First Year Writing

Syllabus

Writing is a practice and a process, thus the “-ing” on the end of the word. In this class, we will focus on the inventing, the doing, and the revising--and not as much on the finishing, not on the being done. Nor will we emphasize the tried and true methods of writing (though we will keep our eyes and ears turned to grammar and style as necessary); instead, we will be called upon to invent writing as we do it.

Since writing is more a medium and less a subject matter in and of itself, we will narrow our focus on a specific set of topics as we proceed throughout the semester, establishing a common ground for us as a community of authors by using our writing to ask and answer a series of related questions. Thus, the reading and writing you do this semester will center around the topic of what it is to be human and the following sorts of questions: What is human nature? What is our relationship as a species to the rest of the natural world? How have we evolved as a species and how will we continue to evolve? What is it to have a body--to be flesh? How are our bodies being transformed in this era of technology and consumerism? And, how do we relate to one another, how do we construct a politics, in the face of this transformation? We’ll also be spending a good deal of time considering our own relationship to reading and writing (and our own potential for transformation), exploring the real (psychological and physical) impact writing has on us.

CCHE CRITERIA: The Colorado Commission for Higher Education (CCHE) is a division of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, and part of its purpose is to make sure that general education courses at colleges across the state are based on similar criteria in terms of content knowledge and skills. Writing courses fall under the content area of “Communication” and include skills in written communication, reading, and critical thinking. The following “Course Objectives” have been adapted from the CCHE requirements for an Intermediate Writing Course, which WRTG 1150 is considered.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
• To write with fluency; to more deeply understand the writing process. Thus, we will work through the various stages of the writing process in a deliberate and reflective way, using workshopping, revision through multiple drafts, and self-evaluation. This will require a good deal of collaboration as we both write together and respond to each other’s writing.

• To deepen our rhetorical sensitivity, making informed choices as we adapt our writing to the needs of our readers. Thus, we will work in various genres, always conscious of the context, purpose, and audience for our work. While we will be thinking mostly about written texts, we will also discuss and utilize visual rhetoric, thinking about the various ways that words and images interact.

• To become a proficient reader, approaching texts with a writer’s awareness of craft and a critic’s ability to interpret and respond to a text’s meaning and effects. Toward this end, we will be doing a good deal of reading in this course, closely analyzing representative examples of the various writing genres and modes we’re working with. The skills of close-reading will be utilized in the analysis of literary works, visual texts, and in the examination of our own writing.

• To develop strategies of research that will enable us to become active investigators of culture. While the texts we produce ourselves over the course of the semester will be our primary texts, we will also bring outside sources into conversation with our own ideas, including materials we discuss in class and materials we research independently.

• To deepen our understanding of writing conventions, recognizing and examining the real effects grammar, syntax, and punctuation have on readers. We will think carefully about the choices we make as writers in all the different sorts of writing that we do with the goal of honing our own individual style.

TEXTS AND FILMS: All of the texts of the course have been chosen with several purposes in mind: (1) to serve as representative examples of the various sorts of work we’ll be doing ourselves; (2) as fodder for our own adventures in literary and rhetorical analysis; (3) because they are germane to the various subjects at hand, particularly writing, meaning-making, language, the relationship between words and images, and humans as language/image-makers.

McCarthy, The Road (2006)
McCloud, Understanding Comics (1993)
Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen (1987)
Tomasula and Farrell, TOC: A New Media Novel (2009)
Ellis and Pearce, Knowing Words: A Guide to First-Year Writing and Rhetoric (2009)
(Optional): Williams, Style: Basics of Clarity and Grace (2008)
Herzog, Encounter at the End of the World (2007)
Stanton, Wall-E (2008)
Kelly, Donnie Darko (2001)
And several short works you’ll download from this site and several short films (and film clips) we’ll watch in class.

