version August 21 (this syllabus is tentative, and may change over the semester, please refresh your browser for updates)
ANTHROPOLOGY 102, INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, SAN DIEGO CITY COLLEGE
Fall 2023 - (Class Nbr 42945)
Arnie Schoenberg - Adjunct Professor
When: Tuesdays & Thursdays 9:35am-11:00am
Where: MS 564
Read this syllabus carefully for advice on how to succeed in the class. Use the table of contents and the calendar on this syllabus to get the details for each week's assignments. Do the Reading before class, show up, get your Project Updates done by Friday, try to come to Office Hours.
Follow the instructions here for each assignment to find out whether to bring your work to class or submit it to the appropriate assignment on Canvas.
Once you complete all the assignments, you get an "A" in the class. You will receive feedback on individual assignments returned in class and in Canvas. Canvas Grades has a list of completed assignments. Using Canvas Grades, you will fill out your own Course Checklists, so you can stay on track to get an "A".
If you can get regular feedback from me, you're almost guaranteed to succeed in this class. There are five good ways to communicate with me: ask questions in class, come to office hours, email me, pronto, and course chat.
Take advantage of a uniquely qualified Homo sapiens assigned to answer specific questions, before an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) takes the class over within the next few years. If you have the question, probably half of the class does also, so don't be shy.
Log on to Zoom on Wednesday nights from 7-8pm to ask questions. No appointment necessary, just log on and make some noise to let me know you're there. Please let me know if you would like to speak to me privately and I can easily set up a private chat room, otherwise, it will be a group discussion with whomever logs on. Zoom is available by internet or telephone. Join online at: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg
Meeting ID: 251 569 2719
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Please let me know if you can't make this time and day, and we can set up an appointment at your convenience.
The first week of class I have extra office hours, Monday through Friday 7-8pm.
Getting real-time feedback from me is the best for almost all situations, especially if you're not sure what your question is, or you feel vaguely dissatisfied.
prof@arnieschoenberg.com I will check this daily, and if I don't get back to you within three days, please send another email. You can also send emails through Canvas. This is an especially great way to share drafts of your written work with me, and get answers to specific questions.
I will monitor the Pronto chat every few days. Pronto is available through Canvas and as an app for your phone. It's a good place for general questions that other students might be able to answer.
If you happen to see me online on Canvas you could try sending me a message through the chat function.
The schedule is TENTATIVE and subject to change. Changes will always be announced early enough to complete assignments.
| Week | Tuesday Reading | Wednesday Office Hours | Friday Project Update due by midnight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | August 22: Week 1 Reading
Introduction to the Class
|
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
August 25: Week 1 Project Update Read the Textbook's Table of Contents and write an author's Biographical sketch |
| 2 | August 29: Week 2 Reading
Science The Scope of Physical Anthropology: Powers of Ten (make sure to watch the short video also) | drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
September 1: Week 2 Project Update Scientific Writing Exercise |
| 3 | September 5: Week 3 Reading
Darwin and his context |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
September 8: Week 3 Project Update Re-read this section on the Project. List three possible project ideas. Sign-up for three Critical Reviews. |
| 4 | September 12: Week 4 Reading
Mendelian genetics population genetics and the Modern Synthesis forces of evolution |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
September 15: Week 4 Project Update Explore possible group Projects |
| 5 | September 19: Week 5 Reading
genetics and cellular biology cells and human variation | drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
September 22: Week 5 Project Update Finalize one project proposal |
| 6 | September 26: Week 6 Reading
variation and ethics sickle cell anemia |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
September 29: Week 6 Project Update Critical Review Worksheet |
| 7 | October 3: Week 7 Reading
osteology paleontology |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
October 6: Week 7 Project Update Critical Review |
| 8 | October 10: Week 8 Reading
primate evolution primate taxonomy |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
done in class in October: Week 8 Project Update Critical Review Presentation |
| 9 | October 17: Week 9 Reading
primate ethology primate conservation |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
October 20: week 9 Project Update Annotated bibliography, and other specific requirements depending on the project |
| 10 | October 24: Week 10 Reading
paleoanthropology: trends and methods |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
October 27: Week 10 Project Update Self-Reflection: academic and professional goals? |
| 11 | October 31: Wee 11 Reading
australopithecines The genus Homo and the most successful hominid in the universe |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
November 3: Week 11 Project Update First Draft |
| 12 | November 7: Week 12 Reading
Neandertals vs. anatomically modern Homo sapiens Upper Paleolithic revolution |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
November 10: Week 12 Project Update Peer review other students' Projects |
| 13 | November 14: Week 13 Reading
human variation: age human variation: disease |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
November 17: Week 13 Project Update Final Project |
| 14 | November 28: Week 14 Reading
human variation: sex human variation: race |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
December 1: Week 14 Project Update Publish Article |
| 15 | December 5: Week 15 Reading
human variation: culture The Future |
drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
done around early December: Week 15 Project Update Present Project |
| 16 | no reading | drop-in 7-8pm, or other days and times by appointment: https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/my/arnieschoenberg |
December 15: Week 16 Project UpdateSelf-Reflection: How did it go? |
| First Day of Class | 08/22/2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Student Add/Drop | 09/01/2023 | Deadline to add the class, or drop the classes with no "W" recorded, apply for refund |
| Instructor Drop/Census | 09/05/2022 | All Instructor drops must be submitted by Noon |
| Student & Instructor Withdraw | 10/27/2022 | Last day to withdraw from classes and receive a "W". No drops accepted after this date. Thereafter, a student must receive a letter grade. Deadline for student to select P/NP option |
| Week off | 11/20/23- 11/25/23 |
No Classes this Week |
| Last Day of Semester | 12/16/2022 | |
| Instructor Grades Due | 01/05/2024 | Deadline for instructors to submit final grades; available to students within a week. |
Table of Contents
Is this the right class for me?
Weekly Project Update Schedule
content of your critical review
Diversity and Equity Resources
You should have already passed ENGL 101 with a grade of "C" or better, or equivalent, or Assessment Skill Levels R6/W6. If you don't read and write well in English, this will be a difficult class. You must be able to understand the assigned texts, and write at a college level. If you don't feel comfortable with academic English, please consider taking more English classes before taking this class, and if you decide to stay in the class, adjust your schedule so you can devote extra time to reading, writing, coming to office hours, and using the tutors at the English Center. The math is very basic, limited to an understanding of arithmetic and simple fractions. The class may seem hard because it counts as a University of California Transfer Course. This class includes mandatory online components. If you can open an internet browser and a word processor, you probably have enough computer skills for this class, but if you have any doubts, take the assessment survey.
This course is a survey of human evolution, variation, and adaptation. Emphasis is placed on the study of primates, human heredity, variability of modern populations, and the fossil record of early hominids and hominoids. This course is the basis for advanced courses in Life and/or Behavioral Sciences or students majoring in Anthropology. This course qualifies for Associate Degree Credit and transfer to CSU and/or private colleges and universities. (UC Transfer Course List: ANTH 2 = ANTH 102)
Students who complete the Introduction to Physical Anthropology course will be able to:
1) Define and distinguish between cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, physical (biological) anthropology, and explain the applied aspects of each.
2) Think critically through data analysis, written reports, and classroom discussion.
3) Understand and implement the scientific method, and recognize in what circumstances the scientific method is an appropriate approach.
4) Recognize the place of humans in the biological world and in an evolutionary perspective.
More specific objectives are to:
1) Apply the anthropological imagination, especially holism, to contemporary issues.
2) Locate physical anthropology within the fields of science, and the subdisciplines of anthropology.
3) Orient yourself as a human being in a broad overview of time, space, and evolution.
4) Apply evolutionary forces, especially natural selection, to human heredity.
5) Synthesize genetics and cellular biology, with human origins and variation.
6) Identify the varieties of human biological and cultural adaptations, and their interactions; re-frame the debate between nature & nurture.
7) Apply a basic knowledge of human skeletal anatomy to subdisciplines of physical anthropology.
8) Correlate the taxonomy of primates with their morphology and ethology.
9) Debate human phylogenetic classification alternatives based on a review of hominid evolutionary evidence; abandon the search for the missing link.
10) Apply theories of human variation to developing cultural competence.
11) Discuss continuing evolutionary impacts on contemporary human populations in areas such as disease, population genetics, nutrition, and environmental biodiversity.
All the knowledge in this course is readily available on the internet, so why not just google it instead of taking this class? What I'm trying to teach is research methods, how to find the best information efficiently, how to ask the right questions, how to process the information into products that make a difference to you, and the world. These skills are worth mastering in addition to the knowledge of anthropology you'll learn.
