Welcome to English 626
Let's Get Started!
Day 1 (12/30): Tom Paine, Common Sense: “Writing Revolution…”
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1. Make an Introduction: On your home page, upload a picture of yourself
and write a few sentences introducing yourself to the rest of the class. Tell us
about where you are for this winter session: relaxing on a beach, at home
with your family, soaking in a thermal pool in Iceland. You can also include
information such as your major, interest and experience in English courses at
UW-Madison, and anything else that would be useful for us to know by way
of introduction. Please upload a picture as well.
2. Read the first half of Paine’s Common Sense.
3. Post your critical reaction to the reading. For tips and
expectations about responding to the reading, see the section in the
syllabus on daily responses to the reading. Your response should
be roughly 150-300 words. Be sure to make specific reference to
the reading. This means quoting passages, so that you and others
can engage the language, themes, conflicts, and issues within our
reading.
4. Post a response to one of your classmates’ response to
Paine. Your response should be a few sentences. For tips and
expectations about responding to your classmates, please
see responding to classmate's posts.
Day 2 (12/31 and 1/1*)--because this is New Year's Eve and New Year's
Day, you have 2 days to complete this assignment): Tom Paine, Common
Sense: … or should it be, “Revolutionary Writing”
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Finish Common Sense, including Paine's letter to the Quakers.
Post your critical reaction to the reading (150-300 words).
Here’s a prompt for you: Imagine you’re living in the colonies in 1776
and that you have Loyalist (Tory) sympathies. How would particular
passages from Common Sense change or reinforce your feelings about
the Crown? How might you react, for instance, to Paine’s closing
exhortation, “Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct, and let none
other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen… and a virtuous
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supporter ofMANKIND and of the FREE AND INDEPENDENT
STATE OF AMERICA.” How might you react to passages where
Paine seems to say of British sympathizers that “you have the heart of a
coward, and the spirit of a sycophant”?
Respond to a classmate’s post on Tom Paine.
Day 3 (1/2) Benjamin Franklin: Is Satire Revolutionary?
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1. Read Benjamin Franklin, “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be
Reduced to a Small One”; “The Sale of the Hessians”
2. Post your critical reaction to the reading. I’d like to offer a creative
option. Franklin is deploying satire in these essays, first published in
newspapers. Try your hand at producing a satire à la Franklin. Create a topic
on anything from “Rules for Succeeding in an Online Course” to “The Sale of
the Winter Holidays.” Whether you pursue this option or a more
straightforward critical reaction, your post needs to be 150-300 words.
3. Respond—un-ironically and un-satirically (!)—to a classmate’s post.
Day 4 (1/3): Nathaniel Hawthorne, “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”
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1. Hawthorne’s story is set in a period of colonial unrest before the
Revolution. So the action story predatesCommon Sense, although Hawthorne
did not write it until 1831. Remember specificity is the key, so try focusing on
a particular phrase or image that Hawthorne employs. Your response should
be 150-300 words.
2. Comment and respond on a classmate’s post.
Day 5 (1/6): Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” and
“Wakefield”
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1. Twitter and Hawthorne. Here’s how it works: “Young Goodman Brown”
is set in Puritan Massachusetts, specifically Salem. Multiple characters enter
the story: church deacons, Native American sachems, a sketchy man with a
walking staff that seems to wriggle like a serpent, a pair of newlyweds. What
might these characters tweet on that strange night? Write 2-3 tweets that one
of these personages might write. Feel free to have characters respond to one
another.
o Or, you might explore what the title character of “Wakefield” might
tweet. Wakefield is a strange and perverse character, but is he rebelling
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against anything? (To be clear, I’m not asking you actually to tweet,
but simply to post what might have been tweeted).
2. Now that we have our Twitter feed assembled, your job is to tell us which
one you would follow and why. You’re free to choose your original tweet or
to choose a classmate’s, as you explore the intricacies of these stories. Your
commentary on our Twitter exercise, should be 150-300 words.
Day 6 (1/7): Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
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1. Occupy Bartleby. In your post for this reading, I would like you to
consider that Melville’s tale was performed in public readings by protestors at
Occupy Wall Street sites in various encampments. “I prefer not to” became
something of a protest slogan. Various media outlets comment4ed on the
connection between “Bartleby” and Wall Street. TheNew Yorker, for instance,
called Bartleby “a patron saint for occupy.” What do you make of this
convergence? Do you think Occupy is offering a useful “interpretation” of
“Bartleby” in making the connections to Melville? Or, is it a
misreading? You don’t have to respond to these specific questions, but your
post should explore the potential connections between “Bartleby” and
OWS. After all, Bartleby does say to the lawyer at one point, “Not yet; I am
occupied.” Your post should be 150-300 words.
2. Respond to a classmate’s post on this topic—or to a response to a
response, as might happen in a conversation—with at least 75 words.
Day 7 (1/8): Paper 1 due. Click here for instructions and expectations.
