FALL 1999
This information effective for Fall 1999.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
All sections of Writing 1 explore the power of language to make meaning, to create identities for the writer, to shape communities, and to influence readers. All sections will give you the chance to explore writing as a means of discovery and learning as well as a means of communication. Every section will help you to analyze rhetorical situations: that is, to understand the conventions at work in various situations and the kinds of arguments and evidence that are persuasive in different contexts. And in any section of Writing 1, you will have the chance to develop your particular strengths as a writer of academic prose and work on your particular weaknesses.
All sections of Writing 1 teach writing as a process that involves strategies for generating ideas, revision, and editing. They all will encourage you to work together as readers of each other's papers. And will require a significant amount of reading and weekly writing which may include informal writing for yourself as well as more formal essays for others.
Instructor: Peggy Miles
MWF 2:00P-3:10P
Cowell 113
In the words of Morrison, "if you study the culture and art of African-Americans, you are not studying a regional or minor culture. What you are studying is America." Through the works of the Nobel Prize-winning author, we will explore a too often overlooked aspect of the American experience. In addition, we will use her novels as models for discovering insights into the craft of writing. Texts will include The Bluest Eye, Beloved, and Jazz.
The focus of this course will be on class participation and writing as a process. Students will generate ideas through class discussion, keep weekly learning logs, and develop writing skills through a succession of three drafts each on three different topics, including a research paper. Students will read and respond in writing to peer work-in-progress. We will look at means of developing a personal style and voice.
COURSE OVERVIEW
This section of Writing 1 emphasizes journals and diaries as tools for enriching and improving your writing. While working on the essential skills and ideas featured in all Writing 1 courses (drafting, revising, research, audience, voice, style), we look at ways of cultivating the journal as a daily practice, a refuge, and a resource. Readings include articles about journal-keeping as well as excerpts from published journals and diaries. Each student keeps a journal and works in it regularly in addition to turning in formal papers, which explore topics related to the theory and practice of journal-keeping. Each student also makes a ten-minute presentation to the class based on the research for the final essay. There will be guidance and suggestions, but you will benefit from this course most if you contribute your own initiative and creativity.
Instructor: Sarah Rabkin, 204 Kresge College, 459-5195;
message 459-2781
Fall 99 Office Hours: Wed. 1:00-3:00 and by appointment
E-mail: srabkin@cats.ucsc.edu
Mailbox: Kresge Faculty Services ("Steno Pool"), 164
Kresge
NOTE: The textbooks for this class will be available exclusively from the Slug Books Co-op. Please DO NOT purchase your textbooks from the Baytree Bookstore as they may be carrying them against the wishes of your instructor. Slug Books is a student/alumni-run co-op discount textbook store. Payment may be made by cash, check, or credit card, and returns are accepted through 1/15/99. Slug Books is located at 224 Cardiff Place, by 7-11 and Bay Federal Credit Union, just two blocks from the base of campus. Our hours are 10AM to 8PM for the first week of the quarter (January 4th to 8th) and 10AM to 6PM Saturday and Sunday of the first weekend of the quarter. Our normal hours are 10AM to 6PM Monday thru Friday.. For more information please contact Slug Books at 469-SLUG, info@slugbooks.com, or http://www.slugbooks.com
Required Texts (available at Slug Books): 1) Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life; 2) Tristine Rainer, The New Diary; 3) Diana Hacker, A Writer's Reference (4th edition). There is also a required collection of course readings, on sale at the second class meeting for $15. You can pay me by check (made out to Sarah Rabkin), in cash (you may need the exact amount, and you should attach a piece of paper with your name on it), or with a signed IOU to be paid up on the second day of class.
Optional Texts (also at Slug Books): (1) Harnack & Kleppinger, Online! a reference guide to using internet sources. (2) Hinchman, A Life in Hand: Creating the Illuminated Journal.
If you have trouble obtaining any of the course texts, please inform both me and Slug Books immediately. Please have all required course texts plus a journal, notebook, or blank book by the second class meeting. What kind of journal you choose is pretty much up to you; we'll discuss options in class on the first day.
Below is an overview of paper topics and due dates. Note these in your calendar right away. It is not too early to start thinking about possible topics for your final, research-based essay. By the beginning of November, when the prospectus and annotated bibliography are due, you should already have done much of the research for this assignment.
Overview of Paper Topics and Tentative Due Dates
1. Crafted first thoughts: a narrative, an explanation, or a description: three (full) to four pages [due date TBA].
2. Talking back, on paper: an analytical response to a text: three (full) to four pages [due date TBA].
3. A column or guest editorial, perhaps drawing on journal entries: three (full) to four pages [due date TBA].
4. Prospectus and annotated bibliography toward a research-based essay: roughly three pages [due date TBA].
5. Two draft pages of your research-based essay [due date TBA].
6. Revision of Paper #1, #2, or #3 [due date TBA].
7. Research-based essay, with source citations and list of works cited. Eight (full) to ten pages [due date TBA].
8. Ten-minute presentation. [Scheduled date TBA]
9. Final portfolio: Revision of research-based essay, plus self-evaluation [due date TBA].
You must turn in all the required papers to pass the class. Late papers will generally not be accepted unless you negotiate an extension with me in person, at least two days in advance, e.g. at the class meeting prior to the one at which the paper is due. Missing the class meeting at which a paper is due, even if you are ill or out of town, does not excuse you from the deadline. You must either make the appropriate prior arrangements with me for an extension, or arrange to get the finished paper to me on time via another student.
