ENGLISH 110: INTRODUCTION TO COLLEGE
WRITING
Section 006, MW 11
am to 12:50 pm and F 11-11:50 am, HHH 226
PROFESSOR BOB NOWLAN
Office: HHH 425, Office Phone: (715)
836-4369
Office Hours: MW 1-1:30 pm, M
5:50-6:30 pm, W 4:20-5 pm, F 12-12:30 pm,
and By Appointment
ranowlan@uwec.edu
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan
KATIE FUCHS,fuchska@uwec.edu, and
JOEY WISE,wisejr@uwec.edu,
Academic Apprentices
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The English Department and the University are in the
process of transforming English 110: Introduction to College Writing
into a course which offers an ‘Introductory Liberal Arts Seminar in
Critical (and Creative) Reading and Writing’. Each English 110
section will, as a result, maintain a specific thematic focus, enabling
students, working closely with a professor and with academic
apprentices or senior student mentors, to develop and refine
preexisting writing abilities through engagement with issues of
significant intellectual interest–and social relevance. Our class
is conceived according to this model.
These classes engage with writing in context, and in
relation to a broadly unifying thematic focus, because writing is, in
actual practice, always intrinsically interconnected with reading,
speaking, listening, thinking, reflecting, acting, and
interacting. Writing is neither a set of neutral skills nor of
empty forms; in writing well, skills and forms must always be selected
and adapted to work with what you are writing about, for whom, when,
where, and why.
English 110 emphasizes writing with a purpose.
At its best, writing with a purpose means, in turn, writing with
conviction and passion. At the college level, students are no
longer treated as children expected to write merely what others tell
them, or merely what others think, feel, and believe. Instead,
you are addressed as adults, and that means you are encouraged to think
for yourselves, to advance your own arguments, and to offer your own
thoughtful takes on matters of intellectual and social concern.
At the same time, you are encouraged to do so by beginning to enter
into and find your place as part of ongoing conversations–discussions,
dialogues, and debates–among intellectuals, scholars, experts, and
others with substantial, credible, and reliable knowledge of the issues
you are engaging.
To make an impact through your writing you need to
understand who you are writing for, so that you can determine what
precise ways to write in order effectively to reach your target
audience. High school students most often write just for
themselves, and just for their teachers; here you need to approach all
writing assignments as if you are writing for a much broader audience,
especially fellow members of this university community who are
sincerely interested in what you are writing about, but who you have to
work hard to interest, compel, and persuade.
In order successfully to interest, compel, and
persuade, through your writing, you need to be open to learning from
people who are considerably different from who you are, as well as from
those with whom you are already much alike. You need, moreover,
to inquire into how you are interconnected with myriad diverse others,
including those (seemingly) most distant and different from you, in
order better to understand yourself–and to recognize, in doing so, that
understanding yourself, while a necessary and valuable end, is a
complex, continuously ongoing process.
Understanding yourself requires self-reflection,
asking yourself questions like the following: who am I? what am I
about? where am I coming from? how have I been shaped and formed to be
who I am? by what and by whom? how have I developed and changed and how
am I developing and changing? where am I headed as well as where do I
want to head? what can I be and what can I do? what do I want to be and
what do I want to do? what should I be and what should I do? And, you
need to follow up, in the case of each of the preceding questions I
have just elaborated, by further asking yourself: why so? In
addition, ask yourself the following questions as well: how might I
have been different as someone who was born and who grew up at a
different place and in a different time? how might I have been
different as someone who was born and who grew a member of a different
socio-economic class, class fraction, or class stratum? how might
I have been different as someone of a different race, ethnicity, or
nationality? how I might I have been different as someone of a
different sex, gender, or sexuality? how might I have been different as
someone of a different religion, culture, or politics? and how am I
connected with all of these ‘other’ (seemingly ‘different’) people,
including in ways that are not readily apparent?
You grow and change a great deal as a university
student in many ways it is often impossible to anticipate. Be
humble enough to recognize, to accept, and to welcome this. At
the same time, keep in mind that UWEC aims, quite sincerely, to educate
people capable of taking on roles as global leaders. As daunting
as that ambition might seem, in thinking of it as a description of
yourself, you would not be here if we did not believe you are capable
of eventually contributing as exactly that kind of person.
