English 320-08: Multi-Ethnic American Literature

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HUNTER COLLEGE (CUNY)

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH – FALL 2012

ENGLISH 320-08: MULTI-ETHNIC AMERICAN LITERATURE

Professor: Dr. Amy Washburn

E-mail:

Phone: 718-368-5273 (Kingsborough)

Site:

Office: 1432 North

Office Hours: Saturdays 2:40pm-3:40pm

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Course Description:

The purpose of this course is for you to read and write about contemporary issues in multi-ethnic literature of the United States. Special attention will be given to the ways in which race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality shape personal, cultural, and social realities. Themes of poverty, citizenship, education, music, art, racial profiling, identity, friendship, relationships, and family are central in these selections of literature. You will understand that critical reflection is essential to cultural critique. You will do close readings and analytical writings regularly in this class. In addition, you will engage in open discussion about the literature, theory, and history read. By the end of the term, you will create two portfolios in which you interpret ethnic identities in your lives and in the literary works read. This course fulfills a writing intensive and diversity requirement.

Required Texts (located at Revolution Books):

•Chrystos. Fugitive Colors. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1995.

•Finney, Nikki.Head off & Split.Evanston: Triquarterly, 2011.

•McDermott, Alice.Charming Billy. New York: Picador, 1998.

•Ronyoung, Kim.Clay Walls.Sag Harbor: The Permanent Press, 1987.

• Tea, Michelle, ed.Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing up Working-Class.

Emeryville: Seal, 2004.

•Wright, Richard.Native Son. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.

•Theory/ History (various titles on Blackboard).

Course Objectives:

•You will do close readings of literary texts, including summarizing and annotating, and understand theoretical, historical, and literary contexts and terms.

•You will create central arguments that include a clear topic, a solid stance, and provide support for your main ideas by quoting, paraphrasing, and analyzing passages from texts.

•You will recognize your writing processes, receive feedback from your peers, conference with me, and revise your major writing assignments.

•You will engage in rigorous discussion that fosters critical reflection about your lives, the world, and the texts through collaborative interaction.

•You will write grammatically and mechanically correct papers and cite in MLA format.

Requirements:

•A creative writing portfolio consisting of regular prose (i.e., essays, letters, diaries etc.), and/or poetry aboutyour intersectingsocial identities (i.e., race, class, gender, sexuality, age, religion, and/or ability, etc.), totaling approximately ten to twelve pages

•A reader response journal consisting of weekly one- to two-pageresponses, reflecting on literary passages, characters, themes, motifs, symbols, among other literary concerns

• A reader response portfolio consisting of the your favorite reflections of each of the literary works in your journals, revised and developed to approximately ten to twelve pages

•A group presentation/handout on a text of approximately 10-15 minutes, which should introduce information about the author, historical context, and/or text, and pose questions for discussion

•Class attendance, participation, and conferences

All written assignments should be handed into me and posted on Blackboard.

Grade Distribution:

Creative Writing Portfolio30%

Reader Response Journal10%

Reader Response Portfolio40%

Group Presentation10%

Participation (Discussions, Workshops, Conferences, Writing) 10%

Writing Procedures:

•You will engage in a process of composing (i.e., prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading) for all writing assignments.

•You will receive a wealth of feedback on your essays from your peers. You also will conference with me. Before you submit your final drafts,you will produce several drafts for each essay, including for peer review and professor review. You will present your papers to the class during writing workshops once during the semester for feedback. If you fail to complete your rough drafts on time, you will have a letter grade taken off for each one late.

•You will have the opportunity to revise your essays after your initial grade is recorded so long as you discuss your writing in informal conferences with me, preferably before the next essay is due. Other drafts also may be revised after the first revision, but again, only after you have met with me. Essentially, you have unlimited revision possibilities. Revisions have the possibility of replacing the previous grade, but only if substantial improvement is evident. In other words, simply changing mechanical errors (i.e., commas) in essays will not raise grades.

•You will be given ample feedback on each essay before the next essay is due. This feedback will allow you to learn from the comments and apply the comments to the next essay.

Discussion Procedures:

•You will be well-prepared for all class discussions by doing all the assigned reading and writing prior to class.

•You will demonstrate your understanding and analysis of the readings by being fully engaged in class discussions.

•You will be respectful of your peers’ ideas and my ideas. (Being respectful also includes turning all cell phones and refraining from other disrespectful behaviors, such as sleeping and reading, during class.)You will be expected to place your cell phones in a box during class. Failure to do so will result in no credit for participation.

•Those of you who are not prepared, not engaged, and/or not respectful will be asked to leave class.

