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Word Rogues |
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On English and Writing: Leon Lanzbom |
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 instructor: Leon Lanzbom email: lanzbom@yahoo.com Mesa College: English 101 Weekly Menu: Fall 2005 As you know, this class meets one day per week. That means we fit a week�s worth of classes into one class meeting--a lot of work in a short amount of time. So, to stay excited and enthusiastic, we must empahsis the dynamic. Therefore, the syllabus you are about to read will change, depending on how many hazy eyes I notice. Fear not, any changes will not only be announced in class, but will also be placed on our website. For the wise man looks into space, and he knows there is no limited dimensions. --Lao-Tzu Disclaimer: You may find the language, or the sexual or violent content of some of the material submitted or assigned in this class offensive. I generally do not censor class reading material. Please see me if you feel offended. I will offer alternatives for any assignment. ASSIGNMENT REVIEW: 
� Six essays in response to readings (500 words each).� Two in class "cataclysmic shakedown� essay exams (AKA Midterm and Final: 500 words each). � One �out-of-class� 8-10 page research paper�please note topic exceptions on your hard-copy handout. *A grade of �C� or better is required on the research paper to pass the course.* � Five unannounced, in-class startle-response quizzes (one lowest score dropped). Startle-response quizzes and missing class: There will be 5 in-class Startle-Response quizzes, otherwise known as "check that you did the reading carefully and on time quizzes." You can expect these quizzes from time to time, and they will come unannounced throughout the semester. The quizzes will primarily focus on the reading assignments, providing me with a chance to see how well you are doing with the readings and documentation technique, though any area of the course may provide material for quizzes. The whole point of these quizzes is to help us work together, to convert what might be a boring classroom into a chaotic, unpredictable and exciting intellectual laboratory. *You must submit all essays, exams, and the research paper in order to pass this course.* GRADING OF ASSIGNMENTS six essays (drop lowest grade of 1st three): 10.0% (10 pts. each = 50 pts.) two Cataclysmic Shakedowns: 40.0% (100 pts. Each = 200 pts.) one research paper: 40.0% ( = 200 pts.) five Startle-Response quizzes: 10.0% (10 pts. each = 50 pts.) (Percentages are approximations): 100.0% = 500 pts. COURSE MATERIALS/TEXTS Dreams and Inward Journeys. Marjorie Ford and Jon Ford A Pocket Style Manual. Diana Hacker Holy the Firm. Annie Dillard In Real Life: Six Women Photographers. Leslie Sills. You are responsible for bringing the appropriate textbooks to every class meeting; bring paper and pens to every class meeting. Coming to class without the appropriate materials or without having completed assigned readings is equivalent to being absent for that day Week One: Saturday 9/3  Introduction to course, syllabus, and booksHow to write an essay: finding a thesis; three points. Un Chien Andalou This classic film by Luis Bu�uel and Salvador Dali, circa 1928, was made to attract the attention of the Avant Garde movement. These two mad artists wanted to create a film whose "only rule was very simple: no idea or image that might lend itself to rational explanation of any kind would be accepted." Bu�uel took stones to the premiere to toss at the critics. But something more bizarre than the film itself happened. The critics and bourgeoisie loved it! Bu�uel and Dali were puzzled. Bu�uel wrote: "What can I do about the people who adore all that is new, even when it goes against their deepest convictions, or about the insincere, corrupt press, and the inane herd that saw beauty or poetry in something which was basically no more than a desperate impassioned call for murder?" "A movie like this is a tonic. It assaults old and unconscious habits of movie going. It is disturbing, frustrating, maddening. It seems without purpose (and yet how much purpose, really, is there in seeing most of the movies we attend?). There is wry humor in it, and a cheerful willingness to offend." - Roger Ebert To see the entire movie, Un Chein Andalou, click here.   _______________________________________________________________________ First essay assignment: Draw what you view to be the most memorable or confusing image from Dali and Bu�uel's UN CHIEN ANDALOU. On another piece of paper taped to that drawing, write a one-page essay that describes your rationale and/or speculates upon the complexities of the particular image you selected, offering three points of observation and a thesis. 9/9 Last day to receive an add code Last day to process an add code Deadline to drop classes with no �W� recorded  Week TwoSaturday 9/10 A Process View of Writing and Reading 2-12. Essay1 due: MLA Exercise handout: bring Hacker to class Do handouts at home. We will review in our next class. Wallace Stevens, �Of Modern Poetry� 15 Stephen King, �The Symbolic Language of Dreams� 17 Fredrick Douglas: �Learning to Read and Write 43 Amy Tan, �Mother Tongue� 37 _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Essay 2: The Poet and Essayist. Both Wallace Stevens and Frederick Douglass emphasize the power to understand the world and to awaken the imagination through reading. Douglass, as a former slave, is more interested in reading as a tool of empowerment, yet Stevens, as a poet, is interested in the same thing, but on a more aesthetic level. Compare these two writers and their reflections on writing, using the works in Dreams we�ve studied.  To get to know Wallace Stevens a little better, Click here for the Voices and Visions series on 13 American poets. Addition! If you would rather use Amy Tan or Stephen King's essay as a comparison, you may do so. Remember: you must offer works cited in this essay, so make sure to add your works cited, both in and out of text, as we discussed in class. Look below for an example, or use Hacker, or check out Hacker's MLA links in the "On Writing" section of this website. Click here and you will be magically teleported over to the page. Scroll down until you find the set of links. The links you will need are found in the first grouping. In-text citation from an anthology (from Hacker) Put the name of the author of the work (not the editor of the anthology) in the signal phrase or the parentheses.