*****
In this FYE section of English 110 our specific
thematic focus will be “Argument, Drama, and the Problematics of
Identity: Graphic Novels as Culture Critique.” What will broadly
unite all of the activities we will pursue together will be our
continuous exploration of the ways diverse kinds of individual and
social identities are formed and constituted. We will consider
‘identities’ in both psychological and sociological terms, with
particular emphasis on matters of growing up/coming of age, as well as
relations with family and friends, along with the impacts of the
following: media and consumer culture, leisure and recreational
pursuit, work experience and career ambition, political and
religious/spiritual values and affiliations, (socio-economic) class,
race, ethnicity, nationality, regionality, locality,
generationality/age, gender, sexuality, health/illness, and
(dis)ability.
After an initial class of introduction and
orientation, we will, working with the book Writing and Revising: a
Portable Guide, review stages of the writing process that many
if not
most of you have already learned about in high school. Here we
will emphasize concepts, methods, techniques, and approaches that prove
especially useful at the college level–and which will help many of you
in areas where people coming out of high school experience continued
problems and difficulties. We will move from there to discuss
argument and research, which is of crucial importance at the college
level. In this section I will give you a brief assignment to look
up, explain, and illustrate a key concept concerned with doing
research, and writing from research, while we will also meet with a
UWEC McIntyre Library reference librarian who will teach you how to
work with valuable research resources that you are likely not (all
that) familiar with, as of yet in your college career. Then, as a
way of actively applying what we will read and discuss concerning
argument and research–and as a way of learning through doing (which is
often by far the best way to advance in understanding)–you will then
divide into teams which will work to research and prepare for a class
debate on an issue, to be announced. You will work on researching
and preparing for this debate over the course of approximately two
weeks, while the actual class debate will then fill an entire class
period. Each team will prepare an annotated bibliography of
relevant research sources as part of their work in preparation for this
class debate.
After the class debate, we will shift toward reading
and discussing a series of four critically acclaimed graphic
novels. You will find these works the equivalent in complexity
and sophistication of more traditional novels; scholars treat all four
of them as serious ‘literature’. At the same time, however,
composed through combinations of words and pictures as they are, Maus,
Persepolis, Blankets, and Fun Home maintain distinct
qualities–while
offering distinct challenges for interpretation as well as distinct
opportunities for appreciation–versus novels written entirely in words
alone. Engaging with these four graphic novels will also enable
us to explore connections with significant issues in history, society,
politics, and culture. And they will provide you the opportunity
to develop visual as well as verbal literacies (crucially important in
today’s media age). Maus,
Persepolis, Blankets, and Fun Home all
focus centrally on the same issues concerning identities that we are
focused on in this course; exploring the stories they each recount will
stimulate your critical–and creative–thinking–about the complexity and
the dynamics involved in the formation and constitution of your own
identity, as well as that of others who may well initially seem, once
again, far different from you. As we proceed to work with these
books over the course of multiple weeks, you will, however, likely find
considerably more in common with the protagonists of these four books
than you might at first recognize.
During the course of our work in class with these
four graphic novels, you will be assigned to write three out of five
possible short paper assignments, approaching issues raised by these
graphic novels from five different angles. Class discussions will
be closely related to the focus of these paper assignments. And,
finally, for each of the graphic novels, I will likely show you a film
that deals with related issues, as well as give you a small amount of
additional reading material, to help make better sense of these graphic
novels by situating what they are addressing in broader contexts.
Following our work with Maus, Persepolis, Blankets,
and Fun Home, we will divide
into four teams. Each team will be
working, assisted by me and your two academic apprentices, to compose,
produce, and ultimately perform–in class, on our next to last two
meetings of the semester–a short play dramatizing a significant
section, or significant sections, from each of the four graphic novels
we will have taken up prior to that point of the semester. I will
give you detailed instructions for what to do and how to do this, and I
will assign the teams. Here you will have a chance to work on
translating creative work from one medium to another, as well as to
find creative ways to make your translation as compelling as possible.
TEXTS
I have ordered copies of all of the following books
for purchase at the UWEC Bookstore in Davies Center; all are required:
1. Kennedy, X. J., Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Marcia F.
Muth. Writing and Revising
with 2009 MLA Update. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. ISBN#: 978-0-312-62339-5.
2. Spiegelman, Art. Maus: a Survivor’s Tale: My
Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began. [Box Set].
New
York: Pantheon, 1993. ISBN#: 978-0-6797-4840-3.
3 Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete
Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2007. ISBN#:
978-0-3757-1483-2.
4. Thompson, Craig. Blankets. Marietta,
GA: Top Shelf Productions, 2003. ISBN#: 978-1891830433.