I think the best way to learn about science is to just do it. Reading and discussion covers an introduction to the broad topics of anthropology, and a semester long Project gets you some practice with scientific research and academic techniques. You will synthesize multiple texts into your own work. You will read and write. You will learn by sharing information with your fellow students.
Instead of a big final exam at the end of class, you will be working every week. This class is divided into week-long topics that are numbered from 1-16. Each week in this class has two requirements: Class Participation and the Project. Class Participation is attendance and in-class activities. The schedule for each week is divided into two sections, Class Participation: Tuesday and Thursday, Project Update: Friday. You must attend class and satisfactorily complete any in-class or take home assignments before the deadlines. If your assignment is unsatisfactory, you may redo it until it is satisfactory, but it will be considered late. You can turn in late assignments, but you also have to do Extra Credit to make up for them being late. Extra Credit does not subsitute for doing the regular assignments. Extra Credit just lets you make up for an incomplete assignments. Late or unsatisfactory assignments means you do the regular work anyway AND do Extra Credit to make-up for it being late or having too many problems. Missed classes and some late Project Updates will require an entirely different make-up assignment in addition to the Extra Credit required to make up for late work. Not doing the work lowers your final grade.
This is not a self-paced class, you will be working together as a class and all following the same schedule. When you fall behind you will have to do more work than you would if you stayed up with the class. This means that you need to plan ahead for times when you're not going to be able to spend time on this course. The first few weeks will be confusing, but once you accommodate this class into the the rest of your weekly schedule and get into a rhythm, you will find the 16 weeks goes by quickly and painlessly. Please read the syllabus carefully now and ask questions so you can get a rhythm going as soon as possible.
Our day begins at 12:01am Pacific Time, and ends at 11:59pm Pacific Time.
Saturday to Monday - ONLINE Reading:
Tuesday to Thursday - INCLASS
Wednesday
Tuesday to Friday - ONLINE Project:
There is a lot flexibility in what work you can do, but in order to all participate together as a class, we all need to respect these deadlines, so make sure to check the calendar for the Monday and Thursday homework due dates: You may work ahead, but you may not fall behind.
Schoenberg, Arnie
2023 Introduction to Physical Anthropology. http://arnieschoenberg.com/anth/bio/intro/index.html version: [the date is on the top of the page] accessed: [include the date when you clicked on the link]
The textbook is available for free at the URL above. You need an internet connection to access the links. You'll read it on some electronic device: like a tablet, laptop, desktop, even your phone (but it's bad for your neck and eyes to spend too much time hunched over squinting at a tiny screen). The money you would have spent on a new textbook can easily pay for something with a nice screen.
Try out your browsers "Reader Mode", so you can adjust the size and font.
If you have sketchy internet at home, one trick is to turn on page caching on your browser, sometimes called "Make Available Offline" or "add page to reading list", or "show saved copy", or just just leave everything up on different windows and click on all the links when you are connected, or try apps that store online documents like Pocket, or cloud services like Google and Dropbox.
This textbook doesn't print well, but if you know that you're going to have problems with an online textbook, there are many good options, such as using an alternative textbook. I would be happy to help you with this, so please come to office hours or contact me.
The textbook will be updated throughout the semester, so you should refresh it periodically.
Your weekly reading schedule is in the calendar.
The holistic approach of anthropology means you have to learn a little bit about many topics, and we're going to read the entire textbook.
Reading a textbook is not like reading a novel. Read carefully and check yourself to make sure you understand everything. Study the Introduction and "Focus Questions" at the beginning of each section. Make sure to click on all the required links (the ones in GREEN ALL CAPITALS) and read them also. You don't have to click all the optional links or watch all the videos. You can pretty much ignore the second half of all the captions where I give licensing and permissions info, but the first part of the caption is usually interesting.
If you don't completely understand a term or a concept, look it up, check another physical anthropology textbook, or an internet search engine. Be careful if you use the internet or a college dictionary to define terms, because the same word may have many meanings, and how it is used in popular conversation may be very different from how we use it in physical anthropology, so try to consult your textbook first. For concepts you don't completely understand very well, transform your confusion into the assignment below.
Classroom discussion should expand on the reading. Besides asking questions about material that you're not sure about, other good ways of participating in class are to question how the topic exemplifies physical anthropology, and how it relates to your personal experiences. Discussion must be related to physical anthropology.
The final grade in this class will be affected by active participation, including attendance. You must arrive on time and be prepared to answer questions and complete activities (quizzes and labs) based on the assigned reading for that day. If you arrive late or leave early you may need to do Extra Credit to make up the work covered that day. Please contact your fellow students to find out what you missed.
You are graded on your performance in multiple activities, not on how intelligent you sound in class, so use the class time to resolve any problems that you're having: ask questions in class if you don't understand an anthropological idea or a class assignment.
I don't record tardies and I don't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences, so don't bother with doctor's notes, and don't bother letting me know when you can't make it to class or have to leave early. Just try not to disrupt the rest of the class. If you come late or leave early and miss the activity that day you will need to do Extra Credit to make it up. If you miss class you need to do Extra Credit to make it up. Use the online discussion board, messages, or a telephone to ask your fellow students for notes if you miss a class. Get emails and phone numbers from fellow students during the beginning of the semester. Please don't ask professors what you missed, unless you go to their regular Office Hours.
Absences are bad for your grade for many reasons: you need to do the work outside of class to make up for work we did in class, plus do extra credit for missing class. Also, the information provided during classes will help you with your grade: you're missing the anthropological ideas that you'll need to incorporate into your Project, I announce extra credit opportunities, and I give tips on how to deal with class assignments. I do not want to see doctor's notes, and I don't need to hear your specific excuse for missing a class, we're all busy adults here, but if you're missing a lot of classes, or constantly coming in late or leaving early, I would like to know what's going on, so we can look for solutions, and make sure you pass the class.
One of the frustrations of an introductory class is that it skims over a large amount of material and doesn't leave enough time to delve into the subject. The goal of the project is to go into more detail about a single aspect of physical anthropology. It's a big project, but it's divided up into little bits each week. To get sense of where we're heading, check out the San Diego City College Student Anthropology Journal. If you follow all the steps, your article will be in the next volume.
By the end of the course, you will publish a work of original research. The work will progress in stages that are designed to insure your success. You will be faced with some Project Updates that are extremely difficult and confusing, but resist the temptation to skip or delay them, and instead remember to ask for help before giving up on a stage.
The reading for this week's Project Update overlaps with the reading for this week's In-week Quizzes. It is important to read the syllabus early so you know where to find information later.
For this week I want to introduce you to academic writing and asking for help when things get confusing.
Read over the Textbook's Table of Contents once more, and maybe skim a few sections for more details and possible articles and choose at least three possible projects. For each idea, create a title that describes the project, list the kind of project (Literature Review, Primate Observation, Action Anthropology, Public Health), the topics (textbook sections), and the title and author of an article related to the topic that you might do a Critical Review on. You really need to read the entire syllabus and skim the table of contents of the textbook before doing this assignment because you need to know all the stages of the Project and the Schedule. Turn this in on the appropriate canvas forum.
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Project Idea #1 |
Project Idea #2 |
Project Idea #3 |
Your title for the possible Project |
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What kind of Project: Literature Review, Primate Observation, Action Anthropology, Public Health, other |
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| Sections of the Textbook most related to the topic | |||
citation (author, title, year, etc.) of at least one journal article related to the topic |
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You're not committed to these ideas or Critical Reviews, but the earlier you find something that will work, the easier the class will go.
Science tends to be collaborative, so explore the possibility of working on your Project in a group. Follow these steps:
I highly recommend you at least try to form a group for the Project. If nothing works out, fine, but give it a try at least.
Evaluate your options from last week, including feedback from me and contact with other students, then pick one option, and write a project proposal. You're not locked into doing this Project for the next 10 weekes, but the later you change your mind, the more rushed you're going to feel towards the end of the semester, so try to make these hard decisions early. Skimming ahead in the Textbook will help you make the best decision.
A project proposal should include:
The more detailed a plan you can give me, the better the feedback I can give you, and the smoother the Project will go. Submit this to the Canvas forum.
*if you're in a group, just one person in the group submits this week's update for everyone in the group. Make sure all the names of the group members are on the proposal
Complete a Critical Review Worksheet and submit it to Canvas.
You already practiced finding topical articles for the week 3 Project Update, so one of those might work. You're not stuck with what you signed up for in week 3, and ideally you should choose Critical Review articles that relate to the topic of your Project.
