| Week | Date | Topic | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| W0 M: | January 25, 2023 | Introduction | Read textbook introduction for Next class |
| W1 M: | January 30, 2023 | Discuss textbook introduction | |
| W1 W: | February 1, 2023 | Slow Read Intro discussion | Read The Bronx Chapter for Next class |
| W2 M: | February 6, 2023 | Workshop 3 minute talks with partner | |
| W2 W: | February 8, 2023 | Deliver 3 minute talks with partner | |
| No class - College Closed | February 13, 2023 | ||
| W3 W: | February 15, 2023 | Class discussion | Read Manhattan Chapter |
| No class - College closed | February 20, 2023 | ||
| W4 T(M): | February 21, 2023 | Autoethnography | Read Queen’s Chapter |
| W4 W: | February 22, 2023 | Discuss Autoethnography | Read Ellis, Adams, & Bochner (2011) |
| W5 M: | February 27, 2023 | Oral History | Ritchie (2014); Thomson (2007); Yow (1997) |
| W5 W: | March 1, 2023 | Discuss Oral History | |
| W6 M: | March 6, 2023 | Histories | Read from the Octalogs (1988; 1997; 2011; 2021) |
| W6 W: | March 8, 2023 | Historical Research | Read Brooklyn Chapter |
| W7 M: | March 13, 2023 | Conducting Historical Research | |
| W7 W: | March 15, 2023 | Class discussion | Workshop |
| W8 M: | March 20, 2023 | Read Staten Island Chapter | |
| W8 W: | March 22, 2023 | Note taking | |
| W9 M: | March 27, 2023 | Entry 1 | Improvement initiatives |
| W9 W: | March 29, 2023 | Entry 1 workshop | |
| W10 M: | April 3, 2023 | Entry 1 draft due | |
| Spring Break | April 5, 2023 | ||
| Spring Break | April 12, 2023 | ||
| W11 M: | April 17, 2023 | Entry 2 | Topic generation and research |
| W11 W: | April 19, 2023 | Entry 2 | research, write, site visit |
| W12 M: | April 24, 2023 | Entry 3 | Topic generation and research |
| W12 W: | April 26, 2023 | Entry 3 | research, write, site visit |
| W13 M: | May 1, 2023 | Entry 4 | Topic generation and research |
| W13 W: | May 3, 2023 | Entry 4 | research, write, site visit |
| W14 M: | May 8, 2023 | Entry 5 | Topic generation and research |
| W14 W: | May 10, 2023 | Entry 5 | research, write, site visit |
| Reading Day | May 12, 2023 | ||
| W15 M: | May 15, 2023 | Book Review | |
| Last day of classes | May 16, 2023 | ||
| W15 M: | May 17, 2023 | Final Assessment 3:30pm-5:30pm |
Syllabus
Seminar 2: People of New York City
Spring 2023
Section: 1516, MW3H
Time: 3:40pm - 4:55pm, Monday and Wednesday
Location: BH 3405
Office Hours: TBA (zoom link posted on Blackboard)
Instructor: Dr. Matthew Crump
Email: mcrump@brooklyn.cuny.edu (please put ‘’seminar 2’ in subject line)
Course Description
Seminar 2: People of New York City
3 hours; 3 credits
Catalogue Description: In this seminar, students use tools from the social sciences, from oral history to mapping and participant observation and beyond, to investigate how the diverse people of New York City shape its identity, past, present, and future. Extensive reading and writing assignments are enriched by visits to neighborhoods, museums and historical and cultural sites across the city.
Course Description: In this seminar, students use the tools of the social sciences, from oral history to mapping and participant observation and beyond, to investigate how the diverse people of New York City shape its identity, past, present, and future. Seminar topics include: the experiences of Indigenous and enslaved populations; the ongoing consequences of settler colonialism; the ways in which culture, class, religion, race, gender, ethnicity, xenophobia, and racism have shaped New Yorkers’ experiences with and within the city; the formation and social organization of New York’s communities; the impact of successive waves of newcomers to the city on urban culture and politics; and the continuing debates over assimilation, cultural retention, and “Americanization.”
Extensive reading and writing assignments are enriched by visits to neighborhoods, museums, and historical and cultural sites across the city and the use of demographic, population and other quantitative data as well as qualitative approaches. All classes create public-facing final projects, documenting their research and presenting an aspect of New York City’s diversity.
Learning Goals/Outcomes
Students will:
Demonstrate a comparative understanding of different populations through research and writing about one or more groups or about an area of the city and its shifting population across time.
