The David Foster Wallace Reader
Page 79
Wed., 3/19 DITTO
Day 14. Mon., 3/24 Percy, Moviegoer. Read Part One (pp. 3-63). [Leading class: _____________]
Day 15. Wed., 3/26 Percy. Read Parts Two and Three (pp. 64-166). [Leading class: _____________]
Day 16. Mon., 3/31 Percy. Finish book. [Leading class: _____________]
Day 17. Wed., 4/2 Adler, Speedboat. Read up to “SPEEDBOAT” (pp. 3-68 in Perennial Library edition). [Leading class: _____________]
Day 18. Mon., 4/7 Adler. Finish book. [Leading class: _____________]
Wed., 4/9 NO CLASS—FINAL-PAPER PROPOSALS & BIBLIOGRAPHIES DUE
Day 19. Mon, 4/14 Lessing, TGN. Read ’93 and ’71 Intros (p. vii-xvii), and “FREE WOMEN: 1” (pp. 3-243). [Leading class: _____________]
Day 20. Wed., 4/16 Lessing. Read “FREE WOMEN: 2” (pp. 245-353). [Leading class: _____________]
Mon., 4/21 NO CLASS—OPTIONAL CONFERENCES RE FINAL PAPER
Day 21. Wed., 4/23 Lessing. Read “FREE WOMEN: 3” & “F.W.: 4” (pp. 355-580). [Leading class: _____________]
Day 22. Mon., 4/28 Lessing. Finish book. [Leading class: _____________] Final-paper drafts due for peer review.
Day 23. Wed., 4/30 Fox, DC. Read Franzen’s “No End to It” (pp. vii-xiv), and Chs. One through Four (pp. 3-48 of Norton edition). [Leading class: _____________]
Day 24. Mon., 5/5 Fox. Finish book. [Leading class: Instr.] Final papers due; copy of peer-review document due.
Day 25. Wed., 5/7 Final musings if any.
ENGLISH 170R
STUDENT INFO SHEET
NAME
HOMETOWN
CAMPUS PHONE
CAMPUS P.O. BOX
PLEASE NAME TWO NOVELS THAT REALLY MEAN SOMETHING TO YOU AND EXPLAIN WHY.
READ ANY OF THE BOOKS ON OUR LIST BEFORE, EVER? WHEN? WHAT DID YOU THINK?
If I remain enrolled in this course, I hereby promise to attend class faithfully, to complete all assignments in a timely and conscientious way, to participate fully in class discussions, and to contact Dave W. promptly about any problems or concerns.
SIGNATURE & DATE
ENGLISH 170R TEAMS
TEAM 1
TEAM 2
TEAM 3
TEAM 4
TEAM 5
TEAM 6
TEAM 7
TEAM 8
TEAM 9
TEAM 10
ENGLISH 170R 26 APRIL
SPECS AND GUIDELINES FOR PEER-REVIEW MISSIVE
Besides commenting by hand in the margins of the working draft itself, you need to type out a coherent general response—let’s call it a letter. The letter and marked-up draft are due back to your partner at the start of class on 30 April. Make sure either to Xerox or print out a second copy of your letter, which you must hand in with your own final paper on 5 May. I will not grade these letters per se, but if it’s obvious that you did a slight or shoddy job of reviewing your partner’s draft, I will penalize your own paper.
A helpful letter on your partner’s draft will probably include comments on all or most of the following issues, which I’m listing here for your convenience. You needn’t address each item one after the other in the order they’re listed here, though you may do so if it makes things easier.
1. Identify what appears to be the present draft’s thesis or overall point. If you aren’t sure just what it is, list the most likely possibilities.
2. Tell the author whether her thesis is interesting to you or not. Like, whether it adds anything substantive to your own reading(s) of the novel(s) in question. If it doesn’t, you might suggest ways to make the thesis more interesting.
3. If, on the other hand, the overall thesis seems to you implausible, or unconvincing, or if you can see serious objections to it that the author hasn’t addressed, tell her about them.