ATTENDANCE AND CLASS PARTICIPATION: Since this is a collaborative course, focusing heavily on discussion and workshopping, you have a responsibility to yourself and your classmates to show up for class on time and prepared. The class will be a cooperative learning experience, a true intellectual community. And so, you and your writing are, in a very real sense, the primary texts for this course. Because of this, participation will be a very large component of your final grade. Thus, it follows that more than three absences during the semester will directly affect your grade. Also, in order for the class to work together as a community, it is important that you complete all assigned work before each class session. If you are going to miss class or can’t finish the assigned work for any reason, just let me know in advance either in person or via e-mail. Also, I’m required to say that students who miss the first week of classes will be dropped from the course.

OFFICE HOURS: I have scheduled regular office hours and I’m also available by appointment. If you’d like to meet with me in person, I’d recommend chatting with me in advance to set up a time. I’m always happy to meet with you (to discuss the course or just to chat). This is the most effective way for me to give you individual attention and get to know you better. I encourage you to meet with me as early in the semester as possible, especially if you have any particular questions or concerns. I’m also very easy to reach by e-mail. In fact, e-mail is (by far) the best and quickest way to contact me. You can send an e-mail with questions or comments.

E-MAIL: The University now requires that every student have an active e-mail account that they check regularly. E-mail is an important component of this course. I will be sending regular announcements to you via e-mail, so if you do not check your e-mail regularly, you will miss crucial information related to the course.

ONLINE CONTENT: There are numerous links on this webpage that will take you to various assignments and readings that we will be doing throughout the semester. You can access e-texts of some of the readings via this web page--just click on the title in the schedule. My advice: if you make this web site your friend, you’ll have no trouble completing all the reading and assignments for the course. As we proceed, I will be uploading additional content, including more course notes, activities, and assignments, so keep checking for updates.

COLLABORATION: I encourage collaboration on any of the worksheets or on the final essay. If you have questions about the various ways collaboration can work, feel free to chat with me at any point.

THE WORK OF THE COURSE:
• Class Participation. This includes your attendance, involvement in class discussion, in-class assignments, workshops, and other small-group work. As I mentioned, this is (by far) the most important component of the course.

• Blog. This is an offshoot of class participation. Several times throughout the semester you will be writing responses to the course blog. Unlike journaling or response papers you’d submit only to me, this will give you a chance to practice your writing in a more social forum. Like journaling, though, this is meant to be an informal outlet, so you shouldn’t worry about this writing being scrutinized or evaluated. Just make sure your ideas can be understood. Some of these responses will be more structured (i.e. a response to questions I give to you), while many of them will be more flexible, allowing you to respond to any aspect of what we are studying. Responses should be as collaborative as possible. In other words, don’t just throw your ideas into a vacuum. Instead, ask questions of each other and use the other responses as a jumping off point by answering questions, amplifying or complicating ideas, etc.

• Leading Class Discussion. You will be asked to help lead discussion at least one time throughout the semester. This is, by no means, a formal presentation. Rather, on the day you sign up for, be prepared to come to class with a few questions or topics related to the reading for that day, and bring at least one or two passages which you’d like the group to look at in detail. You are also encouraged to engage your group in writing or other activities related to the text you’re discussing. As you are leading class discussion, I will be mostly silent, moderating the discussions to some degree but primarily acting as a member of the group w/ my own questions, comments, etc. This activity will generally help shape the direction our discussion takes for the rest of the class period.

• Worksheets. As a tool to help focus our discussions and help you generate ideas for your longer papers, there will be a number of short worksheets due during the semester. There are two scheduled during the first weeks, and I will add more as the semester proceeds. Please refer to the schedule for worksheet due dates. You will submit your worksheet answer(s) via e-mail to me at Jesse.Stommel@colorado.edu. Please don’t use attachments, just the text of your answer(s) in the body of an e-mail.

• RIOT Tutorials. Later in the semester as you begin research for your final project, we will visit the Research Center in the library, where we will learn useful strategies and tips about the research process, conducting searches, and proper citation of sources. Prior to this visit, you will complete several tutorials online. While I’ve put due dates for these on the syllabus, I would recommend that you begin as early as possible so that you don’t feel like you have to rush through them at the last minute. There are links to these tutorials on the schedule, and you can also find them here.

