FRESHMAN
SEMINAR -- College: Entering the World of Ideas
GEN ED 1200,
Section 4013, TTh
Syllabus
Dr. Seth Holtzman
office: 313
Administration Bldg,
hours: TTh 10-11, 3-5; & by appointment
phones: 637-4229
office; 636-9666 home; 637-4428 secretary
email: sholtzma@catawba.edu
Course
Summary:
“To be able to be caught up
into the world of thought—that is being educated.”
Edith Hamilton
All
freshmen take a Freshman Seminar class; it is required for graduation. The Freshman Seminar program is designed to orient
students to the understanding, values, attitudes, abilities, and resources needed
in order to succeed at their new institution, college. The various Freshman Seminar classes are
taught by different teachers in different ways, but all of them try to orient
students to college. Our Freshman
Seminar is going to be about liberal education.
Here’s why.
College
is not high school. They are radically
different in many ways. For one thing, you
were compelled (by your parents and even the law) to attend school up to
recently. In contrast, nothing can
compel you to be at college and to do well in college, except your own inner
motivation. We develop the needed motivation to do
something when we find meaning and purpose in doing it. So, you need to find meaning and purpose in
your college life.
Your
secondary education was essentially a continuation of the same kind of
education you had before that. College
builds on your secondary education but offers a fundamentally different kind of
education than what you have had so far.
College exists to provide what is called “higher education”, and that
refers to a liberal education (“liberal” here is not the political sense of
that word). So, you need to understand
what a liberal education is, why it is so important, what makes it “higher”
than secondary education, and what it asks of you. When you understand and commit to a liberal
education, you will find the right reasons for being in college. You will find meaning and purpose in being a
college student. You will have the
motivation to work as hard as you will need to. You will know how to make
Class formats will be lecture, Socratic
questioning, and guided discussion.
Requirements and Grading:
1. Attendance is required; you cannot learn the
course on your own. During lecture or
Socratic questioning, I will elicit ideas from you, testing your grasp of
readings, lecture, and course. Also
important is your participation by means of questions and comments as well as
in discussion. You must be present, mentally active and prepared. Participation
can raise your grade by 1/3.
2. Note-taking and bookmarking
are crucial abilities in college (and after).
We will discuss them, and you will be expected to take good notes in
class and to bookmark out of class—in all your classes. I will examine your notes and books from your
courses in order to grade you on these abilities. 20% of your grade.
3. A variety of short written assignments, and an oral
assignment. Total: 25% of your grade.
4. A take-home, essay, midterm requiring you to
demonstrate an understanding of the broad ideas of the course. Tentatively to be handed out Oct. 14 and due
Oct. 19. 25% of your grade.
5.
A final exam, with essay question(s). Bring a “blue book” to write in. Sat., Dec 4,
I expect you to
complete assignments in a timely fashion.
Other expectations about your written work: on the assigned topic,
typed, paginated (if needed), tidy (including stapled if needed), standard
margins and fonts, and dark print.
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Criteria for evaluating written work include these:
** Is your work clearly
written? Are its claims precise? Is it clearly structured? Does it have an explicit overall direction? Would it be intelligible to an interested
student?
** How well do you
understand the complexity of the issue or problem? To what extent have you made good use of the
relevant concepts, distinctions, positions, and reasons included in course
readings or brought out in lecture or in discussion?
** Is your work supported
by good reasons? Are your claims and
reasons throughout the paper consistent with each other? Have you anticipated and responded to any
reasonable objections to your reasons or to your position?
---------------------------------------
Criteria for evaluating oral work, aside from any written work
criteria that apply, include these:
**
Do you speak clearly and distinctly? Are
your volume and tone of voice appropriate?
Do you have good inflection or do you speak in a monotone?
**
Do you engage your audience with your eyes?
Do you speak with feeling, or do you not seem to care about what you are
saying? When it is appropriate to have
participation, do you encourage questions and participation from your
audience? And do you respond to your
audience's participation well?
**
In a discussion, do you both assert yourself and also make room for others to
speak or respond? Are your comments and
questions relevant, organized, constructive, and clear? Do you avoid typical bad speech patterns ("you
know", "uh", "like", “basically”, etc)?
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Grading: "A"
"B" Good mastery
"C" Satisfactory achievement
"D" Less than satisfactory achievement
"F" Unsatisfactory achievement; Failure to
achieve minimum competency
A+ 97-100 B+ 87-89 C+ 77-79 D+ 67-69
A 93-96 B 83-86 C 73-76 D 63-66
A
- 90-92 B - 80-82 C
- 70-72 D
- 60-62
I use plus/minus grades, though A+ is not a possible final grade for the
course. Grades can and should measure
achievement only.
Texts:
1) Teacher: The One Who Made the
Difference, by Mark Edmundson
2) Siddhartha,
by Hermann Hesse
3) coursepack
Reading and taking notes:
I expect you to do all
of the reading; you will need to, in order to do well in the course. Some of the material is easy and accessible
on your first attempt. Other assignments
are quite taxing and will probably require multiple readings. I suggest the following strategy for any
difficult reading: read it once quickly
simply to get the gist; then read it carefully for details, not worrying about
the overall picture; then read it normally, fitting the details into the
overall picture.
