Literature Curriculum Project Syllabi

WRL 105 C: Writing Seminar I: Art of the Engaged Writer
Suggested Level for teaching students: introduction to college level writing
Naropa University
Naropa Core Writing Program

• Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell. Patterns for College Writing, 9 th edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s: 2004
• Andrea Lunsford. The Everyday Writer, 2 nd edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s: 2001, 2002
• College-level dictionary and thesaurus (available in the library)

Course Description

This course is designed to meet you where you are as a writer and stretch your thinking and writing in new directions. We’ll focus on the creative alongside the critical; the imaginative next to the academic—to show how engaged writers work creatively and seriously simultaneously. The workshop will begin with first-person inquiry and move toward a formally constructed essay, taking into account multiple perspectives and authentic voice and reasoning. We’ll explore a number of generative and probative writing experiments to locate, identify, and develop ideas before attempting the essay—that is, we will think through our writing before drafting our papers. The experiments will enter the texts from various access points, asking you to arrive at different registers of critical thinking and reasoning about the subjects. Finally, the essay will go through multiple drafts, including instructor feedback and/or peer review on the global, regional, and local levels so that we become objective workshop readers who critique in a supportive manner.

Goals and Objectives

Goal 1. Rhetorical Knowledge—the ability to respond to a variety of rhetorical situations through writing in several genres and understanding how genres shape reading and writing.

Objectives:

• Establish purpose in writing (argue, explain, analyze, interpret, describe, compare, etc.).
• Meet the needs of a specific audience.

Goal 2. Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing—the ability to use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communication; the ability to understand and question the relationships of language, knowledge, and power.

Objectives:

• Integrate one’s own ideas with those of others.
• Identify central ideas.
• Analyze, interpret, and/or synthesize.
• Develop ideas logically and coherently.

Goal 3. Writing Process—the ability to develop flexible strategies for generating, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading; the ability to critique one’s own and others’ work; the ability to use later invention and rethinking to revise work.

Objectives:

• Develop multiple drafts as part of the process.
• Demonstrate growth in revision.
• Use academic conventions of standard written English, including proofreading, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and documentation.

Goal 4. Contemplative Education—the ability to connect internal and external awareness and expectations; the ability to learn through experiential means and with authenticity; the ability to examine and evaluate patterns in and preconceptions about writing.

Objectives:

• Reflect on one’s personal journey with writing.
• Understand what’s at stake and embrace diverse and/or contrasting perspectives within ourselves.

• A response journal. This will serve as the base for class investigation. Use this as a place to think about the readings prior to class, develop questions of inquiry, and construct a center for your writing.
• Class discussions. Come prepared to read your work and to respond to the work of others. Learning to give and receive feedback is an essential aspect of the class.
• Weekly writing experiments. Each week you will explore some aspect of personal inquiry or essay writing.
• Process letters: In two pages record what’s happening in your writing process and indicate the kind of feedback you want on your writing. Also, respond briefly to the assigned readings.

• Formatting your work:

• typed
• name and page # on each page
• double-spaced
• 1-inch margins (top, bottom, left, right)
• 12-point serif font (e.g., Times New Roman, Palatino, Garamond, New York).

• One conference with instructor at mid-semester.
• One consultation at the NWC on your essay.
• One NWC workshop—times and dates TBA.
• One essay with multiple drafts.
• Creative manuscript and self-evaluation sheet.
• Final portfolio with self-evaluation.

Recommended Schedule:

Unit 1— This section will focus on active reading, invention strategies, narrative, description, comparison, perspective, argumentation, and revision.

