Assignments

The majority of the class will be made up of reading, discussing, and formal writing. However, there will be informal writings and other assignments just to mix it up. It will be fun.

Some general thoughts on writing.

Please be sure to read Pomona’s Policies on Academic Integrity. Additional information on citation, summarizing, and working with others is provided so that you can successfully maintain academic integrity. You will be held accountable to the standards.

For ideas to get started, the handout on They Say, I Say is incredibly useful.

Micro-essays (fewer than 500 words)

You may want to look at the peer review guidelines used to provide feedback on your written work.

9/5/21
Consider a time in your life that had a random / chance / fateful aspect. Describe the scene from the experience (providing any relevant background). The title of your piece should be a single word signifying what you hope to elicit in your reader. Be as free as you like with the topic and style. We will be sharing the writings with our entire ID1 class (they will not be posted publicly), but you will have a chance to revise your essay, if you wish, before they are shared.

9/12/21
Believing / Doubting game. Reading Borges with and against the grain, see assignment. Paper is due to Sakai by Sunday midnight. As a pdf document, double spaced, put your name inside the pdf document, no title necessary.

Don’t forget about the They Say, I Say templates that can be quite helpful in working with written sources.

11/1/21 Post your Dear Data postcards, to discuss in class on 11/4/21

Formal Essays

(instructions and thoughts on writing a paper / giving feedback to introductions)

You may be curious about the grading rubric for the formal essays.

Essay 1

Due: 9/16/2021, 9/17/2021, 9/27/2021, 9/30/2021, 10/8/2021
Essay 1
Peer Review for Essay 1 before class
Peer Review for Essay 1 in class

Thoughts on writing with a lens text. Also, don’t forget about the They Say, I Say templates that can be quite helpful in working with written sources.

Essay 2

Due: 10/15/2021, 10/21/2021, 11/2/2021
Essay 2
Peer Review for Essay 2 before class
Peer Review for Essay 2 in class

Essay 3

Due: 11/11/2021, 11/21/2021, 11/28/2021, 12/10/2021
Essay 3
Peer Review for Essay 3

handout on annotated bibliographies

Advice on Primary and Secondary Sources by Raimo Streefkerk on Scribbr.

Your final essay will center around a research question (that will become a thesis statement) which will be argued using sources that you find. The research question will continue to evolve over the life of the project, but you should keep coming back to the (evolving) idea you want to argue. The third essay will be a research paper describing how statistics (as a discipline, as a set of data analysis tools, as individual people, etc.) are/were involved in creating or reinforcing systemic inequality or social injustice. In addition to a succinct and arguable thesis statement, your essay should include:

  1. Thesis statement somewhere early on and clear to your reader.
  2. Details of the event / person / tool of interest.
  3. Historical context (why the thing you describe happened / was able to happen).
  4. (Optional) You might also give the reader an idea of possible solutions (how to make it better) or maybe a counter argument.
  5. A potential audience for your essay is a STEM undergraduate who feels disempowered by the traditional canon. If your essay speaks to a different audience, please talk to me before turning in your assignments.
Ideas for getting started include:

handout on annotated bibliographies

handout on citing sources (Link to the solutions.)

The worksheet was taken directly from the Kean University Library; original source.

Thank you to Vin de Silva, Gizem Karaali, Dara Regaignon, and Kara Wittman for ideas and helpful conversations which led to the assignments.

Corrections

If you see mistakes or want to suggest changes, please create an issue on the source repository.

Reuse

Text and figures are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0. Source code is available at https://github.com/hardin47/id1-stats-world, unless otherwise noted. The figures that have been reused from other sources don't fall under this license and can be recognized by a note in their caption: "Figure from ...".