3rdShorter Essay: Defense

due Friday, 2 October by 12 noon, to Jenna Terry’s Olin Box (new date)

So many academic books contain a particular kind of introduction. Often this introduction is written by someone other than the writer of the book – ideally, someone even better known in the field, occasionally someone who owes the writer or the publisher or the writer’s aunt a small favor. Most introductions contain some praise, an excerpt or two to show the book’s worthy of praise, some thoughtful words about the author, a little context for reading the book. More or less, an introduction makes a case for the book’s importance, by way of its merit in a field of study, groundbreaking discoveries, fame, etc. Then there is the book review. Beholden (presumably) only their journal and particularized ethical code, the critic is perhaps freer to examine the totality of a book – its faults and its weaknesses. Its evaluation may contain both praise and censure, and generally it couches both in specific textual example – it, too, is trying to make a case.

In your 3rdShorter Essay, you will be writing to defend the ongoing inclusion of one text currently in the Encounters syllabus. Consider how such a task is a hybrid between the introduction and review: it may take a mitigated view of the book as a whole, but does so in the process of endorsement.

Requirements: An illuminating thesis about the book that encompasses some idea – particular to this book! – about why and how people should read it for Encounters. A graceful and eloquent “case” for the book’s inclusion in the syllabus. Permit yourself one sentence, at most, that summarizes the book.

Cautions: Don’t be obvious. Don’t be general.Don’t say something about your chosen book that could easily be said about another book. Don’t stray too far from the text, or forget to make explicit connections between specific moments of the text and your larger idea. Don’t overlook that some texts are included in the Encounters syllabus only as excerpts; you may need to address this if you choose one of these texts. Don’t forget to cite the source(s) used. And note which documentation style you’re using (generally MLA, APA, or Chicago).

Permissions: You need not address every reason why your book should be read, nor give directive and detailed instructions how it should be read, for Encounters or in general. You may give a touch of background about the book. You may quote directly from the book, but you need not. You may focus your essay on any text from the Encounters syllabus that you have already read; so, if you’ve read The Gospel of Luke, Othello, or Beloved, you are welcome to focus your essay on any of them and are not limited to what Encounters has covered so far.

► Reflection:The above prompt suggests a fairly specific writing situation (purpose and audience). Describe what you understand to be the terms of this writing situation, and how these predetermined conditions helped and hindered your writing of this essay. How might you create similar but wholly useful conditions for subsequent essays? Did you try anything unusual in your essay that you’d like to explain? Please address one of the five standards. Any parting thoughts?

Something extra (+1/3 of 1 grade)

Make a brief case for a book that’s NOT currently in Encounters. What else should every Whitman student read, for either Encounters or the first-year book (next year’s LastTown on Earth?), and why? Perhaps something that was dropped from the list before you got to Whitman, or something you read in high school, or something you brought from home even though you didn’t have to. Include your favorite quotation from the book (and cite it). This must be turned in with your essay to earn credit!

Tentative Class & Homework Schedule (bring your Hacker handbook to class this week)

Due Monday, 28 September

Read the attached readings. Choose a text from the Encounters syllabus that you like well enough to approach in a positively evaluative manner. First, take five minutes to brainstorm a list of at least ten things that your chosen text adds to the Encounters curriculum. Then, using one of the techniques covered earlier in the term (twenty-minute freewrite, four five-minute sets, shitty first draft, oral / partnered timed freewrite, passage-based freewrite, ten observations), freewrite at least four reasons that might serve as specific examples for why your chosen text deserves its place in the Encounters curriculum. Keep track of page numbers, if you use quotation or paraphrase, to make citations easier later on.Finally, underline several of your most interesting observations about the text from your freewrite, and bring all of this work to class on a laptop or printed out.

Due Tuesday, 29 September

Read Hacker, 29-33 (or comparable sections on APA or Chicago). Type up one passage from your chosen text that exemplifies something critical to your working idea for the essay AND the working idea itself, and bring this to class on a laptop or printed out.

* Due Wednesday, 20 September, by noon

* email to one paragraph from your current essay that includes a quotation. Include in this email any questions you have about documentation and integration of source material. Questions and paragraphs will be reviewed in Thursday’s class.

Due Thursday, 1 October

Bring to class a full if rough draft of your essay.

* Due Friday, 2 October

The 3rdShorter Essay (Defense) is due to my Olin box by Friday at noon; please turn in all process work (freewrites, drafts, notes, starters, outlines, false starts, reflection) with your final essay.

Coming up. . .

Conferences and library work mean we will be meeting at Penrose next week. You will receive a new prompt and schedule (including conferences) on Thursday, 1 October.

And just because, here’s a quotation I like:

An introduction to a book of stories is like a warning printed on a bottle in a medicine cabinet, because few people bother to read such things, and by the time they learn that there's something dangerous inside they may already be dead.

Snicket, Lemony. “Introduction.” Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things. Ed. Editors of McSweeney’s. New York: McSweeney’s, 2005. 1.

Readingsfor this essay follow.