Writing Program - Spring 1998

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 all 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.

A course that will involve us in the analysis as well as creation of children's literature. Working with both informal and formal essays, our work will explore the deeper meanings of the books we read as children (and may read to our own children). A class reader and individual research will help focus our discussions and refine your own ideas. For the longer research paper, you will be able to investigate issues related to children. We will also work as writing mentors with sixth graders at Westlake School, a partnership that will include on-site visits. Spanish bilingual students are especially needed to work with bilingual sixth graders.

Same as Sec. 1 above.

Robin Baldridge
MWF 9:30A-10:40A
Porter 249

In this course we will investigate various forms of detective fictions in popular culture&emdash;novels, short stories, film, television, newspaper articles&emdash;for their narrative strategies, rhetorical styles, and epistemological methods. We will engage in discussions and writing through interrogation of the modes of this genre and our own detecting proclivities. Readings will include works by Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, a course reader, and A Writer's Reference. Writing assignments will include regular informal pieces as well as drafts of formal argumentative essays, including a research project.

Tim Fitzmaurice
TTh 10:00A-11:45A
Crown 202

This class will focus on the essentials of academic writing, including the grammar, the vocabulary, the structures, the rhetoric, and the organizational strategies for effective writing at the university and in a variety of career disciplines. We will address the fundamentals, correct problems, suggest more powerful processes, and give students the opportunity to become more forceful and sophisticated writers. Thematically, the class will continue to develop responses to violence in the community and to explore the violent and the persuasive methods of rhetoric and writing itself. We will read some classical texts in argumentative rhetoric, the rhetoric of nonviolence&emdash;focusing on Cesar Chavez&emdash;as well as current writing theory. We will read various authors and write and revise four essays. We will write casual essays injournals, creative work, and find ways to publish our work.

Tim Fitzmaurice
TTh 2:00P-3:45P
Crown 202

Same as Sec. 4 above.

Sabina Grogan
TTh 4:00P-5:45P
Eight 242

The 1970's was a decade when traditional cultural, family and class divisions were breached, and new, less stable alliances were formed. The positive and negative effects of these transgressions are still being felt in our more cautious cultural landscape. Students will will develop essays on such topics as gender roles and the nontraditional family, shifting definitions of personal responsibility, and individual moral boundaries in the face of a fluid society. Readings will include Joan Didion's essay collection The White Album (spanning the late 60's and early 70's); Rick Moody's novel The Ice Storm (set in the 70's), and Sam Shepard's play Buried Child. We will also see several films (tentatively Five Easy Pieces, Apocalypse Now and Nashville). Writing projects will include three brief (3-5 page), well-revised academic papers and one longer research paper.

Ellen Louise Hart
TTh 10:00A-11:45A
Stevenson 151

This section will look at the role humor can play in persuasive writing and examine the ways in which writing with power can mean writing with comic power. Our focus will be social change and social justice in America. We'll read some funny things, and we'll talk about serious subjects, including what's not funny about gender and racial stereotyping, how political satire works, and how writing with a sense of humor can be honest, courageous, self-aware, and convincing. Reading includes comic strips, reviews of television sit-coms ("Ellen," of course), short fiction (the novella Harold and Maude), essays and poetry. Papers, written in a series of drafts, will be analytical and argumentative and will include an essay using research.

Same as Sec. 7 above.

Through Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and Glenn Tinder's Political Thinking, this course will survey a rudimentary history of economic oppression in the context of basic political thought. While this is not a history or politics course, the material provides a thought-provoking arena for students to practice the necessary analytical and referential skills required for most academic reading and writing tasks. Students should expect to complete seven (7) comparative 2-page journals, four (4) short 3-page essays, and a final 6-8 page research paper. Revisions for all work are built into the course timeline. Remember: The best writers aren't necessarily gifted; they're ordinary people determined to acquire healthy writing habits which work towards their written success.

Same as Sec. 9 above.

The influence of mass media on society is the focus of this Writing 1 section. Students will locate themselves as consumers and critics of mass media by writing extensively about film and television. We will study media literacy by examining reviews and critical essays about mass communications. Students will complete informal writing assignments exploring their own perspectives about mass communications as they move to develop effective formal essays. In the course we will establish a strong link between analytical reading of essays written by media critics and writing thoughtful and convincing arguments about mass media.