• Creative Non-Fiction Essay. You’ll begin preparation for this paper by completing an Adventure Report, an assignment that will encourage you to stretch your boundaries in the non-written world. Your Creative Non-Fiction Essay will be derived from the experience you choose for this activity. The more engaging your experience, the better your writing will be. Don't forget the details. Don't just catalogue a series of events. The more sensory details you include, the more your reader will feel as though they are right there with you. Even the most grammatically correct writing falls flat if it doesn't come alive for the reader. Make sure you consider carefully the implications of your narrative. One of the things that distinguishes creative non-fiction from other sorts of narrative writing is that you're not only telling a story but also reflecting upon it in some significant way. Don't just tack a moral on the end. Instead, try to insert your own reflections on the events of the story throughout, moving back and forth between the offering of vivid details and a discussion of why those details are important to you and your reader. The final paper should be around 3-5 pages.

• Literary Analysis Essay. You’ll begin preparation for this paper by writing a short close-analysis paper, which you’ll expand into a full analytical essay. You will offer a critical reading of one of the literary texts we’ve discussed in class by choosing a topic or theme that interests you and presenting an analysis of what the text is attempting to do with relation to that theme. A “text” can be any of the films, essays, novels, poems, etc. that we’ve discussed during the course. Here are some steps that might help if you're having trouble with how to approach your literary analysis paper. Think of a theme in the text that you are interested in (perhaps something that came up in the passage/shot you close-analyzed, perhaps something else). Then, find more passages/shots that relate to that theme. Determine what you want to argue about the theme, i.e. The Road is a book about... and that theme gets taken up in order to... Or, Lola is a character obsessed with... and that leads her to... You are also welcome to compare/contrast two different texts, i.e. While “The Waste Land” touches on the subject of... in the following ways..., The Road approaches these same subjects differently... Use close-analysis of specific passages/shots to support your argument. You are welcome to incorporate some of what you write for one or more of the worksheets in this unit, but if you do, be sure to revise so your work doesn't feel disjointed. The final paper should be of an adequate length to explore your critical reading fully, or around 4-6 pages.

• Illustrated Argumentative Essay. This paper will be the culmination of everything you've done in class thus far. The goal of this paper is to investigate one of the important subjects of this course. You will start by choosing a specific issues or topic that has arisen for you during the course of the semester. You are welcome to incorporate literary analysis and personal anecdotes into this piece, but you will also move beyond that by incorporating research about your subject. Toward this end, you will complete an Annotated Bibliography to reflect this research. Your paper will have two components, a written component and a visual component. The degree to which these two elements overlap is up to you. Since this is an argumentative essay, you will want to make sure that both your written and visual elements clearly support and contribute to your argument.

The Visual component can take any of a number of forms, including but not limited to graphic art, video, photography, Powerpoint, a web page, etc. Words are very rarely divorced from images in our culture. What we read is usually accompanied by images, whether it’s direct illustrations, advertisements, the cover of a book, other elements on the page (of a newspaper or web site), etc. We’ll be talking quite a bit about the way that words and images are in conversation with one another, and this is what you’ll be reflecting in your work. We’ll consider more examples and possibilities as the semester proceeds. The other component of the final paper will be an argumentative paper. The length of this paper depends, to some degree, on the nature of your visual work. We’ll discuss this further as we begin working on this assignment.

Feel free to develop your final paper from one of the other papers or worksheets you complete during the semester, broadening its scope or reinventing it in some significant way. You may also collaborate on this paper, if you’d like, although make sure that each person in your group is at least somewhat involved in every aspect of the final product (i.e. don’t have one person just do the visual part and the other just do the written part). This final project takes the place of a final exam.

GRADING: While you will be receiving a grade at the end of the semester, I will not be putting grades on individual assignments, but rather questions and comments that truly engage with your work rather than simply evaluate it. Throughout the semester, you will also be responding to your own work and each other’s work in a similar fashion. The intention here is to help you focus on working in a more organic way, as opposed to working as you think you are expected to. I hope that this process will give you (and me) a partial liberation from letter grades, but if it ends up causing more anxiety than it alleviates, feel free to see me at any point to confer about your performance in the course to date. If you are worried about your grade in the class, your best strategy should be to attend class, join the discussions, do the reading, and complete all assignments. Click here to see the sort of self-evaluation you will complete at the end of the semester. You will complete something similar following each of the major papers. This will give us a chance to check in with each other at several points as the semester proceeds, so if you have concerns about how you’re doing in the course, we will have many chances to address them.

