Reading
Responses:
[There is no specific text for this class except for A Writer’s Handbook, which you are required to have as an English 100 student. Use this resource for all of your questions concerning correct forms of verbs, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, sentence structure, and tense agreement. That is the reason a handbook is provided, it will prove useful for you. If you are still having problems with the above mentioned categories, or I notice a pattern developing in the class, I will take a portion of a class or an entire class to go over the problem and try to resolve it. I am not intending to spend much, if any, time on these areas. If you have specific problems already, please come talk to me right away (early I n the semester) or raise the problem up in class, and I can go over this with you and the class. We will take all necessary time to fix problems of these sorts out. This is what I am here for. Use me.]
Each week (if time allows), we will be reading a piece of writing. These readings are all hyper linked on-line. If you want, you may print them out, but i will expect that they will have already been read by the time class discussions arise. I will be handing out specific questions for you to answer in relation with the reading on Mondays. These responses must be typed and must be two (2) full pages in length, double-spaced. These will then be due on Thursday of that same week. I will then read them and return them to you on the following Monday. Once I return these, you will store them, in order, in a 3-ring binder that you will keep for the class. These will be placed in the front section of the binder. The second section will contain in-class writing exercises.
We will also spend a portion of the class time on Thursdays to discuss the readings in class (you can talk about what you wrote in your responses, or we can have a debate, the discussion can go anywhere and, more than likely, will). The readings will be important because they will reinforce whatever paper we might be working on at the same time. Thus you will have a lot of work throughout the week.
The responses will be specifically structured and will be based upon certain questions that I will ask you about the readings. There will be room for you to also give your own responses towards the pieces--these will be a bit more subjective, more based on how it made your feel after reading the piece, what ideas were invoked in your mind, if you liked it or not, etc. I will discuss and show you the specific structure when I hand out the first reading.
The readings will draw from many areas and topics:
politics, current events, popular culture, law, fiction,
biography, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, drama--the list
can go on. But the readings will always reflect upon the
main paper that we are doing at the time. If you have
anything that you would like the class to read, please talk to me
and we can decide if it is something that would be useful and
appropriate for the class.