Goleman/101
Assignment 1: Due Monday, Sept. 12
Read: Introduction to Ways of Reading, pages 1-16, handout
Gloss
Please read and gloss the Introduction. Glossing means making notes in the margins
of the text that are verbal highlights of a paragraph. Glossing is a good note-taking
method for writers since it has you finding your own words for what you are reading
right from the start. Colored markers can’t do that.
In these pages, the authors define the kind of reading and writing that they want
their book to stimulate. Calling it “strong reading and writing,” the authors describe its
defining characteristics and purposes. Read and gloss to understand the purposes of
our course.
Double-entry Notes
Next, draw a line down the middle of few notebook pages. In the left-hand column,
list 12 characteristics of strong reading and writing that the authors discuss. Put page
numbers in parentheses. Use the following phrase to set up each point:
Strong readers and writers . . .
In the right-hand column, across from each entry, put the point into your own
words; try to say what it means to you. (Like glosses, the right-hand column is the
place for your words.)
Note: To receive credit for this assignment, you should come to class prepared to show
me your textual glossing and to hand in your double-entry notes. They can be handwritten. I will not give partial credit.
Goleman
101
Assignment 2: Due Wed. Sept 14
1-2 typed pages
Shortly, we will begin to read the first essay in the course: “To See and Not See” by
Oliver Sacks. To get ready for reading this as a strong, engaged reader with ideas of
your own, we’d like you to spend some time thinking and writing about the question
that frames Sacks’ essay:
What would happen when an adult blinded since early childhood has his or her vision
restored?
We are not asking you to do research and to come up with the “correct” answer. We
are asking you, instead, to speculate, imagine, and hypothesize about the experience of
someone who has his/her vision restored after a lifetime of blindness. Using what ever
you already know or simply what you guess, write at least 1 page in response to this
question. If you enjoy writing fiction, you could even write this in the form of a
monologue by someone who has just had his or her sight restored or as a story. What
would it be like for this person to have bandages removed and to “see”? Why?
Don’t worry about right answers here. If you do this assignment, you can’t do it wrong.
All responses of a page or more that attempt to think about the question will receive
credit.
Assignment 3: Due in class, Monday, Sept. 19
Read: “To See and Not See,” Oliver Sacks
You now have a copy of “To See and Not See.” Under the article’s title, you will find
the question we have been anticipating:
What happens when an adult who has been blind from childhood suddenly has his vision
restored? The experience of Virgil, a fifty-year-old Oklahoman who regained his sight
after forty-five years, raises questions about perception that have haunted philosophers
and scientists for centuries.
Here is your assignment, broken down into 4 parts:
1. Read Sacks’ article. Underline or bracket sections that stand out to you as addressing
the question: What happens when an adult who has been blind from childhood suddenly has his
vision restored?
Expect to spend around two hours on this.
2. Reread your speculations about this question, those you brought to class and those
you revised after class discussion.
3. Write an essay draft of 2-4 pages in which you discuss what your hunches were and
the ways in which they were similar or different from what you have read in Sacks’
article. Be sure to work with the sections you marked in Sacks’ article as well as your
own hunches. Tell us what find most interesting or important about Virgil’s experience
in relation to your speculations about regaining one’s sight.
Expect to spend two to three hours on this draft.
4. Let your draft rest for a day or at least a few hours. Then reread it. Make changes that
help you to get closer to what you are trying to say. When you are satisfied, give your
essay a unique title that captures your personal take on the issues. Proofread a hard
copy of your essay and correct any errors you notice.
Bring your revised and proofread essay to class along with your response to
Assignment 2.
Goleman/Earley
En 101
Assignment 4 due: Monday, Sept. 26
TRY-IT!
Today we are returning your reflection papers in which you compared your first
hunches about what it would be like to regain one’s vision after a lifetime of blindness
with Sacks’ article on the subject. They are very interesting and lively. Still there’s
opportunities for more depth and precision. We have spent time in class revising
sections of sample papers using the author’s own commentary as our starting points.
You will find similar kinds of comments on your own papers—suggestions for
strengthening your observations by going back into Sacks’ article for more specific
details. Strong writing requires strong reading (and rereading) and we’re asking you to
try this for next class.
