Writing

due Thursday, February 7

  • Read selections from Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera, one of the most seminal texts of cultural criticism to shape border, Chicano/a, gender, and queer theories. Anzaldua experimentally writes at the intersection of autobiography, poetry, theory, mythology, and geopolitical history. Select 1 line that you consider to be the most important in Anzaldua’s work and write a 1-page response about why you were drawn to it and how it functions within the text as a whole (re: excerpts read). Type the line at the beginning of your response. The line you select might illuminate an image, metaphor, figure, word, or idea you find interesting; you must persuasively explore its meaningfulness in ways that are not obvious, general, or summarizing. Consider also how Anzaluda’s text enacts, embodies, or resists the very concept of the border that is being explored, and thus how she challenges your position as a reader. This exercise is mostly meant to get you thinking in preparation for our discussion, so approach this as a brief, informal free-write that will not be evaluated except as it shows me how you think through language and ideas.

due Tuesday, February 12

  1. Zamora. Reading Response #2: Write a 1-page single-spaced explication of 1 poem from the collection. (See Tips for Explications at the bottom of the FYS tab.) Post response to blog.

due Thursday, February 14

  1. Watch the film Sin Nombre. Point to 1 specific scene, image, or cinematic technique that Cary Fukunaga develops as a way of visually representing this border-crossing narrative, and briefly discuss its meaning to the film as a whole. Post response to blog.

due Tuesday, February 19

—Select ONE poem from Week 2 readings and perform each of the following brief exercises on it:

  1. Gloss: Examine a 5-line section of the poem. Type out lines and paraphrase in your words next to each line.
  2. Diction: Identify the most important word in the poem (research its etymology in OED), and discuss its significance to the poem as a whole.
  3. Imagery: Select 1 image, metaphor, analogy, figure, or scheme that you find prominent; quote the line in which it occurs, or which alludes to it. Explain why you find it resonant to the overall meaning of the poem.
  4. Syntax: Identify the most important line in the poem, and explain why it is so. Also: Does the syntax of this line impact your reading of the poem?
  5. Title: Address the significance of the title.
  6. Synesthesia: If the poem were a color, what would it be / why? If the poem were set to a musical score, for which instrument would it be written / why?
  7. Content/Form Relationship: What is the central idea of this poem, and how does the form/shape/structure of the poem convey this? (Try not to be redundant here; really think about the relationship of form & content, of form & meaning.)
  8. Context: Research the context in which this poem was published: time period, literary association or movement (ie. Romanticism), and any important info on the author. Take notes if anything seems integral to understanding the poem; though I urge you to know these details when writing about a text, you will not address them in a close-reading essay, unless they necessarily impact your particular reading in a specific way.
  9. Question: Write down 1 question that you think would make for a unique, compelling scholarly discussion of the poem. Make sure your question anticipates a discussion not only about what the poem means, but how the poem is creating meaning (what it’s doing), as well as the relationship of content & form, and why putting a lens on this matters. (Remember the basic construction of a scholarly discussion as: what/how/why (so what?).)

NOTE: All responses (unless specified) should be a couple sentences; brief but detailed. Avoid generalizing, summarizing, or obviousness. Resist the urge to read secondary material; I want to see how you’re making sense of this poem on your own terms. Feel free to select the poem you intend to write on for Essay 1 (if it occurs within Week 2 readings), as this will help you really dig into it as you begin to formulate a viable thesis. However, you do not need to be decided about which poem you’ll write on for Essay 1, and you may even change your mind after doing these exercises, which is ok. Remember to identify the poem that you’ve selected.