1: Introduction to class and each other
    Visit the Allen Ginsberg Library
    Discuss active reading and narrative: Gates 5-7

Homework:

Read Patterns: “ Reading to Write” 1-4; “Process” 13-14;
Erenreich 106-116; Momaday 169-172
Read Lunsford: 36-40
ER: Read “Three Levels of Revising”
ER: Read “Summary of Kinds of Responses”
Write a narrative and a process letter

Recommended readings:

ER: Handout on Workshop Etiquette
ER: “On Keeping a Notebook”
ER: “I Remember”
ER: “Be Specific”

2: Workshop: Everyone reads
     Discuss invention strategies and readings

Homework:

Read Patterns: Frazier 391-395; Mukherjee 397-400
Write a description and a process letter

Recommended reading:

ER: from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird
ER: Writing to Remember and Reflect

3: Workshop: Group 1
     Discuss readings

Homework:

Read Patterns: Sedaris 218-220; Sanders 456-459; Purdy 480-484
Write a comparison and a process letter

4: Workshop: Group 2
    Discuss readings

Homework:

Read Lunsford: 26-31; 70-85; 88-92
Write a perspective and a process letter

5: Workshop: Group 3
    Discuss readings

Homework:

Read Patterns: King 570-582
ER: Read “Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen”

6: Discuss readings

Homework:

Read Handouts on Revision
Read Lunsford: 183-206
Write a socially engaged argument and a process letter

7: Workshop: Everyone reads
    Discuss readings

Homework:

Revise two of your pieces on global and/or regional levels
Read Lunsford: 318-364

8: Workshop: Small Revision Groups

Homework:

Revise all pieces on the local level and compile your creative manuscript

Read Patterns: Tan 462-467

Unit 2— This section will focus on summary, evidence, analysis, thesis, organization, audience, conventions, and revision. During this section we will listen to clips of Naropa University Audio Archive material in class. This material is meant to broaden our concept of the relationship between language and identity. If you are interested in listening to any or all of the recordings in their entirety, they can be found on our electronic reserves course page. The course page links directly to the Internet Archives which houses Naropa’s digitized audio through the Naropa Audio Archive Project. If you have questions about accessing, streaming, or downloading audio, please let me know.

Theme: Language and Identity

9: Due: Creative manuscript and self-evaluation sheet
    Discuss readings and in-class writing on summary

Audio clip: from Allen Ginsberg Class on Aboriginal Poetics

Allen Ginsberg discusses "Aboriginal Poetics": the children's songs, migration songs, and funeral songs of the aboriginal population of Australia. He performs chants with aboriginal songsticks, including one written to protest the Vietnam War. The tape concludes with a reading and discussion of Vachel Lindsay's rhythmic poem "The Congo."

Audio
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Homework:

Read Patterns: Cisneros 84-87; Alexie 126-131
Read Lunsford: 158-59; 164-68; 465-70
Write a response paper and a process letter

10: Conference with instructor this week on creative manuscript
      Workshop: Group 1
      Discuss readings and in-class writing on evidence and analysis

Audio clip: from Amiri Baraka class, July 1984

First half of a class by Amiri Baraka. He discusses Langston Hughes, the Harlem Renaissance, Negritude, indigenisme and black modernism. He covers Hughes's life and writings including "Red haired baby," "Montage of a dream defined," and his translations. Baraka also talks about Haitian indigenisme poets, negritude poets Leon Damas and Aime Cesaire, including Cesaire's "Notes on return to my native land." (Continued on 84P006)

Audio
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Homework:

Read Patterns: Angelou 89-93; Malcolm X 260-262; Graham 340-342
Write a response paper and a process letter

11: Workshop: Group 2
      Discuss readings and in-class writing on thesis

Audio clip: Anne Waldman class on poetics and female writers, August, 1977

First half of a class from Anne Waldman's month-long series on female writers, "Some Women Writers," during the summer of 1977. She focuses on the idea of the goddess and what it means to have a female voice in writing. She does this through various readings, from Robert Graves to Anais Nin, to show the idea of feminine writing. (Continues on 77p67.)

