Class – Page 2 – E367: Writing and Diversity

Class, Wed, 10/30

Grades: Some Questions to Have in Mind when working on Your Project

Project

How well does the writer articulate what they are trying to do or accomplish in this piece?
How well do they develop their line of thought?

Materials

Is this piece well-informed by archival research?
How well and fully does the writer represent their own experiences or those of others?

Voice

Is this piece fun or interesting to read? What could the writer do to make it more so?

Workshop

Writers

Given the responses you’ve received to your work so far, what questions do you have? Select a 750-1,000 word passage from your piece that you’d like to read aloud and get more feedback on. Tell your readers what sorts of feedback you’d like to get to this section.

You might also want to think about: Almost by definition, this draft is shorter than your final piece. How are you going to make it longer, develop it?

Readers

Try to add to what you’ve already said in response to the Writer’s Memo—and to what the other readers have said. What more advice can you offer the writer about their piece?

To Do

Friday, 11/01, class: We’ll continue the workshop. I’ll also ask you to send me a post-workshop email in which you: (a) summarize the responses you’ve received so far, (b) describe what you now know you want to do with your piece, and (c) ask me any questions you still have. I will reply to this email. That will be my response to your first draft.

Class, Mon, 10/28

Preparing for Your workshop

For Wednesday, I am going to ask each of you to read the drafts by the other members of your workshop, and to write a note to each of them in which you say:

Which sections of their current drafts you feel work well;
What you’d like to hear more about;
What you’d encourage the writer to rework or rethink; and
Your responses to the questions and concerns raised by the writer.

In class today I’d like you to write a note to the members of your group in which you raise those questions and concerns. What sorts of questions do you have right now about your piece? Which sections most worry you? (These might be sections that you have written, or that you have not yet written.) What kind of feedback do you hope to get?

Address these questions in an email to your writing group that runs at least 200 words. Copy me. Use “WRITER’S MEMO” as your Subject Line. I’ll assume that writing this note will take about half of our class time.

367-emails Download

In the rest of the class period, begin the work of responding to the other members of your group. Start reading their drafts, and write the sort of reader-response to each that I describe above. Hit REPLY All when you respond, so that the other members of your group and I can read your thoughts. (Doing so will count as part of your grade for Draft 1.) Please finish responding to all the members of your group by tomorrow evening.

Please try to read the responses to your own draft by the start of class on Wednesday. Bring your print copies with you. We will read, discuss, and work with them in class.

I do not plan to write responses directly to your draft. I will instead ask you to email me a post-workshop memo on Friday, and I will reply to that. This means that it is very important that you use the next few days both to offer helpful advice to your classmates, and to make sure that you get useful responses to your own work-in-progress.

To Do

Tues, 10/29, 11:00 pm: Email responses to the drafts of each of the members of your writing group. Do so by hitting REPLY All to their Writer’s Memo so that the other members of your group and I can read your comments.
Wed, 10/30, class: Read the responses to your draft. Be ready to ask questions about them. Come to class with your print copies of all your group members’ drafts.

Class, Fri, 10/25

Writing Groups

Ethnicity/Gender

Amanda C
Ashley
Kate
Kyle
Michael

Violence, Extremism

Anthony
Bridget
Jennifer
John
Tia

Generation, Occupation

Amanda Gen
Brook
Sara
Winston
Sam

Mapping Your Work-in-Progress

Read through your draft. Use the Insert Comments function to write a summary of the function of each of your paragraphs. You’ll want, thatis, to briefly state what you do in each paragraph. Most of your sentences should thus begin something like: “I argue that . . .” Or “I analyze the scene in which . . . ” Or “I develop this idea by . . .”
Once you have this running series of summaries, see if you can arrange them in a paragraph that maps or outlines the progress of your essay as a whole.
Think about what you might need to add to or change in this paragraph (and thus your essay). Revise your paragraph to reflect those changes. (You might also want to create a To Do list of work you need to do on your piece over the weekend—or beyond.)
Consider whether you might want to insert a version of this paragraph somewhere near the start of your piece. (It’s often the second paragraph.)

Identifying Keywords

Read through your draft once again. This time, use different colors to highlight the following kinds of terms (or phrases).

Titles and names of the texts and people you are discussing. This should list in short form what your piece is about.
Keywords and phrases that the writers or people you are discussing use to describe or interpret their experiences. This list should begin to suggest the issues or questions your writing is addressing.
Keywords or phrases that you introduce to explain what you see as going on. (If you don’t have many of these, then you need to generate some.) This list should begin to identify your perspective as an author.

As you work on your project, you will want to think of ways to highlight the words in categories 2 and 3 (particularly 3).

Of Interest

Loretta Ross, “Call-Out Culture Is Toxic“, New York Times, 8/17/2019.