4. Describe, in no more than one short paragraph, the overall argument that’s advanced in support of the thesis. If this seems impossible, explain why—try to identify areas you find confusing or unclear.
5. Identify two parts of the overall argument that seem comparatively strong/persuasive/effective.
6. Identify two parts of the overall argument that seem comparatively weak/unpersuasive/ineffective.
7. Does the author use any abstract terms or phrases (e.g., “despair,” “gender,” “happiness,” “discover who she is”) whose precise meanings in the paper aren’t clear to you?
8. Tell the author how well the draft’s parts fit together. Is she doing a good job of moving the reader coherently from one part of her argument to another? If not, try to identify some places where you got disoriented or couldn’t figure out quite where in the discussion you were.
9. Tell the author whether her use of quotations from the novel(s) and/or secondary sources seems effective. Do some of the quotations seem stuck in merely to satisfy the “Research” requirement? Are any quotations unnecessarily long? Are quotations introduced well, woven smoothly into the author’s own prose, or do they just seem to hang there awkwardly? If you’re already conversant with MLA format, are the quotations cited correctly?
10. Identify (in the margins of the draft if not in the letter) any basic syntactic errors you spotted that violate the Dept. Format and Style Sheet, or that have been covered in class during the semester. (Since final drafts that contain these sorts of errors will be severely penalized, you have a chance to do your partner a real service here.)
11. Keeping in mind that the author will have five days to revise this working draft, give at least two general suggestions for making the paper better.
E183A Fall ’04
Guidelines for Writing Helpful Letters of Response to Colleagues’ Stories
Reading other people’s stories for discussion in a workshop, you will need to decide whether or not the piece succeeds as literary fiction, which elements of the present version do and do not work well, and what revisions might result in a more successful story. Then you will need to articulate these responses fully and clearly, giving specific examples wherever you can. Here are some questions you would do well to ask yourself as you read and re-read other people’s work.*
1. What has the writer set out to do? What is the story’s meaning or purpose or point? Or agenda, or goal? What basic reaction do you think the writer is trying to get from the reader?
2. Has the writer actually done what she set out to do? Can you see gaps between what she thought she was doing and the way the story actually comes off?
3. Does the story really begin where the writer starts it, or should it begin earlier or later?
4. Is the story too long for what it’s trying to accomplish? Where might it profitably be cut?
5. Is the story too short? Does the writer only sketch or hint at things that need to be developed more fully? If so, which elements need more fleshing out?
6. Is the story’s point of view appropriate, and is it consistent? Does the writer remain faithful to the vantage point she took when beginning the story: e.g., totally omniscient, or omniscient with respect to only one character, or objective?
7. Is the story’s dialogue convincing? Does it sound like real human beings? Does their dialogue help to develop the story’s central characters? Why or why not?
8. Are the characters 3-D, human, complex and developed? Or are some of them only stereotypes, sketches? Which of the characters do you really feel you know?
9. Are the characters behaving consistently? Do their actions match the way the writer wants us to see them as people? Does the story give them sufficient motivation for doing what they do?
11. Is the writing natural and interesting? Does the story’s narrator sound human, or is the writing puffed up and overly formal, such that the prose seems too ‘written’?
12. Does the story’s plot seem to move toward some climax, epiphany, or other unfolding of meaning? Or does it seem slow and static (or maybe rather random or chaotic)?
13. Is the story’s overall sense of proportion appropriate? Is too much time devot
ed to characters or events that don’t seem to contribute to the story’s purpose? Is too little time devoted to characters or events that seem crucial to the real story?
14. If the story has left you with confusions or unanswered questions, what are they?
15. What are the strongest points of the story as it stands, the elements that have the strongest effect?
16. When revising, what two or three things seem most important for the writer to work on in order to make the story more successful?
