Running head: SYLLABUS AND REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS

Syllabus and Reflective Analysis-- Freshman Seminar: Introduction to Social Justice Studies
Angeline Jones
Loyola University Chicago

SYLLABUS AND REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS

Part I. Course Syllabus

Freshman Seminar: Introduction to Social Justice Studies
[FRSCJ- 101]
Striving for social justice is the most valuable thing to do in life.
-Albert Einstein
Fall 2016
Wabash Room 1015
Monday Afternoons 2-4:30PM
Instructor:
Angeline Jones, WB 1M11E, ajones38@roosevelt.edu, 312-341-4340
Office Hours:
By appointment only
Required Texts: Readings for diversity and social justice (3rd ed.) 2013
I. Rationale:
Why social justice? Why do we have curb cuts in our side walk? Why do we have is it that
women were not allowed to vote until
II. Course Aims and Outcomes:
Aims
Social justice is a concept that sometimes seems to be thrown around more and more lately, and
used to describe anything that seeks to disrupt the status quo. However, social justice is much
more than that. Defined very generally as, justice in terms of the distribution of wealth,
opportunities, and privileges within a society, we will work to dissect this and go deeper into the
core concepts behind this. This course aims to create socially aware students, (Thats YOU!)
Through self-reflection, readings, group discussions, as well as projects, you as the student will
gain a better understanding of core social justice concepts as well as your own working
definition of social justice.
Specific Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Foundational Knowledge:
Accurately define core concepts in the field of social justice.
Application:
Work collaboratively to conduct qualitative interviews on social justice with the end
result of reporting on their findings.
Integration:
Integrate course concepts into everyday experiences by identifying them in current
media.
Human Dimension:
Critically reflect on concepts covered and articulate this new understanding through
written analysis.
Human Dimension:
Discuss collaboratively the ways in which understanding of core concepts has grown,
changed or remained the same.

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Caring:
More socially conscious and aware students who are able to contribute to society by
having heightened awareness of social issues facing citizens.
Learning How To Learn:
Document and critically reflect on course understanding and growth as demonstrated
through reflection papers and pre-and post-testing.
III. Format and Procedures:
This course will follow a mixed format with both lecture and discussion elements.
IV. My Assumptions
As first-year students, I do not expect you to be masters of the material from day one, or else you
wouldnt need this class! However, I do expect that you will be both open-minded and respectful
to ideas that are different from your own, as well as be open to sharing your own views. This
course will touch on subjects which may be very personal and somewhat uncomfortable to
discuss for some. We will operate under an umbrella of mutual respect for one another and utilize
a dialogue contract which is available for you to view at the end of this syllabus. We will discuss
this during our first class meeting together and address any concerns.
V. Course Requirements:
1. Class attendance and participation policy:
a. Because we will only meet once a week, attendance is of the utmost importance.
If you must miss class for an emergency, I understand that sometimes life just
happens. If you are continually missing class, I will set up a meeting with you to
discuss possible issues.
b. More than 3 unexcused absences will result in failure of the course.
c. Participation will be key in progress toward course outcomes. If I notice that you
are using electronics when not required, or clearly on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr,
email, etc. I will kindly ask you to put your laptop, tablet, phone, etc. away.
2. Course readings:
(a) Required text:
Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Castaeda, R., Hackman, H. W., Peters, M. L., &
Ziga, X. (Eds.). (2013). Readings for diversity and social justice (3rd ed.). New
York: Routledge.
(b) Any additional readings assigned will be provided and made available to you via
Blackboard.
3. Weekly Reflection Papers: Each week you will turn in a one page, double spaced
reflection paper based on the previous weeks class discussion, readings, or personal
reactions to the course material.
4. Individual Media Projects: Using the concepts that we have covered in class, Find 2
examples of at least 3 different social justice issues in current media (i.e.: 2 examples of
racism, 2 examples of privilege, and 2 examples of power). Copy and paste the photo,
article, or link to the video, and write a short paragraph (5-7 sentences) describing why
you feel that this example is representative of a social justice issue we have covered in
class. You will give a 5-8 minute presentation on 2 of your chosen pieces of media.

