Writing I: Schedule

We will try to stick to this plan as closely as possible, but we may get ahead or fall behind. If either situation arises, expect in-class and online announcements of schedule revisions. Develop habits, therefore, of bringing your copy of the syllabus to each class meeting and of checking this page.

Schedule

• August 26

  Welcome to class; course goals and objectives; syllabus overview.

  Freewrite: What do you expect from a college education?

• August 28

  Reading

  • Nick Hornby, “Ben Folds Five: ‘Smoke’” (handout)

• September 2

  Quiz on Strunk & White, chapter 1.

  Reading

  • Joan Didion, “The White Album” (Oates, 421–446)

• September 4

  Response 1 due.

  Reading

  • John Dawkins, “Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool” (handout)
  • Virginia Stem Owens, “Death and Texas” (handout)

• September 9

  Quiz on Strunk & White, chapter 2.

  Reading

  • T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (Oates, 90–97)

• September 11

  Response 2 due.

  Reading

  • Annie Dillard, “Total Eclipse” (Oates, 477–89)

• September 16

  Quiz on Strunk & White, chapter 3.

  Reading

  • Raymond Carver, “Where I’m Calling From” (Updike, 581–594)

• September 18

  Response 3 due.

  Reading

  • Stephen Jay Gould, “The Creation Myths of Cooperstown” (Oates, 520–531)

• September 23

  Quiz on Strunk & White, chapter 4.

  Reading

  • Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (Oates, 263–279)

• September 25

  Response 4 due.

  Reading

  • Elizabeth Hardwick, “The Apotheosis of Martin Luther King” (Oates, 319–326)

• September 30

  Quiz on Strunk & White, chapter 5.

  Reading

  • Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (Oates, 114–117)

• October 2

  Response 5 due.

  Reading

  • Alice Walker, “Looking for Zora” (Oates, 395–411)

• October 7

  Reading

  • Richard Rodriguez, “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” (Oates, 447–466)

• October 9

  Response 6 due.

  Reading

  • Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Updike, 450–465)

• October 14

  Reading

  • Mark Twain, “Corn-pone Opinions” (Oates, 1–5)
  • John Updike, “The Disposable Rocket” (Oates, 549–552)

• October 16

  Response 7 due.

  Reading

  • Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now” (Updike, 600–615)

• October 21

  Reading

  • Saul Bellow, “Graven Images” (Oates, 564–68)
  • Edward Hoagland, “Heaven and Nature” (Oates, 507–19)

• October 23

  Response 8 due.

  Reading

  • Flannery O’Connor, “Greenleaf” (Updike, 348–368)

• October 28

  Reading

  • Willa Cather, “Double Birthday” (Updike, 77–99)
  • William Faulkner, “That Evening Sun Go Down” (Updike, 111–126)

• October 30

  Response 9 due.

  Reading

  • Maxine Hong Kingston, “No Name Woman” (Oates, 383–394)

• November 4

  Mid-term break: no class.

• November 6

  Essay 2 due.

  Reading

  • William H. Gass, “The Doomed in Their Sinking” (Oates, 373–382)

• November 11

  Reading

  • Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” (Updike, 616–632)
  • Poetry of Wilfred Owen (handout)

• November 13

  Response 10 due.

  Reading

  • Donald Hall, “A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails” (Oates, 252–262)
  • Lewis Thomas, “The Lives of a Cell” (Oates, 358–360)

• November 18

  Reading

  • Sophocles, Antigone (1–22)

• November 20

  Response 11 due.

  Reading

  • Antigone (concluded)

• November 25

  Reading

  • Vladimir Nobokov, “Perfect Past” (Oates, 303–313)
  • Richard Wright, “Bright and Morning Star” (Updike, 179–210)

• November 27

  Thanksgiving break: no class.

• December 3

  Essay 3 due.

  Wrap-up and course evaluations.

  Reading

  • Selected poetry (handout)
  • Mark Binelli, “Johnny Cash Makes ’Em Hurt”

• December 11

  Final exam, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., in Dumbach 227 (not our normal room).