PLAGIARISM: First, I will say that if you are unable to complete an assignment for any reason, it is in your best interest to discuss the situation with me. Authorship is a hotly contested topic in the academy. At what point do we own the words we say and write or the images we create? Among authors and filmmakers, creative influence, collaboration, and a certain amount of borrowing are acceptable (even encouraged). So, what sort of statement or warning about plagiarism would be appropriate in this class? Let me go out on a limb and say: in this class, I encourage you to borrow ideas (from me, from the authors we read, from the films we watch, from your classmates). However, even more, I encourage you to really make them your own—by playing with, manipulating, applying, and otherwise turning them on their head. In the end, it’s just downright boring to rest on the laurels of others. It’s altogether more daring (and, frankly, more fun) to invent something new yourself—a new idea, a new way of thinking, a new claim, a new image. This doesn’t give you license to copy something in its entirety and slap your name on it. That’s just stealing. Instead, think very self-consciously about the way that you are influenced by your sources—by the way knowledge and creativity depend on a sort of inheritance. And think also about the real responsibility you have to those sources.

DISABILITIES ACCOMMODATION: If you have any physical, psychological, or learning disabilities that need accommodations, please let me know early in the semester. If you have questions or concerns, you can also contact the Disability Services Office in Willard 322 (phone 303-492-8671). Their website is available at www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices.

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES: Please let me know if the observance of religious holidays conflicts in any way with class assignments, attendance, etc., and I am happy to work with you. The CU-Boulder campus policy is available at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/fac_religion.html.

HONOR CODE: All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council (honor@colorado.edu; 303-725-2273). Students who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion). See http://www.colorado.edu/policies/honor.html and at http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/.

DISCRIMINATION AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT: The University of Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and the University of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships applies to all students, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member who believes s/he has been the subject of discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at 303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. For information and campus resources see http://www.colorado.edu/odh.

Schedule

Creative Non-fiction

WEEK 1: INTRO / THE ESSAY
Jan. 11: Introduction
Jan. 13: Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”
Knowing Words (Ch. 1 and Ch. 2)
Worksheet #1 Due (e-mail before class)

WEEK 2: THE ESSAY
Jan. 18: NO CLASS
Jan. 20: Thoreau, “Solitude”

WEEK 3: THE DOCUMENTARY ESSAY
Jan. 25: Film: Encounters at the End of the World
Worksheet #2 Due (e-mail before class)
Jan. 27: Mary Roach, Stiff: “Life After Death”

WEEK 4: WRITERLY ESSAYS
Feb. 1: Adventure Report Due (e-mail before class and bring a hard copy)
Feb. 3: Emerson, “The Poet”
Woolf, A Room of One’s Own: “Shakespeare’s Sister”
Feb. 7:: Creative Non-fiction Opening Paragraph Due (e-mail by midnight)

WEEK 5: THE MYTHS AND RULES OF WRITING
Feb. 8: Opening Paragraph Workshop
Hoy, “The Disarming Seduction of Stories”
Knowing Words (Ch. 3 and Ch. 5)
(Optional): Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (Lesson 1 and 2)
Feb. 10: Paper Workshop: Bring 4 Copies of Creative Non-fiction Draft
Feb. 14: Creative Non-fiction Essay and Writer’s Letter Due (e-mail by midnight)

Literary Analysis

WEEK 6: CLOSE-ANALYSIS - POETRY / SHORT FICTION
Feb. 15: Cummings, “Pity This Busy Monster”
Levertov, “Seeing for a Moment”
Bishop, “One Art”
Feb. 17: Butler, “Speech Sounds”

WEEK 7: CLOSE-ANALYSIS - FILM
Feb. 22: “Cyborgology” Also: Cyborg Handout And: Blog
Feb. 24: Film: Wall-E (watch on your own prior to class)

