- This course is designed to help students understand a) how diverse children and adolescents learn, acquire, and utilize literacy skills and engage in literacy practices in varied contexts and b) how to support children's literacy and development through culturally relevant practices. Students will analyze how cultural values affect beliefs about what it means to be literate in childhood and adolescence, and students will examine the relationship between cultural values, literacy practices, families, and communities. Students will practice meaningful strategies that will help them understand how to integrate literacy into family and community-based settings.
- This course will introduce students to linguistics, the study of language, and language in multicultural urban settings, including topics such as children's language acquisition, bilingual families and bilingual education, language and gender, different varieties of English and contemporary language use. The readings will draw on works in linguistics, literature, sociology, anthropology, and related topics. Students will improve critical reading and thinking skills and produce reflective and expository writing based on the readings in connection with their own experiences and backgrounds.
- Introduction to Communication Studies is a survey course that examines major research areas, perspectives, and theories within the field of communication studies. The course will introduce and review key approaches to the study of human interaction, rhetoric, language, persuasion, and cultural processes across diverse contexts. Specifically, the course provides an interdisciplinary framework from which students will think seriously about how culture and society are constructed in our communicative practices, explore how language and meaning structure our reality, as well as examine the social, cultural, and political impacts of human communication as it unfolds in varied fields including interpersonal communication and conflict resolution, intercultural communication, rhetoric, media studies, as well as organizational and small-group communication.
Course Syllabus - The course introduces the basic concepts and theories of interpersonal communication in personal, educational and business settings. This includes a study of self as communicator, the effect of language on others, verbal and nonverbal expression of thoughts and feelings, and factors which contribute to effective communication. Prerequisite: SPE 100 or permission of department
- Critical Thinking (Same as CRT 100) is designed to develop the mind and help students learn to think clearly and effectively. Through substantive readings, structured writing assignments and ongoing discussions, students will examine concrete examples from their own experience and readings and contemporary issues in the media to learn how to analyze issues, solve problems, and make informed decisions in their academic, professional, and personal lives.
- This course combines Critical Thinking (CRT 100) with Academic and Critical Reading and Writing. Critical Thinking is designed to develop the mind and help sharpen students' ability to think clearly, logically, thoroughly, critically, and effectively. Through substantive readings, structured writing assignments and ongoing discussions, students will learn to use analytical skills in reading, writing, oral presentations, researching, and listening. Students will examine concrete examples from their own experience and readings and contemporary issues in the media to learn how to analyze issues, solve problems, and make informed decisions their academic, professional, and personal lives. While studying Critical Thinking, students will also study advanced level reading and writing to master and apply a full range of college-level reading and writing skills, including critical comprehension, flexible rates of reading, essay organization, paragraph development, sentence structure, vocabulary and word choice, content, and study strategies. Students will receive an earned grade in CRT 100.5 which is equivalent to a grade earned in CRT 100.
This is an accelerated course that combines credit-bearing and developmental content. Passing CRT 100.5 meets the reading and writing proficiency milestone requirements; students who pass CRT 100.5 are exempt from further developmental reading and writing courses. CRT 100.5 may not be taken by students who have passed CRT 100 or ACR 95 or are exempt from Reading and Writing. - This course combines CRT 100 and ESL 95. As a CRT 100 course, this class is designed to develop the mind and help sharpen students' ability to think clearly, logically, thoroughly, critically, and effectively. Through substantive readings, structured writing assignments and ongoing discussions, students will learn to use analytical skills in reading, writing, oral presentations, researching, and listening. Students will examine concrete examples from their own experience and readings and contemporary issues in the media to learn how to analyze issues, solve problems, and make informed decisions in their academic, professional, and personal lives. As an ESL 95 course, this is an intensive writing class for ESL students, which focuses on basic components of effective writing, including essay organization, paragraph development, sentence structure, word choice, and content. Students read and respond to a variety of texts and use argumentation, narrative, and description as modes of developing ideas in writing. To pass this course and continue on to English 101, students must receive a passing score on the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing (CATW). CRT 100.6 may not be taken by students who have passed CRT 100 or ESL 95 or are exempt from Writing.
- This course engages students in critical inquiry through the lenses of queer theories (e.g., theories related to the LGBTQI + spectra). Emphasizing how queer theories help thinkers across disciplines engage in observing, viewing/positioning, examining, analyzing, and constructing queer subjects, this course asks students to examine how, within and between disciplines, a) thinkers' perceptions and investigations are influenced by ideologies related to queerness and b) thinkers employ queer theories to create diverse ways of seeing/thinking, constructing/creating about the body, gender, sex/sexuality/sexual identities. Particular attention will be paid to how queer subjects have been pathologized and marginalized and how ideologies about queer populations affect reception of creative, scholarly, and professional works.
- Critical Thinking and Media Literacy is designed to help students become truth-seekers in the world of new media. Students develop a critical understanding of the nature of diverse media discourses – including aims to inform, entertain, and persuade – and evaluate their contents for veracity. This course exposes the students to two sets of basic concepts: First, epistemic concepts such as truth, falsity, knowledge, and belief; and second, media concepts, including both traditional (e.g., news, commentary, reporting) and contemporary ones (e.g., social networks, new media, fake news, click-bait). In addition, it provides them with analytical methods to interpret different kinds of media contents, as well as to write critical medial analysis.