5. Bechdel, Allison. Fun Home: a Family
Tragicomic. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin/Mariner Books,
2006. ISBN#: 0-618-47794-2.
Students may feel free, as you are able and
interested, to acquire copies of these books from other sources
(including from online outlets such as www.amazon.com)
as long as you
do obtain copies by the time you need to use them in class. I
will supply copies of any additional materials you will need to read
over the course of the semester.
SCHEDULE
Unit 1
M 1/24: Introduction and Orientation.
W 1/26 and F 1/28: Overview of the Writing Process and Strategies for
Generating Ideas and Planning.
Read for W 1/26: Writing and Revising, “Chapter 1:
Writing Processes,” 1-10, “Chapter 4: Strategies for Generating Ideas,”
41-59, and “Chapter 5: Strategies for Planning,” 60-82.
* Initial Paper
Assigned, W 1/26 *
M 1/31, W 2/2, and F 2/4: Strategies for Drafting and Developing.
Read for M 1/31:
Writing and Revising, “Chapter
6:
Strategies for Drafting,” 83-100, and “Chapter 7: Strategies for
Developing,” 101-136.
* Drafting and Developing Exercise
Assigned, M 1/31 *
M 2/7, W 2/9, and F 2/11: Strategies for Revising, Editing, and
Proofreading.
Read for M 2/7:
Writing and Revising, “Chapter
8:
Strategies for Revising,” 137-154, and “Chapter 9: Strategies for
Editing and Proofreading,” 137-189.
* Revising, Editing, and Proofreading
Exercise
Assigned, M 2/7 *
** Initial Paper
Due, F 2/11 **
Unit 2
M 2/14, W 2/16, F 2/18, and M 2/21: Strategies for Argument and
Research.
Read for M 2/14: Writing and Revising, “Chapter 10:
Strategies for Arguing,” 190-203, and [From] “Chapter 11: Strategies
for Integrating Sources,” 204-232.
* Research
Term/Concept Explanation Assigned, M 2/14
*
W 2/23, F 2/25, M 2/28, W 3/2, and F 3/4: Work in Teams, Researching
and Preparing for the Class Debate.
M 3/7: Class Debate.
* Annotated Bibliographies of Research
Sources for
Class Debate Due, M 3/7 *
Unit 3
W 3/9: Introduction to Reading Graphic Novels; Introduction to Themes
and Issues, Maus, Persepolis, Blankets, and Fun Home; Introduction to
and Initial Discussion of Maus.
Read for W 3/9:
Maus: Book One, Introduction
and
Chapters 1-4.
* Graphic Novel
Short Paper Assignments Distributed,
W 3/9 *
F 3/11, M 3/14, and W 3/16: Discussion,
Maus.
Read for F 3/11:
Maus: Book One, Chapters 5-6.
Read for M 3/14:
Maus, Book Two, Introduction
and
Chapters 1-3.
Read for W 3/16:
Maus, Book Two, Chapters 4-5.
F 3/18: Introduction to and Initial Discussion of Persepolis.
Read for F 3/18:
Persepolis, Book One, “The
Veil”
through “The Sheep.”
M 3/28, W 3/30, and F 4/1: Discussion, Persepolis.
Read for M 3/28:
Persepolis, Book One, “The
Trip”
through “The Dowry.”
Read for W 3/30:
Persepolis, Book Two, “The
Soup”
through “The Exam.”
Read for F 4/1:
Persepolis, Book Two, “The
Makeup”
through “The End.”
M 4/4: Introduction to and Initial Discussion of Blankets.
Read for M 4/4:
Blankets, Chapters I (“Cubby
Hole”),
II (“Stirring Furnace”), and III (“Blank Sheet”).
* First Graphic
Novel Short Paper Due, M 4/4 *
W 4/6, F, 4/8, and M 4/11: Discussion, Blankets.
Read for W 4/6:
Blankets, Chapters IV
(“Static”) and
V (“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”).
Read for F 4/8:
Blankets, Chapters VI (“Teen
Spirit”). and VII (“Just Like Heaven”).
Read for M 4/11:
Blankets, Chapters VIII
(“Vanishing
Cove”) and IX (“Foot Notes”).
W 4/13: Introduction to and Initial Discussion of Fun Home.
Read for W 4/13: Fun Home, Chapters 1-2 (“Old
Father, Old Artificer” and “A Happy Death”).
F 4/15, M 4/18, and W 4/20: Discussion, Fun Home.
Read for F 4/15:
Fun Home, Chapter 3 (“That Old
Catastrophe”).
* Second Graphic
Novel Short Paper Due, F 4/15 *
Read for M 4/18: Fun Home, Chapters 4-5 (“In the
Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” and “The Canary-Colored Caravan of
Death”).
