ENG252, Writing Intensive
Spring, 2005

Jeanne Follansbee Quinn
334G McIver
Office Hours: Mon. 3:30-5:00 p.m. and Wed. 12:30-1:30 p.m. and by appointment
Office Phone: 256-0482
E-mail: jfquinn@uncg.edu

Major American Authors: Realist to Modernist and Beyond

Course Description

This course will introduce you to a range of American authors and texts from the early republic to the present, with an emphasis on texts produced after1865. We will approach these works historically, considering the ways that historical conditions shape literary production as well as the ways that literary texts seek to shape the world in which they work. We will cover major movements in American literature, explore the representational strategies available to authors at particular moments in American history, and consider more broadly the complex relations between texts and contexts by approaching the works thematically as well as formally. The course will focus on our discussions and your comments, with only occasional lectures. Because this is a writing intensive section, I have also included workshop sessions, which we will devote to critiquing and revising your essays.

Student Learning Outcomes
• To explore the complex interaction between writing and historical context.
• To make connections between writers from different time periods and experiences, noting formal and thematic convergences and divergences.
• To read a range of kinds of writing—fictional, poetic, dramatic, historical--carefully and critically.
• To write with clarity and precision.

Course Requirements
My assessment of your work in the course will be based on your performance on a series of writing assignments, a response journal, a final portfolio, and your participation in class discussions.
• Expectations for Discussion
Make sure to leave enough time not only to read the assignments for each class, but also to think critically about each text, about how it speaks to the texts we’ve read previously, what new ideas it raises, its formal characteristics, or whatever interests you or confounds you about what you read. I expect you to come to class with ideas about what you’ve read. However, coming with ideas doesn’t mean that you have to come with all the answers. Questions and confusion will often spark the best conversations as we work through some of the difficulties of a text together.
• Expectations for Writing
Essays
The writing assignments in this course are designed to help you develop your ability to write coherent, persuasive academic essays. The academic essay—like other forms of writing—is a particular genre, and it has its own conventions. We will discuss these conventions over the course of the semester, and I will give you specific instructions for each writing assignment, but in each assignment I will look for the following:
• Demonstration of your imaginative engagement with the texts
(Yes, academic essays require imagination!)
• A compelling argument
• Supporting evidence gleaned from the close analysis of texts
• Clear, precise, and elegant prose.
Response Journal
Over the course of the 16-week semester, you will write and submit 8 one-page single-spaced journal papers, which will take the form of explications (or close readings) of a short passage from one of the week’s texts. (I will provide more detailed instructions.) You may select which weeks you will submit essays; however, they are always due on Friday. Individually, I will grade these on a check, check-plus, check-minus basis. At the end of the semester, I will review them in your portfolio and give you an overall grade for the responses.
Portfolio Self-Assessment
At the end of the semester, you will compile all of your work for the course—drafts, response journals, final papers, exercises—into a portfolio, due on the last day of class. Organize it into sections, with all of the materials pertaining to each assignment together. When you submit the portfolio on the last day of class, you will include a self-assessment.

• Grade Calculation
Paper One (2 pages) 10%
Paper Two (3-4 pages) 20% (includes draft)
Paper Three (5 pages) 25% (includes draft)
Response Journal 25%
Portfolio Self-Assessment 10%
Class Participation 10%

Attendance
I expect you to attend class and participate in our discussions (that means speaking in class, not simply attending class). If you miss more than 2 classes without a legitimate excuse, I will lower your class participation grade. If you do not contribute to our discussions regularly, I will lower your class participation grade. I expect you to be in class for the entire class period unless you notify me in advance.

Late Papers
I will not accept late response papers under any circumstances. If you miss a Friday, simply hand in a paper on another Friday. You may choose any 8 weeks in the semester to submit a response paper, so plan in advance to make sure that you complete 8 papers.

Late drafts and final papers will be penalized one half-grade for each day they are late. I recognize that things happen; however, if you cannot complete an assignment by the due date, you must contact me in advance by e-mail or in person (please don’t leave phone messages) to avoid penalty. I am willing to grant extensions for legitimate problems. My goal is to enable you to do the best work you can do.

Academic Honor Code
Participation in an academic community comes with responsibilities. Your responsibility is to produce your own work and to acknowledge the sources that inform that work. You have an obligation to adhere to the University Academic Honor Policy. Please see the UNCG Graduate Bulletin and the Policies for Students handbook.

