Author: Joe Harris

I'm a writer and teacher of writing. I also like dogs, movies, chess, music, gardening, and minor league baseball.

Athletes in Social Culture

Posted by Joe Harris for Winston Allen

In this piece I dive in to what it really means to have consequences. This is not to say that no everybody has consequences – because they do. However, this is to highlight the simultaneous spotlight and microscope that most college athletes are forced to operate under. And with this comes the misfortune of too many cases of people taking it “too far.” The ego that many develop can take some unfortunate souls to new heights or it can bring them to their knees and cost them their lives and careers. In the case of my piece, I talk about the general ego and spotlight and capitalize on situations that got out of hand in a hurry. Partying under a spotlight is tough work.

Athletes Immersed in Social Culture: The Party Scene

Class, Wed, 12/04

Course Evaluations

Projects and Affordances (Cont.)

Closing Thoughts

Please use Guerilla Mail to (anonymously) write me some thoughts about this course along the following lines:

Snapshot

Please describe a moment in this course that stands out for you—and that maybe even “stands for” this course for you, that’s the moment you’d tell other people about next year, or five or ten years from now. This could be a moment in class, or in group work, or conferences, or talking with a friend or classmate, or working on a piece of writing for this course. Offer me a snapshot of what most stands out for you.

Narrative

Now offer me the longer view. Who were you as a writer (or reader, or student) at the start of this semester? Who are you now? Hopefully, there’s some difference between August and December. If so, how did you get from there to here?

Keywords

As you think back on this semester, what are the terms and ideas that stick in your memory? List however many seem relevant, and tell me why.

Thanks so much! I’ve enjoyed working with you, and would be very happy to do so again!

Medium Essays

Winston A, Athletes Immersed in Social Culture: The Party Scene

Michael A, Crisis in Comedy: Aziz Ansari, Louis CK and the MeToo Movement

Kyle B, James McBride and Barbara Mellix: Identity, Race, Writing and the English Language

Bridget C, With Great Power: Why There Should Be More Female Villain Representation in Movies

Amanda G, Millenial Women: The Real Pressures on the Job

Anthony O-P, Wing Chun & the West

Kate P, A Letter to All Men: Creating a Meaningful Conversation

Brook R, Student/Athlete UD/All Lacrosse Players Portray Many Literary Sponsor

Jennifer R, Journey to the Extreme: How Ordinary People Become Extremists Through the Internet

Sara S, Odd Disconnects: An Account of a College Transfer Junior Commuter

Ashley S, Complexity, Fluidity, and Growth: Hispanic and Latinx Identities

John T, Extremist Music, An Instigator for Violent Youth?

Sam W, The Cycle of Oppression: How a Look Back at the Effects of Racism in America Parallel the Gender Gap in Computer Science

Class, Mon, 12/02

Of Interest

Elisa Gonzalez, “A Failed Essay on Privilege“, The New Yorker, 11/04/2019

Essays on Medium

Fastwrite

I’d like you to think once again about the affordances of writing on the screen versus writing on the page. What changed when you moved your piece online—both in terms of style and substance, what you wanted to say and how you said it? What features of Medium did you find yourself “leveraging or resisting”?

Be ready to take us to two moments in your Medium essay that you are especially proud of. What would you most like to draw our attention to in your writing”?

To Do

  1. Wed, 12/04, class: We will continue our conversation about your Medium essays. I’ll also ask you to complete the University course evaluations and to respond (anonymously, in writing) to some more informal questions I have for you about this course.
  2. Tues, 12/10, 11:00 pm: If you wish, you may submit one more draft of your final project—either as a print essay or on Medium. In either case, I’d ask you to send me an email in which you point out the main changes and additions you made to your piece.

Class, Mon, 11/18

Affordances

An affordance is a suggested use—something that an object, technology, or environment allows you to do readily or well.

The design and architecture of environments enable certain types of interaction to occur. Round tables with chairs make chatting with someone easier than classroom-style seating. Even though students can twist around and talk to the person behind them, a typical classroom is designed to encourage everyone to face the teacher. . . . Understanding the affordances of a particular technology or space is important because it sheds light on what people can leverage or resist in achieving their goals. For example, the affordances of a thick window allow people to see each other without being able to hear each other. To communicate in spite of the window, they may pantomime, hold up signs with written messages, or break the glass. The window’s affordances don’t predict how people will communicate, but they do shape the situation nonetheless.

danah boyd, “It’s Complicated” (Yale UP, 2013), pp. 10–11.

Digitizing

In Groups

Please scan quickly through the following pieces as examples of writers trying to make thoughtful uses of the affordances of the web.

Use these texts to generate a list of at least five ways (more if you can) in which the affordances of the page and screen differ. (An easy example: Turn vs. scroll. You turn the pages of a book, but scroll through an online text.) Be ready to offer examples of the affordances you identify from the four Medium essays.

To Do

  1. Wed, 11/20, or Thurs, 11/21: Conferences. Bring a copy of your final project that you have annotated to show the changes and additions you plan to make to it when you post it to Medium com. (If you have a draft on Medium that you’d like to talk about, too, that’s fine, but I’d also like to look at a print copy that clearly shows the changes you plan.)
  2. Mon, 12/02, class: Post the digitized version of your final project to Medium.com. I will give this version a letter grade. We’ll project them on screen, and I’ll you to talk briefly about what you changed in your piece (and why) as you shifted modalities.
  3. Wed, 12/04, class: Closing thoughts and evaluations.
  4. Mon, 12/09, 5:00 pm: Email me the revised version of your final project (optional).