SYLLABUS AND REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS

5. Social Justice Interviews and Group Presentations: In groups of 3-4 you will interview at
least 4 members of the university staff (faculty, staff, clerical, NOT students) on their
views of social justice and give a 10-12 minute presentation to the class on how their
responses compare to what we have learned in the course and submit a 5-6 page, doublespaced reflection on your findings. Be sure to include specific examples from your
interviews and quotes from the reading that relates. I will provide you with contact
information for individuals who have agreed to be interviewed for the purposes of this
course.
VI. Grading Procedures
a) Attendance and Participation-20 points
b) Weekly Reflection Papers-20 points
c) Media Project-20 points (10pts. for presentation, 10pts. for write-up)
d) Group Project and Presentation-40 points
a. 20 points for interviews and group presentation
b. 20 points for final paper
i. Group project participation will be evaluated by group members
ii. Students will be graded individually for this project
100-90=A
89-80=B
79-70=C
69-60=D
59 and blow= F
VII. Academic Integrity
Each student in this course is expected to abide by the University Code of Academic Integrity.
Any work submitted by a student in this course for academic credit will be the student's own
workwith the exception of the final group presentation paper which may be written
collaboratively.
You are encouraged to study together and to discuss information and concepts covered in lecture
and the sections with other students. You can give "consulting" help to or receive "consulting"
help from such students. However, this permissible cooperation should never involve one student
having possession of a copy of all or part of work done by someone else, in the form of an email, an e-mail attachment file, a diskette, or a hard copy.
Should copying occur, both the student who copied work from another student and the student
who gave material to be copied will both automatically receive a zero for the assignment. Penalty
for violation of this Code can also be extended to include failure of the course and University
disciplinary action.
VIII. Accommodations for students with disabilities
In compliance with the University policy and equal access laws, I am available to discuss
appropriate academic accommodations that may be required for student with disabilities.
Requests for academic accommodations are to be made during the first three weeks of the
semester, except for unusual circumstances, so arrangements can be made. Students are

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encouraged to register with Student Disability Services to verify their eligibility for appropriate
accommodations.

IX. Inclusivity Statement

We understand that our members represent a rich variety of backgrounds and perspectives. The
Social Justice department is committed to providing an atmosphere for learning that respects
diversity. While working together to build this community we ask all members to:
share their unique experiences, values and beliefs
be open to the views of others
honor the uniqueness of their colleagues
appreciate the opportunity that we have to learn from each other in this community
value each others opinions and communicate in a respectful manner
keep confidential discussions that the community has of a personal (or professional)
nature
use this opportunity together to discuss ways in which we can create an inclusive
environment in this course and across the community
Academic integrity clauses adapted from Cornell University.
Topics
August 29th
What is Social Justice to
you?
September 5th
Social Justice

X. Tentative Course Schedule

Readings Due
In-Class
No reading due. Come
Un-graded Social
prepared with questions justice pre-test.
from the syllabus.
Chapter 7
Lecture and
discussion.

Week 3

September 12th
Racism

Pages 57-64 and

Chapter 8

Lecture and
discussion.

Week 4

September 19th
Power

Chapter 3

Lecture and
discussion.

Week 5

September 26th
Privilege

Chapter 116

Lecture and
discussion.

Week 6

October 3rd
Classism

Pages 141-149 and

Chapters 29-31

Discussion and
overview of Individual
Media Project.

Week 7

October 10th

Week 1
Week 2

Assignment
None
Reflection Paper Due on
Week 1 discussion and
pre-test
Reflection Paper Due on
Week 2 readings and
discussion.
Reflection Paper Due on
Week 3 readings and
discussion.
Reflection Paper Due on
Week 4 readings and
discussion.
Reflection Paper Due on
Week 5 readings and
discussion.
Individual Media
Project Presentations.

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Week 8

October 17th
Sexism and
Heterosexism

Pages 317-323 and

Chapters 60, 62, 63

Week 9

October 24th
Religious Oppression

Pages Reading pp. 373379 and Chapters 7779, 83

Pages 229-237 and
Chapters 46, 47, 57

Week 10

October 31st
Genderism/Cissexism

Pages 425-431 and

Chapters 87, 89, 93

Week 11

November 7th
Ableism

Week 12

November 14th
How to be an ally.

