English 114B-02:
Stretch Composition, Second Semester
Spring 2011
Jerome Richfield Hall 248 (Th), 247 (T)
T R 9:30 - 10:45
Office Hours: T 2:30 - 3:30, Th 2:30 - 4:30

Introduction
Welcome back to Approaches to University Writing!  Semester II continues where Semester I left off, only now with a new method called The Projects.  As we learned in Semester I, writing and language competence develops recursively and socially, not linearly and autonomously.  The rhetorical nature of reading and writing requires that you consider how to use language effectively for a particular audience, within a particular context, and using appropriate conventions.  Attention to rhetoric, genre, and conventions can help you determine what can be said in a given set of circumstances as well as how it can be said.  It is equally important to note that reading and writing are interconnected processes.  All writers enter conversations and communities through their words, so writers must also be readers of texts, contexts, and culture more generally.  

ENGL 114B is a workshop of peers.  Our success depends on our willingness to share ideas and
review each other’s work

Course Description
Prerequisites: Successful completion of  ENGL 114A. Expository prose writing with a focus on both content and form. Specific emphases shall include the exercise of logical thought and clear expression, the development of effective organizational strategies, and the appropriate gathering and utilization of evidence. Includes instruction on diction, syntax, and grammar, as well as the elements of prose style. Students receive credit for only one course chosen from AAS, CAS, CHS, ENGL, and PAS 114A/B. 

Course Goals

• Demonstrate competence in university writing
• Demonstrate the ability to use rhetorical strategies that include the appeal to audience, logic, and emotion
• Understand writing as a recursive process and demonstrate its use through invention, drafting and revision (creating, shaping, and completing)
• Demonstrate the ability to use conventions of format, structure, style, and language appropriate to the purpose of a written text
• Demonstrate the ability to use library and online resources effectively and to document their sources their sources.

Student Learning Outcomes

You will gain the ability to read critically
You’ll read extensively from a variety of academic and non-academic texts, including anthology essays, academic journal articles, autobiography, fiction, and news media. You will demonstrate the capacity to read critically by responding to these texts during class discussions as well as writing projects that include exercises, essays, and thematic projects.

You will gain the ability to write effectively
You will produce a range of writing that demonstrates proficiency with rhetorical strategies and expository writing concepts. This writing will include autobiography, dialogues, epistles, descriptive and argumentative essays, interactive Web reflections, thematic projects, and blogs.

You will gain knowledge of the cultural diversity of literatures
You will read an assorted body of literature produced by writers from across the globe.  You will discuss and write about these diverse experiences.

Materials
Austin.  Reading the World: Ideas that Matter
Blog (http://www.blogger.com)
Bolter and Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media
Moodle (http://moodle.csun.edu)
Pomerance.  The Elephant Man: A Play
Supplementary Readings (via Moodle)  

Course Requirements
Completion of Stretch Semester II entails the following:

• Regular attendance
• Moodle post (weekly @250-500 words)
• Reading the World essay pair presentation
• Reading the World rhetorical analyses (10 @ 250 words each)
• The Projects (3): each project includes group work, group presentation, and individual essay
• Reflective essay with self assessment
• Portfolio

Our Method: The Projects
The Progressions brought us to the academic argumentative essay by way of an introduction to voice, genre, and scholarly research. The Projects ask that we continue there yet with greater emphasis on collaboration and a more sophisticated theoretical scope. 

The Projects include Project Web, Project Space, and Project Text, and each entails critical reading, process work, and group work.  The Projects also require composing with new media, fieldwork, and class presentations. 

PROJECT WEB: Project Web asks that you form groups of three and, in conversation with each group member, design a blog devoted to a particular theme decided on by the group. Your group will read and write about technology and social change, immediacy, hypermediacy, and remediation.

Note that your blog should include graphics, video, and animation that illustrate the content and themes of your particular blog posts.  Each blog post will be academic in content and style.  The blog provides you with an alternative space in which to practice writing and revision.