This is the only required Critical Review Worksheet, but after this assignment, if you're having problems with your Critical Reviews, feel free to fill out more and email them to me or show it to me during Office Hours so I can give you feedback.
Complete a Critical Review. Check my feedback on last week's Critical Review Worksheet, and then write your first Critical Review. Think of last week's Critical Review Worksheet as the outline for this Critical Review; expand the outline into an essay that is organized by paragraphs, and topic sentences. To save yourself some work, you should ideally do this Critical Review on the same article that you used for the Worksheet, but if you don't think you're going to use the article for your Project, then feel free to find a new article for this week' Critical Review.
Any more Critical Reviews you do after this will be considered Extra Credit.
Present your Critical Review with the rest of the class. I recomend to start by writting your citation on the board, then talk without reading a script about the hypothesis, background, methods, some specific data from the article, and the conlcusion. Then ask the class if they have any questions. It shouldn't take more than five minutes, and I don't expect anything more than an informal talk. If you want to do a more formal presentation, you can do that for final Project, for Extra Credit.
First, copy your week 5 Project Update (Project Proposal) and revise it if you've made any changes in the last few weekes.
Below your current Project Proposal include an annotated bibliography, and the specific requirements depending on which kind of project you chose. An annotated bibliography is a writing strategy to help you synthesize multiple sources and organize your notes. Since you know how to do a Critical Review already, an Annotated Bibliography will be easy. You can use the same format, just alphabetize all the sources you're going to use for your Project and take notes on them. Your Annotated Bibliography should include the Textbook and your Critical Review at a minimum. While you take notes on the other sources you read, make sure to copy the page numbers or section numbers across to your notes so you can include them when citing.
When you write your draft for the Week 11 Project Update you'll be able to just reorganize these notes into the body of your paper, and when you move the notes out of the Annotated Bibliography it becomes your "Bibliography" (or Works Cited) section.
Submit this to the Canvas forum, and next week check my feedback to see if I suggested any gaps in your annotated bibliography, and ask for help in finding more sources. For Projects without a fieldwork component, a good minimum is one book and three articles, or about five articles. For Projects based on fieldwork, two or three articles should be good. Much depends on your sources.
*this week' update can be submitted as a group, just submit one version with everyone's name on it.
We have about a third of the class left and this is a good time to take stock and see how the Project is going. You may have been exposed to a new topic as you read more in the textbook, your project may be a disaster, your group may have imploded, you may have finally got a group started, your interests may have changed. So this is a good time for Self-Reflection: How are things going? Evaluate how this project is going to help with your academic and professional goals? Is the experience going to help you get a job? Are you curious about what you're researching? Depending on your answers you may want to change your project. This is a good time to commit to your current Project because trying to make major changes much later than this date will be stressful. Office Hours are a great place to discuss this with me. Submit this Project Update to the Canvas assignment (not seen by other students).
Also submit your Course Checklists; just attach them to the same assignment.
Submit a draft of your Project. Make sure to spend enough time giving the context. At this stage you should start to worry about format and style. This is big update so try to start it early. The cleaner and the more complete your draft is, the less work you have to do from here on out; do a good job for this update and you're basically done with the Project. Submit this to the Canvas forum.
From this week on you can do the Extra Credit assignment Find an Editor.
*if you're in a group, only one person should submit this week' update with everyone's name on it.
One popular myth about scientists is that they are these unkempt individual geniuses who lock themselves in a room for a week and come out with a major discovery, but science is more about collaboration and community. Similarly, writing shouldn't be something you do by yourself; we need to practice giving feedback and often struggle to find others to give us good feedback. An important aspect of the writing process is the relationship between writer and editor. Prominent anthropological journals and books are peer reviewed, which means that several anthropologists read and criticize a work before it is published to make it better.
For this Project Update, choose 3 drafts by other students submitted last week on Canvas and give constructive criticism. Make comments that will help your fellow students improve their Project. Usually, the more specific the comments the better. Ideally, upload an edited file to the same thread. Submit your peer review to the same Canvas forum as last week.
Avoid comments like: "I like your project." That doesn't help the person improve their work. If you feel uncomfortable giving constructive criticism, I recommend Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work for inspiration.
Based on feedback from other students and myself, revise your Project focusing on: content, the specific requirements of the kind of project and format. After submitting your work on Canvas, wait an hour and then go back to the TurnItIn Similarity Report to check for plagiarism problems.
*if you're in a group, only one person should submit this week' update with everyone's name on it.
One of the components of science is sharing your research with others. Prepare your Project for publication in the The San Diego City College Student Journal of Anthropology
Before it gets published we use a google doc to homogenize the formats. You will need to make a google account for this. This document gets big and slow so please be patient and try put things in the right spot.
If you missed Project Updates 4 and/or 12, you will make them up by giving constructive criticism on other articles within the Google Doc
If you completed Project Updates 4 and 12, you can give constructive criticism on other articles within the Google Doc for Extra Credit.
If other people make suggestions to your article, please reply with “Y” or “N” whether you accept the suggestions or not, and I’ll clean them up periodically.
Besides the journal article, I want you to also present your research in a public forum such as the Block Party or Student Research Symposium or other college research fairs. I will announce the dates as soon as they are available.
Even though this is due towards the end of the semester you should plan this early so you don't miss submission deadlines. You will often have to submit or present a draft of your work, and that is very typical for scientists. Presentations may take various formats, such as slide presentations, posters, and videos.
If you can't present to a live audience, your alternate assignment will be to submit your final article to at least one academic journal (Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography, osjournal.org, etc), contests, or personal publishing platforms (academia.edu, portfolium.com, etc). You may need to make accounts for these platforms.
On the Canvas forum, list the event or URLs where you presented your project.
*this week' update can be submitted as a group, include the entire group in either the preparation or the presentation, and make sure to credit all the members of your group.
Now that you're done, reflect on the completed Project and the process you went through to get there. How did it go? What worked what didn't? How would you do it differently? What did you learn about learning how to learn? Submit this to the Canvas assignment (not seen by other students).
Also submit your Course Checklists; just attach them to the same assignment. I will use this to determine your final grade. If you submit any late work after this, make sure revise your Course Checklists and resubmit them to this Week 16 Project Update assignment, so I can give you credit.
For Week 3 you will choose three possible projects. For Week 5 you narrow it down to one idea, and write a project proposal.
Try to chose a topics that will help you further your academic or professional career.
You have a lot of flexibility about the topic for your Project as long as you can find a connection to the course, but you will find that the closer you can align your topic to one of the topics in the textbook, the easier it will be. For some topics you might find that more than one of the following kinds of Projects might apply, and feel free to work with me to personalize your project.
Office hours are a great place to get immediate feedback on Project ideas.
There are four kinds of Projects. You get to do one.
For this project I want you to chose a single anthropological topic and synthesize several sources that all deal with the same topic. It will be like doing several critical reviews, and then mashing them together; like a book report that includes a few other articles about the same subject. Your sources should include at least one book, two articles, and the Textbook. You can use the same article you used for a critical review; I encourage you to double dip. This is a chance to explore a topic in more depth. Consider choosing a topic that is relevant to your academic or professional career, and then find a book that uses physical anthropology. For example:
| paleoanthropology | Johanson, Donald and James Shreeve 1989 Lucy's Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor. |
| psychology | Barrett, Deirdre 2010 Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran their Evolutionary Purpose. |
| race | Nelson, Alondra |
| language | Mithen, Steven 2005 The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body. |
| law | Wise, Stephen M. 2000 Rattling the Cage: Towards Legal Rights for Animals. |
| animal behavior | Wrangham, Richard W. et al. Eds. 1994 Chimpanzee Cultures. |
| art | Chatterjee, MD, Anjan 2013 The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art. |
| medicine and public policy | Pisani, Elizabeth 2008 The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS. |
| law enforcement | Steadman, Dawnie L. Wolfe Ed. 2009 Hard Evidence: Case Studies in Forensic Anthropology. |
| heredity | Zimmer, Carl 2018 She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity |
| genetics | Doudna, Jennifer A. and Samuel H. Sternberg 2017 A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution. |
| genealogy | Sykes, Brian 2001 The Seven Daughters of Eve. |
These are examples of how the broad scope of physical anthropology will make it easy for you to find at least a few topics that you are interested in. Your Week 5 Project Update should include a bibliography with the book and at least two articles you are going to read. Your Week 8 Project Update should include an annotated bibliography and ideas for comparison to the textbook.
