Advanced Expository Writing--Fall 1995
Required Texts:
Watters, Ann and Marjorie Ford. Writing for Change: A Community Reader. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995.
Collette, Carolyn P. and Richard Johnson. Common Ground: Personal Writing and Public Discourse. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Aaron, Jane E. The Little, Brown Essential Handbook for Writers. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. (or another recent handbook for writers)
Course Description:
English 205 provides students with opportunities and strategies for developing their abilities to read and to write critically and effectively on issues from across the university curriculum, and issues that affect communities extending beyond campus. I hope you will find the reading and writing assignments provocative and relevant to the kinds of problems and possibilities that you may encounter, both in your academic studies and in the work and responsibilities in which you engage outside the classroom. Your assignments are designed to encourage you to think critically not only upon the subjects in question, but to reflect also upon why you may be interested in particular subjects and questions, and upon how you habitually contextualize, write about, and resolve problems related to those subjects. In short, as we are learning about the subjects of our readings in relation to ideas of "community"--the family, the individual, education, social and economic struggles, health, and nature--we shall also consider particular rhetorical and interpretive strategies and their relations to modes of knowledge, authority, power,and persuasion, and ultimately, their significance to ourselves and others.
We will engage in several activities during class: class discussion of readings and your writing, small group work on specific tasks, and sharing of drafts and ideas throughout the composition process. Much of the class will be conducted as a workshop to foster mutual conversations and collaboration. We will generate ideas for writing, organize, discuss, and respond to such writing, and revise accordingly. Though we will attend to "surface" elements of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, we will focus on such critical elements as audience, purpose, logic, clarity and coherence, as well as paragraph and sentence structure, and styles of language and discourse.
Requirements:
1. Five critical responses (on selected readings, each response 350-400 words, single-spaced, titled, on one page) that prompt you to identify and to address interpretive and critical issues that these texts present for you and for others. You may choose to respond to questions and assignments that follow the readings in both Writing for Change and Common Ground, and you should respond to issues in both texts, devoting more or less attention to each set of readings as you see fit. Your observations and analyses should be succinct and sharply focused, with potential for substantial further development. Your first critical reponse is ungraded.
2 Participation in class and group discussion (including informal out of class and in class writing). Please take advantage of the opportunity small groups may provide to discuss your reactions, share your insights and research, and to listen and reply to others' ideas. I shall call regularly upon groups to facilitate class discussion, with each group leading off discussion (15 minutes) on specific texts and critical readings twice during the semester. On these days I expect the group scheduled for that day to be prepared to lead off our discussion by presenting their positions on the material (with some brief summary, focus on key points in the reading, perhaps some incorporation of secondary criticism or research), and by suggesting further issues the class might consider. I hope this strategy will enable you to move the class in directions you find most helpful, give you opportunities to develop critical skills through collaboration, and prevent me from dominating class discussion while still providing occasions for sharing my perspectives with you.
3. Four graded, double-spaced writing assignments, ranging from 4-5 pages to 8-10 pages. More on these later, but in general these assignments (usually essays) enable you to explore an expository/rhetorical problem, try out a particular writing strategy and form, and help to discover and present ideas prompted by your reading, writing, research, and discussion. I am interested in seeing the ways that you select, define, and engage questions and contradictions, and I attend to the clarity, imagination, and grace that you demonstrate in presenting your topic, thesis, and argument. I do not always expect essays to conclude by "solving" such problems or by "proving" your thesis; I do hope that you address interesting topics in thoughtful and useful ways. I invite and expect you to confer with me during the writing process.
4. Due dates: All required work is due at the beginning of class on the due date--work turned in later will be marked late and graded accordingly. All required graded written work will be downgraded one notch (for example, B+ to B, converted to points for each assignment) for each weekday late (not just days classes meet but counting just one day for a weekend). Work more than a week late will not be accepted. I will grant short extensions for medical and family emergencies--but talk with me as soon as possible to request an extension. ALWAYS KEEP EXTRA COPIES OF YOUR WORK.
5. Attendance is required. Excellent attendance is rewarded; poor attendance is penalized. If you have no absences by the semester's end (excused or not), you will receive six bonus points; with only one absence you will receive three bonus points. Two to three absences will not affect your semester grade. But four absences will lower your semester total by sixteen points with eight point reductions for each additional absence (for example, five absences=minus 24 points and so on). Almost all absences will be counted--excused or not--if something extraordinary occurs, talk to me.
6. Grades: Five Critical Responses (but CR#1 ungraded, 25 points each for CRs #2-5); Writing Assignment 1, 4-5pp. (75 points); Writing Assignment 2, 6pp (100 points); Writing Assignment 3, 7-8pp (125 points); Writing Assignment 4, 8-10pp. (150 points). These required assignments add up to a maximum of 550 points. Thus 495-550 points equals an A, 440-494 equals a B, 385-439 equals a C, 330-384 equals a D, and anything below 329 merits an F. I shall also reserve a potential five bonus points based on my perceptions of the strength of your participation and efforts over the semester.
7. Office hours. I encourage you to confer with me--especially before assignments are due--to talk about your interests, intentions, and writing strategies. I also expect you to meet with me in early November to review your progress. My office is not accessible to the handicapped, so please let me know if you need to meet me elsewhere. If you cannot make my regular hours, we can usually arrange another time. I also welcome communicating with you by E-mail (sflores@uidaho.edu, or just sflores if you are on Raven).