Post online by Noon on February 19.

due Thursday, 2/21

  • Intro Essay 1, TWO HARDCOPIES

due Tuesday, 2/26

  • Reading response to 1 poem from Week 3 readings (post on blog)—consider focusing on one (unobvious) aspect of borders as it is represented in the theme and/or form of the poem.

due Thursday, 2/28

  • Write 1 poem (in response to 1 poem from all of our reading). Your poetic response may take the form of a dialogue, an epistle (to the poet), an imitation (stylistic or linguistic), or may just be inspired in some way, even if not directly obvious, as an aesthetic offspring. If you’re stuck, you may select a favorite line from that poem and use it to begin your own poem or as the title of your poem (of course, giving credit).

due Friday, 3/1

  • Essay 1, draft 1, TWO HARDCOPIES

due Tuesday, 3/5

  • Read entirety of Fun Home. Select 1 scene and analyze it closely (image and language) as a way of discussing its broader significance to the text as a whole. Situate your analysis within a framed claim (question) you’re asserting about the text. 1 page, single-spaced. Post to blog.

due Tuesday, 3/12

  • Read the entirety of We the Animals. Write a 1-page story emulating Justin Torres’ style (diction, prosody, sentence structure, tone, themes, voice, point-of-view, etc. …whatever is relevant to your story). If you are stuck, let the story within Torres’ novella prompt you to write about a story from your life, but since this is fiction, find a way to walk that border / take freedoms with fictionalizing the personal. I am looking to see how your critical investment in the novella is conveyed through your creative piece.

due Sunday, 3/17 by midnight (extension)

  • Write a brief response to Grizzly Man focusing on how Herzog represents the human/animal boundary by pointing to 1 specific example/scene in the film.

due Tuesday, 3/19

  • Select 1 specific image from Part I of Sula, and discuss its significance.

due Thursday, 3/21

  • Intro Essay 2, details TBA (TWO COPIES)

due Tuesday, 4/2

  • No new writing. Revisit Sula — select 1 scene you’d like to discuss; prepare 1-3 discussion questions.

due Tuesday, 4/9

  1. Email me your introductory paragraph to Essay 2 (.doc or paste in email) ASAP.
  2. Read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and for each prompt prepare an informal, critical response for discussion:
  • Select 1 word from Giovanni’s Room that most encapsulates the novel as a whole: how/why?
  • Select 1 line or brief passage from Giovanni’s Room that most encapsulates the novel as a whole: how/why? Do a close-reading.
  • Select 1 controlling metaphor/image/symbol in Giovanni’s Room. How does it function in the narrative?
  • What is the most important scene in the novel, and why?
  • What is 1 question that Baldwin’s novel raises? Write it down. (Note: this should not be a general, simplified question such as “What is love?” but rather one that Baldwin—through his characters, through the way specific ideas are represented, through stylistic choices that shape our reading—compels us to ask about the text.)
  • NOTE: You are not required to print these responses, but you MUST bring responses to discussion, as you will be asked to share.

due Tuesday, April 23

  • Read Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. How does Citizen as a text query and challenge the idea of what it means to be a “citizen”? Post to blog.

due Thursday, April 25

  • Do the Right Thing Response—Post to blog.

due Tuesday, April 30

  • Essay 3 Question & Annotated Bibliography —>>>

Brainstorm Essay 3 —

After reading Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, this essay will give you the opportunity to examine the category of experimental literature and to interrogate the experience of reading it. What is an avant-garde text? How has it been assembled and why is it effective in its particular form? Citizen gives us a sense of the impact of the genre-breaking or multi-media text; one that performs a bricolage of history, pop culture, poetry, everyday vernacular, politics, visual arts, etc.; one that mixes the high and the low of cultural materials and aesthetic tastes. As a reader, what does the avant-garde text demand, how does it invite you in as a participant in ways of reading that are unfamiliar? How dos the avant-garde text effectively function as a means for addressing borders, particularly of race, as a stylistic response to the complexity of the Black experience in America? How does it get us to query the very act of reading language as analogous with reading race, and the complicity there within? How does it present the relationship of language & power / of image & power / of word & image / of high & low? Consider the difficulties and challenges in talking about race, and how the text activates our perspectives and confronts us with the act, as readers, of crossing or navigating or dwelling within borders. What does it mean to cross into the text of the Other? Also, how do we research texts that are either not yet canonized, or not yet researched or expansively written about? What are the strategies we must create to deepen/broaden the critical context in which we position our discussion of a text? I will urge you to think experimentally, in the spirit of the experimental texts we’re reading.