WEEK 8: CLOSE-ANALYSIS - FICTION
Mar. 1: McCarthy, The Road (pp. 3 - 106)
Mar. 3: McCarthy, The Road (pp. 107 - 204)
Mar. 7: Close-reading Due (e-mail by midnight)

WEEK 9: CLOSE-ANALYSIS - FICTION
Mar. 8: McCarthy, The Road (pp. 205 - 287)
Mar. 10: McCarthy, The Road (cont. discussion)
Mar. 14: Literary Analysis Body Paragraph Due (e-mail by midnight)

WEEK 10: THE TEXTURE OF GOOD WRITING
Mar. 15: Body Paragraph Workshop
Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”
(Optional): Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (Lesson 3, 4, and 5)
Mar. 17: Paper Workshop: Bring 4 Copies of Literary Analysis Draft
Mar. 21: Literary Analysis Essay and Writer’s Letter Due (e-mail by midnight)

WEEK 11: SPRING BREAK
Mar. 22: NO CLASS
Mar. 24: NO CLASS

Visual Rhetoric

WEEK 12: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
Mar. 29: McCloud, Understanding Comics
Mar. 31: Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen (Ch. 1 - 6)

WEEK 13: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL / RESEARCH
Apr. 5: Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen (Ch. 7 - 12) (RIOT Tutorials 1-2)
Apr. 7: Library Seminar (Meet in Norlin) (RIOT Tutorials 3-4)
Knowing Words (Ch. 4)
Apr. 11: Annotated Bibliography Due (e-mail by midnight)

WEEK 14: TEXT AND IMAGE
Apr. 12: Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave”
Apr. 14: Tomasula and Farrell, TOC: A New Media Novel

WEEK 15: THE IMAGE WORLD
Apr. 19: Tomasula and Farrell, TOC: A New Media Novel
Apr. 21: Film: Donnie Darko (watch on your own prior to class)

WEEK 16: FINAL PROJECTS
Apr. 26: Film: Donnie Darko
Apr. 28: Illustrated Argumentative Essay Due in Class
Final Writer’s Letter Due (e-mail by midnight)

Essays

Creative Non-fiction Essay

You’ll begin preparation for this paper by completing an Adventure Report, an assignment that will encourage you to stretch your boundaries in the non-written world. Your Creative Non-Fiction Essay will be derived from the experience you choose for this activity. The more engaging your experience, the better your writing will be. Don't forget the details. Don't just catalogue a series of events. The more sensory details you include, the more your reader will feel as though they are right there with you. Even the most grammatically correct writing falls flat if it doesn't come alive for the reader. Make sure you consider carefully the implications of your narrative. One of the things that distinguishes creative non-fiction from other sorts of narrative writing is that you're not only telling a story but also reflecting upon it in some significant way. Don't just tack a moral on the end. Instead, try to insert your own reflections on the events of the story throughout, moving back and forth between the offering of vivid details and a discussion of why those details are important to you and your reader. The final paper should be around 3-5 pages.

Part 1: Adventure Report
This assignment will encourage you to stretch your boundaries in the non-written world; to explore the world in a writerly, playful way. Henry David Thoreau writes, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” As writers, it is our job to look. To look unflinchingly. To look creatively. To look intentionally. And to practice looking.

To this end, you will complete an Adventure Report, of around 1-2 pages, which you will later expand into a Creative Non-fiction Essay. To complete this report, you must fashion a way to engage the world, whether through a hike, a conversation with a known writer, politician, or rhetorician, a spelunking trip, or other adventure (see examples below). Your report should include all relevant specifics about the adventure you chose, an account of the adventure itself, and how the adventure affected you. The practice itself is meant to get you to look at something you wouldn't normally look at. Look at yourself in a situation. Look at a person you've never met. Look, observe, engage, and report. That's what writers do.

Here are some examples off the top of my head. Please feel free to add any you'd like, to run your ideas by me if you want to, and to go as far out on that limb (safely) as you wish. Note: As daring as this assignment could make you, adventure responsibly. Don't take up any activity that could result in harm (physical, psychological, emotional) to yourself or to another person. The point is not to break boundaries or taboos. The point is to play with extending your own boundaries. Hence, the only rule is that you do something you’ve never done before.

