English 105.17, Spring 2008, Syllabus View

WEEK 1--Paper #1: Product Purchase Recommendation.  Review what you learned about academic writing in previous semesters and be prepared to ask questions about anything academic writers do whose purpose you don't understand or think unnecessary.

Tues. 1/29: Before class, read the web pages College Writing Proficiency Criteria, "How is Scholarly Intellectual Property Made?, and "Being Capable of Interest."   Click here and read the hyperlinked pages for today's discussion.  At the end of class, I will ask you to write a short diagnostic essay about your writing experience last semester.

Thurs. 1/31: Click here and read the hyperlinked pages for today's discussion.  By the next class, you should have decided on the product you are researching, the audience and purpose for which it will be useful, and at least some sources of evidence you will use to form your decision about which product to recommend.  Bring this evidence (and your questions/problems) to class on Tuesday.  At the end of class, you will write a short Source Citation Format and Bibliographic Evidence Quiz to help me gauge how much format instruction the class needs.  "Product Purchase Recommendation" paper (draft due next Friday; final draft due the following Friday--see the syllabus for dates).

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

Tue. 2/5: Read the "Reading to Write" web page and all pages linked to it.  When class begins, I will show you where to find the answers from last week's quiz.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Thurs. 2/7: Finding and evaluating expert information from Internet sites:  read the web page and all hyperlinked pages about how to locate, evaluate, and cite information from commercial sites, consumer organizations and the government; how these sources differ from scholarly sources (who enforces accuracy, why, and how?).  Also read this web page and its hyperlinks for today's discussion about how to research and write the PPR paper.   

Fri. 2/8: First draft of the Product Purchase Recommendation is due by 9 AM Friday in my Inbox 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.  Click here for the course style sheet.

WEEK 3--Paper #1: Product Purchase Recommendation Revision / Start of Paper #2, Literary Analysis

Tue. 2/12: 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 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 for a guide to today's discussion.

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

Thurs. 2/14: Before class, read Hawthorne's "My Kinsman, Major Molineux,". and the "Dream of the Text and Literary Analysis" and "Textual Analysis Worksheet" web pages.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Friday. 2/15: Final Draft of PPR due by 9 AM in my Inbox as an attached MS-Word file.

WEEK 4--Paper #2: Literary Analysis, Primary Sources, and Getting an "Insight"

Tues. 2/19: Read Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" and 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. 2/21: Read Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter."  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Fri., 2/22  Due by 9 AM as an email in my Inbox: some prewriting that considers things you found in "MK,MM," "YGB" and/or in "R'sD" that non-scholarly readers wouldn't notice, things you found in common or interestingly in contrast, and things you begin to suspect you know about Hawthorne's prose style, his methods of tale construction, and his expectations of the reader.  Consider using the "Grid" or some similar tool to collect your information and to begin to analyze its significance! 

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, printed sources!  Amateur web sites and popular print resources 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. 2/26: Meet at the library.  Click here for a guide to today's bibliographic research session.

Th. 2/28: 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

Tue. 3/4: Private writing and fiction.  Go to the Library circulation desk and request Hawthorne's "Lost Notebook," a printed book containing 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," the year before "YGB," and nine years before "R'sD").  Photocopy and read pages 1 through 20.  We are looking for the creative roots of these three stories.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion and some advice before you read the notebook excerpts.

Th. 3/6: Peer editing workshop, followed by research in the library.  Click here for a guide to our research work at the library, and links to three important pages of information about information quality in scholarly sources.

Fri. 3/7: 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, due next week, click here.

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

Tue. 3/11: 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.

Th. 3/13: Film illusion, continued.  Click here for two important web page links and a guide to today's discussion.

Sat. 3/15-Sun. 3/23: SPRING BREAK--if you have time, you might want to watch videos of the two films we'll be working with, Casablanca and The Third Man.  Both were so popular that they usually are available even in chain video/DVD stores.  If you do not see Casablanca during Spring Break, be sure to attend one of the Library's showings of the film

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

Sunday, 3/23 or Monday, 3/24--arrange to watch Michael Curtiz' Casablanca (1942/1943). Before you watch the film, click here for some pre-viewing instructions.  What appears to be a serviceable version of the printed film's shooting script is available online.  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.   Click here for the cast members of Casablanca and parts they played, as well as the shooting crew, director and other personnel.

Tue. 3/25: Read the complete lyrics of "As Time Goes By," an obviously important thematic element in the soundtrack, click here.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Th. 3/27: Read Robertson (Casablanca Man 77-80), Harmetz (Round Up the Usual Suspects 227-38) on the script and shooting of the film.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

Fri. 3/28:  a public folder posting to English 105--Sanders in which you describe a pattern of non-obvious evidence in Casablanca which you have detected by "close viewing" and a paragraph speculating on its significance.  Click here for a guide to discovering and posting evidence.

WEEK 9--Paper #3: Film Analysis Project--Illusion answers illusion--how one era's films reflect and reject the values of previous eras films. [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 two movies and possible thesis ideas.  Bring photocopies of relevant images or passages of dialogue to help your tutor understand what you are talking about.  That way you will have those materials ready to use as illustrations or direct quotations when you write your paper.]

Sunday, 3/30 or Monday, 3/31--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.

Tue. 4/1: Click here for a guide to today's discussion.

• Read Ahead!

