UGC211

American Pluralism

Professor Nathan Grant

TTh      9:30 - 10:50

Reg. No. 356076

202

Advanced Writing:  Technical

David More

TTh      7:00 - 8:20

Reg. No. 076339

This course is designed to serve the written communication needs and skills for a wide range of professionals who will be writing in the work place. The standard essay form which UB students concentrate on in the required ENG. 101, 102, & 201 course offerings develop and enhance literacy skills appropriate for college level writing in other undergraduate and graduate courses.  While many of the same standards do apply (for example: certain grammatical concepts, punctuation, coherence, sentence structure and paragraph construction, research techniques, etc.), technical writing in the professions places unique demands depending on the writing context. Authors must understand and master certain principles and conventions appropriate to the writing situation. Engineers, architects, educators, people working in the medical and legal professions, nuclear scientists and social scientists all need to produce written communications consistent with the technical expectations for their particular institutional setting.

 

Professional writing generally occurs in administrative, educational, business, non profit or institutional sectors where the author(s) and reader(s) are part of a management structure. The objective of this form of communication is usually to initiate some form of action on behalf of the organization’s management; hence, this type of writing can be termed “results oriented.” Consideration of purpose, audience and the writing situation will be continuous threads as we explore and practice the tapestry of various types of professional writing. The quality of your writing produced in this course will, in large measure, depend upon an understanding of and sensitivity to these dynamics, which, in turn, determines the probability of achieving the intended result--whether that means landing a job, being awarded a contract, convincing your boss of the best course of action, response to an important business decision, or research project.

On a practical level the writing assignments will

This is an Undergraduate College course and will satisfy the American Pluralism requirement.

 

Perhaps you’ve wondered whether American democracy, called by many the “grand human experiment,” actually works for all Americans, or perhaps it has occurred to you that the laboratory itself is a colossal mess.  The history of group success and survival in the United States has been one in which power and influence have been negotiated, legislated, and appropriated; groups have had to come to terms with the various forms of resistance to their claims to social access and their right to alter institutions to ensure their proper accommodation.  The greatest guarantors of this success have been the interdependency between the disenfranchised and its adversary, and the recognition of that interdependency by both sides.

 

In this class, a largely historical approach, supplemented by sociological and literary works, we will seek to examine the tensions in American economics, justice, politics, and power, and mediating and appropriative strategies used even today by ethnic groups and by women to fashion and occupy their particular places at the frontiers of American enterprise.  Our main texts will be Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States and Rereading America (Gary Colombo, et al.).  There will be supplemental online readings as well.

 

Participants are expected to keep pace with the schedule of readings and contribute regularly to class discussion.  Regular quizzes and response papers will apply.