If you don't want to be an armchair anthropologist, and you want to do your own fieldwork, read on...
The best way to understand primates is to observe them in their natural setting. But, we are the only primates around for thousands of miles, so we're stuck using other sources, like zoos.
The Project Proposal is more involved for the Primate Observation Project because working with live primates requires permission from a group that insures the research is ethical. For this class your proposal should consists of about a one-page description of your proposed project. It should focus on what you plan to observe, and what you expect to learn. The proposal must address any ethical issues that might arise during fieldwork, e.g. include a statement that you will not cause harm to your subjects. I want you to find at least one other source related to your hypothesis. Consider using a source to generate your hypothesis, e.g. I saw chimps do this in a video, or I read that chimps do this in wild, so my hypothesis is I predict they will also do it in the zoo. The proposal should also state your hypothesis and methods, and how your observations will relate to the concepts mentioned in the class and in your textbook. You do all this BEFORE you go to the zoo.
For this Project I want you to limit your fieldwork to a maximum of three hours, so this means having a good plan before you go and limiting the scope of your project. Find a situation where you can observe a pattern of primate behavior. Don't try to be profound, think of it as an exercise, and keep it simple! Before you begin fieldwork you MUST obtain my approval on the proposal. This proposal should be submitted no later than the Week 5 Project Update, but you can always show it to me earlier.
The fieldwork consists of one to three hours of primate observation. Notice the emphasis on observation. You can't tap on the glass and see if it bothers the primates. I would prefer that you only use written notes, and not use cameras or other electronic recording devices. There are several projects where this is not feasible, but you should address this in your proposal. You may make sketches or diagrams if useful. Plan time to flesh-out your notes immediately after the observation while it is still fresh in your mind. Your Week 8 Project Update should include your field notes, the sections of the textbook you will be comparing to, and an annotated bibliography of any other sources you want to include.
The write-up should present your data in a logical form using academic English. The Week 11 Project Update should be a draft of your write up.
The Week 13 Project Update should ideally be a single file with the following components: (1) final revised version in the front, (2) scanned original field notes, (3) proposal approved by me at the back. For the Week 15 Project Update you will eliminate the notes and proposal from your Article.
Many anthropologists consider Applied Anthropology a fifth subfield. One kind of Applied Anthropology is Action Anthropology and it includes using anthropological knowledge to better guide political action. For this project you will run a short political campaign related to one of the ethical issues related to Physical Anthropology, such as primate conservation, designer babies, GMO foods, global warming, overpopulation, racism, sexism, homophobia, discrimination, poverty, malnutrition, prison innocence, etc. Your Project Updates will be planning and reports on the campaign, and should include the same comparison to topics in the Textbook and other sources as the Literature Review project. For example, if you start a primate conservation campaign to get the cafeteria to only use sustainable palm oil, your campaign media (letters, petitions, fliers, videos, etc.) must cite academic sources.
Participatory Action Research is another common kind of Applied Anthropology, where you participate in a cultural setting, take action to help people, and do research on it at the same time. If you happen to work in a health or human services related field, you can use your experience at work and write about the group's organizational culture. For this project you will gather data about a topic while working. If your job doesn't have anything to do Physical Anthropology you can also volunteer and this would be like a service learning project. You will perform 5-10 hours of volunteer work with a community organization that is related to physical anthropology and keep a journal of your activities and insights into the topic related to your work. The service learning option requires you to be very self-motivated. To help decide on a project, you might ask yourself what item your professional resume is missing, or what career you would like to explore. Almost anything related to medicine will work, other topics include animal behavior, and one student even volunteered at a tattoo parlor and researched the topic of hygiene. Your Week 5 Project Update must include permission from the group you wish to volunteer with, as well as your research goals, similar to the ethical requirements of the Primate Observation Project. Your Week 8 Project Update should include the raw data from your journal, possible comparisons to the textbook, and an annotated bibliography that includes at least one source on a topic related to where you are volunteering. Your Week 11 Project Update should be a draft of your report and more complete journal.
Critical reviews are a basic research tool for almost all sciences. I want you to practice extracting hypotheses, methods, and data from research articles and evaluating their reliability, so you can better apply these concepts to your own original research. Your textbook contains references to scientific articles related to the topics being discussed in that section, and you can find more recent articles from the library and online. You will choose 3-10 Critical Reviews for the entire semester.
You should sign-up for the review on the Canvas website in the appropriate Discussion section. Check to see that no one has already signed up for that article, and then post a message with the title of the article you will review. The write-up should include the following sections: citation, introduction, hypothesis, background, method, data, and conclusion.
For this assignment you are required to find an article or resource that relates to the section, find a specific list of items in the article, and compare and contrast the article with the textbook. Use this assignment as a chance to move away from the confines of the textbook and explore topics that interest you, the holistic nature of anthropology makes it easy to find articles that YOU want to read, but can still be connected to one or more of the sections in the textbook.
I've included over 150 possible sources for Critical Reviews linked directly from the Textbook itself, which I've labeled with a teal asterisk *. The teal asterisks * that mark suggested links are within the text, within graphic captions, and as separate paragraphs. To find a list of suggested articles try CTR + F and then * and you can scroll through them. Other good resources would be an article from a peer-reviewed journal by an author or about a topic mentioned in the section. Other resources could include other anthropology journal articles or a single chapter from a anthropology book. Other sources that will be more difficult to review include: reviews of articles, popular science magazine article, newspaper articles, internet blogs, Hollywood movies, television programs, interpretive dance performance, etc; finding the hypothesis and enough data to review can be tricky. It's all doable, but probably harder than a peer-reviewed journal articles where the categories I'm looking for will often pop up in the first paragraph.
The City College library has a few good resources. Try going straight to Articles & Databases, and for this class I recommend EBSCO (the top on on the list), Ethnic Newswatch, and JSTOR (halfway down the list). For EBSCO if you go to the left bar where it says "Source Types", click on "Academic Journals" for a better selection. If you use an internet search, use Google Scholar for better results, there are many open source journals with excellent research. The City College Learning Resource Center is part of a network of librarians who will answer your questions 24/7.
Here is another guide specific to Cultural Anthropology. If you have access to other college libraries, they have may bigger online catalogs that will give you the full text of an article for free. Friends at four-year universities are nice to have. Don't pay for articles, there are plenty of good ones for free.
If you are not comfortable finding sources, please take either the one unit Library Science 101 class, or do the extra credit Library tour during week 2 or 3.
If you feel overwhelmed at your screen and the eye strain has you seeing red, don't neglect the old-school technique of just walking into a library and browsing the periodical stacks.
If you have any doubt about the relevance of your article, please ask me.
Just putting a vocabulary word from the chapter into a search engine may give you all kinds of crap that you need to sort through. If you choose a source that is not from a peer reviewed journal, you will need to spend more time critically evaluating the reliability of the journal, author, and all of the author's ideas, and if you don't completely address the article's shortcomings, you run the risk of propagating bad science. Try to avoid blogs and lean towards scientific journals. If a blog talks about a newspaper article, go find the newspaper article. If the newspaper article talks about an article in a scientific journal, go find the journal article. Often the primary source is stuck behind a pay-wall, but not always, so make an effort to find it.
After you find an article, but before you write your review, you should sign-up for the review on the Canvas website in the appropriate Section thread. Check first to see that no one has already signed up for that article, and then post a message with the title of the article you will review. If two people review the same article, the person who signed up first gets credit. This is especially important if you are reviewing articles mentioned in the textbook.
If you found an article but you don't know what week it would fit best into -- go back to the textbook and check the table of contents and see what section your article best fits, and then check the calendar and see what week we are reading that section, and sign-up in that week's folder.
One of the requirements of the Critical Review is to give the Background of the article you are reviewing, to explain the context of how this specific information is relevant to the class we're taking. In the Background section you are required to cite the textbook. Whatever section (or sections) you cite from the textbook, that is the week's folder where you should post your Critical Review. If you cite sections covered in different weeks then it's your choice, but the earlier the better is a good strategy with Critical Reviews.
First Read: How to Review a Scientific Article for My Class
The most important content of your critical review should be a comparison between the ideas presented in the textbook and similar ideas presented by the article you chose. You must situate the article in the context of biological anthropology; compare and contrast your article with the chapter. I like to think of this as "backing-up" in both senses of the metaphor; your article is probably going to be very specific, but before you get too far down the rabbit hole, back up and give us the broad view of where we are. How do the authors' presentations of the ideas differ? Do they emphasize different points? Do they disagree? See the Anthropological Imagination for more information.