Someone recently said that it's not just what's in your head that matters, it's also what your head is in. For human beings, that is not so much a biological environment as a world of symbols. We tell ourselves that what we do is natural, normal, practical or "just the way it is," but many of our actions or choices&emdash;the clothes we wear, what we do on dates, the cars we drive&emdash;can't always be fully explained in those terms, but seem to have more to do with symbols, with sending messages about ourselves. This course will explore what's in our heads and how it gets there, examining media images in magazines, film and television and analyzing news broadcasts as well as the emerging digital culture on the Internet. We'll write four or five 3-5 page papers on these topics, one of which will be researched and expanded for the final. There will also be one longer group research paper.

Same as Sec. 12 above.

This section of Writing 1 will focus on the notion of the neighborhood&emdash;its people, its activities, its potential for triumphs and for problems. We will look at traditional neighborhoods as well as communities formed by groups of people bound by forces other than geographic proximity. In particular we will look at the social dynamics and the larger issues of race, class and gender as they are played out in groups of people learning to live together. We will read works by authors like Gloria Naylor, Louis Rodriguez, Amy Tan and Sandra Cisneros and we will watch films by such directors as Spike Lee and others. We will use the writing process as both a challenge to think critically about the world around us and an opportunity to examine our own lives more thoroughly. There will be five essays, each of which moves from discussion and planning through drafts, peer response and revision. One essay will center on a research topic of your choice examining some aspect of the concept of the neighborhood.

Same as Sec. 14 above.

California's recent drought and storm-flood cycles cause us to question our conventions of water use and abuse. Whose voices speak and whose are silent in water debates of California? What are the real issues in current public water policy and how can we demystify them? What are the wellsprings in each of us about fresh water? This course begins with poems and short stories to activate our water memories and to evoke the psychic and physical integrity of fresh water in our lives. In 4-5 essays we'll explore our own voices as we choose and explore controversies and defining moments in California's true water stories. For historical overview we'll read short excerpts from Cadillac Desert, The Water Hustlers, Water and Power, Water and Poverty in the Southwest, The Control of Nature, and Deep Ecology. We'll view Chinatown and scenes from Short Cuts, A River Runs Through It, and The River Wild. In class, we'll examine the reasons behind water dreams, deceptions, and decisions in this land of extremes. Our writing groups will meet regularly to respond to essay drafts in progress, to discuss ideas for new writings, and to practice specific techniques for editing and revising.

In the information age, we find public opinion analysis, economic policy, scientific predictions, technical reports and even everyday news relying heavily on mathematical and statistical evidence. How valid is such evidence in a given case? What does it really mean? Who comprehends it and how well? In this course we will examine our own mathematics preparedness for understanding issues that are critical to life itself. We will analyze specific instances of math applications in reports on today's world and attempt to define math preparedness for interpreting information accurately. Future secondary teachers are especially welcome in this class, as we will spend one-third of our time writing about the work of a real-world math class in a local high school. Readings will include pieces featuring mathematical evidence and chapters on applied and contextualized mathematics. Required work for this course includes daily "math in action" journal writings, four analytical papers, and one research paper.

In this introductory writing course we will explore the idea of the femme fatale in a wide range of nineteenth-century American, British, and European stories, poems, and paintings. Images of the femme fatale abound in nineteenth-century literature and painting, indicating both a fear of and fascination with the nature of female sexuality and offering a provocative starting point for discussions about gender and culture. Readings include works by Louisa May Alcott, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Eliot, Sheridan LeFanu, and Edgar Allan Poe. Students will write both formal and informal essays, revise papers, and participate in writing groups, all of which will lead to a final research project.

