R12 S04 H22
Office hours: By Zoom appointment
Phone: 183-2162
Academic Skills II
Group One: Thursday 8-10 R12 R04 B11
Group Three: Thursday 14-16 R12 R04 B11
Group Four: Thursday 16-18 R12 R04 B11
This class will help you learn to write different types of essays. Bear in mind the templates we used last term—you’re welcome to use them anytime they seem helpful. But the focus will now be on reading different kinds of essays, among them the “how-to” essay, the “definition” essay, and argumentative essays, namely essays driving home particular points in controversial areas like religion and politics.
The goal of the course is to learn how to persuade your readers to respect your opinion, and if possible to change the reader’s opinion. Each week you will get a different method but you will choose your own topics.
The course consists in a series of enjoyable readings, all online or available as PDFs on the syllabus, that will be mined for particular techniques: good thesis statements, that is, the announcement in your essay of why or how your opinion should be followed; definition, that is, your explanation of important terms in your essay; method, that is, how you arrive at your opinion as well as justify it, and finally tone: with your topic of choice, does it make sense to be serious, humorous, straightforward, satiric? Read each essay twice, first to understand it, then to examine the ingredients of the argument. Identify what you’d consider the point that needs to be argued and then see how the writer argues it.
Requirements: All students must come to class with thoughts about the reading. All students must meet essay deadlines. Do all the readings during the week in which they are assigned and turn in all essays on time. Essays must be typed and proofread. Every week, you will produce an essay of 2-3 pages on a topic following the method of that week. You may write more if you wish. Every week, you will be ready to offer editing help on essays written for this class and receive help with your own. Every week, we will spend some time writing in class.
You will get to select topics and suggest readings. There is no reader for this section of the course: you are invited to consult the following links:
Useful links: (not required, just helpful)
http://tetw.org/post/51496965520/10-classic-essays
https://www.academia.edu/38213964/Karen_Elizabeth_Gordon_The_Deluxe_Transitive_Vampire
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/composition.htm
(Note: check out their essay on writer’s block—it helps!)
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar
http://jacklynch.net/EngPaper/thesis.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis_statement
(Take this with a grain of salt—it’s a useful overview, not a formula)
How to do a close reading: https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-do-close-reading
(To write well about someone else’s writing, whether it’s a poem, an essay, a novel, or anything else, you need to do a close reading of it. This link gives you one way of doing so).
Recommended (NOT required):
Birkenstein and Graff, They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Strunk&White, The Elements of Style, 4th edition
Gordon, Karen Elizabeth. The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed.
Remember the following for every single class:
Your writing should always concern topics that interest you. I, or any teacher, may assign a particular theme, but you must find a way to make it interesting to yourself. As a general rule, any subject that provokes a strong feeling—one that makes you feel either “I love that,” “I hate that” or “I don’t want to think about that!” will provide good material. Controversy is nearly always good in essay writing: it is also good mental training to pick your way through minefields of public opinion in, say, an election year. It is good to show where you stand and why. It is also good to thoroughly imagine the point of view of a reader unsympathetic to your topic.
Topics that traditionally provoke conflicting opinions include, but are not limited to, the following: Politics, Religion, Family, Sexuality, Money, Food. If you can’t think what to write about, gravitate to these topics. Along the way, issues of grammar and mechanics—“the rules”—will be important, but it is well to remember that the rules are generally there to make things easier for the reader. Some rules are just conventions, and have changed within the last fifty years, and will probably change within your lifetimes.
Bearing these comments in mind, answer ONE of the following questions in as much detail as possible. Set a timer and write for at least 30 minutes. We'll read some of these out loud and look at ways to use this writing in essays.
(1) What has your experience with writing been thus far? You may go back as far as elementary school, if you wish. Discuss the ways in which you have been taught to write (and not write) and please include your opinion of teachers and methods.
(2) Read the following excerpt from the King James Bible. Then, put it into YOUR OWN WORDS and comment on it:
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
April 7: Introduction to the Course. In-class writing
April 14: The How-To Essay: Step by Step
First, read this essay:
George Orwell “A Nice Cup of Tea”
http://www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm
Write an essay in which you explain how to do something. Remember that you are making a point about something or someone—you’re not just giving information on, say, how to bake chocolate cupcakes or tame rioting teenagers, but telling your reader why anyone would want to do so. Yes, you’re offering facts, but you’re also giving those facts meaning.
April 21: Definition
First, read this essay:
E.M. Forster, “What I Believe”
http://spichtinger.net/otexts/believe.html
Write an essay entitled, “What I Believe.” Your topic need not deal with religious belief. You may write what you believe about politics, certain types of employment, ice cream or ballet, for example. Before you begin: notice that in this essay Forster is doing something very difficult—trying to define abstractions like “belief” and “faith.” Doing so is more difficult than offering definitions of things you can see or feel, like baseball mitts and face masks. What techniques does Forster use? Would you want to imitate them in your own essay?
April 28: Definition, continued
In this unit you will learn how to define something or someone by saying how or why you are not that thing.