Your critical review must contain at least one citation of your textbook. The citation can be a paraphrase, a short quote, or a block quote. A paraphrase is where you take the information and rewrite it in your own words to better fit the point your trying to make; you must include the source (the section most cases) where the information came from, usually right after the idea you borrowed from the author, but possibly at the end of your paragraph. A short quote is less than five lines, and the author's exact words are put in quotation marks and the chapter is given right after the close quote. A block quote is more than five lines of the authors exact words and the text is indented, single spaced, the font size reduced, no quotations marks are used, and the chapter is given in brackets after the quote. You must include the chapter for paraphrases, short quotes, and block quotes. When citing other sources, also include the page number when available. Review the "Scientific Writing Exercise" for more info.
When including ideas from other authors you must frame the citation with your own words, introducing why the citation is relevant to the point you're trying to make, and after the citation, explaining to the reader what they were supposed to get out of the citation. The longer the citation (e.g. block quotes) the more framing you need to do. Review Academic English for the style and format.
To help you organize the content of your Critical Reviews, I have blank Critical Review Worksheets that you can turn in and I will give you feedback. These worksheets are optional and are not graded. If you are confused about how to do a Critical Review, fill out as much as you can on a Worksheet and turn it in to me so I can get a sense of what you don't understand. If you understand the assignment, you can skip these.
Besides the three required Critical Reviews you may do up to seven additional ones for extra credit, for a maximum of 10; no more than one per section. If you find several articles for a single chapter and can't decide on one, consider putting them together and doing your Literature Review Project on that subject.
Since this is a complicated assignment, I cut you some slack during the beginning of class so that you have a chance to make mistakes on your earlier Critical Reviews, but eventually figure out how to do them correctly. As the class progresses and your expected to figure out what to do, my expectations also go up, and my criteria for acceptable Critical Reviews gets stricter for the second and third Critical Reviews. The sooner you get all the elements right, the easier it will be later. Don't procrastinate.
The Research Project, and many extra credit assignments may be done in groups. There is no penalty for working in groups, and assignments will be graded as if written by a single author, and all the authors in a group will be given the same grade. Likewise; each member of the group is also responsible for the entire submission. If there is a problem with plagiarism, all members of the group suffer equally.
For your Week 4 Project Update, you are required to read through other students' project proposals and find at least three that you are interested in. You are encouraged to contact them, but you are not required to follow through and actually make a group. Group work is optional.
This class is not graded on a curve, so there is no advantage to hoarding information or obstructing your classmates, but you have no obligation to join a group if you don't want to, or to accept group members just because they are desperate.
To define a group you just need to put the names of all the co-authors on the top of the first page of the assignment. You may not be in more than one group per assignment; if you helped another group, then make sure that the group states that you helped the group but are not a co-author. All members of the group should contribute to editing all parts of an assignment, and the assignment must have a uniform format. You may not use different font styles or citation formats for different sections. If you use personal pronouns (I, me, my, mine), you must specify which author you are referring to, usually by putting their name in parentheses after the pronoun.
Many word processing programs have a feature that allows comments from different authors to show up on your writing. I recommend Google Docs because everyone in your group will need an account anyway for the Week 15 Project Update. Another option is the Review or Track Changes function of MS Word, and I often use this function to correct your written work,.
You are responsible for anything that gets turned-in to me with your name on it. Don't put your name on something you didn't do, don't put someone else's name on something they didn't do.
Take a deep breath and check yourself to see how things are going.
The Week 10 Self-Reflection is about finding strategies to make the project as relevant to you as possible. Evaluate how this project is going to help with your academic and professional goals? Is the experience going to help you get a job? Are you curious about what you're researching?
The Week 16 Self-Reflection is about learning how to learn. How did it go? What worked what didn't? How would you do it differently? What did you learn about doing projects?
Your Project and Critical Reviews should be exercises in using academic English to write essays. The main thing to remember about an essay is structure. Ideas are broken into paragraphs, and paragraphs are broken into sentences. The title summarizes the essay. The introduction and conclusion summarize the essay in more detail. A topic sentence summarizes each paragraph. The structure helps the reader quickly find the information they need while skimming your essay.
Proofread it, spell-check it, and grammar-check it. They should be formated for 8.5"x11" paper in a 12 point text font (Helvetica, Times, etc.) with 1" margins all around, double-spaced, with the title and your name(s) on top of the first page, and a single bibliography or references cited at the end. The final version of the project should be 5 to 15 pages long. Start the text of your project on the first page about a third of the way down. Use a writing style appropriate for readers of popular science magazines (National Geographic, Discovery, Nature, Archaeology, etc.) or physical anthropology journals and consult their style guides if possible. Please cite your sources correctly to avoid plagiarism.
If the idea of a 15 page essay scares you, remember that the introduction, conclusion, and bibliography will add about a page, and when you cover the context and bring in concrete examples you'll find it's easy to make it long enough. A typical writing style in anthropology, especially cultural anthropology, is to mix the statistics with personal narratives of ourselves and our informants. We want to put a human face on the numbers, and to support generalizations with specific examples. The qualitative research methods of anthropology push us towards this style.
Relate your data as much as possible to the topics covered in the textbook. Cite the author, year: and page number. For example, for a discussion of primate behavior, you might write:
[...] My observations were consistent with O'Neil's (2012) discussion of affiliative behavior in primates and showed what Victor Turner described as communitas (Harris 2007:280). But, their agonistic behavior fit more with Harris' description of political power, not as complex, but similar to the way "disobedience and nonconformity result not only in retribution administered through the state's police military apparatus but also in punishments in the present or future life" (284). [then go on to explain these connections in detail]
Include the following section at the end of your paper:
Works Cited
Harris, Marvin and Orna Johnson
2007 Cultural Anthropology. Boston: Pearson
O'Neil, Dennis
2012 "Primate Behavior" Biological Anthropology Tutorials https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/behavior/default.htm accessed: 8/22/16
[include any other references you use, alphabetized]
All of your options for Projects require a college level quantity and quality of written work, but you'll do it in stages, and have multiple chances to fix mistakes, so you don't get overwhelmed.
Your Critical Review should look like an extra-long annotated bibliography entry. This means the citation (Chicago style is author, title, year, publisher, URL, access date) goes on the top instead of a title. The title of your Critical Review is the article that you are reviewing. Your review goes below the article citation. This is upside down from a regular essay, where the list of sources go at the end, but it makes sense for a Critical Review because you are just focusing on one source, so put it on top. I have included links about how to format an annotated bibliography and examples of past Critical Reviews in the Academic Resources folder, accessible from the course home page on Canvas.
Here's an example:
Student's Name
date
Anth 102Alemseged, Z., F. Spoor, W. H. Kimbel et al.
2006 "A Juvenile Early Hominin Skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia." Nature, 443:296-301An early fossil skeleton from Ethiopia was determined to be 3.2 million year old, juvenile, and an Australopithecus afarensis. Cumulative cultural evolution is a very recent trend in human evolution compared to the long history of hominin biological evolution (Schoenberg, 2017:8.1). Alemseged's discovery is important because it is one of the earliest infants ever found (Alemseged, 2006:299), and it is a good example of how most of our unique evolution and separation from apes occurred in the last few millions of years since split off from other apes. Alemseged based his conclusion that this by conducting survey, excavation, dating techniques, morphological analysis, and other methods. The data is conclusive the skeleton was early, a child, and a hominin, but "but the gorilla-like scapula and long and curved manual phalanges raise new questions about the importance of arboreal behaviour in the A. afarensis locomotor repertoire" (299). [...]
Notice that the format for both an annotated bibliography and your Critical Reviews is upside-down: the article citation comes first, the annotation goes below.
Please use formal academic English for your Project and Critical Reviews. This doesn't mean you have to use the biggest word possible, but try to use the most precise word. You must explain yourself clearly, thoroughly, and support your position with examples from the class. Assume that your reader has not taken this class, and define and explain any new vocabulary. Avoid lists and bullets. Use complete sentences. Organize your ideas with indented paragraphs and topic sentences. If you are not a strong writer, you should compensate by writing longer essays. Since this is not a writing class, I'm focusing on the quality and quantity of your ideas. If you are not a strong writer, it will take more words to convey those ideas, so don't write skimpy essays. Try to expand rather than condense. I've found it takes most students 2-5 pages to fulfill the requirements.
Your writing style for Questions and Answers and extra credit may be informal, but not for your Critical Reviews, or Project. Make sure to use the spell check and grammar check functions of your word processor for academic English. If you cite a website remember that they change, so you must include the date when you accessed the page along with any search terms you used to get to the information that might not show up in the URL. The reason you give a full citation is to make it easy for someone to read exactly the same thing you did.