- This course provides an introduction to the fundamental economic concepts of production, consumption and price determination, as developed by economists over the last two centuries for understanding market economies. The class introduces students to the role of markets and economic policy in our contemporary global economy at the individual and societal level. The topics to be explored in the course span the areas of economics and economic history, and may include the banking system, social insurance programs, international trade, market regulations, the role of unions, and the federal budget. The student will come away with a broad understanding of economic issues, methods, ideas, and history.
Course Syllabus - This course is an introduction to the topics of microeconomics, which include market supply and demand, theories of the firm and individual behavior, competition and monopoly, externalities, public goods, and income distribution. Students will learn ways to analyze the basic economic activities of consumption and production, and how to evaluate the allocation of resources and products achieved through markets. The role of government policy in addressing markets failures will be emphasized throughout the course, with special focus on contemporary economic problems.
- This introductory level, interdisciplinary course explores the basic concepts and perspectives of Gender & Women's Studies from an intersectional angle; that is, examining the ways in which gender intersects with race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, sexual identity, disability, and other categories. The concepts of gender - the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women - privilege and oppression, intersectionality, and feminist praxis will be at the core of this course. After a background in the history and significance of Gender & Women's Studies as a field of study, you will learn to critically examine how institutionalized privilege and oppression shape individual lives and intersecting identity categories.
- This course explores the intersections of sexuality and culture, looking at the social construction of sexuality, the development of sexual and relationship norms through history, and the role of media and popular culture in shaping our understanding of sexuality, gender, and relationships.
- This course analyzes the societies of Western civilization from their origin to early modern times. The major social, economic, political, religious and intellectual developments are examined and their impact on the development of modern Western civilization is traced.
Course Syllabus - This course traces the growth of the modern Western world to the present. It surveys the political, economic and social foundations of contemporary civilization.
- This course will introduce the student to the study of Language and Culture. The course will introduce related topics, such as bilingual/bidialectal families and bilingual education, language and gender, literacy in a changing, technological society, child language acquisition, and different dialects and registers of English. The readings will draw on works in linguistics, literature and related fields. Students will work on critical reading and produce writing based on the readings in connections with their own experiences and backgrounds.
- This course introduces students to varied applications of contemporary media in business, entertainment, and the public sector. Students study the processes of media production, the systems for media distribution, and the roles of media professionals. The course surveys the history of modern communications and the terminology of the media industry. Students examine the complex connections between technology, content, style, and audience response in the creation of media productions.
- The study of philosophy helps students develop analytic skills and gain an appreciation of the general philosophical problems with which human beings have grappled throughout Western civilization. Basic philosophic problems such as free will and determinism, the criteria which justify ethical evaluations, the philosophical considerations which are relevant to belief or disbelief in God, and knowledge and illusion are examined during this course.
- This course is designed to develop the mind and help sharpen students' ability to think clearly, logically, thoroughly, critically and effectively. Through substantive readings, structured writings assignments and ongoing discussions, students will learn to use analytical skills in reading, writing, oral presentations, researching, and listening. Students will examine concrete examples from their own experience and readings and contemporary issues in the media to learn how to analyze issues, solve problems and make informed decisions in academic, professional, and personal lives.
- This course will examine major historical and contemporary perspectives in moral philosophy. We will consider questions such as, 'Are there universal moral values??, Are ethical conduct and self-interest compatible?', 'What is the source of our ethical obligations (God? Society? Or Reason?) and how can we justify them?', and 'How does globalization impact ethical theory?' The course will look at what attributes and qualities make up a successful ethical theory and will compare competing approaches to ethical decision-making. Throughout the course, the emphasis will be on real-world ethical issues that arise in contemporary life and society.
- This class involves students in observation and critical analysis of political affairs. Topics and themes will include both American and global perspectives and both contemporary and historical cases. The class introduces a range of approaches to the study of politics, such as empirical research, quantitative analysis, theoretical questioning, and the examination of literary or artistic works. Central concepts will include politics, power, government, conflict, and justice.
Course Syllabus - This course uses gender as a lens of analysis for studying politics, with an emphasis on the United States. It will explore how participation, including voting, campaigning, office holding, and activism, has been gendered and how ideals of citizenship have differed for men and women, taking into account the ways that gender intersects with other categories such as race and ethnicity. The course will cover the historical development of men'A?s and women's political roles, the ways gender inequality has been sustained and contested in various political contexts, and selected current issues and debates.
- This course studies the social world and how it has evolved over time, as well as how individuals are influenced and structured by social interactions in small groups and by larger social forces. The course covers major sociological theories and research methods, and key concepts such as culture, socialization, social class, race/ethnicity, gender, technology, social inequality, and social change.
- This is a problem-centered and task-oriented course that integrates the humanities and the theories and practices of science and social sciences into the leading public issues of technological society. By emphasizing the close connections between science and technology, social institutions, and cultural values, students will learn how social institutions directly affect technological development and professional careers. The course also analyzes today's "global village," the changing relations between East and West and the Third World, and worldwide development and environmental issues.
