[The most frequently referenced journal title abbreviations used below: CE (College English), CCC (College Composition and Communication), and RTE (Research in the Teaching of English).  Articles available online can be read from journals indexed in JSTOR by means of hyperlinks from the syllabus's parenthetical bibliographic information, like this: (available via JSTOR, from CCC,  1981).  You will have to use EbscoHost, yourself, to access Genesee ("Brain Research") in ERIC for Week 5.]

Week 1

Thursday, 9/3: As soon as you can, buy the anthologies edited by Perl and Podis & Podis; get the packet of photocopied articles from the stack outside VM G57; read Faerm, "Tutoring Anne" (photocopy ex-WLN, 1992) and Emig, "The Composing Process: Review of the Literature" (In Perl, 1-22). Think about how strange "language" is, how it is linked to seeing and hearing and speaking, to the rest of our senses, and to memory. Also, if you have not already done so, learn how to navigate the public folders and how to send and receive emails with attached files. These will be useful techniques, and are more easily learned early in the semester than when they're absolutely needed.

        In the writing due for this week, we will be introducing ourselves to each other by describing how we write before the class meets.  Post your "How Do I Write" description to the "Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's "Weekly Reading Responses" discussion forum by Monday, 8/31.  After you have read your colleagues' descriptions of their composing processes, if you have time, talk to some other members of the class (see "Who we are 2009").   In class on Wednesday, we will divide our time between talking about the similarities and differences you observed in your colleagues' "How do I write?" essays, the varieties of approaches to researching writing which Emig describes, and the tutoring experience you will encounter in Faerm's article.

Week 2: What do we do when we write?--What do tutors do when performing tuition?

Thurs., 9/10, Read Graves, "An Examination of the Writing Processes of Seven-Year-Old Children" (In Perl, 23-38).   "Introduction"; Gilmartin, "Working at the Drop-In Center"; Turk, "On Working with a Class" (In Podis & Podis, 1-32).  If you're wondering what I think about these readings, click here for some guidance.  This will give you some idea where I would take a discussion, but the more important question is where you want to take the discussion.  Web page for today's class.

Writing Due: on Tuesday 9/8, to the "Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's "Weekly Reading Responses" discussion forum, a 1- to 2-page analytical response to the "how do I write?" papers, drawing upon this week's readings when you see connections.  See the "Required Texts and Graded Work" page or talk to me for advice about the responses.

Week 3: Minds/Brains/Symbols--Cognitive process theory and emotion.

Thurs., 9/17, Flowers and Hayes, "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing" (available via JSTOR from CCC, 1981); Koundakjian, "Speaking the Written Voice" (in Podis & Podis, 33-37); and Brand, "The Why of Cognition: Emotion and the Writing Process" (available via JSTOR, from CCC, 1987).  Useful background reading if you want to pursue this further:  Antonio Damasio, Decartes' Error.

Writing Due: Tues., 9/15, to the "Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's "Weekly Reading Responses" discussion forum, response to readings and first annotated bibliography entry to the to the "Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's "Annotated Bibliographies" discussion forum.  See the "What Makes a Bibliographic Annotation Useful" page or talk to me for advice about how to structure your annotation.

WRITING CENTER TUTORING OBSERVATIONS BEGIN (1-HOUR/WEEK): sit in on Writing Center hours to talk with tutors about their work and writing (if there are no tutoring sessions scheduled) or to observe and reflect upon the tutoring sessions.  Watch the tutor-writer interaction as if it were a business negotiation, a courtship, an interrogation, a therapy session, or a friendly conversation.  What is going on at the surface level (body language, who holds the paper?, who leads the conversation?) and beneath the surface (are the participants comfortable or uncomfortable and why?; what long-term writing process functions seem to be at issue in the writer's process?; how does the tutor "play" the session?; what issues does this raise for the readings so far and in the future?).  Feel free to refer to these sessions in your weekly responses and to let them guide your remaining bibliographic annotations.  Please refer to the tutors and writers anonymously (e.g., as "the tutor" or "the writer" vs. "Arnie" and "Raskolnikov").

