English 1010: “Whence Do We Come? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”
Fall 2011 Instructor/Office hours/email
Course Description:
English 1010 is a workshop in expository writing. Throughout the semester, we will be reading expository texts and responding to readings, pre-writing, writing, editing and revising essays both in-class and outside. You will become familiar with new ways to incorporate the things you read, see, and experience into the things you write. You will be introduced to methods for searching the library and internet data bases to gather information, ways to evaluate secondary sources, and the use of MLA documentation. In addition, we will reinforce grammar and syntax rules.
Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:
· Read critically and write analytically
· Formulate a strong thesis with well-organized support
· Summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize information from a variety of sources
· Structure a persuasive and cohesive argument
· Incorporate and integrate evidence into their writing using MLA documentation
· Edit and revise their own writing using peer and instructor critiques
· Use appropriate conventions of language, including correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation
• Use the library to find appropriate print and electronic sources
Required Texts:
Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s Reference. Seventh Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin‘s, 2010. (WR)
ISBN: 978-0312601430
Cohen, Samuel, ed. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. USA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. Print. (PA)
ISBN: 978-0312609658
Additional readings in Course Packet (CP) available at Far Better Copy
Other handouts will be distributed as is appropriate.
Grading, Expectations, Assignments, and Class Participation
Participation is a must in this course, both orally and in writing. Participation is a must in this course, both in class discussion and in writing. Talking will make you a better writer.
Essays: The course will consist of five essays (two in-class and three outside class) and revisions – some essays will be more formal or have stricter parameters than others. You will be expected to make significant, visible progress from your first work to your last. Parameters for length, topic, and objective are found on the next page of this syllabus.
Typed work should be 12 pt. font, Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1.25” margins (left and right), 1” margins (top and bottom).
Other Assignments: In addition to your essays and class blog participation, you will be asked to complete a small amount of in-class and out-of-class assignments, mostly exercises from A Writer’s Reference. You are also required to take the LOOP Orientation (a library use orientation). http://dewey.brooklyn.cuny.edu/library/help/loop/
Grading:
Class Blog (TBA), Attendance & Participation: 10%
Other Assignments, Pre-Writing, and First Drafts: 20%
Revised Essays: 50% - (Essays are evenly weighted.)
Final Exam: 20%
Final Exam: All students must take a final exam that will count for 20% of the grade for the class. For more information, please visit http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/composition/exitexam.html
Conduct & Attendance
· Please silence all cell-phones and other electronics prior to class.
· NO TEXTING OR PHONE CALLS.
· You may have no more than three absences. I expect assignments due on those dates when you are absent either to be left in my box in a timely fashion or to be emailed to me. Excessive absence will result in a lowered grade or in failing the course.
· Late assignments are not accepted
Plagiarism/Cheating; or, How To FAIL By Using Cut & Paste
This class should help you with skills to prevent inadvertent plagiarizing when synthesizing sources to write essays. The following (fittingly) is taken from the Brooklyn College website on Academic standards, which can be found at: http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pub/documents/academicintegritypolicy.pdf
Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s ideas, research or writings as your own. The following are some examples of plagiarism, but by no means is it an exhaustive list:
• Copying another person’s actual works without the use of quotation marks and footnotes attributing the words to their source.
• Presenting another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging the source.
• Using information that is not common knowledge without acknowledging the source.
• Failing to acknowledge collaborators on homework and laboratory assignments.
Internet plagiarism includes submitting downloaded term papers or parts of term papers, paraphrasing or copying information from the internet without citing the source, and “cutting & pasting” from various sources without proper attribution.
Three Formal (Out of Class) Essay Assignments
Essay #2 – Writing What You Know You Know, You Know?: Personal Places
The authors we have read thus far all have interesting and widespread takes on how to discuss one’s beliefs through life experience. Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is filled with examples of the politics and history of Iran in the 1980s; Orhan Pamuk’s “Me” (from Istanbul) is a portrait of his early life. But as Pamuk writes about his life, he implicitly discusses the wider life of his cultural circle, just as Satrapi does.
To discuss oneself is not to discuss characteristics in a vacuum. There are many key components one can use in writing a personal essay. These can include, but are not limited to: anecdotal evidence (events that have shaped one’s life); the importance of others in one’s life; the role of place in shaping personal attributes; the role of family; characteristics of personality; the role memory or time has played in understanding oneself.