Here’s the assignment: Choose 2 places where you see words like “Try it” or “Try this”
in the margins of your paper. Work on revising the paragraphs involved. Type your
revised paragraphs on a separate sheet and bring them to class with the draft we are
returning today. We’re asking you to work out your ideas in more detail and with more
precise use of Sacks’ article. In most cases this will take a lot more sentences, not just
one. If you add quotations, put the page number in parentheses after the quote.
In class: Writer-to-Writer
Monday, Sept.26
Today we are collecting your Try-its. We’ll return them to you on Wednesday and
discuss sample first drafts and revisions. As we said at the beginning of the course,
revision is the chief means we would be using to push your work to a higher level of
academic thought and expression.
Revision, you will recall, is one of the features of strong reading and writing that
Bartholomae and Petrosky discuss in their Introduction. We’d like you to look back at
that Introduction now along with your notes and the class list we distributed. In class
today we’d like you to consider this question:
Does Oliver Sacks demonstrate the features of a strong reader and writer in “To See
and Not See”? In small groups choose specific passages from his article and the
Introduction by Bartholomae and Petrosky to build and support your point of view.
Be prepared to put your selections on the board and to explain them.
To do this assignment, you will need to change your perspective on an article you are
now very familiar with. You will now be looking at what Sacks does more than what he
says (thought the two are intertwined). You will be looking at his writing as writing,
and telling us what you notice. We hope you find this writer-to-writer project
interesting and useful.
Assignment 5
Classwork : Friday, Sept. 30; Monday, Oct. 3; Wed., Oct. 5
Today we are starting an experiment in using writing differently than you are probably
accustomed to. Instead of using writing to display to others what you have already
figured out, we want you to use writing to record for yourself what your process of
figuring things out sound like.
Sacks began his exploration of sight restoration with the question: “What happens when
an adult who has been blind since childhood suddenly has his vision restored?” His
initial assumptions about Virgil’s restoration of vision were continuously challenged
throughout Virgil’s experience. Sacks was forced to rethink his assumptions by
continuously questioning his ideas and allowing new ideas to emerge. In what The New
Yorker calls “A Neurologist’s Notebook,” we as readers were able to follow Sacks’
thought process as he looked again, revised his assumptions, and as we did so, his
qualities as a strong reader and writer were increasingly evident.
For this experiment, we invite you to keep your own notebook that could be entitled,
“A Strong Reader and Writer’s Notebook: How I Read ‘Cathedral.’” Each day, we will
read a section of this story in class and ask you to respond in the right hand column of a
triple-entry notebook to one of these three questions:
Based on what you just read…
… what do you think this story is going to be about?
…What are your impressions of what is happening in the story now?
… what are your hunches about what is going to happen next?
For homework after each day of reading in class, we will ask you to fill in the middle
column by responding to this question:
Why did you write what you wrote? Guess, speculate, try to account for your thinking.
(We are asking you to be more self-reflective than you were in the first column; to try to
understand why you wrote what you wrote in the first column.)
Note: To get credit for this work and to be prepared for the essay that follows, you
will need to write at length in both columns. Brief and token responses will simply
not give you the material you need for an essay on how you read “Cathedral.”
Goleman
En 101
Assignment 6: Due Friday, Oct. 7
Now that we have finished our piecemeal reading of “Cathedral,” we’d like you to take
it home and reread it in one sitting. After that, we’d like you to use that blank left hand
column to record your present thinking about the story as you reread what you wrote
in the right hand and middle columns. What stands out for you now? Try to track your
impressions. You may find yourself writing much more now and that is fine. Let the
third column run as long as you like.
Goleman/Macdonald
Assignment 7: My“Cathedral”: Autobiography of a Reading
Due for Peer Review: Wednesday, Oct. 12 (complete typed draft)
Due for Teacher Review: Friday, Oct. 14 (3-4 double-spaced pages, typed,
titled, proofread)
Your triple entry notebook exists now as a kind of raw history of your thought
processes about the short story, “Cathedral.” By studying the reading process recorded
in your notebook, you will become an autobiographer of your own thinking about
“Cathedral.” That’s the assignment-- we are asking you to use your notebook to write
an autobiography of how you read “Cathedral.” Each of you has a different story to tell.
You come from different backgrounds and you have different experiences that have
played a role in your observations, assumptions and reflections about “Cathedral.” We
know this assignment sounds weird—certainly not the usual thesis/support theme you
have been trained to write.