Week 4: Cognitive Process Theory and Its Critics

Thurs., 9/24 [National Punctuation Day!]  Lester Faigley, "Competing Theories of Process" (available via JSTOR, from CE, 1986).  Peter Elbow, "Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience" (available via JSTOR, from CE, 1987).  Shambelan, "Defining a Persona" (P&P, 193-98). 

Writing Due: Tues., 9/22, response to readings and second annotated bibliography entry to the t"Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's discussion forums.  (You can take until Friday or the weekend to do the bibliographic annotation, but please do not delay it beyond Sunday or you will have to write two assignments in one day for Monday's reading response.  The whole reason I extended the bib annotation due date was avoid that collision in the previous week!)

Reading the 1938 Hobbit Aloud: The Athenaeum Forum, Saturday, September 26, from 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM   Celebrate the 72nd publication anniversary of the English first edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit by attending a reading of Goucher College's copy of the 1938 American first edition.  Hear it as it was meant to be read, aloud, with projected images of original drawings and paintings created by Tolkien especially for this edition.  Bring your modern Hobbit editions and listen for his editorial changes as he revised this earliest published tale of Middle Earth to fit his fully realized vision of it in The Lord of the Rings.  Contact Arnie Sanders by email before September 11 if you want to be one of the readers.

Week 5 :Function and Dysfunction at the Junction: the Writer's Brain

Thurs., 10/1: Hudson, Roxanne F.; High, Leslie; Al Otaiba, Stephanie. "Dyslexia and the Brain: What Does Current Research Tell Us?," Reading Teacher, Mar2007, 60:6, 506-515 (available from EbscoHost at http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=24286603&site=ehost-live; Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Linda Feldmeier White, Patricia A. Dunn, Barbara A. Heifferon and Johnson Cheu, "Becoming Visible: Lessons in Disability,"  College Composition and Communication,  52: 3 (Feb., 2001) 368-398 (available from JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/358624); Wewers, "Writing Tutors and Dyslexic Tutees: Is There Something We Special We Should Know?" (P&P, 229-238); and "Brain Structures and their Functions."   Start with "Brain Structures" and teach yourself a little functional anatomy.  How much of the brain and which parts are typically devoted to spoken/heard language, and how much of it and which parts are typically devoted to written/read language?  What does this tell us about the relationship between spoken and written language, and what might it mean for writers, tutors, and teachers?  Then see what Hudson et al., Brueggemann et al., and Wewers can tell us about how to help writers whose brains are atypically organized. 

Writing Due: Tues., 9/29, collaborative response to readings--BIB. Holiday, no annotation due.  Click on the hyperlink for advice about how to create a collaborative reading response.

Week 6 : Skilled and Unskilled Processes; Authority and Dialect

Thurs., 10/8: Perl, "Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers" (Perl 39-61 and available in a very rough microfilm ERIC version of the conference paper on which the article was based, 1979) and Sommers, "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers" (Perl 75-84 and available via JSTOR, from CCC, 1980); Harris, "Composing Behaviors of One- and Multi-Draft Writers" (available via JSTOR, from CE, 1989).

Writing Due: Tues., 10/6, collaborative response to readings; BIB. Holiday, no annotation due.

Week 7: Why the Writing Center Matters, Part 1

Thurs., 10/15: North, "The Idea of the Writing Center" (available via JSTOR from CE, 1984); McCarthy, "A Stranger in Strange Lands" (photocopy ex-RTE, 1987); Pryor, "Writing in Academia" (P&P, 221-27).  Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching ("The Way and its Power"), Chapter LXXVII.  Web page for today.

Writing Due: Tues., 10/13, response to readings--and third annotated bibliography entry to the "Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's discussion forums.  (You can take until Friday or the weekend to do the bibliographic annotation, but please do not delay it beyond Sunday or you will lose the whole effect of having a week off for mid-semester.  If I were you, I'd post it before I left.)