Required Texts
The texts for the course are available at the UNCG Bookstore. They are:
Nina Baym, et. al., Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter 6th Ed. (N)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (Vintage) You must purchase this edition. (IM)
Eric Sundquist, Cultural Contexts for Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (CC)
In addition, there are several texts on e-reserve (ER) under my name and the course number at the Jackson Library website. Please print out copies of all e-reserves and bring them to class.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

1/10 Introduction

“The Making of Americans”

1/12 Crevecouer, “What is an American?” (N)
1/14 Franklin, “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” (N)
1/19 Apess, “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man” (N)
1/21 Twain, “The Noble Red Man” (ER)
1/24 Chopin, “Desiree’s Baby” (N)

1/25 (TUESDAY) PAPER ONE DUE by 10:00 a.m. in my mailbox

1/26 Sui Sin Far, “Mrs Spring Fragrance” (N)
1/28 Black Elk, “Black Elk Speaks” (N)
1/31 Langston Hughes, “Mulatto,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Countee Cullen, “Heritage,” Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (N)
2/2 Carlos Bulosan, “Be American” (N)
2/4 Kingston, “No Name Woman” (N)
2/7 Andalzua, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (N)
2/9 Erdrich, “Fleur” (N)

Working in America

2/11 Davis, “Life in the Iron Mills” (N)
2/14 Cahan, “A Sweatshop Romance” (N)
2/16 Cather, “The Neighbor Rosicky” (N)
2/18 Frost, “Mending Wall,” Mowing,” “After Apple-Picking” (N)
2/21 Glaspell, “Trifles” (N)
2/23 Dos Passos, “Vag” (ER) and Taggard, “At Last the Women are Moving” (ER)
2/25 Pinsky, “Shirt” (N)
PAPER TWO (Draft) DUE IN-CLASS

2/28 WRITING WORKSHOP
Materials on E-Reserve—Bring copies to class!!!

Invisible Man: Constructing an American Self

3/2 Emerson, “Self-Reliance” and “Nature” (Chapter I, pp. 487-488) (N)
Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
3/4 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (IM), pp. 3-52
Andy Razaf, (CC)

SPRING BREAK

3/14 IM, pp. 52-108
Sundquist, Introduction (CC), Charles Johnson (CC), Bernice Harris (CC)
3/16 IM, pp. 109-156 (to break in page)
Booker T. Washington (CC), Anson Stokes (CC), William Colson (CC)

3/17 (Thursday) PAPER TWO (Final Version) DUE by 10:00 a.m. in my mailbox

3/18 IM, pp. 156-207 (to break in page)
Federal Writers’ Project (CC), African- American Folk Songs (both) (CC), Peetie Wheatstraw (CC)
3/21 IM, pp. 207-260
Spero and Harris (CC), Richard Wright (CC)
3/23 IM, pp. 261-317
Street Market Song (CC), Leo Gurley (CC), Harry Haywood (CC), Will Herberg (CC)
3/28 IM, pp. 318-367 (to break in page)
Alain Locke (CC)
3/30 IM, pp. 367-416
Cyril Briggs (CC), Marcus Garvey (CC)
4/1 IM, pp. 417-461
African American Spiritual (CC), Avram Landy (CC)
4/4 IM, pp. 462-512
Mezz Mezzrow (CC), James Weldon Johnson (CC)
4/6 IM, pp. 513-556 (to break in page)
Claude McKay (CC), Adam Clayton Powell (CC)
4/8 IM, pp. 556-581
Ralph Ellison (both essays) (CC)
4/11 IM, Ellison’s Introduction to the 1981 Edition (Vintage)

Representing War

4/13 Whitman, poems from Drum Taps (N)

4/14 PAPER THREE (Draft) DUE by 10:00 a.m. in my mailbox

4/15 WRITING WORKSHOP
Materials on E-Reserve—Bring copies to class!!
Free Response Day: You may turn in a response to Whitman OR to any of the other texts we’ve read (EXCEPT those you’ve analyzed in previous assignments)

4/18 Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (N)
4/20 Amy Lowell, “September 1918” (N) and Millay, “Apostrophe to Man” (N)
4/22 Eliot, “The Hollow Men” (N)
4/25 Porter, “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” (N)
4/27 Roth, “Defender of the Faith: (N)

4/28 (Thursday) PAPER THREE (Final) DUE in my mailbox by 10:00 a.m.

4/29 Vonnegut, “Fates Worse Than Death” (N)
5/2 O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” (ER)

5/3 PORTFOLIOS (Including Self-Assessment) DUE IN CLASS