READING AND WRITING CULTURE

"Culture is an invisible web of behaviors, patterns, rules, and rituals of a group of people who have contact with one another and share common languages."

Texts:
Bohannan, Paul and Dirk van der Elst. Asking and Listening: Ethnography as Personal Adaptation. Waveland: Prospect Heights, 1998.

Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater, Fieldworking: Reading and Writing Research. Bedford/St. Martin's: New York, 2002.

e-reserve list at Jackson library.

Course Objectives:
English 102 builds on knowledge of the writing process, including revision, and of rhetorical principles introduced in English 101, a prerequisite for English 102. In addition, English 102 focuses on developing oral skills, from understanding the complexity of interpersonal speaking and listening skills in everyday conversation to understanding the importance of audience in more public speaking situations.
To do well in the speaking aspects of this course students will be expected to participate in and evaluate their contributions to whole class discussions, peer group work, teacher conferences. and collaborative group presentations.

Course Goals:
1. Understand the principles of effective oral and written rhetoric
2. Write for a variety of audiences and understand the differences in audience demands for oral and written texts
3.Offer supporting evidence and well developed ideas for both oral and written work
4. Develop research skills, library, internet, and fieldwork
5. Participate in feedback to improve writing and speaking processes
6. Understand effective listening skills as part of the evaluative process
7. Interpret and evaluate evidence in oral and written discourse
8. Weigh and evaluate evidence from different data sources and viewpoints

Course Rituals: Routines and Rules

Attendance/ Participation: This class is totally dependent upon participation,involvement,and immersion. Attendance counts (no more than two missed classes. For this course you are expected to be ON TIME and fully prepared to contribute to the ongoing class discussion, and to be engaged with the speaking, listening, writing, and peer response activities. You will be asked to develop individual course goals for yourself and to contribute to our class code of conduct.

Journal:
The journal you will keep for this class will be used for a variety of purposes: in- class writing activities, speaking occasions, peer response group feedback, and reflections on the class activities. The journal will be used extensively for you to respond to the wide range of readings, speech events, and data collection from your fieldwork project. When you read a chapter or article, you will write about it in your journal. These responses will not be "summaries" of the readings but show an attempt to weave connections between your own ideas, experiences and the readings. You should expect to write two handwritten pages to each day's readings or assigned journal topic. You may write your entries in any form: letters, dialogue format, poems, double entry, or fiction. Your writing should be legible or on a computer and provide room for my response.

One section of your journal should be devoted to writing, another to speaking, and the final section to your fieldwork project. In the speaking section of your journal you are asked to comment weekly on what you notice about yourself as a speaker in informal conversations, what you see in more formal classroom interactions and finally how you see yourself as a public speaker. This journal will be turned in many times and will count for one third of your final grade.

Written Project:
Your writing project for this class will involve an ethnographic fieldwork project in which you observe and investigate a culture or subculture that is different from your own. You'll do many writing activities from the book Fieldworking: Reading and Writing Research as part of your data collection so that the actual work will be spread over the entire semester, culminating in a 15-20 paged paper. This field study and all the smaller papers leading up to it will account for one third of your final grade.

Speech Projects:
This class is speaking intensive and will require that you pay attention to your own personal speaking style, to your interactions with peers in our class, and to public speech acts as well. You will give three different talks which will be evaluated with feedback and opportunities for improvement in subsequent speeches: one will be a personal story about yourself (family story), one will be a reading of a section of your field research project, and the more formal presentation will be on the findings from your field research. These three speech acts, including your speech journal and the informal speaking activities in our class will constitute another third of your grade.

Individual papers and speeches will not be graded in a numerical way but extensive feedback will be given so that you should be aware of your progress as a writer and speaker throughout the course. One of the underlying principles of the course is that we become better at writing and speaking through the process of doing it and getting feedback about how to improve. You may ask about your progress in speaking and writing at any point during the semester and you will be given a mid-term progress grade.

READING, WRITING, AND SPEAKING OUTLINE

1/10 Introduction to the class and to one another: the artifact exchange

1/12 Continue the artifact exchange
Reading: Fieldworking, pp. 368-374 (FW=Fieldworking)
Writing: draft of partner's artifact

1/17 NO CLASS: MARTIN LUTHER KING HOLIDAY

Questioning and Responding
1/19 Reading: Fieldworking, chapter 7, pp.374-412
Writing: Complete artifact exchange (Box 27) to be collected***
Journal Writing: Respond to “Ralph’s Sports Bar” What kinds of interviewing techniques does Cindie use in her study?
Go to the SAC or CAC website and review the feedback forms for speeches. Bring one to class to evaluate.

1/24 Family Stories: Oral and Written Story Telling
Reading: FW, Chapter 7, pp.345-368, and
Journal Response to “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston

1/26 Family Stories: Oral and Written Story Telling
E-reserve, Elizabeth Stone, Chapter 1, Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins and FW: 325-336
Journal Response: List 10 potential family stories to tell AND
Discuss family or friend’s differences in story telling styles based on reading by Shirley Brice Heath in FW
JOURNALS WILL BE COLLECTED

1/31 and 2/2 Family Stories
Writing: Outline of family story to be handed in***
Preparation: Be prepared to a tell 5 minute family story

2/7 Stepping In and Stepping Out: What is Culture?
Reading: FW, Chapter 1
Writing: Complete Box 3, pp.20-21 to collected
Journal Response to "Iowa 80": What do you understand
that Rick Zollo had to do to write this ethnography?

2/9 Writing Self, Writing Culture
Reading: FW, Chapter 2, pp.55-66 ---Read Box 4
Journal Writing: List of 10 potential people or places to investigate: where might you observe to learn about some culture different from yourself? What do you expect to learn about them and yourself?

2/14 Writing Self, Writing Culture
Reading FW, complete Chapter 2
Journal Writing: Begin Box 7,FW, p.93-94.

2/16 Asking and Listening
Reading: Part 1: from Asking and Listening Alien Beings with Human Faces and Part II, Improving the Observers
Journal Writing: Respond to these two short chapters with examples from your own life

Last Day to Drop Classes without Academic Penalty


2/21 Taking Fieldnotes
Reading: FW, Chapter 2 pp77-102 and Chapter 5, 217-232
Writing: Take four pages of fieldnotes at the site you have chosen
Follow a consistent format described in the chapter.
2/23 Analyzing Fieldnotes
Writing: Complete Box, Chapter 2 and Box 18, Chapter 18 using your fieldnotes

2/28 Focusing Fieldnotes
Reading: Chapter 8, pp.241-to end of chapter
Writing: Brainstorm possible focal points for your field site
Journal Response: Discuss how Karen Downing positions herself in
“Strike a Pose” and how she finds a focal point

3/2 Asking and Listening
Reading: Finish the text, Asking and Listening
Writing: Hand in a proposal for doing your field research project

SPRING BREAK MARCH 7-11: NO CLASSES

“ I think I did pretty well considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.” Steve Martin

We will develop the rest of the syllabus together after spring break.

Students in this class are encouraged to make use of both the Writing Center in 101 McIver Building and the Speaking Center in 22 McIver. Both centers offer peer consultants who will help you with your texts and speeches.