Ruth M. McAdams
Sample Syllabus
ACADEMIC WRITING AND LITERATURE: THE DEVIL’S PACT
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Imagine that the devil appears and offers you endless riches, vast knowledge, or boundless earthly
power in exchange for your soul. What would you do? For centuries the idea of the devil’s pact has
signified humanity’s fascination with forbidden powers and desire to surpass the limits of the human
condition. Writers from many cultures have used the devil’s pact as the inspiration for countless
works of literature and art. In this course, we will study diverse examples of this tradition, from
Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray and Chekhov’s “The Bet” to Rosemary’s Baby and the music of
Robert Johnson.
This class is about writing and academic inquiry, with a special emphasis on literature. Good
arguments stem from good questions, and academic essays allow writers to write their way toward
answers, toward figuring out what they think. In this course, students focus on the creation of
complex, analytic, well-supported arguments addressing questions that matter in academic contexts.
The course also hones students’ critical thinking and reading skills. Working closely with their peers
and the instructor, students develop their essays through workshops and extensive revision and
editing. Readings cover a variety of genres and often serve as models or prompts for assigned essays;
but the specific questions students pursue in essays are guided by their own interests.
Learning Goals
1) To produce complex, analytic, well-supported arguments that matter in academic contexts
2) To read, summarize, analyze, and synthesize complex texts purposefully in order to generate
and support writing
3) To analyze the genres and rhetorical strategies that writers use in different rhetorical
situations
4) To develop flexible strategies for organizing, revising, editing, and proofreading writing of
varying lengths to improve development of ideas and appropriateness of expression
5) To collaborate with peers and the instructor to define revision strategies for particular pieces
of writing, to set goals for improving writing, and to devise effective plans for achieving
those goals
6) To hone skills at critical self-assessment and reflection on the process of writing
Course Requirements and Grade Breakdown
Essay 1 (3 pages)
10%
Essay 2 (3 pages)
10%
Summary Assignment (1 page)
5%
Essay 3 (5 pages)
15%
Essay 4 (6 pages)
20%
Essay 5 (7 pages)
20%
Peer Responses
10%
Participation
10%
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENTS
Essay 1. Close Reading.
Write a three-page essay that makes a coherent and original argument about a passage in
either “Young Goodman Brown” or “The Bet,” using the text’s formal features as evidence.
Your essay should analyze how the language and structure of the text work together to
create subtle meanings. Due Friday 25 January, 1:00pm.
Essay 2. Close Reading of Radio or Film.
Write a three-page essay that makes a coherent and original argument about a passage or
scene in either “Crossroads” (from Radiolab), “Faustian Bargains” (from This American Life),
or Rosemary’s Baby, using the work’s formal features as evidence. Your essay should analyze
how the work’s textual, aural, and (in the case of RB) visual components work together to
create subtle meanings. Due Friday 8 February, 1:00pm.
Summary Assignment.
Write a one-page summary of the selection from either Plato’s Republic or Horkheimer and
Adorno’s The Culture Industry. Without using direct quotations, paraphrase the writer’s
argument in your own words. Do not evaluate the argument or express your opinion about
it; simply relate its key points as best you can. Due either Tuesday 12 February (for the Plato)
or Thursday 14 February (for the Horkheimer and Adorno), at 11:40am.
Essay 3. Textual Critique.
Write a five-page essay that critiques the argument presented by either Plato’s Republic or
Horkheimer and Adorno’s The Culture Industry. Your essay must demonstrate a sophisticated
understanding of either Plato’s or Horkheimer and Adorno’s work and should accurately
represent its claims. At the same time, your essay should advance an argument of its own
about what Plato or Horkheimer and Adorno got wrong. You must critique whichever
reading you did not summarize for your Summary Assignment. Due Thursday 28 February,
10:30am.
Essay 4. Scholarly Argument.
Write a six-page essay that engages in a debate with another scholar’s argument about
Hogg’s Justified Sinner, using a close reading of one or more passages from the novel to
support your claims. Your essay must faithfully represent the argument advanced by the
scholarly article you choose, and contest some aspect of it. In so doing, you must also
provide evidence for your claims through a coherent and original close reading of a selection
from the novel. As such, this essay combines the skills developed in earlier assignments. Due
Friday 29 March, 1:00pm.
Rewrite (Optional).
This course is designed to encourage students to view writing as an ongoing process that
improves with revision and hard work. It also recognizes that the transition from secondary
to undergraduate education comes with growing pains, especially relating to writing. As such,
students may choose to do a rewrite of one already graded essay, in order to demonstrate
how their writing has continued to improve since the due date. Rewriting an essay is a
serious, time-consuming undertaking, and is to be pursued only by those who are willing to
put in the effort. See Appendix D for more information. Due Friday 12 April, 1:00pm.
Essay 5. Literary Research Paper.
Write a seven-page essay that advances an original argument about Wilde’s Picture of Dorian
Gray, contextualizing your claims by considering what other scholars have written about this
novel and/or contemporary reactions to the work. You must engage with two or more
external sources, which can be either recent academic criticism, reactions from Wilde’s
contemporaries, or other relevant texts. As always, you must support your claims with
insightful close readings of one or more passages from the novel. Due Tuesday 30 April,
10:30am.
Workshopping and Peer Responses
This course has been designed to maximize opportunities for students to help each other improve
their writing. Consequently, the course features two different kinds of workshops:
Small-Group Workshops.
For each of the five major essays, you will have the opportunity to have a draft
workshopped by your peers in small groups of three or four students. On the small-group
workshop days, please bring three paper copies of a complete draft of the upcoming essay.
The workshop will run about 45 minutes or an hour, in which your group will read and
discuss each classmate’s draft. For more on the goals and priorities of the workshopping
sessions, see Appendix B. Note that when you are scheduled for a whole-class workshop for
an essay, you do not need to bring a draft for the small-group workshop day for that essay;
you will simply read and respond to your peers’ drafts.
Whole-Class Workshops.
Once this term, each student will have the opportunity to have a draft of an essay
workshopped by the entire class. For the writer of the draft, this will be a great opportunity
to get useful feedback from your peers. For the rest of the class, these workshops will help
us practice the art of analyzing and critiquing academic writing, as well as prompting us to
think about the rhetorical challenges that we all face as writers. During the first week of
class, I will send around a sign-up sheet to schedule these workshop sessions, with two
drafts per class on our workshopping days.
When it is your turn to workshop a draft, please post your complete draft on CTools (under
ResourcesWorkshop Drafts and Peer CritiquesYour Name) no less than 48 hours
before class (11:40am on the preceding Sunday for workshops scheduled on Tuesday, and
11:40am on the preceding Tuesday for workshops scheduled on Thursday). Drafts that are
posted late pose a serious inconvenience to your classmates, who have busy lives. See below
under “Late Work Policy” for the stiff penalties associated with posting a draft late.
Although the draft is a work-in-progress, the more polished and developed the draft, the
more useful the workshop session will be for you and your classmates. Please ensure that the
draft is the assigned length of the completed paper. Ideally, you will come to your workshop
session with a solid foundation for the essay, but still open to your peers’ suggestions and
willing to make major changes to what you have drafted. The students who succeed in this
course are those who take full advantage of the revision process.
Peer Responses.
For each whole-class workshop, you are responsible to read carefully and make written
comments on the draft. These will take the form of a two-page, double-spaced typed
response that provides constructive critique to the draft writer, identifies the draft’s strengths
and suggests ways to improve it or points to consider. Please submit the critique on CTools
under ResourcesWorkshop Drafts and Peer CritiquesClassmate’s Name. I will grade the
critiques on a scale of ✓+, ✓, or ✓-. Learning to analyze and respond to academic writing is
one of the central goals of this course, and your thoughtful engagement and response to the
work of your classmates will be vital to your own development as a writer. (For more
information see Appendix B).
COURSE CALENDAR
*Please note that reading assignments are due on the day they are listed.
Week 1
Thu 10 Jan
Week 2
Tue 15 Jan
Introduction to course; surveys
Course policies
Discussion: What makes good writing?
Distribute Close Reading Assignment
“Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Bet,” Anton Chekhov
In class: Sign up for conferences and workshops; Close Reading; Emailing your
professor or GSI
Thu 17 Jan
“Workshop is not for you,” Jeremiah Chamberlin
“Escape,” Tommy Pendy
“Weather [sic] Gay is a Choice,” Allison Roach (and write peer critique!)
In class: Practice full-class workshop (Roach) and small-group workshop (Pendy)
Week 3
Tue 22 Jan
“How to Read like a Writer,” Mike Bunn
Essay 1, Full-Class Workshops (2 students)
WED 23 JAN THROUGH FRI 25 JAN
Thu 24 Jan
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES
Essay 1, Full-Class Workshop (1 student)
Essay 1, Small-Group workshops (everyone else)
In class: Distribute Essay 2 Prompt
Fri 25 Jan, 1:00pm
Week 4
Tue 29 Jan
Essay 1 Due
“Faustian Bargains” episode of This American Life
“Crossroads” episode of Radiolab
In class: Close Reading radio; Thesis Templates
Thu 31 Jan
Rosemary’s Baby, directed by Roman Polanski (1968)
In class: Close reading film; “A Tale of Two Paragraphs”
Week 5
Tue 5 Feb
Thu 7 Feb
Essay 2, Full-Class Workshops (2 students)
Essay 2, Full-Class Workshop (1 student)
Essay 2, Small-Group Workshops (everyone else)
In class: Distribute Summary Assignment and Essay 3 Prompt
Fri 8 Feb, 1:00pm
Week 6
Tue 12 Feb
Essay 2 Due
They Say, I Say, Introduction and Part 1 (p. 1-51)
[you don’t need to do the exercises]
Plato, The Republic (selection from the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism,
p. 49-64)
Summary Assignment Due (Option 1)
In class: citing sources, avoiding plagiarism
Thu 14 Feb
They Say, I Say, Part 2 (p. 55-101)
Horkheimer and Adorno, The Culture Industry (selection from the Norton Anthology
of Theory and Criticism, p. 1223-40)
Summary Assignment Due (Option 2)
Week 7
Tue 19 Feb
Essay 3 Full-Class Workshops (2 students)
Thu 21 Feb
Essay 3 Full-Class Workshops (2 students)
Week 8
Tue 26 Feb
They Say, I Say, Chapters 8-12 (p. 103-55)
Essay 3 Small-Group Workshops (everyone else) (draft due!)
In class: Distribute Essay 4 Prompt
Thu 28 Feb, 10:30am Essay 3 Due
NO CLASS
TUE 5 MARCH AND THU 7 MARCH
NO CLASS (SPRING BREAK)
Week 9
Tue 12 March Library Instruction Session on research strategies for Essays 4 & 5
Thu 14 March The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, James Hogg
Week 10
Tue 19 March Critical essay of your choice on Hogg’s Justified Sinner
In class: Predatory Reading
Thu 21 March Essay 4 Full-Class Workshops (2 students)
Week 11
Tue 26 March Essay 4 Full-Class Workshops (2 students)
Thu 28 March Essay 4 Small-Group Workshops (draft due)
In class: Distribute Essay 5 Prompt
Fri 29 March, 1:00pm Essay 4 Due
Week 12
Tue 2 April
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (p. 3-97)
In class: Using quotations
Thu 4 April
Week 13
Tue 9 April
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (p. 98-184)
“Sexual Politics and the Aesthetics of Crime: Oscar Wilde in the Nineties,” Simon
Joyce (p. 403-23)
“Character Design in The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Sheldon W. Liebman (p. 433-54)
Thu 11 April “A Study in Puppydom” series of letters from St James’s Gazette (p. 352-62)
“A Novel by Mr Oscar Wilde,” Walter Pater (p. 372-75)
“Art versus Morality: Dorian Gray on Trial” (p. 376-84)
Fri 12 April, 1:00pm
Week 14
Tue 16 April
Rewrite due (optional)
Essay 5 Full-Class Workshop (2 students)
Thu 18 April Essay 5 Full-Class Workshop (2 students)
Course evaluations
Week 15
Tue 23 April
Essay 5 Small-Group Workshops (draft due)
Party!
Final Assessment
Tue 30 April, 10:30am Essay 5 Due
COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Required Books to Purchase
Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say: the Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. 2nd ed.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2010. Print. (ISBN: 9780393933611)
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ed. Michael Patrick Gillespie. Norton Critical Ed. 2nd ed.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. Print. (ISBN: 9780393927542)
Hogg, James. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Ed. Ian Duncan. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. (ISBN: 9780199217953)
Materials Provided in Coursepack/Online
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” The Portable Hawthorne. Ed. William C.
Spengemann. New York: Penguin, 2005. 51-65. Print.
Chekhov, Anton. “The Bet.” The Tales of Chekhov. Vol. 9. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York:
Ecco Press, 1984. 255-65. Print.
Chamberlin, Jeremiah. “Workshop is Not For You.” Glimmertrain.com. Glimmer Train Press, Jan.
2009. Web. 17 Jan 2013.
Pendy, Tommy. “Escape.” English 125, University of Michigan. Print.
Roach, Allison. “Weather Gay is a Choice.” English 125, University of Michigan. Print.
Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing. Vol. 2. Ed. Charlie
Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2011. 71-86. Writingspaces.org. Web.
23 Jan 2013.
“Faustian Bargains.” Narr. Ira Glass. This American Life. National Public Radio, 22 Nov 1996. Web.