Pages 461-467 and

Chapters 97, 98, 109,
110
Chapter 131

Week 13

November 21st

Week 14

November 28th

Week 15

Thanksgiving Break No
Class
None

6
Lecture and
discussion.

Reflection Paper Due on

Week 6 AND/OR 7
readings and discussion,
AND/OR presentations.

Small-Groups: Discuss
your progress made
toward understanding
course concepts.
Discussion and
overview of Final
group projects.
Lecture and
discussion.

Reflection Paper Due on

Week 8 readings and
discussion.

Post-Test of social
justice core concepts.
None

Reflection Paper Due on

Week 9 readings and
discussion.
Reflection Paper Due on
Week 10 readings and
discussion.
Reflection Paper Due on
Week 11 readings and
discussion.
None

None

Final Group
Presentations
December 5th
None
None
Final Group
No Class
Presentation Paper Due
on Blackboard
Schedule is subject to change at any time during the semester. Students will be notified of any
changes and provided with an updated schedule.
The following four agreements are adapted from Don Miguel Ruiz, Robert Nash, and Bridget
Turner Kelly.
Contract for Dialogue in the Classroom: Four Agreements
Be Impeccable With Your Word
I agree to speak with integrity, to say only what I mean. I agree to not speak against or
judge others or myself. I agree to take responsibility for my actions. I agree to go hard on
ideas and soft on people. I believe that ideas are always up for challenge, critique and
dissection. I believe peoples worth is never up for question or debate. I agree to respect
and listen to all ideas and the authors of those ideas. I agree to extol the value and worth
of ideas before I describe the areas where I oppose them.

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Take Things Personally

I agree that someone in this class will say or do something that will hurt or offend me. I
agree to share what it was that hurt/offended me with the person. I believe that my point
of view is something personal to me, based on my own experiences and truths. I believe
sharing my point of view is beneficial to me and others. I agree to try and understand
where others are coming from without imposing my beliefs onto them. I agree to trust
myself to ask for what I need from the class.
Dont Make Assumptions
I agree to ask questions rather than make assumptions about what someone is doing or
thinking. If I do not understand something I agree to be courageous and ask questions
until I have as much clarity as I can, and even then I will not assume that I know all there
is to know about a particular situation. I agree not to make the assumption that everyone
sees life the way I do, thinks the way I think, or feels the way I feel.
Always Do Your Best
I agree to do my best, no more and no less. I believe that doing my best involves taking
action because I want to, not because I expect a reward (e.g. grade). I believe that my best
will change depending on if I am sick or healthy, happy or sad, tired or wide-awake, wellprepared or not. Under any circumstance, I agree to do my best.
I agree to honor these for our dialogue in the classroom:

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Part II. Articulation and Description

My course, Freshman Seminar: Introduction to Social Justice Studies is a freshman-level
course with the possibility of becoming something much larger than itself. The course itself will
cover very generally some of the core concepts of social justice. Due to the fact that it is only an
introductory course, it will not go too deeply into any one topic specifically; however I hope to
have developed it in such a way that it will increase interest in the academic area of social
justice. Covering topics from power, privilege, and racism, to ableism and how to be an ally to
those who face oppression, this course will give a broad-scale look at the scope of social justice
and the ways in which students can see these core concepts play out in their everyday lives.
When designing my course, I drew from some of the projects that I felt helped me learn
the material best, and attempted to adapt them for different styles of learning. These projects
include an Individual Media Project in which students are asked to examine current media
(newspaper, online articles, photography, and video) and identify at least 2 examples of 3
different course concepts that we have already, or will eventually cover in class. With their 6
examples, students will write a short paragraph describing how their example is indicative of
course concepts. Along with this, students will also give a brief class presentation detailing two
of their examples and how they represent the course concepts. Students will also be asked to
work together for a large final project.
This project will include conducting interviews of university employees, who have
volunteered to be available for students, to gain an understanding of their views of social justice
and see how what they believe compares to what we have learned and discussed in class. This
group project will also include a final summary presentation, sharing with the class the
information that the groups were able to gain from their interviews. A final paper of