Civility:Hunter College is committed to the highest standards of academic and ethical integrity, acknowledging that respect for self and others is the foundation of educational excellence. Civility in the classroom and respect for the opinions of others is very important in an academic environment.It is likely you may not agree with everything which is said or discussed in the classroom, yet courteous behavior and responses are expected. Acts of harassment and/or discrimination based on matters of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and/or ability, etc., are not acceptable. I promote strict enforcement of these rules. All students, faculty, or staff have a right to be in a safe environment, free of disturbance, and civil in all aspects of human relations.

Attendance:

Attending class is imperative, for that is when all of the discussion and much of the discussing, writing, and critiquing will take place. Absences in excess of one in a once a week class will result in lower participation grades. Excessive absences will result in course failure. Frequent lateness also count towards absences.

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged (intentionally or unintentionally) use of summary, paraphrase, direct quotation, language, statistics, or ideas from articles or other information sources, including the Internet. You must cite according to the Modern Language Association format, outlined in the required text. If you plagiarize all or part of a writing assignment, you will automatically receive an F on it, and it cannot be revised. If you repeat the offense, you will fail the course and/ or be reported to Office of the Dean of Student Services.

Disabilities:

If you have a documented disability and need supplemental accommodations in connection with this class, you should speak to me. You also should meet with the Coordinator of Disability Services in order to arrange for accommodations.

Schedule of Assignments:

Please note: The following schedule is tentative and may change based on the needs of the class. All assignments must be done before the date on which they are scheduled in order to for the class to maximize its engagement.You must submit informal reader responses for each reading assignment. These entries will be marked check plus, check, or check minus.

Week One (9/1): Introduction to the Course & Creative Writing

Syllabus Distribution and Introductions & Creative Writing

Week Two (9/8): Richard Wright’s Native Son

Read Native Son, Richard Wright, “Book One: Fear,” pgs. 3-93 – Reader Response Due

Read “Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination,” bell hooks (Blackboard)

Week Three (9/15): Richard Wright’s Native Son

Read Native Son, Richard Wright, “Book Two: Flight,” pgs. 97-270– Reader Response Due

Week Four (9/22): Richard Wright’s Native Son

Read Native Son, Richard Wright, “Book Two: Fate,” pgs.273-430 – Reader Response Due

Week Five (9/29):Michelle Tea’s The Female Experience of Growing up Working Class

Read Without a Net, Michelle Tea, ed., “Waiting,” Maria Rivera, “The Poet and the Pauper,” MelizaBañales,“Steal Away,” Dorothy Allison, “A Catholic Leg,” Terry Ryan,“My Father’s Hands,” Daisy Hernandez,“Filling” Sailor Holladay, “There Are Holes in my Mandarin Dog Biscuit,” Shell Feijo,“My Memory and Witness,” Lis Goldschmidt and Dean Spade, “My Season of Paper Dresses,” Colleen McKee, “The Lower-Working-Class Narrative of a Black Chinese American Girl,” Wendy Thompson, “Blueprints and Hardwires,” Cassie Peterson,“The Sound of Poverty,” Eileen Myles, “Dinner Talk,” Liliana Hernández, “Ghetto Fabulous,” Tina Fakhrid-Deen, “For Those Who Like to Dig,” Ricky Lee, “Fighting,” Bee Lavender, and “My Mother Was a Whore,” Nikki Levine – Reader Response Due

“Acting in Concert,” Judith Butler (Blackboard)

Week Six (10/6):No Class

Week Seven (10/13): Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy

Read Charming Billy, Alice McDermott, pgs. 1-125 – Reader Response Due

Read “Beyond ‘Ethnicity’: Evaluating Diaspora,” FloyaAnthias (Blackboard)

Week Eight (10/20): Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy

Read Charming Billy, Alice McDermott, pgs. 126-243 – Reader Response Due

Read “Difference, Diversity, and Differentiation,” AvtarBrah (Blackboard)

Week Nine (10/27): Nikki Finney’s Head off and Split

Read Head off and Split, Nikki Finney– Reader Response Due

Read“Race and Race Theory,” Howard Winant(Blackboard)

Creative Writing Portfolio Rough Draft Due - Peer/ Professor Review

Week Ten (11/3): Kim Raonyoung’sClay Walls

Read Clay Walls, Kim Ronyoung, part one, pgs. 5-130

Creative Writing Portfolio Rough Draft Due- Peer/ Professor Review

Week Eleven (11/10): No Class

Week Twelve (11/17): Kim Raonyoung’sClay Walls

Read Clay Walls, Kim Ronyoung, part two, 133-301

Read “Immigration, Citizenship, Racialization: Asian American Critique,” Lisa Lowe (Blackboard) – Reader Response Due