Pomona College
English 183D Spring, 2008
Logistics
Wednesdays, 7:00–10:00, Crookshank 207
Inst: David Wallace
Inst. Office, Phone, and Email: Crookshank 101, 607-8357, ocapmycap@ca.rr.com
Inst. Office Hours: Wed., 6:00–7:00, Th., 3:00–4:00, and by appointment.
Description of Class
English 183D is a workshop course in creative nonfiction, which term denotes a broad category of prose works such as personal essays and memoirs, profiles, nature and travel writing, narrative essays, observational or descriptive essays, general-interest technical writing, argumentative or idea-based essays, general-interest criticism, literary journalism, and so on. The term’s constituent words suggest a conceptual axis on which these sorts of prose works lie. As nonfiction, the works are connected to actual states of affairs in the world, are “true” to some reliable extent. If, for example, a certain event is alleged to have occurred, it must really have occurred; if a proposition is asserted, the reader expects some proof of (or argument for) its accuracy. At the same time, the adjective creative signifies that some goal(s) other than sheer truthfulness motivates the writer and informs her work. This creative goal, broadly stated, may be to interest readers, or to instruct them, or to entertain them, to move or persuade, to edify, to redeem, to amuse, to get readers to look more closely at or think more deeply about something that’s worth their attention… or some combination(s) of these. Creative also suggests that this kind of nonfiction tends to bear traces of its own artificing; the essay’s author usually wants us to see and understand her as the text’s maker. This does not, however, mean that an essayist’s main goal is simply to “share” or “express herself” or whatever feel-good term you might have got taught in high school. In the grown-up world, creative nonfiction is not expressive writing but rather communicative writing. And an axiom of communicative writing is that the reader does not automatically care about you (the writer), nor does she find you fascinating as a person, nor does she feel a deep natural interest in the same things that interest you. The reader, in fact, will feel about you, your subject, and your essay only what your written words themselves induce her to feel. An advantage of the workshop format is that it will allow you to hear what twelve reasonably intelligent adults have been induced to think and feel about each essay you write for the course.
Expenses
There are no required textbooks,* and I will provide free Xeroxes of all outside readings. You will, however, be responsible for making [12] high-quality, single-sided copies of each essay you distribute for workshop discussion. I may also ask some students to produce [12] copies of some other document or exercise.
Total Writing Workload for Class
(1) Let’s say 24-39 pages of finished, high-quality nonfiction.
(2) A one-to-three-page letter of response to each one of your colleagues’ essays—figure 30-35 letters total.
(3) A couple letters of response, for practice, on selected published essays.
(4) Additional individual exercises, rewrites, or other work assigned at your instructor’s discretion.
Class Rules & Procedures
(1) For obvious reasons, you’re required to attend every class. An absence will be excused only under extraordinary circumstances. Having more than one excused absence, and any unexcused ones at all, will result in a lowered final grade. After the first two weeks, chronic or flagrant tardiness will count as an unexcused absence.
(2) All assigned work needs to be totally completed by the time class starts.
(3) All the essays that you turn in must be written specifically for this course. You may not submit any work that was substantively begun before 15 January 2008.
(4) You need to have a special pocket-folder that’s just for English 183D. This folder will function as your class portfolio, which must contain copies of all assigned work for the course (see (9) and (10) below). Please bring your portfolio to each class; and please put your name, the date, and some kind of rudimentary header on each piece of work therein.
(5) English 183D is to be a safe and serious critical venue. You should treat each peer’s essay-drafts as confidential documents. No one outside this class gets to read them or know anything about them—not roommates, not mutual friends, not distant email buddies. If you discuss peers’ essays with each other outside class, you must do so in a maximally private and respectful way.
(6) With a cap of twelve enrolled students, there is room in our workshop schedule for everyone to have three separate slots, and for each class meeting to comprise discussions of three different essays. This is a good number. Occasionally, though, a student will want to submit more than three pieces, or maybe two longer essays rather than three medium ones, etc. This is not impossible, but it makes for tricky scheduling—you need to confer with me individually (and soon) if you wish to submit something other than the normal three pieces.