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approximately 5-6 pages, written collaboratively to summarize the groups findings from their
interviews and relation to course concepts will be the final piece of this project. Outside of these
two large projects, students are also graded on class participation, attendance, as well as short,
weekly reflection papers, in which students are asked to reflect on the previous weeks readings,
class discussions, and/or presentations, and reflect on any reactions either positive or negative
they may have had to the information covered.
With these four large components of the class, I have distributed the weight of the credit
accordingly, for a total of 100 points. Attendance and participation in class will account for 20
points. The weekly reflection papers will account for another 20 points. The individual media
project will be 20 points as well. The majority of the course points will come from the group
project. This entire project will be a total of 40 points. 20 points for the interviews and
presentation, and the other 20 points come from the final paper. I have decided to grade students
individually for this portion of the course even though it is technically a group project. I would
not want the work ethic of one student to bring down grades for the rest of the group. In order to
do this and make it as fair as possible, I will allow group members to give evaluations of one
another based on participation and effort put into the project. I will also allow them to work
collaboratively on the final paper, however ask that they clearly label who worked on which
areas. I hope that by doing this, students will be fairly graded.
I structured my course much like a typical 15 week course with the addition of breaks for
holidays. I did my best to try to break up consecutive weeks of lecture with projects. Upon
further reflection, I believe that I would add multi-media aspects, such as video clips, to my
lectures as well to prevent them from being an instructor simply talking at students the first half
of the class, followed by group discussions. I hope that by structuring the course this way,

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students will not get burnt out. I also chose to only hold my course once a week. This was more
out of a personal preference. When I was an undergraduate student, I actually preferred courses
which only met once a week for a longer amount of time. I firmly believe that it not only
benefitted me by way of allowing more time for course readings, but also forced me to be
cognizant of budgeting time specifically for the course in question. With my course being geared
toward freshman, I think that this is a concept which will benefit them continually throughout
their academic career.
In terms of the academic integrity clauses listed in my syllabus, I drew on information
from Cornell University and adapted it to fit my purposes. Due to the fact that I kept my syllabus
fairly general in terms of what university it comes from, I did not include any specific
information on office locations and things of that nature. Instead, I paraphrased the clauses such
that students would be required to come to me with concerns. In hindsight, I can see how in an
actual course, this may be detrimental if a student does not want to disclose sensitive information
about him or herself. Going forward, I would most definitely include specific contact
information for offices and the guidelines by which they can receive necessary accommodations
for the course. I concluded my syllabus with a contract for dialogue in the classroom which
would be discussed on the first day of class. It essentially outlines how class will run in terms of
being respectful to one another and putting our best selves forward when discussing sensitive
topics.
Overall, developing this course proved to be more challenging than I thought it would be.
I began by using Finks Integrated Course Design model. While working through the interactive
format, I found that I hit a stopping point when it came to the learning outcomes. Because this
course is grounded in many concepts which are very personal, I found it difficult to find ways to

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assess learning in a quantitative way. However, through the use of pre-and post-testing, I believe
that I will be able to quantify the evidence of learning. These pre- and post-tests will be for
participation credit only, and for the purposes of allowing me to gauge student growth and
understanding of course concepts. I also encountered difficulties when trying to identify ways to
address all of the Significant Learning categories that Fink writes of; specifically, Caring and
Learning How to Learn. Sometimes a learning experience changes the degree to which students
care about something, (Fink, 2013, p. 36). While I understood what this category of significant
learning was meant to represent, coming up with a tangible way to teach and communicate the
importance of it to students, as well as make it measurable was difficult. Learning How to Learn
was also difficult to translate into a learning outcome. I believe that through holding class only
once a week, I will address this area of taxonomy, by making my students self-directed learners,
(Fink, 2013, p. 36). Through this process, students will not only learn the material covered in my
course, but also how to be a better student overall.
The areas where I felt that the categories of Significant Learning came easily were the
areas in which it was simple to come up with tangible examples of how to apply the material. For
example, when tackling the category of Foundational Knowledge, I decided on a pre- and posttest method. This would allow me to gauge where my students were starting out with their
understanding. It is important for people today to have some valid basic knowledge,(p. 34).
This quote from Fink (2013) articulates well my motivation behind the testing. At the very least,
students must have at least some semblance of social justice and awareness to be productive
members of society. The category of Application was also somewhat easy to build upon and I felt
that it coupled very well with Integration. Through conducting interviews on social justice and
examining current media to identify social justice concepts, students are learning how to

