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Spring 2002
This information effective
for Spring 2002.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Winter 2002
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, revising, 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.
All course descriptions are subject to change.
Willie Yaryan
MW 5:00–6:45 p.m.
College Eight 242
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~wyaryan/writ1
What is nature? Is nature “red in tooth and claw” as Tennyson thought, or is it the green temple for the spirit that John Muir praised? Some view it as a source of beauty and comfort, while others see it as a storehouse of material resources to fuel human progress. Some say it is only a reflection of our hopes and fears and not the pristine wilderness that environmentalists seek to save from desecration. In this course we will explore a variety of natures written about by writers such as Charles Darwin, Aldo Leopold, Ramachandra Guha, Chief Luther Standing Bear, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Vandana Shiva, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Joyce Carol Oates, Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry, Susan Griffin, Barry Lopez, Carolyn Merchant, and Rush Limbaugh. And we will examine the conflicts such different perspectives often create. Students will reflect, in discussions and in writing, on their own experiences of nature. They will critically analyze written arguments for the preservation and the wise use of nature, and they will research the history of an environmental controversy to discover the concepts of nature being contested. Finally, they will take a position and develop an argument about nature. Class work will focus on the process of writing, from brainstorming ideas to revision.
Spring 2002
Instructor: Virginia Draper, Lecturer in Writing
TTh 4:00–5:45 p.m.
Stevenson 151
Office: Stevenson 275
Phone: 9-2827
E-mail: vdraper@cats
This course is for those who have mastered basic writing skills and wish to increase their effectiveness as rhetoricians, prose stylists, and editors. The central concerns of the course are: What makes a piece of writing effective given the writer’s purposes and readers? And how can readers help writers during the various stages of composing and editing?
Students can work on any kind of expository prose, such as personal essays, academic papers, senior theses, editorials, journal articles, funding proposals, etc. We also read and experiment with non-traditional prose styles and formats. Students submit eight drafts or revisions, respond to other students’ work in class, critique published essays, do exercises to develop clear, graceful styles and editing skills, and participate in a weekly writing group outside of class.
Writing 163 satisfies the
(W) component of the General Education requirements.
Prerequisites: Subj. A and (C) requirement.
Probable Texts:
J. Williams, Writing With Style
D. Murrary, Read to Write
A course reader
As this class is a writers’ workshop where we all learn from each other, class meetings are required. During the first four weeks, please make every effort not to miss a class as we create a writing/learning community. More than two absences could jeopardize your passing the course.
You should expect to spend 12+ hours a week outside of class.
Information
1. Writing Assignments: A draft or revision of a piece of expository prose is due 8 times during the quarter usually on Tuesdays. “Expository prose” is defined as not fiction or poetry or plays, etc., though writers are encouraged to use fictional, poetic, or dramatic styles as they serve their purposes.
At least two of the pieces you submit, but no more than five, will be revisions of drafts previously submitted. You are free to choose your topic, tone, style, and strategies.
The only stipulations for these papers are that you write with other members of the class in mind as your readers, and that one of your papers be in an “alternate style” (more on this later). The length of the pieces is up to you, but it is hard to write anything significant in less than three pages, and it is hard for readers to deal with anything much longer than six pages.
You can submit papers or pieces of works in progress you are working on for other courses with these guidelines: You check with the instructor of the other course. You get me the draft in time to read for you to do a revision before you turn it in to the other instructor. You give me the revision you have done with reflections on what you’ve changed and why. The draft will count as one of your eight submissions for this course, but the revision will not.
At least once during the quarter each of you will have the chance to lead a discussion of your paper in class. When it is your turn, you make copies of your paper available by noon the day before the paper is to be discussed.
2. Responding to Others’
Writing: In addition to the papers discussed in class, everyone will
read and carefully comment on at least three papers each week. There are two
possibilities for doing this task, and you can decide which you’d like
to do during the second week of the class:
(a) by reading papers placed in the Stevenson library and putting your own papers
there for reading; (b) by participating in a weekly writing group.
If you choose (a), you will put a copy of each essay in the Library by Tuesday’s class. Readings should be done by Friday.
If you choose (b), you will meet with your group once a week at a time convenient for all of you. We will form groups during the second week of class and they will meet weeks 2–10.
3. Style & Editing: We will work through the advice, strategies, and selected exercises in J. Williams, Style. Williams has excellent insights on how to make your writing more clear and graceful at the sentence and paragraph level. Every time I teach this course, my writing improves because of Williams’ suggestions.
And we will explore the possibilities of writing in what Winston Weathers calls “alternate styles,” the best part of the course for some previous students in Writing 163.
4. Field Notes & Writer’s Book: During the quarter, you will keep “Field Notes” on your reading in Murray and Williams and on any other reading or experiences that relate to your growth as a writer. These Field Notes should include observations on how other writers pursue their craft, a collection of favorite passages and sentences, and ideas for essays of your own. At the end of the quarter, you will use your Field Notes to create your own “Writer’s Book” which will be due at the examination time for this class. At that time, each of you will present your book and say something about its evolution and contents.
5. Possible First
Assignment—for Thursday, March 28: Reader’s
& Writer’s Profile
*Read in Murray, To the Student and Teacher; Ch. 1, Reading as a Writer; Ch.
2. Take a look at the Table of Contents (xiii–xvi). Read Orwell, “Why
I Write” and Didion, “Why I Write.” Take a look at the list of
“Writing Problems Solved.”
As you do this reading, begin your field notes. Underline or put checks by ideas, thoughts, sentences you say “Yes!” to. Note puzzlements and questions. Note things that grate or seem wrongheaded.
Does the table of contents suggest any ideas or topics to you for your essays this quarter? Note them. Are your purposes and desires to write more like Orwell’s or Didion’s or neither? Review the list of Writing Problems Solved. Ever had any of these problems? Look up words that seem interesting to you. Jot down sentences that seem well crafted.
With these responses and other reflections, you are ready to write your Profile. Compose your profile to introduce yourself as a writer to me and the rest of the class. In your profile, you might include descriptions of your writing processes. Tell us what you’ve written recently and what you hope or plan to write in the future. What kinds of writing come easily? What comes hard? Do you have recurring sticking points and times of smooth sailing?
What sort of writing do you admire? What writers do you admire? What sort of readers do you want to impress, convince, persuade, delight, amuse, entertain?? What other purposes do you have for writing??
What was the most fruitful writing situation for you? the least fruitful? Have you ever been in a writing group? with what results?
If you compared your processes
or your styles to some other art or process, what might it (they) be? For instance,
rock music? Mozart? New Wave? Brazillian samba? Michaelangelo, Jackson Pollack,
Georgia O’Keefe? refried beans, sushi, pizza? the Empire State Building,
the
Golden Gate Bridge, downtown L.A., the rain forests of the Amazon? Butterflies,
leopards, frogs? For you is writing most like gardening or mining or cooking
or hunting?
At the end include what you expect for participation in this class. What are your hopes, goals, aspirations? fears, apprehensions, uneasinesses?
At the top of your profile, put name, address, phone number and include a picture of yourself. This can be a photocopy of student card or license.