Glaspell, Susan. "A Jury of Her Peers." Literature and Its
_____________________________________________Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2001. 286-302. Works cited from an anthology (from Hacker)
 Give the elements in this order:
If you wish, you may cross-reference two or more works from the same anthology. Provide an entry for the anthology. Then in separate entries list the author and title of each selection, followed by the last name of the editor of the anthology and the page numbers on which the selection appears. Desai, Anita. "Scholar and Gypsy." Craig 251-73.
Malouf, David. "The Kyogle Line." Craig 390-96.
Alphabetize the entry for the anthology under the name of its editor (Craig); alphabetize the entries for the selections under the names of the authors (Desai, Malouf). Need research help? Click here for Mesa College Library Resources. Click here for the Mesa College Library Catalogue. Click here for article and reference databases Quotations 
Use a colon when a quote is introduced by an independent clause (a sentence). Judith Ortiz Cofer tells us: �It was as if the heart of the city map were being gradually colored in brown�caf�- con-leche brown. Our color" (156). A comma follows an introduction that offers the quote: On writing, Amy tan says, �I use them all---all the Englishes I grew up with� (38). Use no punctuation with the word �that.� Comparing our minds to the ocean, Steven King says that �I think that our minds are the same nutrient bath all the way down to the bottom, and different things live at different levels" (20). Quotes should be placed at different parts of your sentences. This keeps adds variety to your writing. Beginning �I preferred, much preferred, my version,� Maya Angelou writes in �The Angel of the candy counter" (145). Middle Bell hooks tells the reader that �As I wrote, I felt that I was not concerned with accuracy of detail as I was with evoking in writing a state of mind, the spirit of a particular moment� (164)�a good lesson for all writers of autobiography. End In �Judgment of the Birds,� Loren Eiseley explains: �It is commonplace of all religious thought, even the most primitive, that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart form his fellows and live for a time in the wilderness" (105). Long Quotations Long quotes are handled a bit differently than short quotes. We place quotations longer than four typed lines in a free-standing block of typewritten lines. Remember to keep your entire essay double spaced. We omit quotation marks; this feels unnatural, but it is part of MLA style. Start the quotation on a new line, indenting one inch from the left margin. Your parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark. When quoting verse, maintain original line breaks. Click here for OWL Online Writing Lab's great example of a long quotation. Scroll down a bit, and you'll find it. To Underline or Quote? Just about anything you can hold in your hands should be italicized (or underlined in academic essays): books, movies, artworks, plays, long poems, pamphlets, CD's, symphanies, long musical pieces, famous speeches. What goes inside the things you can hold takes quotations. For example, the poem or short story that goes into the anthology takes quotation marks. The song that goes into the cd. This doesn't work for everything, but for titles, it works like a charm. If you're not sure, check out one of the MLA links in the writing section of this website. Freewriting Begin with the basic idea of what you want to write about. 