In this course students will learn how to use writing to develop new ideas and gain a critical perspective on aspects of everyday experience. We will read and respond to writers who consider the body as a concept tied to thought rather than as something that, at most, gets in the way of thinking and must be overcome. For these writers the body is not a given but something that is created and marked by culture, medicine, politics, and the law. In very different ways, our readings will point out how a certain unspoken conception of the body tends to dominate the way we understand gender, sexuality, race, and class. Our readings will include Freud's On Dreams, excerpts from Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain, an excerpt from Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punishment, and essays by Dorothy Allison, Patricia Williams, and Susan Bordo. Discussions of these readings will be led by the members of the class. Students will write five papers, one of which will be a research paper on a topic arising from the readings. Another of the writing assignments will be a major revision of a previous paper. In addition to discussing readings, class-time will be devoted to writing and revision exercises as well as writing workshops.

This section of Writing 1 is part of a ten-year partnership bringing UCSC and Watsonville students together. Students in this course will serve as mentors to primarily Spanish-speaking fifth graders at Alianza. Because of the work required for the partnership, this course will be more demanding in terms of the hours required of students than will other Writing 1 courses that do not contain this component. Students enrolling in the class are not required to be bilingual, but it is essential that they be comfortable in bilingual/bicultural settings. Readings for this course will focus on issues of educational access and opportunity, particularly within (but not exclusive to) the Chicano/Latino community. We will read four books&emdash;three autobiographies and a novel (Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary, Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera, Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory, and Denise Giardina's Storming Heaven)&emdash;and two collections of poetry (The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States and After Aztlan: Latino Poets of the Nineties). Draft or polished essays will be due in class every week and will be shared with small groups of students or the entire class. In addition to the usual coursework, students in this class will be required to write weekly letters to their compañeros at Alianza Elementary, to participate in one daytime and one evening field trip to the school, to serve as hosts to the gradeschoolers when they visit UCSC, to evaluate fifth graders' academic work from time to time, and to produce additional work to be used in the fifth grade classroom.

This section focuses on journals as tools for enriching and improving your writing. While working on the essential ideas featured in all Writing 1 courses (drafting, revising, research, audience, form, voice, style, etc.), 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 the published journals of filmmaker Spike Lee, young war chronicler Zlata Filipovic, and others. Each student will keep a journal and work in it regularly in addition to turning in formal papers. There will be lots of guidance and suggestions, but you will enjoy and benefit from this course most if you contribute your own initiative and creativity.

In this composition course we will read an anthology of fiction presenting work by writers in both Viet Nam and the United States on the aftermath of the Viet Nam-American War. This anthology reflects various viewpoints but is unified by the themes of reconciliation and healing. We will also read a short novel about the aftermath of the war. Overall, we will be examining how the Viet Nam War has entered the American and Vietnamese literary, political, and cultural memory. The focus of this course is learning to write capably, fluently, and well. Writing and research in the course will address the issues above, and will explore a number of different forms, including a final project or research paper. We will explore the writing process, including freewriting, planning, peer feedback, revision, editing, and research.

Same as Sec. 22 above.

Who do you think of as your community&emdash;or communities (by community I mean people with backgrounds and/or concerns somewhat similar to yours)? How do people in your communities develop their values&emdash;about politics, sexuality, religion, manners? What do they read? What music do they listen to? What do they know? What are they worried about? How do their interests intersect with or challenge those of mainstream American society? In this section of Writing 1, you will gain research and analytical skills by investigating the diverse behavior and belief systems of a group or groups you identify. Students enrolling in this section should be willing to work both independently and collaboratively, doing library research as well as field work (observing and interviewing other students). Papers will be based on this research as well as on the texts for the course: pieces of popular culture, stories, essays, sociological studies&emdash;and of course, on your own ideas. Students in this section will participate in a partnership project with students in a high school classroom.

How might humans live in physical, mental, and spiritual harmony with the rest of nature? Buddhist, Jain, and Native American conceptions of the human place in nature along with writings from Western ecologists, economists, politicians, and naturalists will inform our developing understanding of what it means to dwell on the Earth. What fundamental assumptions about the nature of nature hamper our capacity to live harmoniously within it? What's the relationship between our own bodies and that of the Earth, and what do our attitudes toward one imply about our conceptions of the other? Do language limitations impede articulation of crucial insights that could help heal ecological distress? What light can we, as a group and individually, bring to the question: How can humans appropriately take our place (and give our share) within nature? Students will enhance writing skills through composing and revising essays that explore such questions. The final research project allows students to delve deeply into a course-related topic of their choice. Required texts, all non-fictional, include Rules for Writers, by Diana Hacker, and a reader. Additionally, students will collaboratively study and report to the class on one other volume of their choice from a list of supplementary texts. For this list or other information, email todd@cats.