Examples:
Spend a day confined to a wheelchair
Ride with a taxi driver for a day
Have tea with someone strange
Hike a mountain
Attend a cadaver lab
Teach elementary school kids for a few hours
Interview a writer
Spend an afternoon helping at a day care
Ride with a police officer for a day
Go trick-or-treating off-season
Bungee jump (safely?)
Tour a factory of some kind (candy, meat-packing, automotive, etc.)
Dress in drag
Take a road trip without a destination in mind
Spend a day blindfolded
Go someplace you’ve never been, and speak in an accent
Reading something you’ve written in a public forum

Try to focus on including as many sensory details in your description as possible. I recommend working on your report as soon after your experience as possible so that it is fresh in your mind. You might even take notes during the experience itself, as long as that doesn’t get in the way of having the experience. You don’t have to worry about having an introductory paragraph, a conclusion, a thesis statement, etc., but try to revise your writing so that it is as polished as possible. Send your 1-2 page Report to me via e-mail before the due date/time (Jesse.Stommel@colorado.edu). Please just include your work in the body of an e-mail, rather than using an attachment.

Part 2: Opening Paragraph
As you approach this part of your finished essay, you’ll want to start thinking about how you’ll adapt your adventure report into a creative non-fiction essay. The main distinction here is that you’ll move from describing an experience to reflecting upon the social, political, personal, or philosophical issues the experience raises for you. Creative non-fiction is all about tangents, allowing your personal experiences to inspire your own thinking about a topic. For example, if you wrote about being blindfolded for a day, maybe your final paper will discuss that experience as a way of talking about how our culture tends to privilege sight over all the other senses.

For this assignment, compose a draft of the opening paragraph for your finished essay. There are many options for how you might begin. Take a look at my notes on beginnings for some ideas. The only rule for this assignment is that you don’t waste your first sentence. Make sure it’s intentional, well-crafted, and that it forces us to keep reading. We’ll be workshopping opening paragraphs as a group. I’ll be choosing a few of your opening paragraphs for us to look at together, so be prepared to have some of your work discussed by the whole class.

Part 3: Rough Draft
This will be a rough draft of your entire essay that you’ll have a chance to workshop with a small group of your peers. Make sure your work has a title and that it is your best first stab at the creative non-fiction essay. Shoot for around 3-5 pages, the suggested length of the final draft, but don’t worry if you have a little more or less than that at this stage. You’ll be working in groups of 3-4, so please bring 4 copies of your work to class on the due date.

Part 4: Final Draft
First, the main page of this course insists that writing is never done, never really finished, something I believe to be entirely true. My hope is that you’ll find cause in your lives or academic careers to return to the works you do here. So, by “final draft,” I mean the last draft you’ll submit for this class and not some all-mighty, be-all-end-all, perfect piece of writing. Think polished, revised, something you’re content with. You’ll e-mail the final draft to me at Jesse.Stommel@colorado.edu. As usual, you are welcome to send an attachment, but please also cut and paste your work into the body of the e-mail. Make sure your paper has a title, that you’ve incorporated the feedback you got during the peer review, and that you’ve proofread your work.

Part 5: Writer’s Letter
Along with the final draft of your paper, you’ll also submit what I am calling a “writer’s letter,” an informal letter that responds to, discusses or questions your experience so far in the class. This is also a chance for you to write specifically about the paper you are submitting, how you feel about your process, what you think of the final results, what is working, what still needs work, etc. You are welcome, though, to speak your mind about anything going on in class. You have creative license in the letters, as well, and may respond in any style, voice, or genre that you find best suited to the task. The letters are your chance to make the course content personal. Since I will have already responded to your work at one or more stages before I receive the final draft, I will frame my comments to you as a response to this letter, so if there are particular things you’d like me to address about your paper, your writing, etc., this is the place to let me know. The writer’s letter is due along with the final draft of your essay. You can send this in a separate e-mail, or feel free to put it right at the top of the e-mail you send with your essay.