To Do

Mon, 10/28, class: Bring five print copies of the first draft of your project. (Shoot for at least 1,500 words). You can single-space these copies, but leave extra space between the ¶s.
Wed, 10/30, and Fri, 11/01, class: We will workshop your drafts.

Class, Mon, 10/21, and Wed, 10/23

Projects

Questions and Comments
Working Titles

Project Readings

Let’s keep things simple and discuss the readings in the order they were posted. This means that on Monday we will talk about:

Ashley
Jennifer
Sara
Brook
Amanda C
Michael

And on Wednesday we will discuss:

Bridget
Kate
Amanda Gen
John
Winston
Kyle
Anthony

I’ll ask the author to get us started by reading their post, and then for the readers/commenters to point out some things they found interesting about the piece. If you weren’t a commenter, but you have a thought, or a question, about the piece, please feel free to jump in and ask it.

To Do

Fri, 10/25, class: Come with as full a draft of your project as you can on your laptop. We will work on them during class.
Mon, 10/28, class: Post your first draft to your Group Folder on Google Drive. Bring one print copy with you to class.
Wed, 10/30,class: Workshop first drafts.
Fri, 11/01, class: Continue workshop.

Class, Fri, 10/18

Cognitive Egocentrism/Naming Documents

Questions About Projects

Discussing Project Readings

Please be ready to talk about three of the readings that have been posted to this site. Leave a brief comment on pieces that particularly interest you. (If you can, choose at least one or two readings that have received fewer rather than more comments.) We’ll discuss about half of these readings on Monday, 10/21,, and the other half on Wednesday, 10/23.

Project Drafts

Friday, 10/25, will be an in-class writing day. Bring a draft of your first draft with you to class on your laptop. I’ll have some exercises that I hope will help you develop and add to your work.

Class, Mon, 10/07

Defining a Project

An Example: Fat Shaming

You could read or watch any combination of:

Roxane Gay, Hunger
Kiese Laymon, Heavy
Lindy West, Shrill
The Hulu series, Shrill, with Aidy Bryant
Other writers and artists who discuss body size
Reviews of any of these texts
Interviews with any of the writers/artists

And you could also observe/listen to people talking about body size while at school, home, work, shopping, etc.

Crowdsourcing

What issues are you thinking of exploring? What texts will you look at?

Jamaica Kincaid, Natives and Tourists

The thing you have always suspected about yourself the minute you become a tourist is true: A tourist is an ugly human being.
Kincaid, p. 14

Fastwrite

In responding to Rebecca Solnit we talked a good bit about tone, about the worries that many of us had that her criticisms were too sweeping and severe. So what do you make of Jamaica Kinkaid’s angry tone here, of her willingness to accuse you, her reader, at least in those moments when you are a tourist, of being willing to turn the “banality and boredom” of others “into a source of pleasure for yourself” (19).

Of Interest

Some Thoughts From Jamaica Kincaid Collected on Lithub 2017)

To Do

Tues, 10/08, 11:00 am: Group C posts responses to Roxane Gay. The rest of us read and respond to them by 11:00 pm.
Wed, 10/09, class: Discuss Gay. Questions about project proposals.
Thurs, 10/10, 11:00 pm: Email me your project proposal as a Word document. Title your document “First Name Last Initial Proposal”.
Fri, 10/11: No Class. Fall Break.
Mon, 10/14, and Wed, 10/16: No Class. Conferences with Joe about proposals.
Thurs, 10/17, 4:00 pm: Post Project Reading to this site. We will discuss them the following week.

Class, Fri, 10/04

Explaining Rebecca Solnit

Fastwrite

Please locate a passage in “Men Explain Things to Me” that you either especially admire or find especially provoking. Write a few sentences explaining why.

Proposals

Of Interest

Keziah Weir, “The Philosopher Queen: Rebecca Solnit“, Elle, March 2, 2017.
Anthony Abraham Jack. “I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Were Not the Hard Part“. New York Times Magazine, Sept 10, 2019.

To Do

Mon, 10/07, class: Read the first section (pp. 1–19) of Jamaica Kinkaid’s A Small Place. I will lead our discussion. I am especially interested in the distinction she makes between tourist and native.
Mon, 10/07, class: Come to class with two possible ideas for a project you might propose on Thursday. Be able to connect the project you are proposing to at least one of the readings we’ve discussed so far.
Tues, 10/08, 11:00 am: Group C posts responses to Roxane Gay. Everyone else reads them and posts comments on at least two by 11:00 pm.
Wed, 10/09, class: Discuss “Fullness” and Trevor Noah Interview”.
Thurs, 10/10, 4:00 pm: Email me your proposal for your long project.
Fri, 10/11: No class, fall break.
Mon, 10/14, and Wed, 10/16: No class, individual conferences instead.