Write in your journal regularly; attend class (missing more than two meetings can affect your evaluation and may jeopardize your passing); participate attentively in class and small-group meetings and contribute at least occasionally to discussions; do the assigned reading on time; do extra revisions if your papers need them. To pass the course, you need to follow through on all of the above. By the end of the quarter, you will also need to be writing at a level of proficiency that will allow you to do at least a satisfactory job on writing assignments in other university courses.
Three (full) to four pages, titled, typed, double-spaced, stapled, with your name on each page and all pages numbered. Late papers not accepted. Format problems may be grounds for my turning your paper back.
Choose one of the following topic options:
1. A brief history of yourself as a writer.
2. An account of a turning point or watershed moment in your life.
3. An essay about some aspect of your journal-keeping.
4. A personal-essay topic of your choosing. If you choose this
option, you must give me a typed paragraph describing your proposed
topic no later than the beginning of class on [Date TBA], and
you must receive oral approval from me for the topic. You can also do
this via e-mail by [Date TBA].
Details about this assignment will be discussed on the first day of
class.
Instructor: James Wilson
TTh 10:00A-11:45A
Stevenson 152
We will consider examples of diverse spiritual logic, past and present: Judeao-Christian, Taoist, American Indian (Gerald Vizenor's novel, Dead Voices), and French feminist (Marie Redonnet's novel, Rose Millie Rose). Five papers (including a research effort), critical reading logs, discussion and draft sessions, and substantive revision.
Instructor: James Wilson
TTh 12:00P-1:45P
Stevenson 151
Same as Section 3 above.
Instructor: Charla Ogaz
TTh 2:00P-3:45P
Kresge 319
America is always in the process of being remade, reread and rewritten, and we are all active participants in these revisions. Using the anthology, "Re-Reading America," we will critically examine current debates about family values, education, and equality and freedom (among others). Students will engage these debates and contribute to them by critically examining dominant cultural forces alongside their own assumptions, ideas and values. There will be five writing assignments: a personal narrative; an expository essay connecting experience with reading; an expository essay which applies critical analysis to a text; a research essay; and an argumentative essay. Students will complete two drafts of each essay as well as many informal in-class and at home writing assignments. The goal for each writer will be to explore the stages of writing (pre-writing, drafting, and revising) in order to develop organized, clear, and compelling prose.
Instructor: Valerie Forman
MW 5:00P-6:45P
Kresge 325
This is a course in critical thinking, reading, and writing. This course is workshop oriented, and revision is one of its crucial components. The readings for this course will help us to think about how we read and how we represent ourselves in our writing--both the processes and the perspectives we employ. Many of the readings and class discussions will challenge our common-sense assumptions. I hope that by thinking hard about them we will become more careful readers, writers, and thinkers.
The thematic focus of this course will be criminal confessions. We will read these confessions critically to ask how different cultures define criminality and, thus, legitimate behavior. We will explore how those accused of crimes retell their own stories and how they understand their relationship to a social order that has excluded them. The texts for the course include: Herculine Barbin, the nineteenth century autobiography of a French hermaphrodite, which we will compare with the medical and legal documents that tried to determine his/her "true" sex; the film Kiss of the Spider Woman; Natalie Zemon Davis' Fiction in the Archives, an analysis of pardon cases in sixteenth century France, and Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference.
**Interview only. Attend the first class meeting**
Instructor: Conn Hallinan
TTh 12:00P-1:45P
Kresge 194
Writing 64 is an intermediate level journalism class with a focus on writing and reporting. Students write five major stories, including a rewrite, an interview, a news story, coverage of a public event, and a news feature. Students also do four other minor writing assignments, including two query letters, plus keep a journal based on comparing two daily newspapers.
Section assignments to be made in class
INSTRUCTOR: Sarah Rabkin, 204 Kresge, x9-5195, msg.
x9-2781.
Drop-in office hours: 1:00-3:00 on Wednesdays.
Please come by if you have questions or just want to talk. Appointments may be arranged if you can't make it to my regular hours. Mailbox & message center are at Kresge College Faculty Services (Steno Pool), run by Betsy Wootten and Barbara Lee.
Students with disabilities who may need accommodations: please see me as soon as possible during office hours, or make an appointment.