Project Web Requirements:

• Critical reading
• Blog title
• Preferred emails on blog
• Introduction to blog (stating purpose, theme, and group members--no references to class)
• Various posts related to blog theme, with creative use of new media (e.g., YouTube clips and other Web media)
• Group presentation
• Individual essays (@1,000 words; hardcopy for review and Web version posted on blog) demonstrating good scholarly research

PROJECT SPACE: Project Space asks that you form new groups of four to consider the socioeconomics and politics of space.  While space can be defined as urban, community, and personal, it may also be institutional (e.g., the university and hospital).  We’re interested in how space shapes our conception of world, self, and other.

Project Space requirements:

• Critical reading
• Fieldwork
• Physical representation of your fieldwork, e.g., model, diagram, etc.
• Group presentation
• Individual essays (@1,000 words) demonstrating good scholarly research

PROJECT TEXT:  Project Text asks that you form new groups of four to interpret a major text through close reading and research. Our “text” is The Elephant Man: A Play by Bernard Pomerance.  We’ll approach this text through a number of critical sources, classroom discussions and activities, and individual student essays.

Project Text requirements:

• Critical reading
• Group Presentation
• Annotated bibliography of five texts (not included in class)
• Individual essays (@ 1,000- words)

Following the completion of The Projects:

Reflective Essay: you will review and reflect on all Stretch work (The Progressions and The Projects) @ 500-750 words. Assess your progress.

Participation
Class participation includes discussions, student-instructor conferences, and workshop activities.  Everyone has something to contribute to our class, and there is always an opportunity to learn from one another.  If you do not feel comfortable speaking in class you may participate in other ways.  Although participation grades will not be distributed, I will be happy to discuss any questions you have about your progress.

Papers
The bulk of your grade (see "Grades" below) will be based upon essays and exercises that you will submit over the course of the term.  Each item will be assigned a specific due date as well as instruc­tions regarding drafting, conferences, peer group work, and use of the Writing Center.  Out-of-class papers must be composed and revised at the computer.  Please print a copy of each draft before you revise it.  

All final written work will go in your final porfolio.

Note: late papers will not be accepted unless you have obtained an extension from me ahead of time. You must submit your essay even if you miss class on its due date. 

Essay Discussion Leaders
As with Semester I, find a partner early in the semester and select a Reading the World essay that you find particularly interesting.  Your pair will facilitate a discussion (not lecture) through interesting and creative ways that engage the class.  Discussion leaders should

• Help the class draw important connections between the text and contemporary issues
• Help the class recognize the essay’s intended audience
• Help the class recognize the essay’s rhetorical strategies
• Help the class recognize the essay’s thesis and the larger implications suggested by that thesis

Grades
I grade holistically, based in part on your progress over the semester and Tina Love's grading rubric (see below).  A final grade will be given after your portfolio is assessed in its entirety, at the semester’s end.  Until then, I’ll write comments and suggestions on your papers and discuss your progress in person.  Feel free to come by my office, email, or phone me if you have questions and/or concerns.  To pass this course, you must complete all work in a timely fashion and receive a passing grade on your portfolio.  

114B Spring 2011 Syllabus

Please note that work is due on the date listed below and assignments are subject to change.  Not all readings and written assignments are represented.

1/25
Introduction: “Communication, the Real, and You”
Moodle

1/27
Discuss syllabus
Choose Austin’s Reading the World essays and partners
Discuss presentation strategies

2/1
Austin. Ruth Benedict’s “The Individual and the Pattern of Culture”

2/3
Austin.  Margaret Meade’s “Warfare: An Invention—Not a Biological Necessity” 

2/8
Austin.  George Orwell’s “Pacifism and the War”

2/10
Austin.  Arundati Roy’s “Come September” (Moodle)

PROJECT WEB

2/15
Create blog with “Welcome” post, and email me your blog address
Bolster and Grusin.  “Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation”

2/17
Bolster and Grusin.  “Mediation and Remediation”
Bolster and Grusin.  “Networks of Remediation”

2/22
Bolster and Grusin.  “Computer Games”
Locate five kinds of sources for your Project Web paper, due March 10.  Consider genre as you search for these texts:

Argumentative Journal Essay via Oviatt Library Search Engine
New Writing  via Oviatt Library Search Engine or Web
Primary Text from Web
Technical piece
Opinion Piece

2/24
Bolster and Grusin.  “Digital Art”
Bolster and Grusin.  “Film”

3/1
Bolster and Grusin. “Virtual Reality”
Bolster and Grusin.  “Mediated Spaces”

3/3
Bolster and Grusin.  “The Remediated Self”

3/8
Bolster and Grusin.  “The Virtual Self”
Bolster and Grusin.  “The Networked Self”

3/10
Project Web Group Presentations
Project Web Essay Due

 PROJECT SPACE

3/15
Harvey.  Spaces of Hope Ch. 5 "Uneven Geographical Developments and Universal Rights"
"Small House Living in Japan" < Click and View!
"A tiny home tour: living in 96 square feet" < Click and View!

3/17
Harvey.  Spaces of Hope Ch. 8 "Spaces of Utopia"
"David Harvey Lecture at Cornell (2 of 10)" < Click and View!

3/22
Austin.  Octavio Paz’s “The Day of the Dead”
Proposal: The Space of Utopia: Map and Analysis

3/24
Fieldwork and Ethnography (Due 4/12)  

3/29
Austin.  Marx and Engels’s “The Communist Manifesto”
Habermas.  The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere Ch. 2 "Social Structures of the Public Sphere"

3/31
No Class: Cesar Chavez Day

4/5
Spring Break

4/7
Spring Break

4/12
Austin.  Thomas Malthus’s “An Essay on the Principles of Population”
Project Space Ethnography Due

4/14
Foucault.  Discipline and Punish (Lecture)

4/19
Austin.  Garrett Hardin’s “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor”

4/21
Project Space Group Presentations
Project Space Essay Due

PROJECT TEXT

4/26
Austin. Freud’s “The Dependent Relationship of the Ego”
Bettelheim.  “Introduction,” Uses of Enchantment (Moodle)
Austin. Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Ethics of Ambiguity”
de Beauvoir's "Introduction" to The Second Sex
Said. Orientalism (Moodle)

4/28
Due: Fairy Tale analysis
Foucault.  Madness and Civilization (Moodle)
Gould. The Mismeasure of Man (Moodle)

5/3
Pomerance.  The Elephant Man

5/5
Pomerance.  The Elephant Man
Film: The Elephant Man

5/10
Reflective Essay Draft Workshop

5/12
Project Text Group Presentations
Project Text Essay Due
Final Thoughts and Farewells

Reading the World: Ideas that Matter:
10 Anthology Essays for Class Discussion

Discussion leaders facilitate discussions (not lectures) through interesting and creative ways that engage the class.  Discussion leaders should

• Help the class draw important connections between the text and contemporary issues
• Help the class recognize the essay’s intended audience
• Help the class recognize the essay’s rhetorical strategies
• Help the class recognize the essay’s thesis and larger implications

Possible strategies include asking meaningful questions, group activities, textual connections, and film clips.
 
Please note that everyone is responsible for a 250-word rhetorical analysis the day an anthology essay is due.  A rhetorical analysis illustrates an essay’s main idea, larger implications, writing techniques, intended audience, and overall significance.

2/1
Austin. Benedict’s “The Individual and the Pattern of Culture”

2/3
Austin.  Margaret Meade’s “Warfare: An Invention—Not a Biological Necessity”

2/8
Austin.  George Orwell’s “Pacifism and the War”

2/10
Austin.  Arundati Roy’s “Come September”

3/22
Austin.  Octavio Paz’s “The Day of the Dead”

3/29
Austin.  Marx and Engels’s “The Communist Manifesto”

4/12
Austin.  Thomas Malthus’s “An Essay on the Principles of Population”

4/14
Austin.  Garrett Hardin’s “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor”

4/21
Austin. Freud’s “The Dependent Relationship of the Ego”

4/26
Austin. Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Ethics of Ambiguity”

Tina Love's Grading Rubric for Stretch Projects: