WEEK 2--Paper #1 Development and First Draft--"Information Literacy 101"

Tues. 2/3: Click here for a guide to today's discussion.  Testing possible PPR products and potential types of product users to develop ways to determine what those users would need to know about a given set of similar products in order to believe your recommendation of one of those products as the best among them for those users needs.  This will be our first application of the principle that every academic paper, and every well-written non-academic paper, knows its audience very well and understands exactly what they know and do not know about the paper's topic.  Then we will start testing expert sources for those product-reader pairs. 

Thurs. 2/5:   Click here for a guide to today's dicussion.  We will continue talking about ways to evaluate Web-based sources for reliability.  Then we will discuss handling sources, both how you physically handle them when you take notes as you read, and how you legally appropriate and acknowledge information borrowed from them when converting your notes to prose for your paper.  If you have laptop or netbook computers, please bring them to class today!

Fri. 2/6: First draft of the Product Purchase Recommendation is due by 9 AM Friday posted to the GoucherLearn discussion forum as an attached MS-Word file--minimum content: a working title, an introductory paragraph with a clear statement of a focused thesis, a strong indication that the best reader has been identified and her/his needs understood, and an outline of preliminary support and reasoning to persuade your best readers to believe your thesis.  Between today and Sunday, I will reply to these by email and by "reply" on the discussion forum as quickly as I can get to them.   Click here for the course style sheet.  Monday, 2/11, is the deadline day for dropping a full-semester course without a W, advisor's signature required.

WEEK 3--Paper #1: Product Purchase Recommendation Revision / Start of Paper #2, Literary Analysis--The Hawthorne Project and Reading Hawthorne Stories in Contemporary Print Editions

Tues. 2/10  PPR Paper Workshop: for the first half of the class, you will work with another writer to help each other fine-tune the match between your best readers' most important needs and the various products' features.   Read the course Style Sheet and its examples of MLA Works Cited format, take the online Plagiarism-by-Paraphrase Risk Quiz, and read the evaluation criteria for the PPR paper. The Product Purchase Recommendation final drafts are due Friday by 9 AM in my email Inbox as an attached MS-Word file.  Click here for last-minute tips on how to tell whether or not to include information in the paper.   Click here for additional Internet source citation format examples to supplement the Style Sheet. 

Click here to READ AHEAD!  Thursday's assignment requires some major reading.

Thurs. 2/12: Before class, read Hawthorne's "My Kinsman, Major Monlineux," in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories, 96-111.  For quick "Control-F" searches of an accurate digital text, you may access this University of Virginia e-text of the story:  "My Kinsman, Major Molineux."  Please do not expect it to be as easy to read, either online or if printed out, as the bound print edition.  The latter was the format Hawthorne was writing for.  Also read the "Dream of the Text and Literary Analysis" and "Textual Analysis Worksheet" web pages.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Friday. 2/13: Final Draft of PPR due by 9 AM in my email Inbox as an attached MS-Word file.

WEEK 4--Paper #2: Literary Analysis, Primary Sources, and Getting an "Insight"--The Hawthorne Project and Reading Hawthorne Stories in Contemporary Print Editions

Tues. 2/17: Read Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" in Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories, 35-59.  For quick "Control-F" searches of an accurate digital text, you may access this University of Virginia e-text of the story:  "Rappaccini's Daughter."  But see the caution about format and readability for "My Kinsman" above.  Also read the web pages about ways to detect patterns of evidence that are called "stylistic," and about the "best reader" concept as it applies to a literary analysis paper.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Thurs. 2/19:  Comparative reading of both stories--what do "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" and "Rappaccini's Daughter" have in common that could lead you to believe they were written by the same author even if you did not see Hawthorne's name on the page?; What differences do you see between the stories that might be signs of Hawthorne's changing style and thought between 1832, when he wrote "My Kinsman" at the age of 28, and 1844, when he wrote "Rappaccini's Daughter" at the age of 44?  The link will take you to the "publishing history" page, where you may discover some other potential life changes which might have affected Hawthorne's artistic output.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.  We also will form the small collaborative research groups for next week's work at the Library and presentations in Thursday's class meeting.  I will try to give you the author you are most interested in, but all five authors are extremely important to American literature and led very interesting lives.  The amateur reader might say that they may seem to be "all middle-aged white American guys," but the scholar will discover, upon close examination of the facts, that they differ from one another as much as you and I do from each other.  Seeing the similarities and differences among them will help you locate Hawthorne more accurately in his intellectual community and the world his readers inhabited.

Fri., 2/20: Due by 9 AM in a GoucherLearn forum posting: post a coherent piece of prewriting that considers things you found in "MK,MM" and/or in "R'sD" that non-scholarly readers wouldn't notice.  Textual analysis attempts to explain how a work of literature works.  The same techniques can be used for other complex documents, like laws and political speeches, folk tales, video games and video dramas, etc..  Look for things you found in both Hawthorne stories, or aspects of the stories that differed interestingly.  Start to develop hypotheses that state what you begin to suspect you know about Hawthorne's prose style, his methods of tale construction, and his expectations of the reader.  When you have a hypothesis based on some evidence from the stories, remember that talented authors usually build stories out of complex layers of repeated words or actions or images.  Quickly reread both stories to see whether your hypothesis correctly predicts the existence of additional evidence for support.  Consider using the "Grid" or some similar tool to collect your information and to begin to analyze its significance.  If literary analysis does not work well for you, remember that you also can analyze the content of one or both stories using disciplinary approaches like Psychology, Political Science, Natural and Social Sciences, etc.

Read Ahead!  Library research training is scheduled for next Tuesday to help you find scholarly sources to support your group presentations on Thursday  [printed biographies, manuscripts and journals, secondary critical publications.  For next Thursday, prepare short (10 minutes) collaborative group biographical reports on Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Poe, Thoreau. The sooner you form your groups, the more time you will have to acquire evidence and prepare the presentation.  Here are the instructions for completing the projects on the authors we are researching  There are many ways to do the projects, but make sure you are using only scholarly sources who publish their work in print or in online-accessed peer-reviewed scholarly journals!  Anonymous sources, especially those found on amateur web sites and in popular print like newspapers or magazines, are not be acceptable for this assignment.  Click here for a review of some simple ways to tame scholarly printed books to your uses.  If you want some advice about organizing your collaborative research group, click here. 

WEEK 5--Paper #2: Literary Analysis, Background Sources: Biography, Manuscripts and Journals, Introduction to Secondary Critical Sources  During this week, make sure you go to the Writing Center early, for at least 1 hour with a Writing Center tutor to talk about the Hawthorne stories and possible thesis ideas.  Bring the stories and your notes to help your tutor understand what you are talking about.  That way you will have those materials ready to use as paraphrase or direct quotations when you write your paper.

Tues. 2/24: Meet at the library.  Click here for a guide to today's bibliographic research session.

Thurs. 2/26:  Collaborative group biographical reports on Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Poe, Thoreau.  Click here for a guide to group presentations.

WEEK 6--Paper #2: Literary Analysis, Secondary Critical Publications, Final Draft--The Hawthorne Project

Tues. 3/3: Private writing and fiction.  Use the photocopied excerpt I provide or go to the Library circulation desk and request Hawthorne's lost notebook, 1835-1841 : facsimile from the Pierpont Morgan Library.  This printed book, which is on reserve for this section of English 105, contains photographs and transcriptions of Hawthorne's journal entries in a notebook which dates from the years 1835-6 (i.e., three years after "MK,MM" and nine years before "R'sD").  Read and take notes on pages 1 through 20.  (You also can photocopy it and share it with another student, but make sure you bring your copy to class.)  We are looking for the creative roots of these stories.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion and some advice before you read the notebook excerpts.

Thurs. 3/5: Bring your rough drafts, notes, research and other materials necessary for a peer editing workshop and additional research in scholarly sources.  Click here for a guide to our research work, and links to three important pages of information about information quality in scholarly sources.

Fri. 3/6: Paper #2 Final Revision due by 9 AM in my Inbox as an attached MS-Word file.  Click here for links to all the Hawthorne paper assistance pages, especially those describing the shape and intentions of typical college-level literary analysis papers.  For the full evaluation criteria which will be used for the revised draft that is due today, click here.

WEEK 7--Paper #3: Film Analysis Project--terms and techniques.

Tues. 3/10: Start the Film Analysis Project.  Before class, read this glossary of film terms which will be useful in analyzing cinema and be ready to ask me to explain any terms the glossary definitions do not adequately describe.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Thurs. 3/12: Film illusion, continued.  Click here for two important web page links and a guide to today's discussion. 

Fri. 3/13: No written work is due this week.  Make plans to see Casablanca before our first class in the week after Spring Break.

3/14/15-3/22/15  Spring Break

WEEK 8--Paper #3: Film Analysis Project--into the illusion.  Film script and image database links.

Friday 3/27-Monday 3/30-arrange to watch Carol Reed's The Third Man.  Click here for a guide to viewing the film.  Click here for an online copy of The Third Man script.  Note how much more detailed the shot instructions are than those in the Casablanca script!  That's a sign of Reed's and Green's greater individual control over what you see in the film.  All the same, you will detect significant additions to the film, visually and in spoken dialog, that were improvised during shooting.  Never trust the script without verifying what is in the movie, itself.  This script contains lines which were improvised during shooting.  To see the pre-production script, see the Sight and Sound screenplay where improvised lines are in square brackets (791.437 T445g.1).  Click here for the cast members and the names of the parts they played.  Click here for a page illustrating the proper MLA format to use when citing the movie and a list of the DVD's "chapter" titles.   (If you have an extra 103 minutes after viewing The Third Man, try re-watching Casablanca with your evidence pattern in mind, and notice how viewing with a thesis changes what you see and remember.  You may even see points of connection or contrast between the two movies.  Either way, voila, a potential thesis is born.)

WEEK 13--Paper #4: Independent Research Project

Tues. 4/28: Email me your presentation title and an abstract of 100 to 250 words that describe your project, its main sources of evidence, and your preliminary conclusions. Click here to see the titles of last semester's conference papers.  The titles are linked to their abstracts and lists of their sources.  Also, fill out and send to me the IRP Conference Participant Information Form, which will insure that the classroom equipment is properly set up for your presentation.

Tues. 4/28-Thurs. 4/30: English 105 Independent Research Project Conference.  Click here for a guide to presenting preliminary research and to being the audience for such presentations.  Click here for the schedule of presentations. 

Week 14--Final Portfolio Paper Selection and Editing

Tues. 5/5: Choosing the best paper to revise (from papers 2, 3, or 4) for the final portfolio.  Discussion of final portfolio questions, CWP issues to pay attention to.  If you have forgotten the College Writing Proficiency Criteria, click here.  Read  this web page defining "substantive revision" for the final portfolio revisions. Information Literacy review--looking toward next semester, and the rest of your career as a consumer and producer of expert knowledge.

Thurs. 5/7:  Last class.   Final portfolio peer editing conferences.   Bring one paper from among papers 2, 3 or 4, and be prepared to work with someone from the class to help add value to the paper's revision.   We will specifically consider ways that interdisciplinary thinking and scholarly sources can improve an already good paper in an exercise we might call "The Return of the Hand."  Please fill out the online course evaluations.  Thanks.    If you have time, take a look at Jordan W. Smoller's "Etiology and Treatment of Childhood." and think about how its rhetoric and format simulate "scholarly writing for the sciences."  Alas, future generations probably will not detect the article's pointed reference to "scholarly articles" written by cartoon characters, The Three Stooges, Mister Rogers, and other cultural artifacts of the late 1900s.  Freud, Durkheim, and the rest are the real thing and their theories are creatively misapplied.  This parody works because Smoller is a professional educational psychologist who knows the rules of his discipline well enough to adapt them even to absurd data.

Mon. 5/11: Final Portfolio Revisions due at Noon, by email to my Goucher account.  Previous drafts should be dropped off in my Van Meter mailbox or under the door at VM 141.  The Final Portfolio should contain all your drafts for the paper you have chosen for revision, including the final drafts with my comments, and workshop sheets containing your readers' responses to the paper.  Remember that, if your readers have given you valuable advice, you can give your readers extra credit if you construct an endnote explaining specifically what they did to help you improve your paper.  If you give a colleague credit for demonstrable help that improved your paper and you give your colleague specific credit for this help in an endnote, I will raise your colleague's grade.  If you give colleagues similar help that wins endnote acknowledgement, I will raise your grade.  Write your own papers, of course, but collaborate to make each other's work excellent!