Literary Analysis Essay

You’ll begin preparation for this paper by writing a close-analysis, which you’ll expand into a full analytical essay. You will offer a critical reading of one of the literary texts we’ve discussed in class by choosing a topic or theme that interests you and presenting an analysis of what the text is attempting to do with relation to that theme. A “text” can be any of the films, essays, novels, poems, etc. that we’ve discussed during the course. Here are some steps that might help if you're having trouble with how to approach your literary analysis paper. Think of a theme in the text that you are interested in (perhaps something that came up in the passage/shot you close-analyzed, perhaps something else). Then, find more passages/shots that relate to that theme. Determine what you want to argue about the theme, i.e. “The Waste Land” is a poem about... and that theme gets taken up in order to... Or, Donnie is a character obsessed with... and that leads him to... You are also welcome to compare/contrast two different texts, i.e. While Walden touches on the subject of... in the following ways..., The Road approaches these same subjects differently... Use close-analysis of specific passages/shots to support your argument. The final paper should be of an adequate length to explore your critical reading fully, or around 4-6 pages.

Part 1: Close-analysis
You will be doing a close-analysis assignment during this unit that prepares you for the sorts of analysis that you will include in your literary analysis paper. Consider this a way to help you narrow in on a text/film you’d like to explore further, a chance to get your ideas flowing--a dry run, if you will. Try to avoid just cutting and pasting this into your final paper. However, if you write something you’re happy with for this, feel free to use it in your final essay--just make sure you figure out a cohesive way to incorporate it.

For this assignment, you will either: (1) Write a close-analysis focusing on one short passage from any of the texts we’ve read this semester (The Road, “The Waste Land,” Walden, etc.). In your work, you do not need to refer to anything outside the scope of the sentence(s) or line(s) you choose. Depth and clarity is more important here than breadth or comprehensiveness. However, if you want to draw connections between two or more passages, feel free, but don’t get bogged down and end up saying too little about too many things. You can also use your analysis to make more far-reaching remarks about the text as a whole, but you don’t necessarily need to for this assignment. While I would highly recommend that you revise (so your language is as clear as possible), this is not a formal essay, so don’t worry about having an introductory paragraph, thesis statement, etc. Refer to the Close-reading notes if you get stuck.

Or: (2) Choose a specific shot or frame from one of the films we’ve discussed (or will be discussing) and close-analyze it. I recommend having the film on in front of you as you write, so you can be as specific and detailed in your analysis as possible. Consider framing, lighting, camera angle or technique, props, performance, setting, sound, dialogue, symbolism, etc. What meaning can you draw from the shot or scene? Why is it so important to the film? How does the shot/frame support or complicate your answers to the first set of questions. If you are technically savvy, I encourage you to include an image of the frame you are working on along with your paper. You can certainly look closely at several cells or a page from the graphic novel Watchmen for this option.

Again, this does not have to be a formal essay. Instead, dive right in and analyze. You are welcome to choose something from earlier in the semester or even something that we have not discussed yet. My main recommendation would be that you narrow your focus as much as possible. The less you try to tackle, the more easily you’ll be able to navigate this assignment, I think. Your close-analysis should be about 2 pages or 500 words.

Part 2: Body Paragraph
By now, you should have gotten a good start on a draft of the literary analysis essay. For this assignment, choose one of the body paragraphs you’ve composed for your finished essay. We’ll be workshopping these paragraphs as a group. I’ll be choosing a few of them for us to look at together, so be prepared to have some of your work discussed by the whole class.

Part 3: Rough Draft
This will be a rough draft of your entire essay that you’ll have a chance to workshop with a small group of your peers. Make sure your work has a title and that it is your best first stab at the literary analysis essay. Shoot for around 4-6 pages, the suggested length of the final draft, but don’t worry if you have a little more or less than that at this stage. You’ll be working in groups of 3, so please bring 3 copies of your work to class on the due date.

Part 4: Final Draft
You’ll e-mail the final draft to me at Jesse.Stommel@colorado.edu. As usual, you are welcome to send an attachment, but please also cut and paste your work into the body of the e-mail. Make sure your paper has a title, that you’ve incorporated the feedback you got during the peer review, and that you’ve proofread your work.