Audio
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Homework:

Read Patterns: Burciaga 513-515; Walker 686-694
Read Lunsford: 41-47; skim thoroughly 210-274
Write a response paper and a process letter

12: Workshop: Group 3
      Discuss readings and in-class writing on organization and audience

Audio clip: from Amiri Baraka Class on Speech, Rhythm, Sound, and Music

First half of a class by Amiri Baraka on speech, rhythm, sound, and music. The discussion covers Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Prince, Amos Moore, John Cage, Robert Duncan, T.S. Eliot, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Max Roach, Allen Tate, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and German expressionism. (Continues on 85p087.)

Audio
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Homework:

Read Lunsford: 48-62; skim thoroughly 277-313
Write first draft of essay

13: Due: Consult at the NWC this week or next on draft; have staff send faculty notification.
      Due: 1 st draft of essay

Workshop: small groups
In-class activity on revising

Audio clip: from Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg Reading, Including Howl

An Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg poetry reading. Waldman reads "Fast Speaking Woman" and other poems. Ginsberg reads "Howl" in its entirety, and other poems.

Audio
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Homework:

Revise essay
Draft 3-page self-evaluation
Read Lunsford: 367-412

14: Due: 2 nd draft of essayand 3-page self-evaluation
      Workshop: small groups
      In-class activity on proofreading and documenting

Audio clip: from In the Pressure Tank, Class 1, July 1980

First half of class 1 of "In the Pressure Tank" series held at Naropa Institute between July 23 and August 20, 1980. (The whole series is contained on 80P093-115.) Philip Whalen discusses the American language as a system distinct from English. He focuses on poems of Wallace Stevens, particularly "The Bed of Old John Zoeller" and also discusses H.L. Mencken, Lew Welch, and his own family history. (Continues on 80p094.)

Audio
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Homework:

Revise essay and self-evaluation

15: DUE: Final Essay with first draft of essay and 3-page self-evaluation

Party: Everyone reads

Recommended Criteria for Critical Essay

In Unit 1, we examined texts for their writing devices or genre (narrative, description, comparison, perspective, argument, etc.) and used those devices as springboards for writing our own stories. In Unit 2, we circled around a theme, analyzing how various authors approached one subject—all the while discussing various aspects of “the essay” and exploring different registers of critical thinking.

Now you will join that conversation and combine the activities of Unit I and II by writing a critical essay. The essay should focus on the texts we read, not be a springboard to your own story. The majority of the details, specifics, examples you use should come from the texts, though you can use personal examples sparingly if they are apropos of the discussion. In addition, your discussion should cover some aspect of the theme we’ve covered in class together.

Word of clarification: just because you are writing about ideas/texts and not your life stories does not mean that you disappear from your writing. The trick in the critical essay is to use the texts to demonstrate your ideas and beliefs about the topic and not get drowned out by the authors or quotations you use. In Unit I, we made observations about an event/experience, sometimes from memory, and made choices about what to bring forth to the reader, about which details/specifics to use in the retelling of the story. When reading the texts for the essay, we made observations again. Now you must decide which details/specifics to bring forth to the reader in the retelling of these texts in this new context—your critical essay.

When working on your critical essay, keep the following objectives in mind:

1. The paper should demonstrate an explicit focus/controlling idea.
• Complex thesis: critical questioning, claims, and counter claims.
2. The paper should use appropriate examples and/or evidence that relate to the focus.
3. The paper should analyze, interpret, and synthesize evidence with reference to the focus.
4. The paper should demonstrate a clear, logical organization from paragraph to paragraph and within each paragraph.
• Development of ideas: organization, structure, transitions, cohesion.
5. The paper should use an appropriate style that shows audience awareness and purpose.
6. The paper should use academic conventions of standard written English, including grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and documentation.
7. The paper should cite all sources when quoting or paraphrasing according to the MLA documentation style.
8. The paper should cite 1–3 texts that we’ve read together in class.