29 Jan 2013.
“Crossroads.” Narr. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. Radiolab. WNYC, 16 April 2012. Web. 29
Jan 2013.
Rosemary’s Baby. Dir. Roman Polanski. Perf. Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, and Sidney
Blackmer. Paramount Pictures, 1968. DVD.
Plato. “From The Republic.” Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York:
Norton, 2001. 49-64. Print.
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. “From The Culture Industry.” Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 1223-40. Print.
Gribben, Crawford R. A. “James Hogg and the Demonology of Scottish Writing.” The Lure of the
Dark Side: Satan and Western Demonology in Popular Culture. Ed. Christopher Partridge and Eric
Christianson. Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2009. 171-81. Print.
Further Selections within Required Books
Joyce, Simon. “Sexual Politics and the Aesthetics of Crime: Oscar Wilde in the Nineties.” In The
Picture of Dorian Gray. 403-23.
Liebman, Sheldon W. “Character Design in The Picture of Dorian Gray.” In The Picture of Dorian Gray.
433-54.
“A Study in Puppydom.” In The Picture of Dorrian Gray. 352-62.
Pater, Walter. “A Novel by Mr Oscar Wilde.” In The Picture of Dorian Gray. 372-75.
“Art versus Morality: Dorian Gray on Trial.” In The Picture of Dorian Gray. 376-84.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING FOR FULL-CLASS WORKSHOPS
(Adapted from Jeremiah Chamberlin)
1. Read and annotate the draft.
Read the essay draft twice. The first time should be simply for comprehension. The second time,
read and mark the essay with your responses (either on a paper copy or electronically). You should be
making a minimum of three or four notes per page. These can be simple comments (like: “Great
example!”) or more in-depth suggestions about the argument or structure (like: “this section needs more
analysis” or “but what about X, Y, and Z?”). Your markings on the manuscript itself will guide our inclass discussion.
Bring your annotated copy of the draft to class.
2. Write a two-page double-spaced critique in the form of a letter.
The goal of a peer critique is to respond thoughtfully to your classmate’s draft in a way that helps
the writer sense both its existing strengths and the ways it could be improved. Your job is to judge the
effectiveness of the rhetoric and analysis and then to offer constructive suggestions. The most important
thing is to understand what the writer was trying to argue and how they were trying to argue it.
Therefore, tailor your comments specifically with their goals and writing style in mind. Begin “Dear
THEIR NAME” and end “Sincerely, YOUR NAME.” Remember that you are speaking directly to the
writer. For the sake of efficiency, you may use a bullet-point or numbered style.
First, identify the thesis and offer a short summary of the essay’s argument. Then, indicate the
essay’s strengths. Be brief but specific. The majority of your critique should focus on giving constructive
suggestions for improvement. For each point, let the writer know what wasn’t effective for you as a
reader, why you felt that way, and how they might change/fix/improve that particular aspect to make the
essay stronger. See the grading rubric (Appendix C) for some issues to consider. Remember: don’t waste
time on grammar and syntax—you have more important tasks.
Post the critique on CTools under ResourcesWorkshop Drafts and Peer
CritiquesCLASSMATE’S NAME.
You can find examples of good peer critiques on CTools under ResourcesSample Peer Critiques.
GUIDELINES FOR REWRITES
This course is designed to encourage students to view writing as an ongoing process that improves
with revision and hard work. It also recognizes that the transition from secondary to undergraduate
education comes with growing pains, especially relating to writing. As such, students may choose to
do a rewrite of one already graded essay, in order to demonstrate how their writing has continued to
improve since the due date. Rewriting an essay is a serious, time-consuming undertaking, and is to
be pursued only by those who are willing to put in the effort. Here are the guidelines:
1) The rewritten essay must demonstrate substantial changes from the original graded version.
This means not merely correcting surface errors but often deleting and entirely rewriting
large sections of the original essay to reflect my comments and your intervening growth as a
writer.
2) The rewritten essay must be accompanied by a 1-2 page letter from you to me that describes
the changes you have made to the original version, and how these changes improve the
essay.
3) You may want to meet with me to discuss your ideas for the rewrite before it is due. At this
meeting, you will be expected to have digested thoroughly my original comments, and be
asking specific questions about particular issues you face as you work on the rewrite.
4) Your grade on the rewrite will replace the original grade on the essay. The grade may be
either higher or lower. If you make only surface changes to the original essay, you
demonstrate that you have not taken seriously the opportunity for revision, and your grade
will go down.
5) The rewrite is due Friday 12 April, 1:00pm, at the latest, but you are encouraged to turn it in
sooner if you wish.