(7) Once you sign up for a certain slot in the workshop rotation, that slot is yours. You can change or trade only with the whole class’s permission. So please choose with care. We will fill out the first portion of the workshop schedule tonight and the remainder on 2 February.
(8) All workshop essays are to be distributed the week before the class in which they’re to be discussed. There are two options here. Let’s say you sign up to have an essay workshopped on Wed., 12 March. Either you can bring [12] copies to class for distribution on Wed., 5 March, or you can place the copies in the special E183D box outside my office door by 4:00 p.m. on Thurs., 6 March. But 4:00 p.m. on the Thursday before your assigned slot is the deadline. Don’t be late. There are no “extensions” in workshop-type classes; your deadlines are obligations to [12] other adults. Finish editing and revising far enough ahead of time that you can accommodate computer or printer snafus.
(9) This class operates on the belief that you’ll improve as a writer not just by writing a lot and receiving detailed criticism but also by becoming a more sophisticated and articulate critic of other writers’ work. You are thus required to read each of your colleagues’ essays at least twice, making helpful and specific comments on the manuscript copy wherever appropriate.* You will then compose a one-to-three-page letter to the essay’s author, communicating your sense of the draft’s strengths and weaknesses and making clear, specific suggestions for revision. At the top of each letter, please put your name, the author’s name, the essay’s title, and the date. Make a hard copy of each and every letter of response you write. Staple the original letter to your marked-up copy of the essay, so that at discussion’s end they can all be returned to the author for private perusal. Place the copy of your letter in your class portfolio.
(10) Besides letter-copies and maybe a couple exercises, the only other things you’re required to save in your portfolio are the instructor’s copy of each essay you submit to class (i.e., the manuscript copy that I read and marked on, with my letter of response attached). I’ll be collecting portfolios at the end of the term, but I also reserve the right to look through anyone’s portfolio at any time—that’s why you need to bring your portfolio to each class meeting.
(11) All written work for E183D must be high-quality printed in regular font and reasonable point-size. Everything must be double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around, and stapled. Your workshop essays must have a title page on which appear the piece’s title, your name, and the date. Your last name and the page number should appear in th
e upper-right corner of p. 2 and of every page thereafter.* All copies must be complete, unsmudged, unfaint, and easily readable.
(12) For a variety of reasons, I probably will not put specific grades on your work when I hand it back to you. Anyone who has a problem with this should come speak to me personally; I may make an exception for someone with a professionally diagnosed anxiety disorder or something. And I will provide, at any point during the term, an estimate of her overall grade so far to any student who comes and asks me for it. (And anyone who appears to be heading for a final grade of 7 or below needn’t worry about asking—I’ll make it a point to let you know.
(13) Part of the grades you receive on written work in this course will depend on each document’s presentation. Presentation here means evidence of care, of facility in written English, and of empathy for your readers. The essays you submit for group discussion need to be carefully proofread and edited for typos, misspellings, garbled constructions, and basic errors in usage and/or punctuation. “Creative” or not, E183D is an upper-division writing class, and work that appears sloppy or semiliterate will not be accepted for credit: you’ll have to redo the piece and turn it back in, and there will be a grade penalty—a really severe one if it happens more than once.
Rough Components of Final Grade
Essays = 60%
Letters of Response = 20%
Attendance, Quality & Quantity of Participation, Effort, Improvement, Alacrity of Carriage, Etc. = 20%.
(N.B. The instructor’s grade scale is numerical and goes like this: 13 = A+ = Mind-blowingly good; 12 = A = Extremely good; 11 = A- = Very, very good; 10 = B+ = Very good; 9 = B = Pretty good; 8 = B- = OK; 7 = C+ = Mildly subpar; 6 = C = Seriously subpar; 4, 3, 2 = D = Downright bad; 0 = F = Obvious.)