Read for W 4/20: Fun Home, Chapters 6-7 (“The Ideal
Husband” and “The Antihero’s Journey”).
F 4/22: Introduction to Class Play Assignment.
W 4/27, F 4/29, M 5/2, W 5/4, F 5/6, and M 5/9: Work in Teams,
Composing, Producing, Rehearsing, and Performing Short Plays.
* Third Graphic
Novel Short Paper Due, W 4/27 *
W 5/11 and F 5/13: Performance of Short Plays and Conclusion.
*** THIS
SCHEDULE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE ***
**** THERE IS NO FINAL EXAMINATION IN THIS CLASS ****
ORGANIZATION
AND CONDUCT OF CLASS SESSIONS
Class will proceed primarily by way of discussion,
following a variety of formats. Throughout the semester you will be
actively engaged in educating yourself and the rest of the class
through what you have to say as well as share in written form. I
will often give short presentations, especially at the beginning of
class, and here you will need to pay close attention, take notes, and
be ready to ask relevant questions. At times you will be working
in groups on specific exercises related to concepts and practices you
are learning, frequently involving creative as well as critical kinds
of skills. On occasion, as useful, we may watch, listen to, and
discuss films, or excerpts from videos, or the internet, and on
occasion, we may listen to and discuss musical recordings. Other
possibilities for extrapolation and application exist as well.
Ultimately, as mentioned in the course description section of this
syllabus, you will be working intensively, in groups and teams 1.) for
six class periods, inside and outside of class, preparing for and
ultimately engaging in a class debate; and 2.) for eight class periods,
again periodically outside as well as inside of class, in collectively
composing, producing, rehearsing, and ultimately performing a short
play. Throughout the semester, I, along with your academic
apprentices, Joey and Katie, will be working to help you in every way
we possibly can. I will maintain ultimate responsibility,
authority, and control at all times, assisted by Katie and Joey, yet we
will aim to insure that everyone participates extensively in our
collective work. We will seek to enhance and develop your
preexisting strengths as writers, readers, thinkers, speakers,
listeners, and doers–and we will seek to help you in learning from each
other as well as from the three of us.
UWEC
MISSION AND GOALS OF THE BACCALAUREATE
The following is the official mission statement of
the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, a mission which includes us
all, and which each of us helps realize, bringing to bear our own
distinct talents, abilities, knowledges, skills, backgrounds, and
experiences:
We foster in one another creativity, critical
insight, empathy, and intellectual courage, the hallmarks of a
transformative liberal education and the foundation for active
citizenship and lifelong inquiry.
This is a mission to aspire to meet, and each of you has a vitally
important role to play in helping us do so.
The following, in addition, are the five most
important, official goals all
UWEC undergraduate courses are designed
to help you meet, and this class aims to help you with all five:
1.) Knowledge of Human Culture and the Natural World
2.) Creative and Critical Thinking
3.) Effective Communication
4.) Individual and Social Responsibility
5.) Respect for Diversity Among People
These goals require your striving
to meet them. Striving means
learning actively and deliberately, completing assignments in a
thorough and timely fashion, participating in class discussion, and
making connections between what we do while meeting in class and what
you do when engaged outside of the classroom.
GENERAL
EXPECTATIONS OF STUDENTS
I expect students in this course to strive to become
sincerely interested in learning about the subject matter of this
course, and to be consistently intellectually serious as well as
academically diligent in their pursuit of this learning. I expect
students to strive to bring actively and extensively to bear–in your
essays and contributions to class discussion–insights you gain through
your engagement with the texts and topics addressed as part of this
course, and I expect you to strive at the same time to relate these
texts and topics as closely and as fully as possible to subjects of
genuine interest and concern in your own lives, past and present.
And I expect you to let me know right away when and if you have any
questions or problems about any aspect of how you are doing in and with
the course, so that I can do whatever I possibly can to help answer
these questions and solve these problems.
Most important of all is recognizing that this is a
university and not a high school
composition course, and that we here
expect you to strive to engage in class as a mature adult. In
addition, you will often find that ‘we do things differently’ here, at
the university, and that what your high school teachers told you that
you ‘should or should not do’ no longer applies, even at times no
longer makes any sense at all. Be ready for that–it’s one thing
to write well when you are being addressed and treated as a child; it’s
quite another to write well when you are being addressed and treated as
an adult. At the college level you need to take much greater
responsibility for yourself, for what you do, how you do it, when,
where, and why; it is easy to mess up and even to fail if you are not
ready to assume that responsibility.