Now, set your timer, and write without stopping for seven minutes.Whether you believe your writing is good or bad, don�t stop. If you run out of thoughts, stay positive. Write �yes� or �a new thought will come in a moment,� or �I can do this.� Repeat until a new thought comes. It will. You must not stop. That is the goal. You are forcing your innate intelligence to overide your educated intelligence. Your turning on your creative engine by allowing your intuitive mind to take over. When you are done, read what you have. There should be several gems in your freewriting that you can use for your first draft. Let these gems reveal meaning to you by finding the bridges between the stored images you've now uncovered on paper and the hidden emotions within your memory. Phrases A group of related words without a subject and a verb together. A phrase is a part of a sentence, not a sentence. You can't just write Gaurding the bean sprouts. You must have someone who does the gaurding, like Molly in the sentence that follows: Gaurding the bean sprouts was a dream-come-true for Molly. *Here, the phrase acts as the subject of the sentence. Use a comma or commas to set off a phrase not important to the meaning of a sentence. The sentence should make sense without the phrase. Even in his car, Derrida ponders the elusiveness of French toast. *We don't need the phrase "Even in his car" to know that Derrida is in awe of French toast. While washing her hair, Jesse could not stop thinking about Godzilla. Professor Cuisinier, the cooking coach, wore one of those big white muumuus. *Here, the phrase, the cooking coach, is embedded. Imagine a phrase that starts your sentence as a marque or a signboard, projecting over the entrence of your sentence theatre. With your phrase you're announcing something essential about your subject, the way a marquee at a movie theatre announces something essential about the movie inside the theatre. The comma you use says to the reader that right after this doorway you'll find your movie, the heart of your sentence.   9/13 Last day to drop and be eligible for refundWeek Three: Saturday 9/17 Anne Lamott, �Hunger� 291 Annie Dillard�s Holy the Firm. Read up to page 31 Sills: Introduction 4-5; Imogen Cunningham 7-17 Tan, King, Douglas: review Hacker: look at 113-127 Week Four: Saturday 9/24  Essay 2 dueMLA exercises due Library tour: LRC 114: 11:00-12:30 Holy the Firm. You should finish this book before coming to class. Sills: Dorothea Lange 19-29; Lola Alvarez Bravo 31-39 Overhead: Ce�i n'est pas une pipe (1926), by Ren� Magritte: Magritte's painting of a pipe, combined with the painted words "This is not a pipe," calls into question visual representation itself. What is painted on canvas is not actually a pipe, but a depiction of a pipe. The words, which are as much a part of the painting as the pipe, serve to point up the differences between a real pipe and the image of a real pipe. Essay 3: In class workshop: Compare Ce�i n'est pas une pipe to any section or chapter in Holy the Firm. In her book, Dillard is trying to find herself, trying to find who she is and why God does the things he does. Find within your readings of Holy the Firm, something that touches you in a similar way to Magritte�s work. Is it possible that an artist and a writer can depict similar feelings withing two different mediums? Do you consider Magritte�s painting art? Do you consider Dillard�s book literature or is it more of a word painting? Consider this quote by the great writer, Elie Wiesel: "Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain."   Note: for this essay you will offer at least two works cited. You might consider the research tools at the LRC. 9/30 Last day to petition for credit no credit Week Five: Saturday 10/1 Observing Nature and Writing Descriptions Reminder: Last day to file credit/ no credit grade option Essay 3 due Lorna Dee Cervantes, �Empulmada� (poem). 74 Peter Steinhart, �Dreaming Elands� (essay) 75 Farley Mowat, �Learning to See� (essay) 81 Donovan Webster, �Inside the Volcano� (essay) 96 Click here for film of Stromboli erupting. According to University of North Dakota's "Volcanoworld" website, Stromboli, an Aeolian island of Italy, has been in continuous eruption for close to 2,000 years! Click here to see Ambrym's volcano from Donovan Webster's essay. Week Six: 10/8  Observing Nature and Writing Descriptions cont.)Jon Krakauer, �The Khumbu Icefall� (essay) 96 Linda Hogan, �Walking� (essay) 101 Sills: Carrie Mae Weems 41-50 film: Everest Click here for a great National Geographic Everest website. Click here for the most extensive Everest site in the world. Essay 4: You are here: social map. This project requires a visual component, a map of where you are and where you are going. You will then, in words, reflect on the map you made, explaining what you have done, what it means, and how you accomplished it. In the 500-word essay, I would like you to do three things: One, I want you to describe your map in words. You will "define" what you have composed and what each section of your map represents. Two, You should explain why you made your map. What rhetorical strategies did you learn from this project? (Rhetoric: The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.) Three, I want you to take your analysis a step further--Looking at this map the way you would any map, where does this map point to? You will have to think beyond yourself and anticipate how others will respond to your creation. This further means that as you work on your map, you need to think about why we make maps, who your audience is, and how your self-portrait map reflects cultural issues.   