Annotation Research & Annotated Bibliography Essay 3 —

  1. Come up with a draft essay question for Essay 3 and write it down.
  2. Making use of Summon, MLA bibliography, and the subject and title indices on MIDCAT, find a pool of approximately 8-10 primary and approximately 15-20 secondary sources pertinent to your question. You can perhaps do this most efficiently by identifying between one and three very recent pertinent secondary sources and mining their bibliographies and footnotes for further sources (primary and secondary)–though you’ll also want to check MLA for earlier secondary sources to see if there are any you’ve missed. You can also peruse recent periodicals (those not yet bound, for instance) in the library and on Project Muse/J-Stor. At the library and/or online, have a quick look at the materials in your pool–i.e. quickly skim them to make certain they are indeed pertinent. If they are not pertinent–or pertinent enough–find others that are (if necessary) to replace them. Then finalize your list to turn in. All sources should be cited according to MLA bibliographical format. DO NOT INCLUDE secondary sources from the web, unless these are peer-reviewed, or unless they appear in Project Muse or J-Stor. Since Citizen is a current text, some non-scholarly or non-peer-reviewed web materials (e.g. popular reviews, interviews, or other discussions) might count as primary sources, insofar as they establish cultural context; but be extremely cautious about citing such sources as authoritative secondary sources–about lending them critical authority to your analysis, or about taking their claims at face value. Your sources should include books and articles. This requires you to GO TO THE LIBRARY.
  3. Out of the pool of sources you developed, pick at least 4 secondary sources and 2 primary sources that are important to you as you think about writing your essay–those that are most likely to be helpful in allowing you to make a contribution to a critical conversation. Carefully read the most relevant portions of the 4 secondary sources and 2 primary sources you have selected. Cite each of these sources according to MLA bibliographical format, and, below each of them, write one focused paragraph that (1) articulates the pertinent argument(s) of that source, together with the motive or agenda implicit in the argument(s); (2) summarizes the information included in the source that might be useful to you; and (3) briefly explains how the source will be useful to you in addressing your question. Your secondary sources may include articles and specific book chapters. Your primary sources may include any material contemporary with or older than the main object of your analysis, as well as the object of analysis itself. This is your annotated selection of sources.
  4. Now that you have studied a part of a critical conversation about your text and come to know a bit more about the its context, review your notes on the text, as well as important portions of the text, and reconsider your essay question once again. Revise the question so that it is both interesting to you and relevant to some aspect of the critical conversation about the text.
  5. E-mail to the entire class a single MS Word document including (a) your revised essay question; (b) your annotated selection of at least 4 secondary and 2 primary sources; and (c) your entire list of secondary and primary sources. Please do not consult other people’s lists until you are finished with yours; at that point, do consult others’ lists to see where there is common ground, where others could benefit from suggestions, and what sources you haven’t considered might benefit your project.

Creative / Multi-Media Project:

Produce a creative response to the course. You have total freedom here. Present your creative project and provide grounding critical context out of which it emerged in your thinking about borders. Here is where you find the relationship between intellectual ideas & artistic representations, between critical questions & creative expression. 10 min. Required: live presentation, hardcopy (if possible), and blog post.

Some dynamic presentations merging creative/critical thinking can be found in TED talks, so if you want some inspiration, consider perusing some of the talks based on themes/subjects that interest you, then model your approach after one of these.

Fall presentations included: musical composition & performance, spoken word, collaborative art, interactive performance, dance, sculpture/installation, video, visual art, photography, creative writing, etc., and some crossed these various media/forms/genres, combining words and other arts. Anything is possible here, but it must be founded and/or framed from serious critical thinking.

due Tuesday, May 14 by NOON

  • all Final work