SECTIONS: Participation in the class includes a required weekly section, or writing group, led by skilled re-entry undergraduates. Each student in the class will be scheduled into one of these groups, which will meet for two and a half hours. Section times will be announced at the first class meeting, and you will be asked to indicate your preference along with at least one alternative choice. Ability to commit yourself to an available section time is a prerequisite for enrolling in the course.
TEACHING ASSISTANTS:
(TBA)
REQUIRED TEXTS: Please bring these to each class meeting.
The first three required texts and the optional text should be
available at Herland in downtown Santa Cruz. (See separate handout.)
Please notify me immediately if the store has run out of a text you
want.
•Friedman & Steinberg, Writing and Thinking in the Social
Sciences
•Donna Hacker, A Writer's Reference
•Andrew Harnack, Online! a reference guide to using
internet sources
•A course reader, available at the first class meeting, to
be purchased directly from the instructor. It should be less than
$20. Please bring cash or a check to class by the second day.
OPTIONAL TEXT:
•Barney Pace, Family Papers
PHOTOCOPYING: Students will be expected to produce up to seven legible copies of each written assignment for distribution to instructor, TA, and writing group members. (Please recycle or reuse these papers efficiently.)
Note: If the total cost of books and photocopying or computer printing presents a financial burden, you may want to consider sharing texts with another class member. At the least, I urge you to acquire your own copy of the Writer's Reference.
Welcome to this class, which is designed especially for women who are coming to the university from community college or returning to school after a hiatus. The course starts with the premise that research-based writing in the social sciences and humanities is at its best a fruitful hunt for one's own knowledge&emdash;tempered and augmented by what others have said. Assignments help students identify their interests, choose worthwhile questions, find sources efficiently in the library and beyond, evaluate ideas, and develop carefully argued pieces of original writing. Class discussions and small group meetings foster the cultivation of a cooperative community of thinkers and writers.
The flexible theme of this quarter's course, "women and family," provides a focus for readings and a springboard for writing assignments. You may interpret and adapt this theme as broadly as you wish to suit your individual interests.
If the class is oversubscribed, I will try to give places to the students who need them most and can commit themselves to one of the available group-meeting times. I will collect information from each of you on the first day which will help me make this decision. A class list will be posted outside my office (204 Kresge) by 2:00 on the first day of classes. At the second meeting, we will give you the call number which you will need to enroll via teleslug. If you are not admitted to the class, please feel free to confer with me about alternative courses. You may want to take Writing 161 or 102 in winter quarter or Writing 163 in spring.
You must come to the second meeting to secure your place in the class. Or, if you have been put on a waiting list and still want to try to be admitted, you may come to the second meeting to see whether any spaces have opened up. Wait-listed students who attend the second meeting will be admitted in the order in which they appear on the list.
Please reserve the scheduled final exam time for this class: Tuesday, December 7, 8:00-11:00 a.m. There will be no exam, but we will come together for an end-of-quarter meeting and celebration. Children and partners are welcome at this event.
•Each project will be described in greater detail when it is
assigned. •Readings and shorter written exercises will be
assigned in class.
•Keep all returned papers with my comments on them. You will
need to refer to them in composing your self-evaluation.
•Deadlines, in general, are non-negotiable. I will grant
extensions only in the case of extraordinary circumstances, and only
if you confer with me ahead of the due date. Papers turned in late
without an extension can jeopardize your ability to pass the course.
So can lack of preparation for section meetings. Please put these
deadlines in your calendar now.
1. [Due Date TBA]. A personal essay about an experience having to do with family. A revision of this essay will be due after you have had a chance to review it with your section.
2. [Due Date TBA]. A library exercise to familiarize you with library research methods and resources and to help you explore possible topics for research.
3. [Due Date TBA]. A short critical response to one of the texts you are using as source material for your research-based essay. About three pages.
4. [Due Date TBA]. A prospectus (proposal), with annotated bibliography, for a research-based essay on an issue related to the subject of family, drawing primarily on the literature in a particular field (e.g. sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, economics, literature and literary criticism). You may propose an alternate topic area and/or an interdisciplinary approach; discuss this with me. Three to four pages.
5. [Due Date TBA]. Two draft pages of your research-based essay.
6. [Due Date TBA]. Research-based essay, with abstract, source citations, and list of works cited, plus cover letter. Ten to twelve pages.
8. Due Tuesday, December 7 (final exam date). Final course portfolio, including self evaluation, TA evaluation, and revision of research-based essay.
**Interview only. Attend the first class meeting**
Instructor: Mike Weiss
Tues 1:00P-4:00P
Kresge 348
In this course, students will study and practice literary journalism. Drawing on the devices of fiction and the strategies of journalism, students will learn to produce articles which are both artful and informative. Students will write and rewrite two short pieces and one long one, as well as reading a wide range of other writers; they should come with a writing sample (a feature article or a story) on the first day, as enrollment is limited to 15. Mike Weiss, the instructor for the course, has been a novelist, an investigative reporter, and a feature writer since 1965; he is on the staff of West Magazine, a weekly publication of the San Jose Mercury News.