Finally, you need to be ready to engage seriously,
thoughtfully, and respectfully–at all times–with positions that you
don’t necessarily agree with, and even with ones that you may find
troubling. After all, great works of art–including many great
works of literature–are often created with the deliberate aim of
disturbing, even shocking many people who will encounter these.
Often the intent is to provoke strong response, as well as thought–and
action–that goes beyond what has become familiar, conventional,
commonsensical, and, especially, merely “safe.” You are capable
of dealing with these kinds of challenges calmly and confidently–and I
will expect you to do so.
SPECIFIC
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE GRADE
General Standards for Evaluation of
Student Work
In evaluating all work done for this course, I will
take account of how carefully, seriously, intelligently,
enthusiastically, and imaginatively students engage with the concepts,
issues, positions, and arguments addressed in the course and
represented by the texts we read; by me; by Katie and Joey; and by each
other.
Attendance
and Class Conduct
This course cannot contribute effectively to
students' learning if students do not attend class. What happens
in class is an indispensable part of this course. Therefore, the
following attendance policy will apply for students enrolled in this
section of English 110, except for
students who must miss an extended
period of the semester due to an emergency for which they arrange an
officially authorized absence
from class (in the latter case, we will
work together to make arrangements to help you make up for what you
miss):
1.) Students who exceed a maximum of three
unexcused
absences will suffer a penalty of a loss of one full letter
grade for
each additional unexcused absence. An unexcused absence is one
where you offer no reasonable excuse for missing, but choose this to be
a day that you miss class.
2.) Students should provide me with verifiable
confirmation of a debilitating injury or illness, or of any other
serious individual or family emergency, for the excusing of any further
absences beyond the maximum of three unexcused absences.
3.) In addition to the maximum of two unexcused
absences, students may miss a maximum of three
excused absences without
suffering a grade penalty. Seven total absences will result in a
loss of two full letter grades. Students who miss more than
seven classes total should withdraw from the course and enroll again in
a subsequent semester; otherwise they will most likely receive a grade
of F.
* Students are
expected to arrive for class on time and to stay through
the very end of class. If you don’t regularly do so, you
won’t be
counted as attending class. In addition, you need to be awake,
alert, and attentive while in class; this means you can’t expect to
sleep or rest in class. Again, if you repeatedly do any of this,
it will count as an absence from class. And the same is true of
doing other school work in class or attending to other–personal–
matters irrelevant to what we are focusing on at that point in time in
class (e.g., you should avoid text-messaging, or web-searching, or
facebooking, or playing games on your cell phone, or checking out
youtube while in class–just to mention a few common temptations). *
** Cell phones should be turned off
and put away during class time
(unless I explicitly request you to take out and use your cell phone as
part of a class activity). It leaves a very bad impression
to be
using these during class time, and doing so will definitely negatively
affect your course grade. If you are literally addicted to using
cell phones such that it is hard for you to stop doing so during class
time, you can seek help for this addiction through University
Counseling Services. Students inclined to use cell phones in
class almost always have excuses for doing so; rarely are these good
excuses and rarely are they acceptable–so it does need to be a genuine
emergency for me to grant an exception (not that you ‘need’ to be
available should your mother, father, sister, brother, roommate, best
friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, or boss want to contact you during class
time–none of that, in and of itself, is acceptable as an excuse).
In the past I’ve taken full letter grades off of students’ overall
grades who persisted in using their cell phones in class when asked not
to do so, and I will not hesitate to do so again. **
Initial
Paper (and Opportunity for Revision)
The initial paper will provide you an opportunity to
apply what we will be working with in discussing and reviewing chapters
from Writing and Revising.
Specific details will be explained
with the assignment. This paper will be worth 17.5% of the
course
grade. You will have an opportunity to completely revise
this
paper once, and to replace the grade you earned for your initial
finished version of this paper with the grade you earn for the
subsequent revision. In revision, you can take into account my
comments, critiques, suggestions, and recommendations for revision.
Drafting
and Developing Exercise Assignment; Revising, Editing, and
Proofreading Exercise Assignment; and Research Term/Concept Explanation
Assignment
During the class periods in which we will be
discussing strategies for drafting and developing, you will work in
pairs to apply these strategies toward each pair of students drafting
and developing a short creative piece of writing. During the
class periods in which we will be discussing strategies for revising,
editing, and proofreading, you will work in groups on revising,
editing, and proofreading an example of ‘bad writing’.