Note: Due to my multiple-chemical sensitivity, I need to have a scent-free classroom. I ask that students not wear perfume, scented body products, or clothing saturated with tobacco smoke, fabric softener, or heavily scented detergents to class. Thank you.

In this course we'll explore fiction and film on several themes (in reverse chronological order), including the following: post-modernism, political activism, neo-realism, women authors during Mussolini's regime, and existentialism. Four essays (plus a researched revision), quizzes, reading logs, small groups, draft discussions, etc. Writers and directors include Italo Calvino (Mr. Palomar), Dario Fo (Mistero Buffo), Federico Fellini (La Strada), and Lina Wertmuller (The Seduction of Mimi).

In this course we'll explore fiction and film on four main themes: The Lost Generation, existentialism, feminism, and post-modernism. Four essays (plus a researched revision), quizzes, reading logs, small groups, draft discussions, etc. Writers and directors include Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast), Albert Camus (The Stranger), Marguerite Duras (Moderato Cantabile), Marie Redonnet (Nevermore), Eric Rohmer (Rendezvous in Paris), and Claude Chabrol (The Ceremony.

Throughout the quarter, we will read closely several non-fiction writings that either sensationalized, justified, or protested the inequalities of Victorian society. These writings show the potential of non-fiction writing&emdash;including your own&emdash;to be not only intellectually stimulating, but also entertaining and emotionally engaging. Our topics include the "discovery" of the urban poor by self-styled social explorers, debates on the so-called "woman question," and the invention of the "sexual pervert." These topics make up the core of our readings, but the purpose of this course is learning to write well. Writing assignments focus on close reading, thesis composition, and argumentation, and culminate in a research paper that gives course participants the opportunity to showcase their accomplishments during the quarter.

This course will focus on social and political movements of the nineteen-sixties. Students will be introduced to major events, personalities, and ideas that made the decade unique. We will examine the Old Left roots of movement politics, how organizations like S.N.C.C. and S.D.S. redefined the Left's agenda, and how militant groups like the Weathermen and media-oriented groups like the Hippies changed and perhaps undermined that agenda. We will ask the questions: "What went wrong? What endured? What should the Left do differently in the Nineties?" Cultural influences will be examined through primary source material, including excerpts of tracts, novels, films, and guerrilla theater. This course continues themes which began in the Merrill Core Course regarding the Civil Rights movement and the Viet Nam War. The students will be required to write and completely revise a 30-page paper.

This course explores the intersections among science, popular culture and our own lives. Emphasizing the idea that science and culture influence one another, we will use reading and writing to examine the different ways that personal and cultural beliefs shape the production of scientific knowledge, as well as the effects that scientific knowledge has on cultural beliefs and actions, public policies and our own lives. We will place particular emphasis on feminist and anti-racist approaches to science, and deal with topics such as science and the media, AIDS, cancer and health activism. Since scientific knowledge intersects with so many aspects of society, itinevitably shapes and is shaped by many sorts of writing and images. We will develop the skills to read critically and assess the social implications of texts, using these skills to examine how we can write about scientific material in socially responsible ways. We will consider texts such as newspaper and magazine articles, personal narratives, critical studies of contemporary culture, medical essays, fiction, advertising and film. Allowing you to explore topics that interest you, the writing will include responses to class material, formal essays, and a group anthology project. Classes will primarily consist of discussions, small group activities, and writing workshops.

This course focuses on the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its relationship to textual representation. What impacts do written language, the spoken word, and media images have on how we perceive and respond to this contemporary social crisis? Through the reading of personal testimony, fiction, poetry, and essays, and the viewing of both alternative and mainstream film and video, we will explore some of the issues involved in representing an on-going crisis, in how contemporary political and social history is written, and particularly, in how we, as students and writers, can also respond. This class emphasizes the writing process and the various ways the written and spoken word act as tools of communication in an era of contestation. Students will complete a series of short written assignments, as well as work throughout the quarter on a longer, individual research project.