Creative Writing Portfolio Final Draft Due

Week Thirteen (11/24): No Class

Week Fourteen (12/1): Chrystos’ Fugitive Colors

ReadFugitive Colors, Chrystos(Blackboard)– Reader Response Due

Read“The Situation of Indigenous Populations in the United States: A Contemporary Perspective,” Ward Churchill, and “Sexual Orientation,”Sara Ahmed(Blackboard)

Week Fifteen (12/8): Reader ResponsePortfolio

Reader ResponsePortfolio Rough Draft Due - Peer/ Professor Review

Week Sixteen (12/15): Last Class - Summary of the Course

Final Draft of Reader Response Portfolio Due& All Final Rewrites Due

Reader Response Journal

Overview

You are required to do regular responses of at least one to two pages to the each scheduled literary work until your reader response journal is due. These responses are due after every reading assignment. They should be informal prose. I will be grading these responses more on content than on form. You will select one theme from a text, select at least one passage from a text (literature, theory, and/ or history), and analyze them. You should pick a topic, make an argument with reasons about it, and use at last one passage from the text to support your claims. You should not write summaries. You should not discuss personal experiences. You should not discuss current events. Rather, you should focus on discussing the text itself—its themes, characters, or language—and develop your own critical insights. For instance, you might decide to write about the theme of genocide in Chrystos’ work. You might decide to discuss her experiences with her family, friends, partners, and communities around this theme. How did it make her feel? How did she react? What are your thoughts about her experiences in lesbian support groups? Did it help her? Why or why not? You, then, should locate at least one passage from the text to support your ideas about this topic and your arguments about it. These responses must demonstrate that you have read the works, and thought critically about themes within them over the course of your reading. In addition, you should demonstrate that you can do close readings of the texts by pulling examples from them and analyzing their significance. The journals function to assess whether or not you have fulfilled the reading assignments. They also will help you generate essay topics and ideas for your reader response portfolio on the literary works read. These responses will comprise 10% of your grade. However, like the writing, the grading for these assignments will be informal and feedback-driven. They will be graded check minus, check, or check plus.

Grading Checklist

•You should check the passages you highlighted, underlined, and/or annotated while reading.

•You should refer to specific realizations you have come across while reading.

•You should record the passages that you find intellectually stimulating.

• You should demonstrate why passages are essential to your interpretation by providing your own critical insights/ reasons.

•You should ask yourself the following questions: “what,” “how,” and “why”—what something is, how something happens or should happen, and why something exists or occurs. What is your topic? How can you argue your stances on the topics by giving examples and using the texts? Why are you arguing for this stance, and are you analyzing the reasons you provide?

•You should try to develop themes you addressed in your reader response journals about at least two literary texts for your reader response portfolio.

Creative Writing Journal

Overview

The purpose of creative writing (also called narrative or exploratory writing) is to tell stories about human life in an aesthetic, unique, honest, and/or personal way. You should dredge upsignificant moments, events, persons, or “truths” that are marked indelibly in your memory, examine them fully, and reveal them to your readers in order for them to make connections to other people’s experience through writing. You should evoke strong and powerful impressions in your writing (whether prose or poetry) by manipulating the concrete, sensory details and descriptions of your experiences in order to recreate (or show not tell) them for your readers. You should write about important issues in your life and/or in the world. You are encouraged to explore personal and social issues. You should try to explore yourself and the world in which you live, intellectually, politically, and emotionally. You can write prose and/or poetry. You are encouraged to explore yourself freely about any topic you wish, without self-censorship. For instance, you may write about personal topics, such as your college impressions, your family, your friends, your recreational activities, etc. You also may write about deeper philosophical issues, such as politics, theory, literature, psychology, etc. You may write a short story about racial profiling at the airport. You can write a poem about your family’s roots. You can write about both your delay on the subway and your musings on immigration reform, for example. The purpose of this assignment is twofold: 1) to get you writing regularly about topics you are interested in order to empower you through the act of writing, and 2) to begin learning how to write in a descriptive, argumentative, and developed way. You are required to compile and submit your best ten to twelve pages of your creative writing journal. Your journal may contain description and/or narration as well as exposition and argumentation, depending on whether the topic is more personal and/or social. You can submit fragmented pieces (i.e., poetry) and/or write a shorter prose essay. You can toggle between different genres and/or page lengths. You can write a short story that is five pages, a letter that is three pages, and a poem that is twopage, for example. However, you are expected to revise your work. The purpose of this assignment is both to encourage your free expression and access your improvement through revision processes. Your submissions should be well-developed, well-organized, and well-written. You should submit all drafts and peer reviews. The creative writing journal comprises 30% of your grade.

Grading Checklist

• You should have a strong, honest writing voice.

• You should use description and narration or exposition and argumentation.

• You should use develop your characters and setting or arguments and examples.

• You should have an appropriate tone and audience.

• You should consider language and sentence structure or line and stanza style.