community Expectations

Respect, Curiosity, Generosity, and Kindness

Please don’t be our “Patient Zero”! We should do everything we can to keep each other safe and healthy. As a higher-risk individual, I will be wearing a mask while teaching for the foreseeable future, and welcome others to join me. If you are sick (any kind of sick, not just COVID!): I want you to take care of yourself AND avoid spreading it. I have a supply of surgical masks I can share if you feel up to joining us but want to avoid spreading your illness. If you don’t feel up to it, just follow the instructions for missing a class (see page 2), making sure to email me at least 30 minutes before class so that I know not to expect you. And if you need a little more time to catch up on missed work because sickness is slowing you down, just ask—I can almost always grant you that, as long as you keep me updated. (I can’t help if I don’t know there’s a problem!)

During discussions (both in person and online): We aren’t always going to agree, and there’s nothing wrong with that; academic discourse wouldn’t be very interesting if everyone thought exactly the same way! But this does mean that we need to approach discussions respectfully. It’s important to listen (or read) as well as to speak (or write), and if you notice that you’re doing too much of one or the other during a particular discussion, try to bring them into balance. Make substantive, productive comments. Aim to say what you have to say with respect and kindness, and to interpret what others have said through a lens of curiosity and generosity. This class should be a brave space: a space where we are open to taking risks, where we expect to be uncomfortable sometimes, but we do not ignore anyone’s physical, social, or emotional needs.

Technology: We’re going to be using technology quite a bit during class, and I encourage you to bring a device that will allow you to access Blackboard, Perusall, and Google Drive. BUT: technology can also bring a lot of distraction, both to you and to the rest of the class. Show respect by refraining from extraneous activity on your device(s) during class, and by putting your device(s) away during times when I ask you to.

Openness to feedback: This goes in both directions - I’ll be giving you feedback, of course, because I’m your professor and my job is to ensure that you get the feedback you need to help you learn, and you’ll learn best if you’re open to receiving that kind of feedback. And I will be the best instructor for you if I am open to YOUR feedback, and what that means is that if something isn’t working well in the class, I want to hear about it so that I can make it better. Please don’t be afraid to reach out to me!

Sharing and responding to peer writing: Sharing writing with readers and receiving feedback from them is one of the only ways writers can really learn how their writing is working for readers. This is something that I know can feel very vulnerable! Be brave, and remember that any piece of published writing you have ever read has been through many rounds of this kind of feedback. The job of a fi rst draft is to be written, not to be perfect. In fact, no paper’s job is to be perfect - only to work well, given the writer’s audience and purpose.

  • As the writer, share the best work you can, knowing that the feedback you’ll get will help you make it better; try to be curious about what your readers will experience as they read it.
  • As the reader, offer whatever criticism you have with kindness and generosity, and stay curious about what the writer might have been trying to do.

How is this class graded?

CONTRACT GRADING: This class uses a Contract and Final Portfolio as the basis for grading; you earn at least a B by meeting all of the basic requirements for the course, and can earn even higher grades by submitting particularly high-quality work as part of your Final Portfolio. Breaches of the contract will result in lower grades. This is my way of balancing the fact that the process of writing and learning is important and worthy of recognition (hence earning a B, rather than C, for meeting the basic process requirements) with the fact that the quality of the work you produce as a result of that process also deserves to be recognized.

You are guaranteed a final grade of “B” if you meet the following basic requirements for the course (these basically boil down to “do all of the work and be a good classmate”):

  • Be on time, prepared for, and engaged in all class meetings, discussions, and activities.
  • Complete all reading assignments on time
  • Complete all parts of all Writing & Thinking Notebook assignments on time
  • Complete all portions of the Research Project on time
    • Sustain effort and investment on your Research Project; be thoughtful with each required portion (the proposal, the annotated sources and literature review, the paper itself, and the presentations) and make substantive revisions when needed — extending or changing the thinking or organization, not just polishing/sentence-level editing.
  • Submit each Cognition & Writing Concepts Set on time, then revise them as needed for Final Portfolio
  • Give thoughtful peer feedback during the Research Project
  • Participate in at least 1 “Special Interest Topics” presentation
  • Give a Final Presentation of your research project
  • Produce polished, copy-edited, non-plagiarized writing for every element of your Final Portfolio (and obviously, don’t plagiarize in your Writing & Thinking Notebook activities, either, but at least one of those will actually REQUIRE you not to polish/copy-edit!)

Grades lower than B are the result of “Contract Breaches”: failures to meet the basic requirements. On the following page, you’ll find an explanation of minor breaches and major breaches. In many cases, you can avoid breaches by communicating with me; I’m happy to help you when you’re having problems meeting expectations and can often grant extensions in advance (when I can reasonably do so without negatively impacting your peers) or help you fi gure out strategies for meeting expectations, but I can’t help you if I don’t know you need help!