Saturday 10/17-Monday 10/19: Mid-Semester Holiday--think deep thoughts about what you might research for your final project, and perhaps read ahead for the grammar class. The Bibliography Project also is on holiday.  For next week, by Tuesday, send me an email containing any and all questions you have about grammar, i.e., syntax (word order) and usage (word choice).

Week 8: Grammar, Syntax, and Usage; Writers' Isolation & Two Styles of Composing

Thurs., 10/22: Read Hartwell, "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar" (available via JSTOR from College English, 1985) and  Krishna, "The Syntax of Error" (photocopy ex-Graves) in preparation for The Grammar, Syntax, Spelling, and Style Encounter Group during the first half of the seminar. Get ready to bare your soul about what you know, don't know, love, hate, fear, and wonder about the English language. Bring a handbook, a hard-cover dictionary of recent vintage, and a generous spirit. We want to make sure all of us leave class feeling like competent users of formal grammar for practical purposes, able to explain sentence structure and spelling conventions, and equipped with an enhanced sensitivity to style. Refreshments will be served.  For some historical background on how punctuation evolved to its current exalted state, click here.  For links to online grammar tutorial sites, click here.

Writing Due: Nothing formal or graded is due this week, but by Tues., 10/20, send me an email containing any and all questions you have about grammar, i.e., syntax (word order) and usage (word choice).  The Bibliography Project is still on holiday.  Take advantage of the break in writing to re-read some of your colleagues' annotated bibliography entries and postings to the public folder.  Look for people with interests you share already or who can help you discover an interest you didn't know you had.  Those people might be good to work with on your collaborative research project.  Click here for "Tips for Getting Started in Collaborative Research."

Week 9: Why the Writing Center Matters, Part 2

Wednesday, 10/28, at 4:00 PM, in the Batza Room of the Athenaeum, a public lecture by Earle Havens (Curator of Rare Books at the Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University): "Scribal Culture in the Era of Print: Persecuted Catholics, Censored Books and Scribal Publication in the English Catholic Community, 1580-1610."  [Co-Sponsors: The Brooke and Carol Peirce Center for Undergraduate Research in Special Collections and The Charles Singleton Center for the Study of Pre-Modern Europe]    How is this relevant to 221?  The writers and readers Havens' studied were under intense political pressure because the open practice of the Catholic faith in England, including possession of Catholic writing, could be punished by death by burning.  (And you thought your professors were harsh!)  Fear of discovery was so great that, in this first age of mass-market print publication, scribes were called upon to hand-copy books for distribution to Catholic families, and Catholic authors developed their own underground audiences for their works.  A similar situation prevailed in the Stalinist Soviet Union when the samizdat or underground literary journals circulated by hand-copied and mimeographed manuscripts.   Alexander Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago (which exposed Stalin's secret Siberian labor camps), wrote his thousand-plus word manuscript himself, gave them to conspirators who memorized the pages for reproduction, and then destroyed the manuscripts.  How do these relationships between authors, truth, power, and writing relate to the experiences of college students and academic prose, especially college freshmen?

Thurs., 10/29: Brufee, "Peer Tutoring and the Conversation of Mankind" (photocopy, ex-Murphy & Law, eds. & Olson, ed., 1984); Dyehouse, "Peer Tutors and Institutional Authority" (P&P, 53-57); Howey, "No Answers: Interrogating 'Truth' in Writing" (P&P, 117-221); Axel-Lute, "Consciousness, Frustration, and Power" (P&P, 151-68).