Week Seven: 10/15Narration, Memory, and Self-Awareness. Research Paper: To be announced in class Li-Young Lee, �For a New Citizen of These United States� (poem). 128 Maya Angelou, �The Angel of the Candy Counter� (essay) 148 Loren Eiseley, � The Judgment of the Birds� (essay) 104 Sills: Elsa Dorfman 51-61 *Click the picture for a great interview of Maya Angelou. Th��tre F106: Movie! Andy Goldsworthy--Rivers and Tides: Working with Time Director Thomas Riedelsheimer. Producer Annedore V. Donop. Music Fred Frith. Click here for information from NPR on Andy Goldsworthy. Be sure to check out some of the interviews. "The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to try and look through the surface appearance of things," Goldsworthy says. "Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies below." (from Susan Stone interview) Click here for reviews on Rivers and Tides. Week Eight: 10/22 Narration, Memory, and Self-Awareness cont. Essay 4 due Lee, Angelou, and Eiseley: Catch up Judith Ortiz Cofer, �Silent Dancing� (essay) 154 bell hooks, �Writing Autobiography� (essay) 162 Stephen Jay Gould, �Muller Bros. Moving & Storage� (essay) 167 Sills: Cindy Sherman 63-71 Quiz alert! Make sure you are caught up on all reading. Review for the Cataclysmic Shakedown. Week Nine: 10/29  Cataclysmic Shakedown Numero Uno (Midterm) Expect fill in the blank, multiple choice, True and False, and a 500 word in-class essay (two pages). _____________________________________ Reading for first half of class: Nikki Giovanni, �ego-tripping (there may be a reason why)� (poem). 186 Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez, �The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: A Tale for Children.� 190 11/5 withdrawal deadline: no drops accepted after this date Week Ten: 11/5 Comparing and contrasting Essay 5: You work for a literary agency, and you are presently reviewing poems, essays, and photographs for possible publication (by coincidence, these happen to be the poems and essays and photographs we�ve covered up to this point). One morning two works that we covered sit on your desk for review. You need to compare and contrast these two works for publication. You should write a 500 word carefully considered analysis of what is memorable, complex, significant, problematic or confusing about these works, using each as a reference point against or for the other. __________________________________________________ For help writing your essay, click here, and scroll down to the "Compare and Contrast" section. __________________________________________________  Film: Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth Click here for class notes on creation myths Joseph Campbell, �The Four Functions of Mythology� (essay). 200 Portfolio of Creation Myths Genesis 2:4-23 (Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible). 206 �The Pelasgian Creation Myth� (Ancient Greek) 207 �The Chameleon Finds� (Yao-Bantu, African). 208 �Yauelmani Yokut Creation� (Native American). 209 �Spider Woman Creates the Humans� (Hopi, Native American). 210 �The Beginning of the World� (Japanese). 211 Week Eleven: 11/12 No class Veteran�s Day The Compare and Contrast Essay First, let�s explain compare and contrast: When we compare, we tell our readers a subject's similarities. When we contrast, we tell our readers a subject's differences. Compare and Contrast essays are learning-process essays. You learn about your subject as you gather and organize information. This type of essay takes a bit of organization, and it's this organizational process, this gathering of facts that helps you learn as you go. You will create lists of qualities or traits that each of your subjects have, and as you do this, you will discover insights to your subject that, at first glance, you may not have realized were there.  It�s
like buying a new shirt. The moment you spread it out on your
bed, you start seeing things you hadn't noticed in the store.
Perhaps a button is lose, or the pocket is torn, or it's three sizes
too big. But there's more! As an intelligent, probing
wiriter you're going to ask questions of this shirt: why, what, where,
when, how, who. Why are buttons on the collar? What other
type of shirt does this shirt remind you of? Where was it
made? When was it made? How did it get to your store and
into your hands? Who made it? The questions are
endless. But you must ask them to understand your subject.