For your first out-of-class essay, you may write about arguments with family. Alternate topics are encouraged, but should be discussed with me so that I can give you approval and my thoughts ahead of time.
You should write this as a narrative, including details of when it happened, where you were, and other important contextual evidence. Length: 2-3 pages (3-4 pages, revised; practice in formulating thesis, developing/organizing support; synthesis; integrating quotes; revision)
Essay #4 – There’s Something About <Blank>: Analyzing Place
Essays in the social vein often ask, “What makes the world tick?” For Hunter S. Thompson, the decadence and depravity of the Kentucky Derby is tantamount to the Southern ethos, a point he makes through hilarious anecdotes and observations. Using an event, he makes an arguable judgment on a social phenomenon or culture.
Commonly we find that it isn’t just that our essays are recapping or discussing the details we encounter; essays are also inventive and opinionated in nature. Take for example the process that most likely went into Gary Shteyngart’s “Only Disconnect.”
· Shtytengart is an author and is very bookish/well-read.
· He buys an iPhone, almost as a social experiment, curious about how it will alter his life. (And it does!)
But this isn’t just a story, is it? What does Shteyngart learn about techno-savvy living and where does this lead him? What does he end up saying about the condition of modern life? Is Shytengart implying that we should all be Neo-Transcendentalists and live in the woods, or that we just need to unplug now and then?
For this essay, you may either discuss the internet as a place, using Shteyngart’s essay as a jumping off point, or discuss a region local to you, using Thompson’s essay as a jumping off point. Be sure to document quotes in MLA format. Alternate topics are encouraged, but should be discussed with me so that I can give you approval and my thoughts ahead of time.
Going to the Web! How Does the Internet Permeate Our Lives?
Choose any website you regularly frequent, but only one. Describe it briefly as you would a place and then elaborate on how this website embodies a cultural significance. Here are some questions you might consider: Why do you go there? What’s good/bad about the website? What kind of service is this website providing to the general public? Is it effective in its objectives? Does this website play an Internet “role”, so to speak? Lastly, what might be the alternatives to using this website? You should speak broadly in your conclusion about how this website ties into the Internet culture in general.
Facebook, Twitter, Drudge Report, Huffington Post, and YouTube are just a few examples of websites you could choose, but I am open to any legal, non-pornographic website.
Local Metaphors: How Places and Events Take On Meaning
Choose an event or specific location that most precisely embodies the town/city where you grew up. Discuss in detail this event/place. What takes place there? What function does it serve? What is your personal experience with it? Do people in the town disagree over the nature or use of it? Finally, how does this place/event precisely embody the ethos of the town where you grew up? (For instance, what does a study of the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park tell us about Manhattan?) Length: 3-4 pages (4-5 pages, revised; practice in formulating thesis; developing/organizing support; summarizing, paraphrasing, synthesizing; integrating quotes; MLA documentation; editing; revision)
Essay #6: He Said, She Said (Synthesizing Multiple Arguments)
In your last in-class essay, you analyzed, compared, and contrasted three pieces with the word “America” in the title. Balancing and synthesizing multiple arguments while still making your own voice heard is no easy task and takes a lot of practice. It can be the most technically challenging form of rhetoric. Yet, essays of this type are often the most interesting and rewarding as they provide multiple viewpoints and reinforce the notion of duality in scholarship. The rhetoric of academic writing is often not unified or dogmatic; it is multilateral. Make no mistake; the objective of a compare/contrast essay is not necessarily to be bipartisan. I want to know where you stand in the tug-of-war between multiple arguments. To be comprehensive, your compare/contrast essay must do these basic things:
· Recognize a larger, contextual issue that your analysis is rooted in (for example, if you talk about Washington and Dubois, you would actually be highlighting the larger issue of African-American identity and place) Find at least two textual (or other media) sources that highlight various positions on the contextual issue.
· Decide and posit what your take on the issue is, using in some way the evidence you have gained from the reviewed pieces and from 2 secondary sources to reinforce your opinion.