All work in this class should answer the question: what is anthropological about these books or experience? Back up and give the context to someone who hasn't taken this class. Explain what anthropology is, and how your project is an example of anthropology. You should locate the books or experiences in the relevant subfields of the larger discipline of physical anthropology; explain how your text or experience fits into the section headings in your textbook. You should demonstrate your ability to understand the anthropological issues discussed by the authors or observed. Try to always relate your observations to the topics covered in the textbook; try to find the spots in your textbook where it says something similar to what you're saying; it is a requirement that you must include citations (paraphrases or quotes) of your textbook.
Honor's contracts are a great way for the kind of self-motivated student who ends up doing twice as much work as the rest of the class to get the brownie points they deserve. You enroll in a separate class, and you get a little "H" on your transcript, and bragging rights when transferring to four-year colleges. You come to this class and participate normally, but you add another layer of work on top. You can get the paperwork from the Honors Program. My requirements include a draft of your plan by the end of the first week of class (the Honor's Program needs the signed proposal by the end of the second week), and a commitment to attend Office Hours at least once a week. Your contract must include a timeline with due dates for your proposed work. All work is due by the second-to-last week of class. Popular options include a second project or being the editor for an issue of the City College Student Anthropology Journal, but you must be self-motivated because you are responsible for designing your own class and then carrying it out. See the Extra Credit section for ideas.
I offer a smörgåsbord of activities to apply the anthropological concepts you learn from your textbook, and compensate for problems you have with getting satisfactory course work in on time. Go back to the description of the course requirements for a description of how Extra Credit is used to make-up for late assignments.
The most important element in all Extra Credit is to compare and contrast your event or experience with what it says in your textbook and give an anthropological perspective.
Turn your Extra Credit in as soon as you can so I can approve it, and give you feedback. If you turn it all in the last week of class, it may be unsatisfactory and there will be no way for me to let you know before giving you a final grade.
There is a comment section in Canvas where you can add comments to an assignment. For each incomplete assignmnent, add a comment telling me
Make sure to keep track of your Extra Credit on your Course Worksheet, I will ask for that at the end of the semester when I determine your grade. Below are some typical extra credit activities for you to choose from. Remember: the Extra Credit is just to compensate for when you didn't get a satisfactory Project Updates or Class Participations in on time. Don't even think about trying to do everything here! Pick activities that you enjoy, or will help you work on a deficiency, or further your academic career:
At the end of most sections of the Textbook are thought provoking questions that don't have right or wrong answers. These assignments work well as a journal or a blog or other media, and can be hand written and you are not restricted to only using academic English. Your responses must engage with the concepts of physical anthropology. Label them clearly as an Imagination Question, and Post these in the appropriate Week on canvas.
The Library offers 30 minute tours on the second and third week of the semester, see the schedule in the Anthropology Announcement folder
You need to do three to get an A, but you can do up to ten. Extra Critical Reviews will make up for one to three late Project Updates or Class Participations.
The Quizzes are a series of 20 assessments on Canvas that correspond to sections in the textbook. They are multiple choice, and I record the highest score out of three tries. If there are anthropology concepts that you don't completely understand, please ask in the Class Participation section. Multiple choice questions with a single answer will have round buttons, whereas multiple choice questions with more than one answer (check all that apply) have square buttons. Canvas has many bugs with quizzes, so just skip them if they don't work for you. There are links from quiz questions to sites and articles that may work for a Critical Review or more extra credit. Even though the deadline for your quizzes is the last day of classes, avoid the temptation to procrastinate and do them all at the end. The quizzes are not hard, but they take a long time. Around 25 points of quizzes will make up for a late Project Update or 50 points for Class Participation.
Write an essay about a lecture or museum visit and compare it to the concepts presented in your textbook. Several events are mentioned in the the Anthropology Announcement folder, you can propose your own events, and I will announce more during the semester. Write-ups will make up for one to three late Project Updates or Class Participation.
I encourage you do at least one Anthropological Critique of a Video for the primate ethology section, and I include many suggested videos in the Textbook. You can do up to five for extra credit.
Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that deals both with how visual media helps us understand humans, and how we can use anthropological concepts to help understand visual media.
For the video I assign, just watch the video, write about how it compares and contrasts to the textbook, and bring your write-up to class on the day we discuss the material, see the calendar.
For extra credit videos you will want to find your own. Look for ones that relate to a culture or topic mentioned in the chapters we're reading for the week. Videos can be found in the same way as mentioned above for articles for Critical Reviews. The City College library has a Media collection with several good films. There is a series on Physical Anthropology. You can just take a concept or culture from the chapter and put it in a search engine. For example, if you search for "Sickle Cell Anemia" on the internet, you'll find over 100,000 videos, most of which will work for this assignment. It's not that important what video you choose, but just that you connect it to the ideas in the textbook.
Some videos can be reviewed exactly the same way as a Critical Review, using the hard science approach, but you may also decide to critique the video from other anthropological perspectives, you can include more of your personal or aesthetic reflections. I expect the Critical Reviews to be formal, but you have more flexibility with the Anthropological Critiques of a Video. The most important requirement is that you relate your video back to ideas mentioned in your textbook.
When you chose your own video you will post it to the appropriate discussion folder. When posting the video, try to make it show up so other students can see the initial preview graphic and just click once to start playing the video. You want to embed the video by copying the html. For YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Ted and most other online video services, when you click on Share, go to the Embed function (get the embed code) and copy the HTML code, it will look something like this:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-WeirdLetters&Numbers" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Then go to Canvas and Create/Reply to the post and you'll get a screen where you can type, but don't copy the code there, first click on the little "HTML" button which is up to the right of where you can type, just to the left of the "CSS' button, that will open a separate HTML window where you copy the embed code. When you save the HTML window, it will go back to the screen where you can type your post, and there will be a yellow box that marks the video. Copy the text of your Video Critique from your word processor to below the yellow box in Canvas.
Don't freak out! This isn't a programing class, and I'm not asking to write code, you just need to copy from one box and paste it into another.
Include your review (your write-up or reflection) directly below the video in the same post. After copying the embed code of the video, just copy the text of your critique. For Anthropological Critiques of a Video, don't attach a file, just paste your text under the video.
Make it easy for other students to see the video and your critique.
Advanced Video Posting Tip: try to cue the video to the point where it supports what you're saying by adjusting the start and stop times.
Anthropological Critiques of a Video will make up for one to three late Project Updates or Class Participations.
You can do a second project for extra credit. Extra Projects will make up for one to ten late Project Updates or Class Participations.
Finding an Editor can happen anytime after you finish your Week 11 Project Update. Give the latest draft of your project to a native English speaker who is a university graduate and ask them to proofread it. Have the proofreader sign/initial the top of your draft, and include their university, degree, and date of graduation. Attach the marked-up copy to the Canvas assignment. Scan or photograph it if necessary. Consider incorporating their suggestions into your next draft. Where to find an outside academic not associated with this class? The English Center is a great resource but might not work for this week's update, depending on which tutor you get. Maybe your boss? Another professor during their office hours? A family member? Try going downtown during lunch with a printout and a red pen and solicit random office workers?
This is a Spanish term for a make-up final exam. They will take place during office hours of the last week of class. Warning: these are much harder then doing the regular course work. Contact me for details.
Students are expected to be honest and ethical at all times in their pursuit of academic goals. I take plagiarism seriously. I teach you how to avoid plagiarism with the "Scientific Writing Exercise". I ask you to check your writing for plagiarism using the Unicheck Similarity Reports.
Plagiarism problems are separate from not understanding anthropology, they become a legal issue involving Policy 3100 of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Administrative Due Process. As soon as I detect plagiarism I will arrange an informal office conference to present you with my evidence, and allow you to respond. This conference may take the form of an exchange of emails. If I confirm the plagiarism before the withdrawal-date, I will give you two options: you can withdraw yourself from the class, or I will proceed with academic and administrative sanctions. If I confirm the plagiarism after the withdrawal-date then I will proceed with academic and administrative sanctions. Academic sanctions are limited by State Chancellor's Legal Opinion 7-12 to receiving a zero for the entire assignment where plagiarism occurred. Administrate sanctions will be determined by the Disciplinary Officer appointed by the Dean of Student Affairs, and range from Admonition to Expulsion. You may appeal both the academic and administrative sanctions by petitioning the Dean of Student Affairs.