Prior to discussing strategies for research and writing from research I
will assign students individual terms and concepts, directly concerned
with research, that you will come to class prepared to explain and
illustrate. Precise details for each of these assignments will be
explained when they are distributed. Each assignment is worth
2.5% of the overall course grade, for a total worth 7.5% of the
overall
course grade. You and your partner will receive the same
grade
for your work on the drafting and developing assignment, and you and
your groupmates will receive the same grade for your work on the
revising, editing, and proofreading assignment. As necessary, you
may need to complete the drafting and developing assignment, as well as
the revising, editing, and proofreading assignment (just like the
research term/concept explanation assignment) outside of class.
Participation
and Contribution
My foremost aim in teaching this course is to help
you to learn something of significance and value. You cannot
learn or help others learn if you do not contribute. If you don't
contribute to the work of this class not only will you fail to derive
as much gain from it as would be the case if you did contribute, but
also you will deprive everyone else of the benefit of your thoughts,
feelings, beliefs, values, knowledge, and experience. By raising
questions, testing and trying out ideas, taking risks and making
mistakes, you learn a great deal–and help others learn a great deal as
well. You learn through talking, not just talk to show what you
have learned. At the same time, just talking a great deal does
not necessarily mean that you are making a quality contribution to the
class by aiding the learning that we aim to accomplish. Talking
which pulls us off on far-fetched tangents, which remains disconnected
from and disengaged with the reading and the rest of the class, or
which effectively silences others, is negative
participation.
Quality class participation does not, moreover, involve merely asking
questions of me and responding to my questions; quality class
participation requires you to work to advance a serious and substantial
discussion with your peers about the texts and topics subject to
discussion.
Contribution to the class certainly can extend
beyond mere speaking in class: it may include a variety of ways in
which you can bring to bear your insights to help yourself as well as
the rest of us gain from the experience of this course. Excellent
writing can help make up for any limitations as far as participation in
class goes. At the same time, listening carefully, respectfully,
and thoughtfully in class discussions is yet another important means of
contribution. And meeting and working with me, with Joey, and
with Katie outside of class can be an important means of contributing
as well.
I will consult with Katie and Joey in determining
your participation and contribution grades. If you want to do
well here you must be consistently
seriously, thoughtfully, and
actively engaged with what we are here to focus on, in class; you must
be consistently respectful
of me, of Joey and Katie, of your
classmates, and of yourself as someone who is here to work and to
learn; you must come to class consistently
well prepared; you must
consistently work well with
others inside and outside of class–seeking
to be helpful to your peers, in enabling their learning; you must
attend class regularly and,
in doing so, consistently
follow the
instructions, and directions, I give you; you must show, in your
writing, that you are paying close and careful attention to what we are
discussing in class, and working, assiduously, to learn from it; and,
you must consistently strive
to avoid becoming distracted, or
distracting others, from focusing on the work we are in class to
do. Students who engage in behavior that disrupts the learning
process for yourself and your fellow students, such as talking while
others are speaking, not paying attention in class, doing other work or
attending to other interests during the time class is meeting will
receive grades of F for participation and contribution. You will
receive four participation and contribution grades, corresponding to
each of the four semester units: participation and contribution part
one will be worth
5% of the overall course grade, participation and
contribution part two will be worth 7.5% of the
overall course grade,
participation and contribution part three will be worth 5% of the
overall course grade, and participation and contribution part
four will
be worth 7.5% of
the overall course grade. This will mean,
therefore, that participation and contribution will be worth a total of
25% of the overall course grade.
Class
Debate
You will work in teams to research and prepare for
our class debate, and then on Monday 10/18 we will hold the class
debate, which will run for the entire class period. This activity
will allow you to learn–through direct, extensive, and intensive
application–how to advance effective arguments, and how to do effective
research to support these arguments. Teams will be required to
prepare precisely accurate bibliographies of works consulted in
preparing to debate, which you will give me at the end of the class
debate. You will earn a grade worth 15% of the
overall course
grade in response to the quality of your contribution to the
research,
preparation, and conduct of the class debate; individual students will
receive individual grades for this activity, even though you will be
working as part of teams. Specific details will be explained with
the assignment.