Use a variety of approaches (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, or experiential) to studying people in order to come to an understanding of the diversity of people’s experiences in and of the city.
Understand the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches and methodologies used by the social sciences.
Increase their understanding of past and present issues including colonialism, migration, immigration, race, and ethnicity by analyzing a variety of sources (current, historical, primary, secondary) and by engaging in active discussion about those issues.
Present their research to a public audience through a final project that may be completed by small groups or the entire class.
Critically examine their own roles in and effect on the communities of New York City.
Course Materials
All of the course materials will be available in a timely fashion on this course website and/or posted on blackboard. Note, midway through this course we created a shared notion workspace, and all additional readings are also available on notion.
Link to the course website: https://www.crumplab.com/peopleofnyc/
Course Structure
There are 15 weeks.
This is an in-person class, and students are expected to participate in all aspects of the class.
The structure for our class is also very open-ended, and as a class we are allowed a great deal of flexibility to “choose-our-own adventure”. You can expect that the early weeks of this class will involve class discussions about “how” we will accomplish the goals of this class.
Some of the general expectations for this class are set forth on the class website in the compendium:
https://crumplab.com/peopleofnyc/compendium/Seminar_2_general_info.html
Our class will attempt to weave through several different goals. One goal is to become familiar with research methods used in the social sciences to ask and answer complex issues about people and society. Individual segments of the course are structured around specific methods. Another goal is to use digital technology to facilitate and share our research findings and process. This course will introduce you to many research technologies that will help you throughout your undergraduate experience, and helpful notes about using these tools will be uploaded to the compendium across the semester. A last major goal is to create a public-facing expression of our work as a class. To this end, we are going to produce our own student-authored, web-based version of the course textbook, complete with suggested walking tours. More on that throughout the semester.
Course Schedule
This is a rough schedule to keep us on track. Goals and dates are changing as a result of class discussion. Most of the information for individual classes is now posted on the class Notion account.
Assignments, and Grading
This is an active seminar class that will require much participation, engagement, discovery, creation, and conversation. The structure and grading of the assignments may change through our conversation and discovery process, and those changes and new agreements will always be updated and reflected here.
To provide a brief overview, each week will involve readings from a variety of sources, including the textbook. All readings other than the textbook will be provided on blackboard. Our class meets two times per week on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Weekly assignments may vary, but will generally take the form of blog posts. Students will be shown how to set-up a personal blog, and will contribute notes to the blog as a way to engage with course content. Students are strongly encouraged to be as creative as possible when “Blogging” this course, and class time will be spent on learning how to maximise the usefulness of blogging to substantially enhance engagement with content.
Final Project
The final project will involve writing our very own “People’s Guide to NYC”, and then sharing it online as website and online book. The model for the final project is our textbook. The textbook is organized as a series of short vignettes about people and places in NYC. Each student will be responsible for writing five of their own vignettes about the people of NYC. The topic of the vignettes will be researched across the semester. More detail on the final project is available on the shared notion workspace.
Points and letter grades
| Assignment | Points | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Assignments/Blog posts | about 4.28 each | 60 |
| Five Minor points of interest (final project) | 2 each | 10 |
| Five Major points of interest (final project) | 6 each | 30 |
| 100 |
Percentage grades are converted to letter grades according to the following rubric.
| Letter grade | Range |
|---|---|
| A+ | 96.67-100 |
| A | 93.33-96.66 |
| A- | 90-93.32 |
| B+ | 86.67-89.99 |
| B | 83.33-86.66 |
| B- | 80-83.32 |
| C+ | 76.67-79.99 |
| C | 73-76.66 |
| C- | 70-72.99 |
| D+ | 66.67-69.99 |
| D | 63.33-66.66 |
| D- | 60-63.32 |
| F | 0-59.99 |
Attendance
Students are expected to attend and participate in each class.
Teaching and Leaning Collaboratory
Students can book time with a member of TLC who can help them with using digital tools (like building an e-portfolio website) to giving practice talks. Make an appointment here:
Course Policies
Due dates
Due dates are suggestions for completing coursework on a weekly basis. You may be able to work ahead, but you are not encouraged to fall behind.
You should email me if you have an exceptional circumstance preventing you from participating in class.
Changes to the syllabus
The syllabus may be updated for clarity or to make adjustments for pedagogical purposes. The most current version of the syllabus is always available from the course website.