Day 8 (1/9): Frederick Douglass, “The Heroic Slave”
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1. Watch the video that features the radical professor debating the more oldfashioned liberal professor about the politics of Douglass’s novella. You can
watch the video here. With whom do you tend to agree? What questions
might you ask of these personages talking about Mr. Listwell’s and Madison
Washington’s relationship? Are there points or passages not addressed by the
speakers that you would raise?
2. Continue the spirit of the debate by commenting on a classmate’s post.
Day 9 (1/10): Charles Chesnutt, “The Doll”; W.E.B. Du Bois, “The
Criteria of Negro Art”
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Passive Resistance: Although the highly regarded The Atlantic had accepted
and published other work by Chesnutt, it rejected “The Doll.” The story was
eventually published in The Crisis, the journal of the NAACP edited by
W.E.B. Du Bois. You may want to reflect on this publication history, as you
consider the story. Why did The Atlantic turn down Chesnutt’s
submission? You could try responding creatively by pretending you’re the
editor of The Atlantic, who explains to the author why this piece of fiction is
not acceptable. Or, you may want to imagine how the black readership of The
Crisis might have responded to the story.
For context, on this point, I’m also asking you to read Du Bois’s determined
manifesto, “The Criteria of Negro Art,” where he lays out a series of
provocative propositions about art and propaganda.
Visit a classmate’s page you haven’t yet visited or rarely visited, and leave a
comment there.
Day 10 (1/13): Kate Chopin, The Awakening
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1. You should finish and comment on the first half of the novel today. As
you do so, you might consider these assessments of the novel when it was first
published: “unhealthy”; “not wholesome”; “Miss Kate Chopin is [a]… clever
woman, but she has put her cleverness to a very bad use… the purport of the
story can hardly be described in language fit for publication.” You might want
to zero in a passage or scene that could have given offense to readers in 1899
when the novel was first published.
2. You know the drill: keep those conversations going by commenting on a
classmate’s page.
Day 11 (1/14): Critical Précis
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1. Post your critical précis. Click here for more on the critical précis.
2. Post a question or leave a comment about a critical précis posted by one
of your colleagues. Perhaps you’ll want to suggest what looks useful about an
approach; perhaps you’ll want to ask the author if the article might help
illuminate some of the ideas your drawing together for your FINAL PAPER
(which is due in 4 days).
3. Remember, this assignment is also about crowdsourcing. If a classmate is
gearing up for the final paper and asks you for more information about the
article you read, please share the knowledge that you've accumulated in
reading the article you've chosen.
Day 12 (1/15): Kate Chopin, The Awakening
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1. Once you finish the novel, listen to the first half of this radio show from
Wisconsin Public Radio yon Kate Chopin’s novel. It features someone who
might be familiar to you. Check out the first 30 minutes for the conversation
among the WPR host, the UW-Madison professor, and the Chopin
biographer. And if you’re interested stick around for the callers. In your post
for this day, you might write about which question you might have called in to
ask. Or you might say how you would have answered a question from one of
the callers.
2. Comment on and respond to a classmate’s post.
Day 13 (1/16): e.e. cummings, “Buffalo Bill’s”; “Poem, or beauty hurts
Mr. Vinal”; “Next to of course God America I”; “I sing of Olaf Glad and
Big”; “as freedom is a breakfast food”
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1. After reading the poems, click here to listen and here to cummings read
“Next to of course God America I” and “I sing of Olaf Glad and Big.”
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2. What did you thinking of cummings’s reading? Did his reading of his
poetry add to or change your understanding of the poems? These are just
some possible starter questions. Whatever you do focus on in the poems, be
sure to focus by talking about specific images, word choice, meter, etc.
3. Find a colleague’s reading of the poetry that does not tally with
yours. Comment upon the difference.
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Day 14 (1/17): Langston Hughes
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Read “Let America Be America Again”; “Christ in Alabama”; “Southern
Gentlemen, White Prostitutes, Mill-Owners, and Negroes”; “Freedom
Train.” As you'll see, I've included the original publication context of "Christ
in Alabama" which has an accompanying article by Hughes that explains the
context and occasion of the poem. Likewise, "Freedom Train" gestures to a
specific history involving the transportation of original copies of the
Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution by train for everyone to
see. When the exhibit traveled to segregated states of the South, blacks were
not allowed to enter with whites or where denied entry altogether.
Prompt 1: You might consider writing about how poetry engages
history? What does it mean to write a poem that comments on history?
Prompt 2: Go macro: what sort of conclusion to the course does Langston
Hughes provide for you? Or, go micro: Focus in on 2-3 words that caught
your attention from any one of these poems or the article.
Day 15 (1/19): FINAL PAPER DUE
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For your final posting, take a few moments to reflect on the online nature of
this course. Was it different from your expectations? What in your opinion
are the salient differences with a class taught by traditional means? What’s
your experience of online education and learning?
GRADING
Daily writing and participation
First Essay
Critical Precis
Final Essay
20%
25%
20%
35%