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engage in various kinds of thinking, (p.35). Another important aspect noted by Fink is that,
When students are able to see and understand the connection between different things, an
important kind of learning has occurred, (2013, p.36). The final category of Human Dimension
is addressed by Fink as well. When students learn something important about themselves or
about others, it enables them to function and interact more effectively, (Fink, 2013, p. 36). This
category of Human Dimension is such that it requires to be broken down into self and others. By
bisecting this, I was able to create activities in through which students will converse with
themselves and with others to gain a broader view of social justice, as well as measure change in
reference to understanding or attitudes toward course concepts.
Part III. Reflection
When reflecting over the challenges faced in developing this course syllabus, the first
thing that came to mind was that this was much harder than I had ever imagined. As an
undergraduate student I was under the impression that a syllabus was a tool that came along with
whatever textbook the instructor used. I had no idea that it was something that was developed
individually. Drawing on this as well, I struggled with not simply duplicating a course that I had
taken in the past. Instead, I tried to draw on some of the best elements from multiple courses I
had taken to create my own. I also felt challenged with the task of not overloading the course. I
felt that I had many great ideas for activities and assignments, but that obviously not all of them
can be fit into one course, over one semester.
I also faced struggles when trying to come up with quantitative ways to measure course
progress, outside of numerical grades, defining ways in which I would accurately be able show
what my students had learned. In order to overcome this, I went back to my psychology roots
from which I learned that by giving qualitative data a quantity, it is possible to quantify the data.

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Expanding on this, I ran into some difficulties when trying to come up with learning outcomes to
align with Finks taxonomy of significant learning. Much like I mentioned before, the hands-on
application activities were easy to come up with, however the dimensions such as Learning How
to Learn and Caring were more difficult. Trying to pull tangible learning outcomes in from these
somewhat abstract concepts of learning was a struggle for me to overcome and develop.
While the aforementioned elements did come to be a struggle for me, I found that there
were some elements which came easy to me when developing this course syllabus. For one, the
hands on application activities to relate and give the material real-world meaning and examples
were easy activities to come up with. I believe that this stems from the nature of the course being
so general, but also applicable to so many different avenues such as media, personal views, and
group influence. Also, the course material is such that all people experience the concepts in one
way or another, whether that is through privilege, power, oppression, or other course concepts.
The students will be able to pull examples either from their own lives, or from the lives of others
that they know to be able to relate these concepts to be able to gain a firm understanding. I also
decided to include small group discussions as part of my course design. The example prompts
that I thought of when preparing this syllabus seemed to come somewhat easily for me because I
identify with both target and agent identities as a biracial woman. I would hope that this would
allow students to view me as a reputable source of information as I have had experiences from
the side of privilege, but also of oppression.
When reflecting on what I learned from this process, I believe that biggest takeaway was
that as a student affairs professional, I am also an educator. This is a concept that I feel is often
discussed, but rarely implemented. This project allowed me to show my skills and prove that as
student affairs professionals, we are also very much educators. Even if I never actually teach this

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course that I have designed, I now know that I have the knowledge and ability to do so if it were
asked of me. Reflecting on this project, I also learned to recognize the different contexts of
courses in different institutions. For example, my Freshman Seminar: Social Justice 101 course
may look one way at a large, public institution and completely different at a small, Jesuit
institution. This realization was something that I earnestly tried to take into account when
developing my syllabus, as to not limit this course to only being able to be taught at certain types
of institutions. Because this course material is something that I personally feel every student,
regardless of their institutional type, should be well-versed in, I did my best to keep the material
as non-university specific as possible, to allow it to be adaptable to other instructors of other
types of institutions.

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References

Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to

designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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