Class, Wed, 10/02

UD as “Literacy Sponsor”

[The President’s] priorities include: enhancing students’ success, investing in intellectual and physical capital, fostering a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, building an environment of inclusive excellence and strengthening interdisciplinary and global programs.
“President Assanis Reviews Top Five Priorities with Faculty and Staff“, UDaily, 2/17/2017.

Nathan Heller, “The Big Uneasy”

How do the politics of inclusion play out “on the ground” of a US college campus?

Fastwrite

Go to a point in Heller’s piece where he quotes a particular individual who is speaking in a way that you either admire or find troubling. Be ready to tell us why.

Safety and Engaging with Difference (John and Jennifer)

Of Interest

EJ Dickerson, “How a Small-Town Bakery in Ohio Became a Lightning Rod in the Culture Wars“, Rolling Stone, 7/18/2019

To Do

Wed, 10/02/4:00 pm: Group B responses to Solnit.
Thurs, 10/03, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group B’s responses and comments on at least two.
Fri, 10/04, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our discussion of Solnit.
Mon, 10/07, class: Read Jamaica Kinkaid’s “A Small Place”. I will lead our discussion.
Mon, 10/07, 4:00 pm: Group C responds to Roxane Gay.
Tues, 10/08, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group C’s responses and comments on at least two.
Wed, 10/09, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our discussion of Gay.
Thurs, 10/10, 4:00 pm: Everyone emails me a one-page proposal for their final project.
Fri, 10/11: Fall “Break”.
Mon, 10/14, and Wed, 10/16: No class meeting. Individual conferences with me.

Class, Mon, 9/30

Baldwin and Obama

In what ways does Obama build on, revise, or disagree with Baldwin?

Deborah Brandt, Sponsors of Literacy

Sponsors, as I have come to think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress or withhold literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way. Just as the ages of radio and television accustom us to having programs brought to us by various commercial sponsors, it is useful to think about who or what underwrites occasions of literacy learning and use.
Brandt (166)

Fastwrite

Let’s try to build on Brandt’s thinking. The University of Delaware is sponsoring your literacy. It is—in some way and to some degree—marketing you, as a (soon-to-be-credentialed) graduate, to prospective employers, as well as to the State that it serves as a flagship university. So if you—again, in some way and to some degree—are the “product”, what is it, exactly, that the University is selling? What kind of literacy is it sponsoring?

To Do

Mon, 9/30, 4:00 pm: Group A responds to Heller.
Tues, 10/01, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group A’s responses and comments on at least two.
Wed, 10/02, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our discussion of Heller.
Wed, 10/02/4:00 pm: Group B responses to Solnit.
Thurs, 10/03, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group B’s responses and comments on at least two.
Fri, 10/04, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our discussion of Solnit.
Mon, 10/07, class: Read Jamaica Kinkaid’s “A Small Place”. I will lead our discussion.
Mon, 10/07, 4:00 pm: Group C responds to Roxane Gay.
Tues, 10/08, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group C’s responses and comments on at least two.
Wed, 10/09, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our discussion of Gay.
Thurs, 10/10, 4:00 pm: Everyone emails me a one-page proposal for their final project.
Fri, 10/11: Fall “Break”.
Mon, 10/14, and Wed, 10/16: No class meeting. Individual conferences with me.

Class, Wed, 9/25

James Baldwin, Cambridge Union, 1965

Fastwrite

Does Baldwin actually manage to speak across the color line? What do you think? To what degree does he seemed trapped in the American dichotomy of black vs. white? To what degree (and where, and when? ) is he able to escape or transcend that binary?

James Balswin, Cambridge Union, UK, 1985

The Opening: One and I and You

Minutes 14:00–22:00

Amanda and Sarah (15:30)
Michael (15:30): Contrast with Anzaldua
Kate (18:00)

The Conclusion: The West (We?)

To Do

Wed, 9/25, 4:00 pm: Group C posts responses to Barack Obama’s ” A More Perfect Union”. I’d like to ask the same question of President Obama as of James Baldwin: Does he (and, if so, how) cross the lines of division that mark our society? Does he articulate a view of a “union”, or simply of a faction in that union?
Thurs, 9/26, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group C’s responses and posts comments on at least two.
Fri, 9/27, NO CLASS, but . . . during class time (approx.), please post at least one “response to a response”. That is, if you are a member of Group C, respond to the comments on your post. If you are a member of Group A or B, respond to one of the other comments on a post you responded to.
Mon. 9/30, class: Read Deborah Brandt’s “Sponsors of Literacy”. I’ll lead our discussion (or try to). I’m interested in thinking about how the various “sponsors” of literacy may hinder as well as help our attempts to talk across groups.