Welcome to English 110C
Language and Writing
Fall 2009
Announcements:
About this
webpage
Once the term has started, you will be able to
follow hotlinks (white, bold, and underlined) for course material and related
resources.
English 110C meets Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 11-11:50 am, in Olin 220.
English 110C – also known as Language and
Writing – provides an entry into college-level writing and academic
discourse. The course encourages students to examine writing
closely, to figure out what makes a piece of writing effective (or not) and how
different aspects of writing work together (or don’t). We’ll
address conventions, rules, and preferences that masquerade as rules. By
making choices about an array of interrelated tools, students can devise a
writing style that is both effective in an academic setting and comfortably
individual.
Writing in English 110C
Students in English 110C write – a lot.
Here are the essays written the evening of the
first class. After the writers approve the titles given to their essays or
offer new ones, a final set, including comments, will be posted.
Here are the complete Guidelines
– including presentation, values, and grading
advice – for writing essays in English 110B. There is also a code to deciphering the line
notes in essays that have been graded and returned, and some notes about grading for longer essays.
Although we will discuss and practice specific revising techniques throughout
the term, here are some initial thoughts about revising.
For the second and third weeks of class, we will be focusing on polished paragraphs. In preparation for writing, there will be exercises to complete in class and on your own time. For those exercises you complete on your own, please download your 1st Set and 2nd Set worksheets, and type directly into them. Save a copy to your computer so that your work won’t be lost.
The handout / schedule for the 2nd Shorter
Essay (option one), “This I
Believe”, is now available. This assignment is drawn from
the public dialogue project at National Public Radio (NPR). Students are
encouraged to submit
completed essays to NPR. The second option for this essay, “Talk
of the Town,” is also drawn from a “real
world” writing model: short pieces published in the New Yorker. Sample readings to be discussed in class include E.B.
White’s classic “Harriet”, and contemporary talk stories on
Burberry babies, bird migration through
The handout & schedule for the 3rd
Shorter Essay, “The
Defense”, is now available. This prompt represents
a shift in the course; after writing two personal essays, one drawn from a
familiar mainstream model, students will spend the remainder of the term on
assignments drawn from familiar academic documents. In this essay, students
defend the ongoing presence of a single book in the General Studies syllabus.
This provides an opportunity to evaluate a text for a particular context and
audience, while practicing the conventions of using sources.
The 4th Shorter Essay, “The
Literature Review”, requires that students put
two sources into dialogue about a highly specific topic, while seeking to
distinguish their own entry into that dialogue. This is a common task of larger
research documents, which must put forth their findings while acknowledging the
historical context of an idea and thus the need for their work.
The 5th Shorter Essay, “Outsourcing,” asks that
students complete a limited research essay while interrogating the research
process. Beginning with one of several assigned sources, students must find a
second on their own, ensuring that the two sources are compatible and necessary
to the essay. This involves research into the source itself, as well as
research into a subject.
From the beginning of the process for the 6th
Shorter Essay, “Field Research”, students
will emulate a common academic practice by working with a co-author. In pairs
(and one triad), students will write both a detailed prompt and an essay during
the course of this assignment, using the conventions and expectations of
another discipline to understand what writing looks like in another academic
area. Although this essay will be counted as a Shorter Essay in terms of
grading, students may find their self-designed prompt requires a lengthier
response than is typical.
After confining themselves to essays of less than
two pages, students will expand an essay to three times its original length (or
4½-6 pages total) for the Longer Essay.
Associated with this essay is a colloquium in
which student pairs lead their classmates in a writing exercise intended to aid
expansion and revision.
1. Lead the class in a revision and expansion
exercise (this includes giving instructions, allowing students time to
accomplish enough of the exercise to understand and repeat it on their own, and
taking questions and comments as needed).
2. Show how your exercise
is, if not directly applicable to every essay assignment, clearly useful for
some academic writing assignments.
Sign-up will happen in class on Thursday, 29
October – you must have a partner, lesson title, and clear idea in order
to sign up. Titles and ideas (if specific) may be reserved any time prior to
that date by emailing the instructor. Colloquia will begin Thursday, 5 November;
there will be either five pairings and one triad (with
the triad up first) OR six groups of two (with one student up twice for an
averaged grade) – the class will choose. You may revise your writing
exercise and homework assignment (if any) until Tuesday, 3 November. Please
email instructions to your instructor by that deadline so your classmates can
prepare.
The 8th Shorter Essay is a Revision.
Students will return to an essay they wrote earlier in the term, and rewrite it
for both a revised and new grade.
The term’s biggest project, encompassing an
essay and colloquium, has begun. Although the eventual essay topic is largely
open, students chose one text each from a list to use as a springboard for the
essay and topic for the colloquium. Following is a tentative schedule of
readings (available through the Penrose website):
15 October: Talbot, “Brain Gain”, New Yorker,
27 April 2009 (Liz)
19 October: Boo, “Expectations”, New Yorker,
15 January 2007 (David)
20 October: Koltowitz,
“Our Town”, New York Times Magazine, 5 August 2007 (Dave)
22 October: Lowenstein, “The Immigration
Equation”, New York Times Magazine, 9 July 2006 (Drew)
26 October: Chapman, “God or Gorilla”,
Harper’s, February 2006 (Julianne)
27 October: Anderson, “The Taliban’s Opium
War”, New Yorker, 9 July 2007 (Peter)
29 October: Armstrong and Crage,
“Movements and Memory”, American Sociological Review, October 2006
(Keli)
2 November: Fish, “Chickens”, Chronicle of
Higher Education, 13 May 2005, AND “Academic Cross-Dressing”,
Harper’s, December 2005 (Quam)
3 November: Specter, “Big Foot”, New Yorker,
25 February 2008 (Nick)
12 November: Pollan,
“Unhappy Meals”, New York Times Magazine, 28 January 2007 (Sally)
16 November: Gawande, “The
Checklist”, New Yorker, 10 December 2007 (
Visit Purdue
University’s Online Writing Lab.
Jenna
Terry * 316 Library * 527-5998 * terryj@whitman.edu