Geography 300

Objectives: 

The student will demonstrate that he or she has developed an understanding of the parameters of geography as a subject and as a discipline by constructing an essay in which the student analyzes and evaluates multiple perspectives surrounding the basic definition of geography.  

Assignment

Imagine yourself on an airplane, and in the course of a conversation with a fellow passenger you happen upon the topic of what you are studying in college. You remark that you are majoring in geography. Inevitably, the passenger sitting next to you will respond, "I loved geography in elementary school....learning the capitals and all that stuff". You of course can either say, "Yep. That's great", put your headset back on and go to sleep or try to straighten that person out.

For this assignment you are to construct an essay of 500-750 words in which you develop a argument that addresses the question "What is Geography?"

Directions:

1. First do a web search with google, yahoo and ask.com in which you look around the web for the defininitions others have given for geography.
2. Open the links to the readings below (they're on Moodle beginning in Fall 2009). Read through these articles and use a few of them, along with your web query as you construct your essay.
3. Read the rubric below, write your essay, and use turnitin.com to submit it to your instructor.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I would like you to keep in mind that although geography is often referred to as a subject , at the college level it is primarily a discipline. In other words, geography is a way of studying and understanding the world.  By majoring in geography, you are entering into training, an apprenticeship, into a craft that is practiced by 'disciplinary practitioners', who call themselves geographers.  As you read the opinions of others, keep in mind this distinction because some focus on 'geography as subject' and others as 'geography as method'. Your essay should note both ideas.

Readings:

The readings below are to a few readings that will help you craft your essay. You need to include a mention of at least three in your essay.

1. Jerome Dobson - Bring Back Geography . This paper is a two (web) page argument for the restoration of geography as a respected disicipline.

2.--- FIND IN MOODLE---- Doreen Massey - Introduction from Geography Matters (mostly about human geography, but informative history of the discipline)

3. George E. Clark - Academic Geography for Sustainability (another call for a re-evaluation of the popular understanding of geography)

4. --- FIND ON MOODLE----Robinson - A New Look at the Four Traditions and/or Pattison, W.D. The Four Traditions of Geography ( a couple of classic old-school pieces that describe what geographers do, or have been doing over the last 100 years or so).

Others (just in case you can't get enough):

Montello, D. R., & Sutton, P. C. (2006). An introduction to scientific research methods in geography. Thousand Oaks, CA, & London: SAGE Publications. (Chapter 1)
National Research Council (1997). Rediscovering geography: New relevance for science and society. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Note on downloading: Downloading files can be a bit dangerous, so you should consider scanning them for viruses before you open them. CSUN has free virus software available to students.  You should have this on your computer if you do not have this or an equivalent.  Either go to the CSUN Information Technology page or to the portal. Look for the link referencing software downloads. You'll need your logon and password. Look for the link corresponding to the "Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate Edition" and download it.

Rubric (or how you'll be graded):

In order to get high marks on this assignment you must do the the following items well:

1. Make reference to the background readings (listed above).
2. Reference to the web search that you conducted (see instructions above).
3. Evaluation, analysis and/or syntheses of the ideas of the authors referenced in points one and two.
4. Good topic sentences (a point of emphasis on this assignment).
5. Proper grammar and syntax. Do not capitalize the word geography unnecessarily. Look up the rule if you must.
6. Effective use of topic sentences and a thesis statement.
• Highlight your topic sentences in blue. Your thesis statement should be in red
• If you can read just the red and the blue and make sense of your argument, then you probably wrote them well..
7. Your own opinion.

Remember. This is an essay in which you forward an argument in defense of your definition of geography. If you do nothing more than list the topics geographers study, or relentlessly regurgitate the authors you have read, then you will not have addressed the demands of the assignment and you will not earn a high grade.

You may want to revisit the lab exercise over essay construction before you begin or complete this essay

Submitting the Essay:

Type the essay on a word processor. Make sure that you spell check it and read it over once or twice before you consider sending it to your instructor. It is always wise to have a fellow student, a friend or a parent to read your submissions before you turn them in.

You will go to Moodle and from there you will upload your paper to turnitin.com.

The class ID and enrollment password for this assignment are also in Moodle. I may also email these passcodes to you.

If you need any help using turnitin, or are new to turnitin, then you may want to consult the online video tutorials. There are videos there that show you how to create a student user profile, how to enroll in a class and how to submit a paper.

There is also a video on "Originality Reporting" that you may want to watch so you'll know how to interpret the plagiarism checking function in turnitin.