Dr. Jonathan Short; jshort@yorku.ca

Virtual office hours: Office Hours will be held using Zoom once per week. I will post the office hours schedule on E-class with a link to join these appointments. Please see the E-class site for further details.

Times and locations: Please note that this course will be delivered asynchronously. That means there will be no synchronous meetings between students and the professor, aside from office hours (see below.) A class with the numbers usually enrolled in these sections is simply too unwieldy to be conducted synchronously over Zoom.

This course provides students with a grounding in reading comprehension, critical thinking, argumentative skills, and applied political theory to social issues we encounter in everyday life. The course focuses on skills-development more than abstract knowledge. Students who view the lectures, participate as fully as possible in the course, and keep up with their assignments, will experience an increase in their reading comprehension and an ability to think critically, to the end of improving their sensitivity to reasoned discussion. This course seeks to present an “intellectual antidote” to some of the deeply anti-critical and anti-intellectual attitudes prevalent in North American culture.

The course will be broken down into roughly two parts. The first part will focus on the basics and mechanics of argumentation, identifying logical fallacies, reading comprehension, and the use of generalization and inference. With these skills as a background, the second half of the course will go on to think specifically about different approaches we find in political and social life to different social issues. Students will be asked to look at a social issue from various perspectives to appreciate both the complexity of the issues and the different approaches to them.

Technical requirements for taking the course:

This course will be delivered entirely online; there will be no in-person meetings during the course. That means you must have the technology to complete an online course successfully. In this course that means the following: a) stable high speed internet connection, b) data, preferably LTE data, if using a phone or cellular data, c) Video conferencing software (York uses Zoom, see link below for how to get this free of charge), d) A computer, tablet, or phone capable with webcam and microphone, a stable web-browser, access to Eclass/Eclass, and Zoom for online office hours.

Here are some useful links for student computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to Eclass

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

To determine Internet connection and speed, there are online tests, such as Speedtest, that can be run.]

First Term: Critical Thinking: Argument and Argumentation. 2014. 2nd Edition. Authors: Jean Saindon and Peter John Krek. ISBN: 978-0-17-666100-7. Publisher: Nelson Education.

Second Term: Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? 2009. Author: Michael J. Sandel. ISBN: 978-374-53250-5. Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York.

1. Lecture Participation Assignment (LPA) Exercises: Due as indicated on Eclass throughout the course: Weight: 20%
2. Argument Quiz:   Weight: 15%, October 18/19
3. Fallacies & Non-Deductive Arguments Test: Weight: 20%, Dec 6/7
4. Passage Analysis Assignment: Weight: 25%, Jan 31/Feb 1
5. Take-Home Test Weight 20%, April 11/12

The entire course, including the submission of assignments, participation/discussion and test-taking, will take place on the course’s E-Class site. Please note that although we are scheduled to meet at particular times and days of the week in the official course calendar, this course has no live virtual meetings outside of office hours. Like a purely online course, you can learn the course material following the readings and activities according to your own schedule.

Because this is a skills-based course, the material will be made available in a sequential “week-by-week” format. That means you will not be able to jump around in the material, but instead must learn it in a particular order. The course lectures and other material will be posted the week we cover the material and you will not have access to material in advance of covering it in the course. In this way, even though the material is delivered asynchronously, it still follows a weekly format.

This course is skills-based, meaning that it is less focussed on what you know than on how you know. In this course you will expand your ability to think critically, to formulate a cogent, logical, and coherent argument, and to spot the flaws in the arguments and claims of others. It will prepare you to live in our media-saturated society with a sceptical and critical mind. You will also learn to express your ideas in writing in a logically consistent form. Finally, the course will teach you some of the fundamental ideas that are appealed to in justifying many social practices, including the distribution of power and goods in our society. The point of learning about these ideas is to enhance your ability to think critically about the justification for these beliefs and whether or not they deserve continued support.

Grading:  The grading scheme for the course conforms to the 9-point grading system used in undergraduate programs at York (e.g., A+ = 9, A = 8, B+ - 7, C+ = 5, etc.).  Assignments and tests* will bear either a letter grade designation or a corresponding number grade (e.g.  A+ = 90 to 100, A = 80 to 90, B+ = 75 to 79, etc.)

(For a full description of York grading system see the York University Undergraduate Calendar - http://calendars.registrar.yorku.ca/2010-2011/academic/index.htm

Students may take a limited number of courses for degree credit on an ungraded (pass/fail) basis. For full information on this option see Alternative Grading Option in the LA&PS section of the Undergraduate Calendar.

Assignment Submission: Proper academic performance depends on students doing their work not only well, but on time.  Accordingly, assignments for this course must be received on the due date specified for the assignment.  Assignments are to be handed in on the Eclass site for this course in Drop-boxes indicated.

Please Note that it is not possible to submit the LPA assignments late. They are designed to test your level of participation in the course and must be completed on a weekly basis (i.e. you have from the day the topic week begins until the next topic day to complete them.) If you do not keep up with these assignments you cannot hand them in later; please don’t ask me to extend the deadline since this will not be possible.

Lateness Penalty: Assignments received later than the due date will be penalized 2% per day that assignment is late. Exceptions to the lateness penalty for valid reasons such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc., may be entertained by the Course Instructor but will require supporting documentation (e.g., a doctor’s letter). Students who have recognized accommodation from the Accessible Learning Centre at York that permits it will be given extra time to complete tests and assignments as appropriate.

Missed Tests:  Students with a documented reason for missing a course test, such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc., which is confirmed by supporting documentation (e.g., doctor’s letter) may request accommodation from the Course Instructor. Students will be permitted to write a new timed test or upload the assignment to Eclass (Turn-it-In) after the official cut-off date for the test or assignment. Further extensions or accommodation will require students to submit a formal petition to the Faculty.

Recording Policy: This course makes use of recorded lectures and posted Power-Point Slides. While it is legitimate to view and download this material for your own personal use in taking this course, it is a violation of academic honesty to post/share any of this material for purposes of profit or others’ academic advantage (e.g. cheating). It is expected that any downloaded lecture material you have in the course will be destroyed upon completion, and not to be otherwise sold or distributed on online platforms. If you distribute this material for any reason you are helping other students gain an unfair advantage in the course that you did not have, lowering the value of the effort you put in to the course.