SYLLABUS
English 205.08
Abbreviations refer to Writing for Change (WC) and Common Ground (CG)
FAMILY AND COMMUNITY
8/29 Introduction(s) via conversation and writing; write a paragraph describing your family, or another person's family
8/31 Erdrich, "American Horse"; Coles, "Privileged Ones: Problem Child"
(1-24 WC)
9/5 "Details" (1-14 CG); Edelman, "A Family Legacy"; Anaya, from Bless Me, Ultima (24-39 WC)
9/7 Heath & McLaughlin, "Community Organizations as Family"; Cofer, "Silent Dancing"; "Analogies" (14-28 CG)
9/12 Critical Response 1 due; Wilson, "The Family Values Debate"; Stolz, "Domestic Violence: Confronting Myths of Masculinity" (59-80 WC)
9/14 "Anecdote and Story" (28-37 CG); Community Service Writing, "WATCH" (81-85 WC)
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY
9/19 Peer-response, WA#1; Kennedy, "Inaugural Address"; Rouse, "A New First Lady"; Alexander, "Christmas at Home" (86-103 WC)
9/21 Writing Assignment 1 due, 4-5pp; Kennedy, "Summer of Success"; Morris, "Altruistic Behavior"; Tocqueville, "Public Associations and Civil Life" (103-17 WC)
9/26 "Settings and Sites" and "Angle of Vision" (39-59 CG); Bambara, "My Man Bovanne"; Frost, "Mending Wall"; Buckley, Jr., "A Call to Arms" (117-35 WC)
9/28 Critical Response 2 due;"Humor" and "Drawing on Emotion" (59-85)
EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY
10/3 Tan, "Mother Tongue"; Paley, "The Loudest Voice" (139-155 WC)
10/5 "Agency, Focus, and Energy in Sentences" (87-106 CG); Angelou, "Graduation" (155-65 WC)
10/10 ; Rose, "I Just Wanna Be Average"; Kozol, "Corla Hawkins"; "Paths and Crossruffing" (106-20 CG)
10/12 Critical Response due Barber, "Education-Based Community Service at Rutgers"; Hirsch, Jr., "Cultural Literacy"; Taylor, "Service Learning: Education with A Purpose"; "Newsletter" (182-205 WC)
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STRUGGLES IN THE COMMUNITY
10/17 Peer-Response WA 2;; Terkel, "Mike LeFevre"
10/19 WA 2 due, 6pp; "Shorthand for the Professional Audience" (136-140 CG)
10/24 Takaki, "Breaking Silences"; Faludi, "Blame It on Feminism" (238-50 WC); "Changing the Rules of Discourse" (140-50 CG)
10/26 Critical Response due on Terkel, Takaki, or Faludi; Marin, "Helping and Hating the Homeless" (251-65, 270-82 WC); "Alternatives" (166-74 CG)
HEALTH AND COMMUNITY
10/31 Smith and Moyers, "Healing and Community"; Klass, "Are Women Doctors Changing the Medical Community?" (303-325 WC)
11/2 "Scientific Discourse" (151-65 CG)
11/7 Morgan, "When Beauty Is the Beast" (347-62 WC)
11/9 Optional revision of WA#2 due;Pogash, "The Way It's Supposed to Be"; "Surviving Newsletter" (363-78 WC); "Rhetorical Play in Language" (174-83 CG)
11/14 Peer-Response WA 3; "Personae" (186-94 CG)
11/16 WA 3 due, 7-8pp
NATURE AND COMMUNITY
11/28 Dillard, "Total Eclipse" (382-92 WC)
11/30 Critical Response due on Health or Nature; Gore, "A New Common Purpose" (402-11 WC)
12/4 Hamilton, "Women, Home, and Community" (402-418 WC); "Empathy" (216-223 CG)
12/6 Fitzgerald, "Owls Are Not Threatened, Jobs Are"; Erhlich, "On Water" (419-29 WC)
12/12 Peer-response WA 4; Stegner, "Coda: Wilderness Letter" (434-40 WC); "Moving into the World" (253-63 CG)
12/14 WA 4 due, 8-10pp; Callenbach, "A Future Community Tomorrow: Ecotopia" (440-45, 450-51 WC); "Authority" (263-74 CG)
12/18 Final meeting, 1-3pm
Further Notes on the Writing Assignments
For the last two Critical Responses (due 10-26, 11-30) I want to encourage you to respond thoughtfully to a particular's writer's argument and point of view (thesis, premises, evidence) and/or to his or her style and rhetorical methods.
For the longer Writing Assignments 3-4, you have considerably more open-ended topics and forms. You might write two separate essays that incorporate and explore issues raised by readings in Writing for Change, or you might write two closely related and complementary essays on such readings, or use these readings as points of departure for your own research on the issues, or finally, you may want to arrange in consultation with me to pursue essays that develop out of your interests and experiences in your major (though you cannot submit work for evaluation that you have already submitted or plan to submit for a grade in another class). Moreover, the "essay" format need not be the primary genre, but if you choose other modes you need to remember to write effectively for particular audiences, and I hope you keep the title of our main texts in mind, that is, Writing for Change and Common Ground: Personal Writing and Public Discourse. I expect these last two longer writing assignments to draw upon some form of "research" or writing that incorporates other sources of information and arguments beyond the readings in our main texts.