Graphic
Novels Interpretation and Reflection Papers
As you read and we discuss Maus, Persepolis,
Blankets, and Fun Home, you will work on writing
three short papers,
with each of these papers addressing a different one of the four
graphic novels. The approximate average target length for each of
these papers will be five double-spaced, typed pages (or roughly 1250
words). I will give you five short paper assignments, and you
will do three of them. You get to choose which three you will do,
and you get to choose which graphic novel to write about in relation to
each of the three assignments you choose to work on. One short
paper assignment will ask you to analyze three short sequences of
panels from one of the four graphic novels, all dealing with the same
single issue, focusing in what you write on how words and pictures work
together to convey meaning and exert impact. A second short paper
assignment will ask you to identify a single major issue that one of
the four graphic novels deals with, as a whole, and to then interpret
and explain what the graphic novel has to say about this one
issue. A third short paper assignment will ask you to research
the background of the author of one of these four graphic novels, as
well as what this author has to say about his or her graphic novel
(e.g., how the author conceived and developed this graphic novel as
well as why so); you will then reflect on how knowing about the
author’s background and what the author has to say about her or his
graphic novel affects your understanding and appreciation of this
graphic novel. A fourth short paper assignment will ask you to
relate a specific situation, experience, or emotion confronting a major
character in one of these four graphic novels to a similar situation,
experience, or emotion you–or someone close to you–has also
confronted. And finally, a fifth paper assignment will ask to
identify and explain a significant point of connection between one of
the four graphic novels and the film (or films) I will screen for you
in connection with that same graphic novel. Precise details will
come with the specific short paper assignments. Each of the three
graphic novel interpretation and reflection papers will be worth 7.5%
of the overall course grade, for a combined total worth
22.5% of the
overall course grade. You will also have the opportunity
to earn
up to 7.5% extra
credit for doing a fourth one of these five
assignments (but you will not be able to earn any additional extra
credit for doing all five); what this will involve and how it will work
will also be precisely explained at the time I give you the five short
graphic novel interpretation and reflection paper assignments.
Composition,
Production, Rehearsal, and Performance of a Short Play
Together with a team of your peers, and the
assistance of Katie and Joey, as well as myself, you will compose,
produce, rehearse, and ultimately perform–for the rest of the class–a
short play based on and inspired by one of the four graphic novels we
will be working with (Maus, Persepolis, Blankets, and Fun Home).
I will assign students to teams for this project. Your task will
be to adapt and transform a significant section (or sections) of the
graphic novel you are working with, translating this into dramatic
form. You may modify and add to what is written in your graphic novel
as long as you strive to remain broadly true to the spirit of what you
are adapting and transforming. Your goal will be to help people better
understand and appreciate what your graphic novel has to say about a
specific significant issue, or about a specific array of closely
related significant issues. This activity, especially as a
culmination of our work together, will provide you an opportunity to
bring to bear, develop, and refine creative as well as critical
abilities–along with further advance and enhance your abilities in
working as part of a team. As with the class debate, students
always greatly enjoy working on this kind of activity, and gain a great
deal from it. This is true even for students with no prior
theatrical experience, and I will not be evaluating you in that
direction, as theatre arts students, so no need to worry about
that. The key here is your ability to come up with a compellingly
creative and critically insightful adaptation–in the play that you
compose and in your conception of how this might be produced and
performed–of a significant issue (or of a significant nexus of issues)
from the graphic novel you are working with. Specific details
will be explained with the assignment. The grade you earn for
your contribution to the composition, production, rehearsal, and
performance of your team’s short play will be worth 15% of the
overall
course grade. Once again, as with the class debate
project, even
though you will be working as part of a team, students will receive
individual grades for how they do in working on this project.
GENERAL
FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS: PAPERS
All papers should be typed, double-space, on
standard white letter-sized (8" X 11") typewriter, computer printer, or
photographic paper. You may use any standard font you wish but
your print size must remain between 10 and 12 points. Pages
should be numbered, and your name should be at the top of the first
page. The pages of your paper must be stapled together and you
are responsible for doing so; I do not bring staplers to class.
You are also responsible for proofreading your
paper before you turn it in; if you catch any typographical errors, you
should neatly cross these out and write your corrections on top of
these with a pen. I will expect you, furthermore, to observe the
rules and conventions of Standard Written English to the best of your
ability in writing these papers, including MLA format for citation and
documentation of sources for research beyond the books we use in class.
PLAGIARISM
AND ACADEMIC HONESTY
Plagiarism, cheating, and other forms of academic
dishonesty are serious offenses. They not only undermine the goal
of learning but also are exploitative of the work of others.
Deliberate dishonesty in written work as part of this course will
result in a failing grade. In addition, plagiarism may result in
further disciplinary action on the part of the University
administration; it can ultimately lead to expulsion from the
University. If you are in doubt about whether you should give
credit to someone else (or something else), it is a good idea to go
ahead and do so. Also, if you directly echo someone else’s
thoughts from class discussion you should add the last name, followed
by the letters CD (for class discussion), followed by the date, in a
parenthetical citation right after the end of the sentence, viz:
(Nowlan, CD, 2/7/11).