In this course we will learn critical writing skills by viewing, discussing, and writing extensively about a selection of films that deal with conflicts around race, class, and gender. Writing assignments will encourage students to approach these cinematic "texts" from different perspectives and with different goals and audiences in mind, thus experimenting with various rhetorical voices (persuasive, informative, etc.). To achieve this end, in addition to viewing and writing about films, we will read and discuss film reviews, editorials, and critical essays with an eye to understanding how each author achieves her purpose. Five papers will be assigned throughout the quarter, including one research paper, in addition to regular notebook assignments that will be collected weekly. Possible films will include Menace II Society, Jungle Fever, Lone Star, and Freeway. Required texts: A Writer's Reference, Diana Hacker and a course reader.

Please note: there will be 3-4 screenings scheduled in addition to regular class meetings.

In this course we will think and write about the challenges of living with the legacy of American histories of difference and conflict. We will explore some of the most heated questions in contemporary society: How has history shaped the meanings of race, class and gender? What is your relationship to that history? How can we write about cultures different from our own? We will read essays and historical documents about three primary conflicts in American history: the debates over slavery, the "woman's sphere," and labor relations, examining these pivotal moments as case studies and the texts as models of argument. Students will write in class every week, lead discussion, and work in groups and individually on several short papers, a research essay and major revisions of their work. Required texts: Negotiating Difference, Patricia Bizzell and Diana Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual.

This writing course will focus on the essay as a vehicle for forceful thought and admirable writing, with special attention to the effective use of language. We will use as our primary text The Best American Essays, a collection culled from outstanding popular periodicals and literary journals of the past decade. Both as readers and writers we will study rhetorical and linguistic strategies that make writing clear and powerful. As part of this study we will give particular attention to issues of grammar and usage, alternative sentence structures, and word choice in academic writing. Students will write weekly papers, emphasizing revision and editing as part of the process of producing polished essays. Everyone will share responsibility for discussion of reading, participate in writing groups and meet weekly with a writing assistant.

Designed for students for whom English is a second language, this three-unit course aims to enhance grammar skills and stylistic options. Required texts cover both style and mechanics. Students write exercises, then practice incorporating the principles learned into their own writing. Weekly quizzes.

This course is designed for students who are already competent writers who are seeking to enhance rhetorical effectiveness and prose style. All forms of expository writing&emdash;academic papers, proposals, personal essays, editorials, non-fiction articles&emdash;are welcome. Although students will be writing non-fiction prose, the course encourages use of poetic and fiction-writing techniques that might enhance the effectiveness of their expository writing. In addition to writing, revising, and editing their own work, students participate in weekly writing groups and lead one seminar discussion and critique of a piece of published writing of their choice.

Texts:

• A course reader, consisting largely of articles and essays chosen by class members
• Style : Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams (5th ed.)

Note: Due to my multiple-chemical sensitivity, I need to have a scent-free classroom. I ask that people not wear perfume, scented body products, or clothing saturated with tobacco smoke or fabric softener to class. Thank you.

Writing 165, Practicum in Reporting, is an upper division journalism class built around a "beat." Each student will choose an area to concentrate on for the quarter&emdash;city politics, campus, sports, science, local communities, environmental issues, etc.&emdash;and write all his or her stories on these subjects. Assignments will include a wide spectrum of writing styles, from standard news features, to profiles, columns, editorials, and personal journalism. The purpose of Writing 165 is to give students experience with in-depth reporting, while allowing for flexibility in writing style. Writing 1 is strongly recommended as a prerequisite, and Writing 64 is a good idea. The class, however, is open to anyone who wants to write and report. Journalism minors given preference.

This course will offer a hands-on experience in writing, producing and designing news content for the World Wide Web. We will analyze news sites and on-line style, learn Web-specific reporting and research techniques, and develop HTML and page design skills as we explore the culture of digital journalism and the key issues facing an evolving industry. Classes will include one lecture and one lab per week. Students will be expected to participate in reporting exercises and on-line research, produce original news articles based on on-line reporting, and to design and produce a fully functional Web site.

Revised 7/15/04.