Why, what, where, when, how, who, these questions will allow you to
probe into the core and the reason this shirt exists.The same type of probing and uncovering will happen to you as you outline your subject's qualities. You�ll discover all sorts of new things as you ask why, what, where, when, how, who, and as you uncover these new points, your essay will change. In the end, most essays end up far different than expected. Your Thesis You will offer a thesis, like in an argumentative essay, but in this essay, your thesis sets the tone of your paper. In other words, through your thesis, you want the reader to understand what you plan to compare. Keep it simple: Your thesis will be one or two sentences on what you want to offer, and if you�re comparing, contrasting, or doing both (see the next section) Getting Started If possible, find an interesting subject about which you can write. This is important because your enthusiasm will bleed into your work. This essay calls for an outline list: you are going to list the qualities of both subjects, qualities that can be compared, contrasted, or shared. For example: let's say your comparing and contrasting surfing to snowboarding. Your first job is to list the qualities of each subject. From these qualities and your insight, you can then develop your thesis.
A thesis for the qualities above might read: Though surfing and snowboarding are done in different seasons, these sports are far more similar than different. Of course, the list above is incomplete. You keep listing qualities until you believe you have enough information to write a valid essay. A list of five to ten qualities works well for the average paper. But you may have to list twenty qualities to get five that will work for you. When listing, it is good to overdo it; this way, when you're ready to write your paper, you can weed out the qualities that won't work and pick the best of the bunch. Three Parts Opening: You will begin your essay, introducing the subjects you plan to compare and contrast and ending your fist paragraph with your thesis. Body: Paragraph by paragraph, offer one subject quality at a time. Ending: As in the argumentative essay, bring it all together. Go back to your thesis Remember: There are no hard and fast rules as to how many comparisons or contrasts you should offer. For a thorough look into your subject, you must offer enough comparisons or contrasts or both to make a valid statement. More on Compare and Contrast Essays: Click here for the University of Washington's Political Science Writing Center Click here for the Harvard University Writing Center Click here for the Perdu's Online Writing Lab (OWL)  Week Twelve: 11/19 Comparing and Contrasting continued Essay 5 due Bruno Bettelheim, �Fairy Tales and the Existential Predicament� 214 Four Versions of Cinderella. The Brothers Grimm, �Aschenputtel� (fairy tale). 220 �The Algonquin Cinderella� (adapted by Idries Shah) (fairy tale). 226 �Tam and Cam: A Vietnamese Cinderella Story� (fairy tale). 228 James Finn Garner, �The Politically Correct Cinderella� (satire). 233 Click here for an annotated look into "Cinderella." Click here for National Geographics look at Grimm's Fairy Tales. ________________________________________________ Week Thirteen: 11/26 No class: Thanksgiving To learn about documenting sources from the web, click here Week Fourteen: 12/3  Research Paper due! Chitra Divakaruni: � Nargis� toilette� 318 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, �The Yellow Wallpaper� 276 Ernest Hemingway: �Hills Like White Elephants 336 Click here to listen to a play on "The Yellow Wallpaper." Begin Essay 6: Compare two creation myths or two of the fairy tales we�ve read (weeks ten and eleven). What are their similarities? what are their differences? The goal on the written part is to describe what you have read to someone who has never read it. Your thesis should be the question asked of the text and you should then support your thesis. Next, you must do research in the library for a visual text (photos, drawings, images, anything visual) that describes the myth or fairy tale you have chosen and photocopy these images or scan and download them. You could label them with captions, but be brief because this portion of your paper should be more visual than verbal. Now, combine the visual and verbal text anyway you decide. You can use the visual text as illustrations for the verbal or you could weave them together. The whole idea here is to become aware of the differences between the visual and verbal texts. How did you use them differently? Did you use the visual text for description and the verbal text for narration? Week Fifteen: 12/10 The Double/ The Other Essay 6 due 
Judith Ortiz Cofer, �The Other� 382Annie Dillard, �A Field of Silence� 519 Emily Dickinson �This World is Not Conclusion� 516 Short excerpt: the fight scene from the movie Giant. Handout: Tino Villaneuva: Scene from the Movie Giant �Fight Scene Beginning� �Fight Scene Part II� �Fight Scene Final Frames� Review for final exam Week Sixteen: 12/17
Cataclysmic Shakedown (Final)   Where do we go from here? |
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carrie mae weems  
       Love
Pablo Neruda Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring. I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;how did your lips feel on mine? Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks,the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.  I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes. Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will do me irreparable harm. Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls. I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window. Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting stars, falling objects. Anecdote of the Jar Wallace Stevens  I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee. |
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