LATE
PAPERS
Late papers will lose credit unless you have made
arrangements ahead of the time with me to turn in these papers late due
to a serious personal or family problem. Alternately, if you
provide a reasonable explanation why you are late (again, due to a
serious personal or family problem) shortly after the paper is due, you
won’t suffer any grade penalty. It is best to talk with me
directly about this, or alternately to talk directly with Joey or Katie
if I’m not available, and to make sure to do so within a week’s time of
the due date at the absolute latest. I do understand that at
times real problems come up for all of us, no matter what we might
intend or prefer, but please try to keep up with deadlines; it only
ends up hurting you if you fall behind. Likewise, if you are
experiencing so much frustration in the course of writing a paper that
you aren’t ready to turn it in on time, arrange to meet and talk with
us, as soon as possible, so we can help you; no one wants you to have
to suffer any of this if it can possibly be avoided. And it
usually can.
CONFERENCES/EXTRA
HELP
I encourage you to meet with me in conference during
office hours or at another mutually convenient time to discuss any
issue of interest or concern related to what we are doing in this
course. Learning that takes place in conferences can at times be
equally as important, and at times even more important, than what takes
place in class. Please do not hesitate to meet with me during
office hours or to ask for an appointment at any time you think this
might be helpful; making myself available for conferences with you
outside of class is part of my responsibility as your teacher.
Moreover, I always sincerely do welcome getting to know and work with
my students outside as well as inside of class. I am ready to do
whatever I can to help you in your understanding of issues addressed in
discussions and readings, as well as to help you in your writing for
and participation in this course. I want to make sure that I do
all that I can to help you succeed in this course and I want to help
you, as far as I can, to gain as much out of it as possible through
your participation in and work for it. You may also feel free to
write me via e-mail, and to call me–or leave a message for me on the
answering machine–at my office. Keep in mind–“my office
hours” are for you, and I
would rather talk with you during my office
hours than do anything else, so please do not worry about “disturbing”
me in coming to talk with me. These office hours are time
that I have set aside to meet, talk, and work with you.
This is one of the advantages of attending a
university like UWEC as opposed to a place like UW-Madison or
UW-Minneapolis: you maintain much readier and more extensive
opportunity to meet and work with professors, from your first semester
onward. And, as a further incentive, students who consult with me
in conference on their work for classes I teach always do better, on
average, than students who do not, often considerably better.
PLEASE DO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY!
Also, Katie Fuchs and Joey Wise have joined this
class as academic apprentices (i.e., teaching assistants) because they
want to work with and help you. Joey and Katie will be helping me
in conducting class sessions, projects, and activities, and in
reviewing and evaluating your work. They will also hold regular
office hours of their own and otherwise make themselves available to
assist you outside of class.
Finally, you may seek help in writing assignments
for this class, and others you are taking, through the University
Writing Center, in Old Library 1142. Tutors in the Writing Center
are English majors, minors, and graduate students, working with English
Department Composition Director, Professor Shevaun Watson, Writing
Center Coordinator Dr. Blake Westerlund, as well as other members of
the university’s and the department’s professional academic
staff. Writing Center tutors are available to meet and work with
you not only at the main University Writing Center, in OL 1142, but
also at satellite locations in Hibbard Hall, McIntyre Library, the
Diversity Resource Center, the Student Success Center, Towers Hall,
Sutherland Hall, and the McPhee Strength and Performance Center.
For more information on the University Writing Center, including tutor
hours and locations, check out its webpage:
http://www.uwec.edu/Writing/index.htm.
* Any student who has a disability and is in need of
classroom accommodations, please contact both the instructor and the
Services for Students with Disabilities Office, Old Library 2136; for
more information on the services the latter office provides you, check
out their webpage: http://www.uwec.edu/ssd/index.htm
*
CONCLUSION
In the interest of accountability–me to you–I am
here providing you weblinks: 1.) to my statement of philosophy as a
college teacher: http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/philosophy.htm
and 2.) to
my autobiographical profile:
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/PROFILE_.htm.
You are also welcome
to check out 3.) my myspace page,
http://www.myspace.com/insurgentseanmurphy, and to look me up
4.)
on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1755562371
[If you are interested in becoming facebook or myspace friends,
feel free to contact me about that.] In addition, you can find
5.) my professional vita (the academic equivalent of a resume) at:
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/VITA.htm.
I encourage you to check
these sites out; it is useful for you to know who your teacher is, what
he’s about, and where he’s coming from–and I like to be open, honest,
and forthright with you about all of that. I look forward to a
great semester working together with you!