In addition, your essay should demonstrate several, but not necessarily all, of the following criteria:

• Define key terms.
• Use quotations from the texts and interpret them through close reading.
• Differentiate between what a text says and your own opinions about it.
• Formulate provocative questions.
  

Recommended Sample Essay Styles

1. Literary Analysis —Examine and analyze the text(s) in terms of its devices (narrative, description, metaphor, analogy, repetition, personification, word choice, syntax, point of view, voice, style, dialogue, irony, humor, and so on). What devices does this writer use? Why is that important or significant to the whole of the text? How does the device affect the mood, tone, etc.? What are the effects on the reader?
2. Rhetorical Analysis —Examine and analyze the text(s) in terms of what ideas it presents, how it presents the ideas, and/or how effectively it presents the ideas. For example, how does the text address one’s sense of ethics, beliefs, customs, or practices (ethos); how does the text address one’s sense of feeling, compassion, or emotions (pathos); and/or how does the text address one’s sense of logic or reason (logos)? After identifying the ideas the text presents and how it works, explain how effective or ineffective these moves are and why you think so.
3. Perspective —Examine and analyze the biases and assumptions underlying the text(s). What is the subtext of the author’s claims? Or use one text as a lens for another text. For example, look at the theme/topic of one author using a second author’s point of view on the subject. How does this further the conversation? Develop or change the topic?
4. Compare/Contrast —Write an essay where you compare and contrast two texts: their philosophies, ideas, practices, theories, etc. Think about the similarities and differences between the two. Choose your subject carefully so your comparison takes you beyond the obvious similarities or differences. Focus on the most provocative and interesting elements and characteristics to analyze. Then explain why you feel these comparisons or contrasts are significant or important.
5. Persuasion/Argument —Write an essay to convince others to accept or acknowledge the validity of your position on a particular belief, issue, cause, or concern that occurred in the text(s). Or you could choose to dispute particular points/beliefs made by the author(s). Think about the claims you’d like to make, how you can address the opposing perspectives and points of view, and make sure that your thesis isn’t obvious or self-evident. Appeal to the reader’s sense of logic and explain how or why you’ve come to these conclusions.
6. Complex Essay —Most essays use multiple patterns for developing their points. Write a paper that combines any of the previously mentioned forms to develop an essay. For example, you could compare and contrast the literary analyses of two texts. You could persuade your reader to action, based on the comparisons that occur in two or more texts. And so on. As usual, make sure to answer a “so what?” question—why is this important/significant? What are the benefits/drawbacks? What are the effects on the reader? Etc.

This syllabus is credited to Amy B. Arenson
Naropa University

I am using the Audio Archive materials as a supplementary tool for my students during the second half of a first-year writing course. During the second half of the class we are working on honing critical thinking and scholarly writing skills.

We are using the concepts of language and identity as lenses with which we analyze texts from Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell’s anthology Patterns for College Writing, 9 th edition. As the course must parallel other courses in the department, my students will not be using the audio to write formal papers, but they will have the opportunity to write informally about what they hear.

I use the first several minutes of class to play the audio. I don’t give a detailed introduction of the audio, as I include brief summaries from the archive.org site in my syllabus. I simply introduce the speaker and year when the talk was given to provide some context. After we listen to the audio the students have a 10 minute free write period in which they are welcome to write about the audio they have heard. I urge them to do this and to think specifically about the relationship the audio has to our theme of language and identity. Our class is mainly discussion based, so they are also free to relate the audio to the texts we discuss each week or to their own work or writing process.

One of my main goals in using the audio is to give the class a more textured approach to learning by using multiple intelligences (in this case, the audio might appeal more to aural learners). Another goal is to have the students think and write critically on their own about something other than the assigned readings. I believe this helps them integrate critical thinking skills into other parts of their lives by showing that it is something they can do independently and that it does not always relate to texts or specific assignments. The final goal is to introduce my students to a bit of Naropa’s literary history and to some of the more controversial voices of the last 30 years.