Part 5: Writer’s Letter
Same as before, although this time you may also want to consider your progress from the first essay to this one. Were you able to incorporate some of the creative stuff we discussed into your analytical writing. This is a chance for you to write specifically about the paper you are submitting, how you feel about your process, what you think of the final results, what is working, what still needs work, etc. Remember, though, you are also welcome to speak your mind about anything going on in class. You have creative license in the letters, as well, and may respond in any style, voice, or genre that you find best suited to the task. The letters are your chance to make the course content personal. I will frame my comments to you as a response to this letter, so if there are particular things you’d like me to address about your paper, your writing, etc., this is the place to let me know. The writer’s letter is due along with the final draft of your essay. You can send this in a separate e-mail, or feel free to put it right at the top of the e-mail you send with your essay.

Illustrated Argumentative Essay

This paper will be the culmination of everything you've done in class thus far. The goal of this paper is to investigate one of the important subjects of this course. Essentially, your paper should answer the overarching question of the course: what is it to be human? However, you will approach this by choosing a specific facet or element of this topic that has arisen for you during the course of the semester. You are welcome to incorporate literary analysis and personal anecdotes into this piece, but you will also move beyond that by incorporating research about your subject. Toward this end, you will complete an Annotated Bibliography to reflect this research. Your paper will have two components, a written component and a visual component. The degree to which these two elements overlap is up to you. Since this is an argumentative essay, you will want to make sure that both your written and visual elements clearly support and contribute to your argument.

Part 1: Annotated Bibliography
For this assignment, you will compile an annotated bibliography including around 4-6 sources relevant to your final essay (at least two of these should be sources that we have not looked at together in class). In a conventional annotated bibliography, you would include the bibliographical reference (using a format such as MLA) and a short paragraph discussing how the source is (or will be) important to your work, perhaps including a brief summary and/or pulling out specific points that you find particularly meaningful or relevant. You can include a quotation from the source if you want, but try to keep focused on your own ideas about how/why the sources are useful to your final essay. The final essay isn’t a research paper, so how you end up using the various sources in your work will be up to you. You can analyze them in your work, use them to support the points you make, as a model for the style of writing you do, or as inspiration for the visual component. Feel free to think outside the box with regard to how your annotated bibliography looks. If you decide to do something really unconventional with your final essay, your annotated bibliography may end up looking equally unconventional. The main objective here is that you do some research and bring some outside sources into conversation with stuff (topics or texts) we’ve been examining and discussing this semester.

Part 2: Final Essay
We won’t be workshopping this essay in the same way that we have the other ones. Instead, you’ll have a chance to discuss your ideas with each other at various points, keeping the final product itself tucked away all the while. Then, during the last week, you’ll display your project in class so that we can all read, examine, and interact with each other’s work. Since the unveiling of this work will be more public, you won’t need to submit this project by e-mail in the usual way.

Rules for the final essay (because you know full well by now how I love rules):
1. It must make an argument, one that people will care about.
2. The argument must be supported with compelling textual and visual evidence.
3. Your work must investigate something relevant to one or more subjects/texts we’ve considered in class.
4. It must draw on, cite, or be inspired by other outside sources.
5. And here’s the tricky part: It can’t be disposable. The project you create must be something that doesn’t just take up space in the world. It must be either reusable, recyclable, or a work of art that warrants keeping around and displaying. It can also, of course, be digital, but if it is, you’ll need to bring or arrange for (with me) some method of displaying it to the class.

Part 3: Final Writer’s Letter
Write a short evaluation of your performance in this class (about 1-page), addressing the following sorts of questions: How many absences did you have? How would you characterize the regularity and thoroughness of your work? Were you prepared for each class? Did you do all of the required assignments? How would you characterize your overall effort, interest, commitment to the class? Did your engagement increase or decrease as the semester went along? Also, write a brief evaluation of the work you did for the final project. Finally, what grade do you give yourself for the semester and why? (Don't be overly modest, but don't be grandiose either—there should be a reasonable correlation between your answers to the previous questions and this one. Ideally, I would give everyone the grade they give themselves, but I reserve the right to raise or lower grades as appropriate).