Plagiarism: The act of incorporating ideas, words, or specific substance on another, whether purchased, borrowed, or otherwise obtained, and submitting the same as one's own work to fulfill academic requirements without giving credit to the appropriate source. Examples of plagiarism include but are not limited to the following:
1) Submitting work, either in part or in whole, completed by another;
2) Omitting footnotes for ideas, statements, facts or conclusions which belong to another;
3) Omitting quotation marks when quoting directly from another, whether it be a paragraph, sentence, or part thereof;
4) Close and lengthy paraphrasing of the writing or work or another, with or without acknowledgment;
5) Submitting artistic works, such as musical compositions, photographs, paintings, drawings, and sculpting, or another;
6) And submitting papers purchased from research companies (or downloaded from electronic source) as one's own work.
[Honest Academic Conduct. January 16, 2009. San Diego Community College District Administrative Procedure 3100.3 1. b.]
So falling into plagiarism can be as dangerous as leaving off a few little quotation marks, but avoiding plagiarism is really easy! You just need to tell the reader where you got your information from. You must cite your sources for all assignments. If you copy text word-for-word then you need to put it in "quotes" or format it as a block quote. If you use material from the textbook, even if it is not in quotes, you still need to include the page number where you found the information. If you use other sources, please include a full bibliography at the end of the assignment. If you consult websites, include the URL, and any search terms that I would need to get to see the same information you saw, and include the date that you looked at the webpage.
One aspect of science is that it must be reproducible. While defending your position, you need to make it easy for someone to come to the same conclusions that you did. You're not expected to reinvent the wheel, or come up with every thing from scratch; in an introductory class like this most of your writing should be regurgitation, and you just need to practice the fundamental academic skill of incorporating an outside source into their own work, which Isaac Newton immortalized: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
You will practice avoiding plagiarism with the"Scientific Writing Exercise"
If you have any disabilities that I need to be aware of, or need academic accommodations please let me know as soon as possible. If you find yourself having problems accessing the requirements, keeping up with the reading, or understanding the material, talk to me as soon as you see a problem. Don't wait until the end of class when there's no time to find accommodations. I'm willing to help with anything that gets in the way of you succeeding in this class, and I can at a minimum refer you other resources to help you with your specific problem. Office hours are great for this. It might help to think of me as a case manager as well as a professor.
If you have an unresolved conflict during the class, you must first contact the course instructor in an attempt to resolve the problem. If the results are unsatisfactory, you should next contact the Department Chairperson. If the results are still unsatisfactory, you should contact the School Dean.
Please refer to the "Student Rights and Responsibilities" section of the Student Handbook or College Catalog (see Policy 3100 and Procedure 3100.2). Students are responsible for officially withdrawing from classes they are no longer attending. Do not assume that the instructor will do this for you.
There are no tests, no points, and no final exam for this class. I determine your final grade based on your satisfactory completion of the class requirements: Project Updates and Class Participations. The Project Updates are graded through Canvas.
A = Excellent- you completed all the requirements for this class.
B = Good- you completed at least:
C = Satisfactory- at least:
D = Poor- at least:
F = Fail- less than:
This class uses contract grading, so if you do all the work you get an A; if you don't do the work you get an F. The and means that you have to do both the Project Updates and the Class Participations to get the grade, e.g. if you did all your Class Participations but you only did 8 Project Updates, you get a D. Class Participations means attendance for all classes that week, and satisfactory completion of related in-class and take home work. So if you missed a day the first week, another day the second week, and you came in late on a day in the third week and missed a quiz, you will need to do three Extra Credit assignments to make them up, or you will be missing 3 Class Participations.
Remember that late assignments are considered unsatisfactory until you do Extra Credit to make up for them being late.
Use this chart to track how you're doing in the class and figure out how much work you need to do to get the grade you want. Transfer the information from Canvas to these Course Checklists. If you have questions about your grade at any time, please fill out this chart and I'll check it against my records to make sure we're on the same page.
| Project Update | completed? | on time? | notes |
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| Week 16 |
| Class Participation | attended? | satisfactory? | notes |
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| Extra Credit description | for which assignment? | notes |
links to these checklists in other formats that are easier to update, print, and share with me (16 week: google doc, .docx, .pdf)
Satisfactory Extra credits can be used to make up for late assignments, but you still have to do the assignment. To track late work, on these Course Checklists you need to use the "Notes" column above for the extra credit you plan to use, and list the Extra Credit on the Extra Credit Course Checklist. In Canvas, put a comment on the late assignment which Extra Credit you used. Read the Requirements and Extra Credit section of the syllabus for more information.
this may suggest extra credit write ups
We are firmly committed to diversity and equity whereby barriers are removed to create space for all individuals to fully engage in all areas of campus life. Each student's voice has something of value to contribute and students are therefore encouraged to communicate and participate during class meetings. We must take care to respect the individual backgrounds, personal identities, intellectual approaches, and demographics expressed by everyone. Individual differences can deepen our understanding of one another and the world around us, thus making us global citizens. We strongly adhere to the San Diego Community College District Non-Discrimination policy and reserve our classroom as a safe space for unique and meaningful dialogue. Remember to keep confidential all issues of a personal or professional nature that are discussed in class. We also strongly encourage you to utilize the campus resources that City has to offer you.
Resources on Campus [most of the addresses have changed, but the phone numbers are still good, please let me know if you find outdated information]
Disability Support Program & Services (DSPS): 619-388-3513, L-206
Students with disabilities who may need academic accommodations are encouraged to discuss their authorized accommodations from Disability Support Programs and Services (DSPS) with the professors early in the semester so that accommodations may be implemented as soon as possible. Please notify your professor & DSPS counselor of any barriers you encounter to accessing course content.
Mental Health Counseling: 619-388-3539, BT-105
The mission of the MHCC is to help students benefit fully from the college experience by supporting personal, social, and emotional well-being. Services offered include confidential and culturally sensitive counseling and referrals for individuals, couples and groups.
Student Health Clinic: 619-388-3450, E Building East
Did you know that your health is covered here at City by the $19 fee that you pay upon registering for classes? You can receive excellent medical care right here at City.
UMOJA: 619-388-3796, E Building
The Umoja Community is a learning community that seeks to engage, connect, educate, support, and encourage students through a program & activities that focus on African-American culture, literature, and experiences.
PUENTE: 619-388-3540, E Building
The Puente Project is a learning community that seeks to engage, connect, educate, support, and encourage students through a program & activities that focus on Latino(a)/Chicano(a) culture, literature, and experiences.
Veterans Service Center (VRC): 619-388-3698, L-206
The mission of the VRC is to provide a welcoming environment for all veterans. The VSC provides services in three primary areas: academics, community & wellness and is designed to serve from military transition to the completion of their academic goals.
Extended Opportunities Programs & Services (EOPS): 619-388-3209, L-117
EOPS provides academic and financial support to community college students whose educational and socioeconomic backgrounds may deter them from successfully attending college and completing their educational goals.
CalWORKs: 619-388-3797, L-121
The City College CalWORKs “Believe Program” offers support services to students who receive TANF/CalWORKs benefits. As an integral partner in the state's welfare system, the community colleges' 113 CalWORKs programs are instrumental in providing critical education, training, support services, and job opportunities to assist families living in poverty to reach their educational/employment goals and achieve economic self-sufficiency.
English Center: 619-388-3633, L-209
We provide a community-based learning environment to help City College students become more effective, confident and independent readers, writers and critical thinkers. In support of this mission, the English Center offers assistance for all disciplines through:
Math Center: 619-388-3580, L-208
Our mission is to provide a flexible learning-centered environment in which students are able to complete their college math requirements. Whether you are here, to complete a Math Center course, to receive general math tutoring, to take a make-up test, to study or complete homework assignments, the Math Center strives to provide resources in an environment that is conducive for learning.
Tutorial Center/Learning Center: 619-388-3685, L-205
The Tutorial/Learning Center (TLC) staff serves San Diego City College and ECC students and helps them achieve their academic goals. Come to the TLC for a place to study, to do homework assignment, receive academic assistance and support, meet with study groups, and attend study skills workshops.
Independent Learning Center: 619-388-3265, R-105
The Independent Learning Center (ILC) comprises three computer labs that provide currently-enrolled students with approximately 120 Internet-enabled computer stations as well as audio/video viewing stations for other media. Students may use the labs and the media collections to complete assignments for many of their courses.