Writing Due: Tues., 10/27, response to readings and fourth annotated bibliography entry to the "Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's discussion forums.   (You can take until Friday or the weekend to do the bibliographic annotation, but please do not delay it beyond Sunday or you will have to write two assignments in one day for Monday's reading response.  The whole reason I extended the bib annotation due date was avoid that collision in the previous week!)  THIS IS THE END OF THE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENTS.   BY THIS TIME, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEGUN TO FORM FINAL PROJECT GROUPS (2-3 PER GROUP), AND PLAN PROJECTS (proposal due 11/19, written project reports due 12/14).  Click here for "Tips for Getting Started in Collaborative Research."

Week 10: Writing in the body(-politic) / Research Group Formation

Thurs., 11/5: Min-zhan Lu, "From Silence to Words" (Perl, ed., 165-76); Flynn, "Composing as a Woman" (Perl, ed., 177-89); Love, "Learning From Writer's Block" (P&P, 143-50).  After we have talked about Lu, Flynn, and Love, our attention will turn to collaborative research strategies.  I will describe some ways to organize collaborative research and problem solving techniques that have proven useful to previous groups.  I will pay special attention to inventive ways to divide the workload, and to stage your research process, so that the remaining three weeks of the course produce the maximum productivity from your group, and as little wasted time as possible.  If you have questions before we meet and if you have not already consulted "A Few Words About Collaborative Research," please read that web page.  By the end of class, you should have some idea of which groups you might be involved with, and by next week, you will know for sure.

Writing Due: Tues., 11/3, a poem, short anecdote, or short fictional story about silence, authority, and/or gender posted to the "Theories of Composing..." Blackboard course's "Weekly Reading Responses" discussion forum.  This assignment will not be graded, but will be yet another way to get to know the people you are working with.  In addition, you should be discussing possible research groups based on ideas that are mutually interesting and compatible.  Please feel free to schedule group or individual conferences with me if you need help getting started, organizing yourselves, finding sources, focusing the project, or anything else that helps.  Seek help finding secondary scholarly sources from me, from other relevant Goucher faculty, and from the library's bibliographic research staff (ask Randy Smith, Jim Huff, or Margaret Guccione.

Week 11: Research Project Conferences (In VM G57, project groups): no class meeting.

By appointment at G57 on Tuesday 11/10, Wednesday 11/11, or Thursday 11/12: Research project tutoring sessions.   Bring your ideas, photocopied and original sources, preliminary data, and anything else you would bring to a Writing Center conference for help constructing your project.  Our goal is to solve problems in your collaborative distribution of tasks and information, and to help you acquire information and expertise to help your group finish the project on schedule.  Be prepared to adjust your project's focus a bit in the interests of practicality, remembering always that English 221 research projects often evolve into Independent Study courses or Senior Honors Theses.  You don't have to do it all this semester, and the current project can take the form of a gathering of resources for a proposal to do a bigger project later. 

Week 12: Research Project Proposal Day

Thurs., 11/19: Read for your projects and share what you read with your group, and with groups working on related topics.   Writing Due: 3-PAGE PROPOSALS FOR FINAL COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PROJECTS DUE Thursday IN CLASS. Bring enough copies for each class member plus one for me.  These should be descriptions of the problem you're trying to understand, with a description of the method you might use to learn about it and a guess as to how you'll divide the work among yourselves.  The page count is negotiable--they can be shorter or longer.  One member of your group should be designated to read the proposal aloud to help us consider carefully what you are proposing to do.  I would be delighted to read and respond to earlier drafts of your proposals before class.   Click here for a description of what should be in a well-constructed proposal.

        Add to your proposal's text your current bibliography or Works Cited list of resources, and be prepared to give us an update on where your project has gone so far, what you are currently doing, and what help you could use.  As you listen to other groups, be prepared to offer suggestions, including research strategies or sources you have come across.  If your group receives significant assistance from members of another group, please remember to give them credit in an endnote or footnote (depending on which format you choose to follow).  In the last class meeting, your group will present a preliminary report of your findings in the last class meeting, and a final report on the project is due after classes are over.

Wednesday 11/25 through Sunday 11/29--THANKSGIVING VACATION.