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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: Spring 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. 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. Week One: Saturday 2/5 Reminder: Feb. 11 is the last day to receive, process, and pay for add codes deadline to drop classes with no "W" recorded  Introduction to course, syllabus, and booksThe role of writing in the world How to write an essay: finding a thesis; three points. Un Chien Andalou This classic film by Luis Buñuel 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." Buñuel 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! Buñuel and Dali were puzzled. Buñuel 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 ____________________________________ ____________________________________ First essay assignment: Draw what you view to be the most memorable or confusing image from Dali and Buñuel'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.  Week TwoSaturday 2/12 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. 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. Good luck! Week Three Saturday 2/19 No Class: Abraham Lincoln Day  Click picture for larger image Guernica, by Pablo Picasso, 1937: Narrative in images: This painting depicts the bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War. Overlapping his subjects, Picasso creats the three dimensional portrait of pain and anguish onto a one-dimensional painting. This painting depicts a sequence of events, like a static film, a narrative in images. Click here for more information on Guernica. Begin reading Wiesel’s Night Week Four Saturday 2/26 Essay 2 due MLA exercise handout due In class: 9:30-11:00 Steven Holtzman: “Don’t Look Back.” 48 (Quick review) Night. Elie Wiesel. You should finish this book before coming to class. Library orientation in LRC 114 Presenter: Shirley Palmer Times:11:00-12:30 This session will teach you how to use the LRC's research tools. Please do not miss this class. What you learn here will be essential for your essays, especially your biggy research paper. 
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has
turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times
sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I
forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into
wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never." Click here for a great Elie Wiesel interview. Ckick here for an essay by Rex Veeder on the Holocaust and the imagination. ____________________________________ ____________________________________ Essay 3: Due 3/5: Painting and the Word In class workshop: Go back to week three, just above, and see Picasso's Guernica. For this essay you are going to compare Guernica to Night. Examine Guernica, scene by scene, from left to right or from right to left. Notice how each picture might represent a still image, like a storyboard of a film. Find, within your readings of Night, some passage that touches you in a similar way to some of the cells in Guernica. Consider this quote by 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." To help you better understand Picasso's painting, you may want to trace parts of Guernica onto paper to form a sequence of events, your own storyboard. You might then compare or contrast this sequence with what you find in Night. Some questions you may wish to ponder as you attempt this project: What is art? Do you consider these works art? Is it even possible to create art out of such horror? Are these more documentary than art? What aesthetic do you find within these two works? Even though we are dealing with two different forms of human communication, what are their similarities? What are their differences? What can one form tell us that the other cannot? Note: for this essay you will offer at least two works cited. You might consider the research tools at the LRC. Click here for an excellent guide to MLA citation and style from Capital Community College. Week Five: Saturday 3/5 Observing Nature and Writing Descriptions. Reminder: Last day to file credit/ no credit grade option Essay 3 due Workshop: Review MLA handouts. _________________________ Metaphor and Simile One way to help your academic writing come to life is to use metaphors or similes. By comparing something to something else, your writing takes on the power of visualization. You link the reader's mind to the familiar. Good writers use these devices to paint pictures with their words. Recall in "Dreaming of Elands," Peter Steinhart tells us how human beings use animals as metaphors and similes to describe life situations and personalities. You can do the same with your essays--take your description from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Paint word pictures and associations for the reader, and your writing will take on clarity and life. Metaphor: to state that a thing is something else, creating a close association between the two. “My life had stood—a loaded Gun.” --Emily Dickinson Implied Metaphor: a metaphor without connectives or the verb "to be." Jane howled at the moon. Simile: a comparison of two things using the connectives “like” or “as.” “My love is like a red red rose.” --Robert Burns _________________________ Lorna Dee Cervantes, “Empulmada” (poem). 74  Peter Steinhart, “Dreaming Elands” (essay). 75Farley 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: March 12 Observing Nature and Writing Descriptions. ___________________ Hegemony: The domination of a set of ruling beliefs or values through ‘consent’ rather than through ‘coercive power.’ Ideology: (Carl Marx) What causes us to misrepresnt the world to ourselves. Ideology distorts reality. We think we’re seeing the world naturally, but what we are really seeing is distorted. Louis Althusser: While we believe that we are acting out of free will, we are in reality, ‘acted by the . . . system.’ Semiotics: The theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language or other systems of communication, and comprising semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics. Hermeneutics: Greek hermneutikos, from hermneuts, interpreter. The theory and methodology of interpreting texts. Point of view: Perspective from which a story is told. Narrator: The speaker. _______________________ Jon Krakauer, “The Khumbu Icefall” (essay). 