Cumulative Knowledge on Cultural Identity---with 2 secondary sources
For this essay, you may select any two readings from your semester for the purpose of comparing and contrasting. You must submit the readings you’ve selected to me by 05/04 for approval. You may use these readings to highlight a specific problem or difference of opinion in what constitutes a cultural identity. You must use quotes from 2 secondary sources, with MLA documentation. Here are some pairing suggestions for articles you could select (as always, you are not limited to these):
· McPhee & Thompson (Analyzing Southern & Backwater Cultural Identities)
· Diaz & Baldwin (Assimilation Into Cultural Identities and Expectations)
· Satrapi & Pamuk (Middle Eastern Cultures/Iran and Turkey)
· Carter & Ericsson (On The Cultural Habit of Truth/Lies)
· Washington & DuBois (The Historical Place of Blacks in America)
Length: 4-5 pages (5-7 pages, revised; practice in all 8 learning obectives)
------09/01 TH / MEMOIRS/PERSONAL ESSAYS UNIT
Discussion: How to use and read A Writer’s Reference
Group Exercise: Close Reading and Annotation
Edwidge Danticat, 1-96
09/06 T / Discussion: The Purposes of Writing
Danticat, 91-180
09/08 TH / Discussion: Paraphrasing and Summarizing
Danticat, 181-269
Discussion: Attributing quotes, MLA style / Bring an article from The Kingsman (BC Student Newspaper)*
09/13 T / Discussion on Planning and Pre-Writing Strategies
(PA) Satrapi, excerpts from Persepolis / Essay #1 Due /w attached photograph
09/15 TH / ANALYSIS/EXPOSITION UNIT BEGINS
(PA) Hurston, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me”
Handout on Paper Marking & Examples of Draft Stages
Group Exercises in Revising & Editing
09/20 T / Group Exercise: Rebuilding awkward sentences
(PA) Kingston, “No Name Woman” / Revision Essay #1 Due
09/22 TH / Group Exercise: Discussion of Common Errors
(PA) Mairs, “On Being a Cripple”
09/27 T / (PA) Staples, “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space”
Coming Up with Expository Paper Topics
09/29 TH
NO CLASS / NO CLASS – WORK ON YOUR ESSAY!
10/04 T
CONVERSION DAY – FRIDAY SCHEDULE / CONVERSION DAY – FRIDAY SCHEDULE!!!
WORK ON YOUR ESSAY!
10/06 T / (PA) Cofer, “The Myth of the Latin Woman”
Writing Expository & Analytical Essays
A Discussion on Peer-Editing and Workshopping / First Draft of Essay #2 Due: BRING FOUR COPIES
10/11 T / Peer Workshops
(CP) Washington, “The Atlanta Exposition” (or, “Tuskeegee”)
10/13 TH / (CP) DuBois, “On Booker T. Washington & Others” and “On the Wings of Atalanta” / Bring a list of FIVE difficulties you have with grammar and syntax
10/18 T / Grammar and Syntax Workshop Day!
(CP) Baldwin, “Stranger in the Village” / Revision of Essay #2 Due
10/20 TH / (CP) Diaz, “How to Date a Brown Girl[…]”
In-Class Essay #3 (On Culture, Differences, and Racism)
10/25 T / (CP) Shteyngart, “Only Disconnect”
A discussion on In-Class Essay Writing Strategies
10/27 TH / (CP) Franzen, “Imperial Bedroom” / Revision Essay #3 Due
11/01 T / COMPARISON, CONTRAST, SYNTHESIZING SOURCES UNIT
(PA) McKibben, “Curbing Nature’s Paparazzi”
Discussion: Locating secondary sources----texts and internet databases.
11/03 TH / (CP) Thompson, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” Integrating and attributing primary and secondary sources / First Draft of Essay #4 Due: Bring FOUR COPIES
11/08 T / Workshop for Essay #4---Reminder: MUST include MLA citations / Peer Edit Worksheets
11/10 TH / Readings TBA
Open Forum on Essay Writing and documentation / Bring FIVE concerns you have about writing and citing
11/15 T / (CP) Hoagland, “America”, Ginsburg, “America”, and Crumb, “A Short History of America” McGuire, “Here”
In-Class Essay #5 (What is America?) / Revision of Essay #4 Due
11/17 TH / (PA) Buckley Jr., “Why Don’t We Complain?
Group Exercise: Being Argumentative
11/22 T / (PA) Ericsson, “The Ways We Lie” (p. 174-183)
11/24 THANKSGIVING BREAK
11/29 T / (PA) Carter, “The Insufficiency of Honesty”
Course Discussion: Synthesizing Opposites & Outlining Diff.
Course Material Review / Revision of Essay #5 Due
12/01 TH / Compare/Contrast review: See department website for paired essays to be read at home: In class small group work: Come to class prepared to outline the main points in each of the two essays and to devise a thesis statement for the compare/contrast essay.