Lectures (and
assignments) will sometimes track the readings but may also range far
afield. Come to class having done the
readings. Since lectures can cover
material not in the readings, this is another reason to attend each class.
Most students take very
sketchy notes. Perhaps they think that
they cannot both take notes and listen or perhaps they do not appreciate the
value of taking notes. Learn to write
while you listen; it not only can be done, it usually enhances your grasp of
what is being said. Take as many notes
as you can, without losing too much of what is being said. This class is not one in which you can get by
with writing down only key terms and definitions. Your notes are an invaluable resource for
understanding the course and for the final exam.
Absences and violations:
To help with
attendance--and to learn your names--I will create a seating chart. You pick your permanent seat; notify me to
change it. I'll check attendance at the
start of class. If late, you risk being
counted absent. If you are often tardy
(for no good reason), I will deliberately count you as absent.
Do not be absent from
class; there are no excused absenses. After two absences, which you need not
explain to me, further absences lower your final grade incrementally. Missing more than 7 classes (including
assigned assemblies) for other than an emergency is automatic grounds for an
"F" (or an "I" if the circumstances dictate), regardless of
your other grades. Sleeping or other
forms of mental non-attendance (such as working on something for another class
or writing a personal letter) count as an absence. Missing class the day
before or after vacation counts double.
When absent, you are
responsible for missed assignments and classroom material. Get notes from a classmate. If you still have questions, you may then
contact me.
Respect the people and
ideas in our class. I don't care if you
bring a drink to class or sport a hat or wear rags. I do care that you pay attention to me and to
others (so, no cell phones or activated pagers/beepers), that you are on time
and ready to work, that you make a positive contribution to the class. I expect proper decorum in our classroom.
Cheating violates the
Honor Code, but so do other dishonest practices that you may not think of as
"cheating", such as working with another student to complete
individual assignments (if this is not specifically allowed), as well as
falsifying an emergency to skip class or an assignment. So, too, does plagiarism,
the act of employing a writer's ideas (and even words) without giving the
writer due credit. See me if you
have any question about borrowing someone's ideas or words for your use.
OUTLINE OF COURSE TOPICS
0. Yo
I. What is college
about?
Kinds of instruction
Indoctrination,
training, professional education
Liberal education
Purpose
Role in
society
Extracurricular
activities (for applied learning, more learning, use of whole person,
range of views
available to all)
“skills” (note-taking, bookmarking,
reading, speaking, silent thought)
memory
(new theory of, don’t rely primarily on yours)
concentration
and attention (new level of, requirements for)
II. Why liberal
education?
What culture is
Our place in it
Need for intellectual mastery
Ultimately, for wisdom
(right thinking for right living)
Ideas are all around us and in us
Ideas have consequences
Ideas are abstract and require us to
be able to transcend the concrete
Ideas form patterns
Ideas are always subject to reason
and can be critiqued
Examination of the
culture is in the end self-examination
student is
a full-time “job”;
functioning
well (sleep, exercise, food/water, social life/play, relaxation, time to think)
serious engagement in the life of the mind, curiosity, critical
thought
“general ed”, a major, and electives
education
as transformation that affects the individual
III. Teacher and
student
Role of college teacher
-- mastery
of discipline
-- community
of thinkers
-- role
in society
Role of student
--
critically entering the world of ideas
-- community
of learners
-- active
and serious participant
-- openness
to transformative power of education
-- intellectual
and moral character
interaction
with teachers (in class and out)
interaction
with students (in class and out)
teachers
should: expect much from you, take you seriously, want to help, challenge
you, model well what critical engagement with ideas is about
TITLE AUTHOR PAGES
Teaching: The
One Who Made the Difference
Mark Edmundson 275
Siddhartha Hermann Hesse
150
Section 1
“The Limits of
Knowledge: External Hindrances”
Gilbert Highet 4
“A Journalist Looks
at the Humanities” Barry Bingham 10
“The Need for Reform”
Daniel Bell 6
“Is There Any Knowledge that a Man Must
Have?” Wayne
C. Booth 28
“I Developed the Ability to Read Closely”
Mike Rose 3
“How to Mark a Book” Mortimer Adler 6
“Taking Notes for
Active Learning Browne and Keeley 10
“Concentrating and
Focusing” Walter Pauk 11
“Allowing Time for
Memories to Consolidate” Walter Pauk 5
“The Birth of a Mother: Memories of Childhood” Daniel Stern, et al. 10
Section 2
“Cultural Slavery or Freedom?” E. M. Adams 6
“Biased Against
Brains” Joe
Robinson 1
“Flowers for Algernon”
Daniel Keyes
18
“The Politics of
Reality: Oppression” Marilyn Frye
7
“The Clash of
Civilizations” Samuel Huntington 8
Section 3
“I Just Want to Be
Average” Mike Rose 10
“A Description of Rejection” Ellen Goodman
2
“The Art of
Teaching: The Teacher” Gilbert
Highet 5
“Compulsory Mis-Education” Paul
Goodman 4
“The Value of Bad
Grades” Walter
Sinnott-Armstrong 3
“Three Myths of
Education” Robert
Paul Wolff 6