The Final Portfolio can raise your grade above the “baseline” B: If your Final Portfolio receives a grade higher than a B, then you would receive the letter grade given to your Final Portfolio as your final grade, minus any breaches. Here are some examples:

  • No Major Breaches, Final Portfolio is a C, C+, B-, or B → Final Grade is B
  • No Major Breaches, Final Portfolio is an A- → Final Grade is A-
  • 1 Major Breach, Final Portfolio is an A- → Final Grade is B+ (1/3rd letter grade deduction from A-)
  • 4 Major Breaches, Final Portfolio is a C, C+, B-, or B → C- (4 1/3rd letter grade deductions from B)
  • 4 Major contract breaches, Final Portfolio is an A → B- (4 1/3rd letter grade deductions from A)

In practical terms, this means you should aim to incur as few Major Breaches as possible, and incurring more than three of them puts you at risk of receiving below a C.

How breaches affect your grade

  • 1 Major breach = a 1/3rd letter grade deduction from the final course grade. For example, a B would become a B- if you had 1 Major breach.
  • 3 Minor breaches = 1 Major breach. This means that you can incur a couple of minor breaches without any grade penalties, and in this way, minor breaches serve as a kind of “warning system”.

Minor Breaches: These represent relatively minor issues.

  • After two (“freebie”) late arrivals, each further late arrival will incur one minor breach
  • Failing to let me know ahead of time that you’ll be missing class (see page 2)
  • Failing to complete asynchronous discussion-related activities (e.g. discussion boards on Blackboard) on time
  • Failing to submit a W&T Notebook entry on time:
    • Note: a late W&T Notebook submission becomes a Major Breach if more than 1 week late, unless we’ve worked out an alternate plan together
  • Failing to complete reading assignments on Perusall
    • For each 5% below an Average Score of 100%, you’ll receive 1 minor breach
  • Failing to submit the preparatory materials for your group’s “Special Interest Topics” presentation on time
  • Doing a “crappy” job of any assignment (these can be “unbreached” by re-doing the work to meet expectations - I will let you know if your work is not meeting expectations!)
    • Note: this means submitting something on time, even if it’s a bit of a mess, is always better than submitting nothing!

Major Breaches: These represent issues that impact peers or significantly impact your ability to meet the learning goals for the class. These represent issues that significantly impact your ability to meet the learning goals for the class and/or significantly impact peers.

  • Failing to submit make-up work for a missed class within 3 days of absence (see page 2)
  • Failing to turn in a W&T Notebook entry within 1 week of due date
  • Failing to turn in a Research Project draft on time for Peer Response
    • can be converted to a Minor Breach by visiting the writing center about your draft and writing a reflection about the feedback received within 1 week of the draft's due date
  • Failing to complete Peer Response for your peers' Research Project drafts on time
    • can be converted to a Minor Breach by doing it within 1 week of expected due date
  • Failing to participate in at least one “Special Interest Topics” presentation group
  • Failing to substantively revise work for the Final Portfolio, or turning in work that earns below a C
  • Failing to turn in any part of the Final Portfolio on time

What kinds of assignments will you be asked to do?

Readings on Perusall: Each week, there will be readings (and sometimes viewings or podcasts) assigned to each class period, and you’ll find these on our course Perusall page. Perusall provides “social annotation” tools: in essence, each document becomes its own discussion board. Your job is to complete the reading, making at least a couple of comments as you go, and engaging with your peers. The process makes reading a lot more fun, because you can see what your classmates are thinking about the text, and you can ask questions and get answers while you’re reading. To receive credit for completing a reading/viewing, you’ll need to actually read/view it, and make sure to leave at least a couple of comments as you do so. (FYI: I do NOT use the AI-based “autograding” features!)

Writing & Thinking Notebook: These short assignments will be aimed at giving you practice at thinking like a Cognition & Writing researcher, and will ask you to do various types of writing and also THINK about that writing. We’ll use this notebook to explore our own processes, and also to document our processes as we build toward the Research Project. There are no exams in this class, so these activities are one of my ways of assessing your ability to understand and integrate the concepts we discuss in class.

Cognition & Writing Concepts Assignments: These are the closest thing this class has to an exam; they’re an opportunity for you to demonstrate your understanding of the concepts we’ll be discussing. You’ll complete 3 of these assignments during the first half of the semester in your Writing & Thinking Notebook. You’ll get feedback on your submissions, and will use that feedback to revise your answers for the Final Portfolio.

Special Interest Topics: Because there is SO much that we could talk about in relation to cognition and writing, and not enough time to cover all of it, I’m leaving part of the schedule open to special interest topics. Each of you will participate in at least one of these special interest topics by preparing a (small) set of readings with notes, and running a session of class with activities and discussions. I’ll be prepared to help provide any necessary background, but the bulk of the presenting and discussion-leading will be done by you!

Research Project: The “capstone” project for the class is a research project in which you will explore existing research on a topic of your choosing (related to cognition and writing, of course!) and either propose new research to address a particular “gap” or propose a potential practical application of the research you’ve explored; you’ll have the choice of “writing a paper” or “creating a thing”. As part of this project, you will produce a Proposal, a set of Annotated Sources, a Literature Review, and a Research Project. You will also participate in a Final Presentation in a “mini-conference” that we’ll hold at the end of the semester.

Final Portfolio: This assignment is the encapsulation of all of your learning throughout the semester. It will consist of a pair of short reflective essays, revised versions of each of your Cognition & Writing Concepts Assignments, and a final, polished version of your Research Project, and it is graded holistically. You’ll submit it at the end of the semester, and it is on the basis of this Portfolio that you can earn grades above and beyond the contract baseline of B.