Class, Fri, 11/15

Workshop Groups

  • Amanda C, Anthony, Winston
  • Ashley, Bridget, John
  • Kate, Jennifer, Sara
  • Kyle, Michael, Sam

Workshop Questions

Please begin by reading silently through your group members’ essays (or through the sections they have marked). As you do, highlight the places in the text where the writer addresses these four issues:

  1. Project: Where does the writer articulate their project, what they’re trying to accomplish in their piece? (This usually, although not always, takes the form of a couple of sentences that begin with something like: “In this essay, I look at . . .”)
  2. Map: Where does the writer offer you a sense of how their essay will unfold? What do they tell you about how they will move from one section to the next of their piece? How do they describe the materials they will be working with? How do they describe their own method or approach?
  3. Engaging With Others: Tara Westover argues that engaging with others who are different from us is the central task of education. Where in their piece does the writer do this work? How generously and accurately do they represent other views or experiences?
  4. So What? Where does the writer answer this question? What do they add to the conversation about their subject?

After you’ve read and annotated your drafts, have a conversation about them. What advice can you offer each other about how to add to or clarify these four aspects of their writing?

To Do

  1. Mon, 11/18, class: Bring one print copy of the revised version of your project. I will give this version of your project a “pencil grade”. I will also ask you to annotate it in preparation for your conference with me, and we will also talk about “digitizing” written texts.
  2. Wed, 11/20, and Thurs, 11/21: Conferences.
  3. Mon, 12/02, class: Post the digitized version of your final project to Medium.com. I will give this version a letter grade. Be ready to talk about what changed in your piece as you shifted modalities.
  4. Wed, 12/04, class: Closing thoughts and evaluations.
  5. Mon, 12/09, 5:00 pm: Email me the revised version of your final project (optional).

Class, Wed, 11/13

Tara Westover

Fareed Zakaria interviews Tara Westover

Fastwrite

Tara Westover is a young white woman with a PhD and a best-selling memoir. Based on what you’ve read, watched, or heard, what might she have to contribute to a discussion of writing and diversity?

To Do

  1. Fri, 11/15, class: Bring 3 print copies of an almost-final version of your semester project with you to class. We will have a “directed workshop”.
  2. Mon, 11/18, class: Bring one print copy of the revised version of your project. I’ll ask you to annotate it in preparation for your conference with me, and we will also talk about “digitizing” written texts.
  3. Wed, 11/20, and Thurs, 11/21: Conferences.
  4. Mon, 12/02, class: Post the digitized version of your final project to Medium.com. I will give this version a letter grade. Be ready to talk about what changed in your piece as you shifted modalities.
  5. Wed, 12/04, class: Closing thoughts and evaluations.
  6. Mon, 12/09, 5:00 pm: Email me the revised version of your final project (optional).

Class, Mon, 11/04

Favorites

Let’s go around the room, making an effort to highlight as many different authors—both professional and in this class—as we can. Read the passage you admire, remind us where it comes from, and tells us what strikes you about it.

Revised Schedule

Of Interest

Christinane Amanpour interviews Tara Westover (3/04/2018)

To Do

  1. Wed, 11/06, Fri, 11/08, and Mon, 11/11: No class meetings! (I will be at a conference.) Spend this time developing your good first draft into an amazing second draft. I will email you a response to your Post-Workshop Memo near the end of next week.
  2. Tues, 11/12, 5:30 pm, Mitchell Hall: Please join me in listening to Tara Westover speak.
  3. Wed, 11/13, class: We will discuss Westover and your work on your projects.
  4. Fri, 11/15, class: Bring your all-but-final draft of your project to class. We will work on it.

Homework, Mon, 11/04: Favorites

I’m beginning to suspect that I was not very clear in explaining what I’d like you to do in preparation for class tomorrow. So please let me try again!

Could you please locate two brief quotations, each 100 words or less, that you particularly admire, and post them to the course website? One of these quotations should come from a published piece that we’ve read together (e.g. Lu, Mellix, Anzaldua, etc.), the other should come from a piece that someone in this class has written.


And so, for example, I admire this sentence from Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place”:


“The thing you have always suspected about yourself the minute you become a tourist is true: A tourist is an ugly human being”.

Kincaid, “A Small Place”, p. 16


And I was very taken last week by this response by Anthony to a comment I made on the site:


“I think it goes back to the significance of the body to an African American person in this country. During slavery especially. The African American relates so well with Bruce Lee’s Kung-fu because the level of integrity and discipline that he shows in his fighting and resistance. It is something intrinsic and powerful that can never be taken from his body, nor exploited. Bruce Lee has complete control over his physical and spiritual actions and that is something that anyone that has belonged to or belongs to a caste system yearns for and resonates with.”

Anthony O-P, “Comment on Wing Chun & the West“, 10/18/2019

That’s all you need: two quotations, and readiness to talk about what you admire about them tomorrow. See you then!

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