Missing an Exam
In the event of an emergency, contact me as soon as possible. If you are missing an exam for religious reasons refer to the state law regarding non-attendance because of religious beliefs noted in the front matter of the Undergraduate Bulletin and Graduate Bulletin. These may be found on the Academic Calendars, Course Schedules, and Bulletins page of the Registrar’s website. See also the student bereavement policy at http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/about/initiatives/policies/bereavement.php.
Accessibility
In order to receive disability-related academic accommodations students must first be registered with the Center for Student Disability Services. Students who have a documented disability or suspect they may have a disability are invited to set up an appointment with the Director of the Center for Student Disability Services, at 718-951-5538. If you have already registered with the Center for Student Disability Services, please provide your professor with the course accommodation form and discuss your specific accommodation with him/her.
Email Correspondence
I will regularly use e-mail via blackboard to send out announcements, changes in the syllabus, reminders about tests or due dates etc. It is your responsibility to check e-mail regularly to keep up-to-date with these announcements. I will use the e-mail address you have listed with the College. Therefore, please make sure that this is indeed the correct address.
If you have questions please email me:
- put Seminar 2 in your subject line
- email me at: mcrump@brooklyn.cuny.edu
General Help with Research and Writing
The Library maintains a collection of links to sites that can assist you with proper citation format and paraphrasing and quoting other authors at Research & Writing Help. The Learning Center has writing tutors available to help you with your writing http://lc.brooklyn.cuny.edu/.
The best learning is done in conversation with others, whether they are people—classmates, teachers, friends—or texts—books, articles, essays, poems, films etc. It should not be a solitary process. However, the assignments that you hand in for this course must be done on your own, should represent your own thinking, and should be original work that you have done for this particular course. A good way to balance these two seemingly contradictory approaches (collaborative learning and original individually-produced work) without knowingly—or, even unwittingly—resorting to plagiarism or other forms of academic misconduct is to learn and meticulously observe the rules for citing the work of others (this could be the great point your roommate made that you used in your paper, it could be a well-turned phrase from an academic essay, or it could be anything in between). It is your responsibility to learn what constitutes plagiarism and the correct rules for citing sources—read the information on the following website carefully: http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/policies/. The bottom line is: passing off anyone’s words or ideas as your own for any reason whatsoever is plagiarism.
Violations of Academic integrity
It is the responsibility of each student to understand and act in accordance with the University’s policy on Academic Integrity, described below.
University’s policy on Academic Integrity
The faculty and administration of Brooklyn College support an environment free from cheating and plagiarism. Each student is responsible for being aware of what constitutes cheating and plagiarism and for avoiding both. The complete text of the CUNY Academic Integrity Policy and the Brooklyn College procedure for implementing that policy can be found at this site. If a faculty member suspects a violation of academic integrity and, upon investigation, confirms that violation, or if the student admits the violation, the faculty member MUST report the violation.
FYI on cheating etc.
Remember, you are responsible for not cheating or violating CUNY’s Academic Integrity Policy. You are responsible for understanding that policy, and for conducting yourself in a manner such that you do not violate the policy.
The above link lists many examples of cheating and plagiarism that are not allowed. There are many more specific acts that you should NOT do. Here is an additional list of activities that will be sufficient cause for immediate failure in the course.
- Do not take pictures of exam or quiz questions and share them with other students
- Do not give other students answers during an exam or quiz, or any other assignment that is an individual assignment
- Do not copy work from another source and submit it as your own
- Do not copy and paste text from the internet and submit it as your own words
- Do not copy and paste text and slightly alter wording to pass the work off as your own
- Do not hire someone else to do the coursework for you
- Do not copy and paste text into a paraphrasing app, and then submit the output of the paraphrasing app as your own work
- Do not copy random words from the internet that have nothing to do with the assignment and submit them as your own work.
- Do not work on individual assignments with other students, share answers or other material, and then all hand in versions of the same thing that are slightly different.
- Do not plagiarize yourself by submitting work that you have previously completed in another class.
Mandate to report violations
If a faculty member suspects a violation of academic integrity and, upon investigation, confirms that violation, or if the student admits the violation, the faculty member MUST report the violation. Students should be aware that faculty may use plagiarism detection software.
There is no excuse for cheating. Students who are caught cheating may receive a failing grade for the entire course. All students who violate the academic integrity will receive a Faculty Action Report, which will go on their personal file at the Academic Integrity Office.
FAQ
If you have questions about the syllabus, let’s talk about it in class, and/or please create a thread to discuss the question on the discussion board for this course on Blackboard.