        For Thursday, as described in this hyperlink, form groups of two or three and do collaborative research based on readings in the Course Reserve (Group 1: Graham Greene's film script and the "novelization" of the film (at least pages 133-48), on reserve for English 105.15);  Group 2: Walker (from Cameron, ed., The Book of Film Noir, soon to be on reserve for English 105.015 [look for a Home Page announcement when it's returned and put on reserve), pages 8-16 (and pages 25-32 are highly recommended re: film noir visual style in the Course Reserve copy if you are interested in this approach). 

Th. 4/3: Collaborative research reports.  Click here for a guide to today's discussion after the reports have been given.

Fri. 4/4: a public folder posting to English 105--Sanders in which you describe a pattern of non-obvious evidence in The Third Man which you have detected by "close viewing" and a paragraph speculating on its significance.  Click here for a guide to discovering and posting this evidence.

WEEK 10--Paper #3: Film Analysis Project--Paper Development During this week, make sure you go to the Writing Center early, for at least 1 hour with a Writing Center tutor to develop your thesis and organize your support.

Tue. 4/8:  Read this worksheet for our in-class rough draft workshop for the film paper,  and this web page about finding sources for difficult topics.  Click here for a guide to today's rough draft workshop.

Read Ahead!

Prepare to do some research in secondary scholarly sources by reading ahead for Thursday.  Click here for a list of cast members and the names of the fictional characters they played.

Th. 4/10:  Read this web page about psychological and moral approaches to analyzing The Third Man, and bring to class enough copies for the entire class (and one for me) of an annotated bibliography entry (one/1) using correctly cited summary/paraphrase or direct quotation from a book or article relevant to our study of Michael Curtiz' Casablanca, Carol Reed's The Third Man, politics and film making, film noir, etc.  Explain the usefulness of the source with a brief comment (one paragraph, probably).  Click here for a guide to today's discussion with links to a sample source annotation.

Fri. 4/11: Film Paper Rough Drafts due by 9 AM in my Inbox as an attached MS-Word file.  Click here for advice about how to "hold your ground" to preserve the paper's independent authority while using primary and secondary source evidence.

Th. 4/17: Read this web page and its hyperlinks on paragraph development schemes, and look for ways they can describe source functions in a research paper.  Click here for additional readings for class and a guide to today's discussion.

Fri. 4/18: 9-5 PM, Independent Research Topic Conferences.  [Note that the Film Analysis final draft is not due until Saturday, 4/17, by noon--please take advantage of the time to focus your argument, organize it effectively, and explain it coherently.  Read the paper aloud to yourself before you consider it done.  Read the paper to a skeptical friend before you turn it in.   Your ear will catch mistakes your eye cannot see.

Sat. 4/19, by noon: a final draft of Film Analysis Project is due in my Inbox as an attached MS-Word file.

WEEK 12--Paper #4: Independent Research

Tue. 4/22: Read this web page about how to combine data and reasoning from multiple sources to arrive at insights none of them could invent.  Bring your laptops and sources to class for a research workshop--Use your first sources, Works Cited sections, bibliographies, etc. and additional index searches to acquire more and better sources. After the first 30 minutes, show me both sets, explain your search strategy, and discuss possible source clusters and topic overlaps.

Th. 4/24:  Bring your laptops and sources to class for a second-round research workshop. Click here for two ways to make a resistant set of sources show you the patterns they contain so that you can arrive at an independent thesis.  Click here for a thought experiment about "interdisciplinarity," ways you can use research in another discipline to develop new insights about your primary discipline.

• For next week, sign up for in-class presentations on your developing research project. (See instructions for next week.)

Fri. 4/25: Rough draft of Independent Research Project due by 9:00 AM as an MS-Word file attached to an email to me.  Minimum content: a functional title, an introduction describing the specific part of the discipline or field you are studying and naming at least two persons whose ideas will contribute to your thesis, along with some reasoning about what you can do with their work, and bibliographic documentation of the sources appropriate to the discipline in which you are working.  (When in doubt, follow the style of the articles published in scholarly journals for your field.)   Click here for the evaluation criteria I will use when reading the Independent Research Project reports.

WEEK 13--Paper #4: Independent Research

Tue. 4/29 and Th. 5/1: In-class oral reports on preliminary research for Paper #4.  Click here for a guide to presenting preliminary research and to being the audience for such presentations.  Click here for the schedule of presentations.  Click here for some background on two different kinds of online information database structure: "wild" or "association-linked" databases (e.g., amateur web sites) and logically structured databases.

Fri. 5/2: Paper #4 Final Revisions are due by 5:00 PM as a MS-Word file attached to an email to me. Indicate clearly in your email's message if you believe you likely will use this paper in your final portfolio!  That will determine the order in which I read the papers.  Later delivery on Saturday can be negotiated, especially if you aren't planning to revise this again for the final portfolio.  Click here for the evaluation criteria I will use when reading the Independent Research Project reports.

Week 14--Final Porfolio Workshop

Tue. 5/6: Last class--course evaluations and self-evaluations; Information Literacy review; final portfolio peer editing conferences.  Read  this web page defining "substantial revision" for the final portfolio revisions.  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.  If you're in doubt about the College Writing Proficiency Criteria, click here.  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.

Thurs. 5/8: It's Arnie's turn to be "on the spot," delivering a conference paper at a medieval studies conference in Michigan. 

Mon. 5/12: Final Portfolios due at Noon, VM G57.  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 improve your paper.