First, read this essay:
Bertrand Russell, “Why I Am Not a Christian”
You may listen to Russell reading his essay here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdDYvvevLZk
Write an essay about why you are not something: “Why I am not a Cook,” for example, “Why I am not an Ax Murderer,” or “Why I am not a Physicist.” Again, give reasons for your preferences. Go beyond, “I’m not interested in measuring flour and melting butter.” For example, if you’re writing about why you’re not a baker, offer up a “because” that convinces us we’d rather forget the kitchen and head for the bakery. You might think of the end point of the essay as: “I am this because I am not this other thing—or these other things.” While you’re writing, think of useful contexts in which you could apply this type of thinking—for example “This poem I’m reading is not a sonnet, and not a ballad, and not blank verse—so what is it? And why is it important to know what kind of a poem it is?”
May 5: Argument
In the following essay by George Orwell, written seventy years ago, observe the point he’s making—see if you can find his “thesis statement” in the first paragraph—and think about whether you would think about politics and the English language in the same way today. Think also about some of his comments about particular words, whether you agree or disagree and why.
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”
http://www.public-library.uk/ebooks/72/30.pdf or https://archive.org/details/PoliticsAndTheEnglishLanguage/page/n7/mode/2up
Write an essay in which you tackle the political issue of your choice. You may, for example, discuss a political candidate or leader; you may dissect the results of an election; you may suggest conditions under which a politician may be elected. You need not stick to national elections. Feel free to limit your understanding of “politics” to social or cultural situations—like the way different governments handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
May 12: Contemporary politics and religion in the personal essay:
Alexis Okeowo, “The Fight Over Women’s Basketball in Somalia”
Notice how this essay makes a point with an accretion of stories rather than a thesis
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/11/the-fight-over-womens-basketball-in-somalia
Write an essay about women and sports. Should women play sports? Why or why not? Feel free to argue the point either way.
May 19: Politics and women. Edwidge Danticat, “We are Ugly but We are Here” (1996)
http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/haiti/literature/danticat-ugly.htm
Consider the work of Okeowo and Danticat, both of whom write about women in the developing world. Write an essay dealing with some aspect of human rights, women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ rights or characteristics of the developing world that have an impact on your own life. (If you like, check out the following essay on that: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/style/lgbtq-gender-language.html)
You may consider a range of topics from immigration to social customs like single parenthood, drug or alcohol abuse, forced marriage and FGM .
May 26: Why Write? George Orwell “Why I Write”
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write/
Write an essay entitled “Why I Write,” and consider at least one topic that makes you want to express your opinion strongly. Try to use that topic in an argument about why you write.
June 2: Why Read?
Read Virginia Woolf, “How Should One Read a Book?” https://www.nottinghilleditions.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/NHE-Woolf-HowShouldOneReadABook.pdf
This essay articulates the need to trust one’s own instincts about writing. I’ve added it to the syllabus not just for Woolf’s message, but also to answer the question she raises. You read for enjoyment as well as information, and you read because doing so provides you with ideas and opinions to which you can react in your own essays. Write an essay that raises a question and answers it. For example, “Why Eat?” or “Why Stay Inside During This Pandemic?” or “Why Read?”
June 9: The Uses of Irony and Satire
Before starting, look up irony and satire and think of where you’ve seen them in writing or any other medium—The Simpsons, for example, or even Family Guy.
Read Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
Think of a topic about which you have a strong opinion, preferably one you wish interested others more. Become an activist advocating this cause, and assume that normal means of persuasion have already failed. Write a “modest proposal” mimicking the style of Jonathan Swift; maintain a “reasonable” tone like the authorial persona in Swift’s essay and write your proposal for an organization or institution with the ability to work toward a solution to the problem.
June 16: Irony and Satire, continued. Charles Lamb, “A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig” http://www.bartleby.com/380/prose/491.html
Ever wonder who thought up the barbecue, or why? Charles Lamb’s humorous invention of its origins are designed to comment on the foolishness inherent in human ingenuity. How many things get invented by accident or luck?
Consider any custom that appeals to you, or one that you hate. Write a satiric essay inventing its origins.
June 23 I’d like you to select a topic or a method that interests you. Possibilities:
Topic One
“Food, Glorious Food”
Read AT LEAST ONE of the essays from this site: http://ruthreichl.com/2016/05/food-race-gender.html/
(NB: a few of these essays, mainly from Gourmet magazine, are no longer available, but there’s still plenty)
Write a letter to a restaurant explaining why you did or did not like their food or their service OR write a letter to a young person explaining to them how to cook a particular dish.
June 30 The Braided Essay: This is a form of personal essay weaving together two strands. One might be historic, cultural, instructional, the other a personal story. The non-personal sections illuminate the personal story. Here are some examples to emulate:
Brenda Miller’s Swerve
Lee Ann Roripaugh’s The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed
Nicole Walker’s Superfluidity
Matthew Komatsu’s When We Played
July 7 Revise completely the essay of your choice.
July 14 Revise completely the essay of your choice.
- Lehrende(r): Melissa Knox-Raab