LRC/Library: 619-388-3421, R-Bldg
The Library offers an extensive collection of scholarly books, e-books, periodicals, and a robust selection of reference and periodical databases available on site, via wireless and remotely to currently enrolled students. San Diego City College students find help with their research and information needs at the Library's Information Center (reference desk), by phone, email, or 24/7 online chat. Students may enroll in a transferable one-unit course, Information Literacy and Research Skills (LIBS 101). Scheduled tours, instructor requested research sessions, access to reserves, circulation services, group study rooms and inter-library loan services between district colleges are also offered.
For a comprehensive list of campus resources go to: http://www.sdcity.edu/CollegeServices/StudentSupportResources.aspx
drop into to the Office Hours at anytime without scheduling an appointment, or send me an email or through Canvas: try Pronto or send me a message. If you can't make the Office Hours, email me to set a more convenient time.
Yes! You are guaranteed to learn something about human beings!
Make sure to talk to a counselor, but both introductory anthropology classes count for many requirements.
Use the table of contents on this syllabus to get the details about your assignments. If after reading the syllabus you don't understand something, ask me for help.
There are class due-dates that you will get used to after a few classes.
Yes, but you need to also do Extra Credit to make up for it being late.
Submit your work in Canvas, unless otherwise noted. There are some assignments where you'll do the work on another site, and then report that you did it on Canvas, e.g. the last few Project Updates will be done on a shared Google Doc.
You will receive feedback on your work in Canvas, but you need to keep your own Course Checklists up to date to stay track for getting an "A".
Check on Grades in Canvas. There are 3 options for each assignment: 1) a green check mark (or occasionally a number), 2) an X, or 3) a faint line. You want to get all green check marks, that means you're done with that assignment and you got credit. If it has an X that means there is a problem you need to fix, and the assignment is considered incomplete until you fix it. If it has a faint line, there a few possibilities: a) you didn't submit anything, b) I haven't graded it yet and will get to it soon, or c) it slipped through the cracks; please contact me if you turned the assignment in on time and the grading period has passed (one week from the Project Update or In-Class Quiz due date).
I will tell you in the feedback whether it had problems or it was just late.
Do Extra Credit to make up for being late. If your assignment is marked as "Incomplete" because it was late, then in Canvas, add a comment to the assignment telling me which Extra Credit you are using to make up for that assignment, and if you haven't done the Extra Credit, you can often submit it there, as an attachment to the same late assignment. Then, update your Course Checklists with that information, so we can both track the work. If you have problems finding a good Extra Credit to do, just let me know.
no
Prepare to cut your losses and do the work yourself. Make sure to give your fellow group members a clear message: either they do the work they agreed to by the deadline you all set, or you will leave the group.
Probably not, but talk to me during Office Hours and we'll figure how doable things are. If you're just confused about what to do, I can easily get you back on track for an "A". If you're too busy this semester, I can help you be as efficient as possible, and set you up to do the bare minimum to pass.
The San Diego Community College District does not discriminate in its programs and activities on the basis of national origin, religion, age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, race or ethnicity, color, medical condition, genetic information, ancestry, sexual orientation, marital status, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, or military and veteran status, or because they are perceived to have one or more of the foregoing characteristics, or based on association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics. Complaints of discrimination or harassment based on protected class, other than sex/gender, may be filed with the Site Compliance Officer (SCO) on your campus. For more information on how to file a complaint and/or to contact your SCO, please refer to the following link: http://hr.sdccd.edu/eeo/eeocomplaint.cfm
Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex in any educational institution that receives federal funding. The San Diego Community College District does not tolerate discrimination based on sex, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation, including: sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, sexual violence, relationship or intimate partner violence, and stalking. Students are asked to immediately report incidents to the Title IX Coordinator at (619) 388-6805 or by using the online reporting form available on the Title IX webpage: http://www.sdccd.edu/titleix Students may also report incidents to an instructor, faculty member, staff member, or member of the College Police Department, all of whom are required by law to notify the Title IX Coordinator of the contents of the report. If a student wishes to keep the information confidential, the student may speak with a campus mental health counselor or with health services provider. Information for contacting these resources is available at http://www.sdccd.edu/titleix/titleix_resourceguide_web.pdf
San Diego Community College District
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR SYLLABI
Please include the following information in your syllabi:
Attendance/Absences
It is the student's responsibility to drop all classes in which he/she is no longer participating (for online classes).
It is the student's responsibility to drop all classes in which he/she is no longer attending (for on campus classes).
It is the instructor's discretion to withdraw a student after the add/drop deadline (include date) due to excessive absences.
Students who remain enrolled in a class beyond the published withdrawal deadline, as stated in the class schedule, will receive an evaluative letter grade in this class (A, B, C, D, F).
Attendance: If the final grade in a class is affected by attendance (active participation in the class), it must be stated in the class syllabus as follows:
The final grade in this class will be affected by active participation, including attendance, as follows: (Instructor to define specifically how attendance, including participation, will affect final grade in the class)
Remember that attendance cannot be one of the standards for class grades, however participation can include the corresponding class points for participation.
Advisory for Faculty
When establishing expectations for participation/attendance it is strongly recommended that the “reasonableness” test be applied. In other words, if the classroom expectations for participation were challenged by a student, how would a jury of peers respond? It is also important that expectations are applied consistently and fairly for all students.
Examples of questionable practices:
Marking a student absent for being less than 5 minutes late (any number of unforeseen circumstances could have happened)
If the class total for participation points is 5 points, then marking off 2 points for being late for one class period is not reasonable. The standard should be spread out over the total number of class meetings in a reasonable manner.
Marking a student absent for leaving class to take a call on their cell phone (we don't know the nature of the call)
Marking a student absent for not bringing a textbook to class
If you have any questions regarding expectations for class participation please consult your dean.
Courses Requiring Strenuous Physical Activity
This course requires students to participate in strenuous activities including heavy lifting and climbing. If you have a medical condition that may limit your participation in strenuous activity please bring it to the attention of the instructor immediately to discuss possible accommodations.
Cheating/Plagiarism
Students are expected to be honest and ethical at all times in the pursuit of academic goals. Students who are found to be in violation of Administrative Procedure 3100.3 Honest Academic Conduct, will receive a grade of zero on the assignment, quiz, or exam in question and may be referred for disciplinary action in accordance with Administrative Procedure 3100.2, Student Disciplinary Procedures.
Student Code of Conduct
Students are expected to adhere to the Student Code of Conduct at all times. Students who violate the Student Code of Conduct may be removed from class by the faculty for the class meeting in which the behavior occurred, and the next class meeting.
For online classes: Student access to class is removed for one week (5 instructional days).
Acceptance of make-up work during the removal.
[Specify whether you will or will not accept make up work, since it is at the discretion of the instructor].
Incidents involving removal of a student from class will be reported to the college disciplinary officer for
follow up.
The Student Code of Conduct can be found in Board of Trustees Policy, BP 3100, Student Rights, Responsibilities, Campus Safety and Administrative Due Process posted on the District website at: http://www.sdccd.edu/public/district/policies/index.shtml
Students with disabilities who may need academic accommodations are encouraged to discuss their authorized accommodations from Disability Support Programs and Services (DSPS) with their professors early in the semester so that accommodations may be implemented as soon as possible.
The faculty member will work with the DSPS Office to ensure that proper accommodations are made for each student. By law, it is up to the DSPS Office, through the interactive process with the student, to determine which accommodations are appropriate, not the instructor. This includes accommodations in a clinical setting.
Accommodating Students with Disabilities:
For an online or hybrid course, consider this statement in your syllabus “I have made every effort to make this course accessible to all students, including students with disabilities. If you encounter a problem accessing anything in this course, please contact me immediately by email and also contact the college's Disability Support Programs and Services (DSPS) Office.”
For a face-to-face course, include these statements in your syllabus:
Students that need evacuation assistance during campus emergencies should also meet with the instructor as soon as possible to assure the health and safety of all students.
Instructors may contact DSPS if they have any questions related to authorized accommodations in their classroom.
In accordance with Title IX, absences due to pregnancy or related conditions, including recovery from childbirth, shall be excused for as long as the student's doctor deems the absences to be medically necessary. Students must notify the instructor in a timely manner and shall be afforded the opportunity to establish make up work or other alternative arrangements. If a student elects to withdraw from the course on or after census, a “W” shall be assigned and the district will work with the student to ensure that the W is not considered in progress probation and dismissal calculations.
For more information, you may contact the DSPS Office on your campus or the website at http://dsps.sdccd.edu/ or refer to Administrative Procedure, AP 3105.1 Academic Accommodations and Disability Discrimination for Students with Disabilities.
Prepared by Student Services: August 2016