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Assignment Goals

In this sequence of assignments, we will focus on analyzing relationship of philosophy to STS and the possibilities for conceiving a philosophy of STS. These assignments ask you to question, respond, discuss, analyze and develop arguments regarding STS and philosophy. The purpose of these assignments is to have you advance, refine and integrate your ideas through the semester into cogent arguments regarding well-defined issues.

Overview

Each of you will lead the class discussion once during the semester. Discussion leaders will pose questions on the readings. Class members will develop written responses to selected questions. Using the questions and responses, discussion leaders will orchestrate class discussion. Ultimately questions, responses and discussions will lend the bases for two essays.

Question Formation

The discussion leader will develop three to five questions based on the assigned readings, related readings and/or on related issues and topics. For each question, please give three references to the assigned texts — or to outside texts — that indicate your thinking as you formed the question, why you formed the question as you did, and how the question might be approached. For assigned readings, you need only provide the title or author and page number. For outside sources, please provide full citations.

Please post your questions to the appropriate wiki forum by Friday noon (the Friday before we discuss the readings on Tuesday).

The purpose of the questions is to encourage thoughtful analysis, writing and argument. Please consider the "who, what, where, when, how" implied in the formulation of the question. We offer the following prompts to encourage an analysis of the questions as you pose them:

• What kind of thinking does the question provoke? Does the question ask for a description? A judgment? An opinion? Data?
• How is the question posed structurally? Is the question short, long, compound, over determined, vague, careless, precise, wordy?
• How might the question be answered? What resources might be needed to answer the question — personal opinion, experience, expertise, experiment, close reading of the text, interpretation?
• Who does the question ask the respondent to be? Fellow seeker? Novice? Dope? Collaborator? Believer? Cynic? Judge? Agent of change?
• What is the goal of the question? Affirmation and Confirmation? Provocation? Knowledge seeking? Information?
• When might the question be answered? Does the question assume an immediate answer? Does the question assume a certain vision of the future? Does the question assume a certain understanding of the past? Of current events?

Responses

Please select a question, or questions, to which to respond. Your response should be roughly 350-500 words. Please give at least three references to the assigned reading — or to outside texts — that indicate the basis for your analysis and argument. Keep in mind that your responses may provide material for two future essays.

Please post your responses to the appropriate wiki forum by Monday noon (the Monday before we discuss the readings on Tuesday).

Discussion

The discussion leader will use their questions and class members' responses as the basis for structuring an in-class discussion of the assigned reading and related topics. Leaders may conduct the class in any manner they choose — the discussion may be as tightly or loosely structured as the leader wishes — but the broad goal is a cogent conversation about assigned reading and related topics for 30 to 40 minutes. Students will assess one another's presentation.

Essays

You will write two essays — one at the mid-term and one at the end of the semester. You may use any materials you have developed — questions, responses, discussion preparation and notes — in the essays. You may conceive of the essays as two discrete assignments, or as parts of a larger whole; that is, the first essay might be integrated (in some way) into the second essay.

Each essay will develop an argument regarding an idea or issue — that you clearly define — regarding philosophy and, or of, STS. Again, you may use any of your previous work but the essays should hang together as a coherent whole. Consequently, stringing together your responses to loosely related questions will not suffice.

We will evaluate the essays based on the norms of academic argument. The essays, then, will:

• Define carefully the idea or issue being explored;
• Pose an explicit central question about the idea or issue;
• Provide an arguable claim that takes a position on the central question;
• Offer coherent argumentative logic;
• Lend textual evidence to support the argument's claim.

Requirements:
Essay One: Due to the wiki by midnight March 3; 1750-2500 words.
Essay Two: Due to the wiki by 9:00 p.m. May 9; 2500-3750 words.