96 Linda Hogan, “Walking” (essay). 101 Loren Eiseley, “The Judgment of the Birds” (essay). 104 Film: Everest ___________________________________ ___________________________________  Essay 4: Due 4/2 (after the break): You Are Here: Social MapThis 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. I want to get an idea of how you see what you have composed and what it means. Two, You should explain how and why you made your portrait. What rhetorical strategies did you learn from this project? Three, I want you to take your analysis a step further--what are the larger social and rhetorical ramifications for the choices you’ve made? 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. On Freewriting (the following is borrowed from our writing section) Freewriting is a great way to get started on any paper. Begin with the basic idea or concept of what you want to write about. If you don't have a basic idea, that's ok. An idea will come to you as you freewrite. Now, set your timer for seven minutes. Some say ten minutes is best. It's up to you. I find that the shorter amount of time doesn't allow too many educated thoughts to invade the intuitive mindset you're about to enter. This excercise is not about what's right. It's about putting your educated mind aside, giving yourself up to the universe, and allowing your cosmic AT&T line to connect with the blank page or screen in front of you.  Start 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 override your educated intelligence. You are 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 bridging the stored images you've now uncovered on paper with the hidden emotions in your memory. You'll be amazed at the results. Week Seven: March 19 Narration, Memory, and self awarness  Li-Young Lee, “For a New Citizen of These United States” (poem). Patricia Hampl, “Memory and Imagination” (essay). Maya Angelou, “The Angel of the Candy Counter” (essay) Carry over: Loren Eiseley, “The Judgment of the Birds” (essay). 104 I have written eleven books, but each time I think, "Uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out." --Maya Angelou Week Eight: March 26 Spring Break. No Class. Week Nine: April 2 Narration, Memory, and Self-Awareness cont.  Essay 4 due Judith Ortiz Cofer, “Silent Dancing” (essay) 154 bell hooks, “Writing Autobiography” (essay) 162 Stephen Jay Gould, “Muller Bros. Moving & Storage” (essay) 167 Review for the Cataclysmic Shakedown. Week Ten: April 9 Reminder: April 15 is the withdrawal deadline: Deadline to process withdrawals on-line: none accepted after this date. ________________________ ________________________ Cataclysmic Shakedown Numero Uno (Midterm) Expect fill in the blank, multiple choice, True and False, and a 500 word in-class essay (two pages). _______________________ _______________________ Comparing and Contrasting: Strategies for Thinking and Writing. Nikki Giovanni, “ego-tripping (there may be a reason why)” (poem). 186 Gabriel García Márquez, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: A Tale for Children.” 190 Week Eleven: April 16 comparing and contrasting cont. Begin Essay 5: You work for a literary agency, and you are presently reviewing poems and essays for possible publication (by coincidence, these happen to be the poems and essays we’ve done 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._______________________ 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 Film: Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth Click here for class notes on creation myths  Week Twelve: April 23 Comparing and Contrasting continued REMINDER: Withdrawal deadline is April 15--no drops after this date. 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: April 30 Sexuality and Gender Research Paper: To be announced in class Teatro F104: Ponette: written and directed by Jacques Doillon  _________________________________ Begin Essay 6: Compare a creation myth or a fairy tale that we’ve read to a picture or illustration. We are going to compare and contrast two forms of communication and discover how each one says something that the other can't. The goal on the written part is to describe what you have read to someone who has never read it, but you want to get inside the text, like a dynamic college student. Talk about the metaphors you find. Why do you think a snake is used? Why do Adam and Eve fall from the garden as soon as they gain knowledge? Why is blame passed from person to person? What is the woman's role? What is the man's role? Next, you must do research in the library or on the net for a visual text (photos, drawings, images, anything visual) that describes the portion of the myth or fairy tale you have chosen and copy 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?
Each should help answer your thesis in a way that the other cannot._____________________________ Chitra Divakaruni: “ Nargis’ toilette” 318 Sigmund Freud “Erotic Wishes and Dreams” 332 Ernest Hemingway: “Hills Like White Elephants 336 Week Fourteen: May 7 Obsessions and Transformation Essay 6 due  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” 276 Anne Lamott, “Hunger” 291 Click here to listen to the play: The Yellow Wallpaper. In class workshop on research paper Week Fifteen: May 14 The Double/ The Other Argument and Dialogue 376 Judith Ortiz Cofer, “The Other” 382 John Updike, “Updike and I” 384 Shelby Steele, “Being Black and Feeling Blue” 406 Research paper workshop: last opportunity for questions You must have your topic ready by today. Week Sixteen: May 21 Research paper due!  Annie Dillard, “A Field of Silence” 519Emily 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 Saturday: May 28:  Cataclysmic Shakedown (Final) |
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| Word Rogues Picture Trough | ||
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  Eric Beasley: Un Chien Andelou 
Sherry Fine: Night
 Jason Pham: Life Map  Nilia Koering: Life Map |
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