We are not looking here for an interpretation of the story divorced from your thought
processes. Instead, we are looking for the story of those thought processes, the story of
your reading—where you started, how your thinking changed and unfolded, and what
you notice about your own reading practices as a result of keeping this notebook. Here
are some questions to guide you:
 Where did I start?
 What were my assumptions along the way?
 How did I get to my current way of thinking about the story?
 What are some of the most significant moments in my notebook in terms of
my thinking about “Cathedral”?
 What do I understand about reading and myself as a reader as a result of what
I find in my writer’s notebook?
Much of what you need to say for this paper already exists in your notebook, the third
column especially. Still, you are now writing for a reader other than yourself. You are
writing for your classmates and teachers. That means you will need to orient a reader
to the parts of the story and parts of your notebook you are writing about by bringing
forward specific examples and selected quotations that you both introduce and
comment on. Put page numbers in parentheses after any quotations from “Cathedral”.
In a concluding section, we would like you to reflect on what you have come to
understand about “Cathedral” and what you still find difficult or confusing. In the
Introduction to Strong Reading and Writing that we read at the beginning of the term,
the authors write, “Working with difficult readings often requires a willingness to step
outside of what you can conveniently control” (14) and they write further that it takes
“courage and determination for a student to work with what she (or he) couldn’t quite
understand, couldn’t sum up easily, couldn’t command” (15). Students tend to think
that a conclusion is the place to “sum up easily.” Instead, we are asking you to use your
conclusion to reflect on what may be unfinished or shaky about the work you have
done—what questions may remain. Try it!
Peer Review: Assignment 8
Author’s Name:
Please read the entire essay first.
Reviewer’s Name:
1. By studying the reading process recorded in your notebook, you will become an
autobiographer of your own thinking about “Cathedral.”
Look for the ways that the author is working with all three columns of his/her
dialectical notebook. Write down a few sentences where you see the author working
with all three columns in dialogue with each other. If you can’t find such a section,
write “notebook” in the margins next to places where you feel the author could make
reference to all three columns.
2. We are looking for the story of your thought processes, the story of your reading—
where you started, how your thinking changed and unfolded.
Look for places where you see the author telling the story of her/his thought processes,
how these processes develop over time. Write down one or two sentences that illustrate
this well.
3. Now, point out a place where you think the author could expand on his/her thought
processes. Make suggestions for revision.
4. You will need to orient a reader to the parts of the story and parts of your notebook
you are writing about by bringing forward specific examples and selected quotations
that you both introduce and comment on.
Does the author use specific examples and selected quotations from the notebook and
from “Cathedral” to tell the story of her/his reading? If so, point out one or two places
where you think the use of examples/quotations are particularly strong. Say why.
5. Now, point out a couple of places where you think specific examples and quotations
would strengthen this reading autobiography. You too need to be specific.
6. We are asking you to use your conclusion to reflect on what may be unfinished or
shaky about the work you have done on “Cathedral”—what question remain.
Does the author use the concluding section to grapple with the difficulties of
“Cathedral” or do you think the author tries to wrap things up too quickly and easily?
Explain your answer and make suggestions for how the author might strengthen this
section.
7. What have you learned about your own essay by reviewing this one?
En 101
Goleman
Assignment 8 due: Monday, Oct. 17
Read: “Visits” in Brothers and Keepers, pp. 6-54
As you read the first chapter of John Edgar Wideman’s book, Brothers and Keepers, you
will notice that John talks about running in terms of both his brother and himself.
Why? Robby is the fugitive, not John. Mark sections where you notice John writing
about what Robby was running from and what John himself has been running from in
his life.
After you have read and marked this chapter, go back and select 3 sections about Robby
and 3 sections about John that you marked. In the right-hand column, use quotations
and paraphrase to summarize the 6 sections you have chosen. Put the page number next
to each entry. In the left-hand column, respond to each passage about running: what do
you find important, interesting, troubling about it? Why do you think John has
included this part? What more do you want to know? Speak back to the text in any way
that pushes along your thinking in the left-hand column.
Bring your double-entry notes to class.
En 101
Goleman/Earley
Assignment 9: Due Wed., Oct. 19
Read in Brothers and Keepers, pp. 57-84
It all started with Gar dying. (66)
In “Our Time,” the second chapter of Brothers and Keepers, John and Robby develop
three ways to begin the story of Robby’s decline into crime and imprisonment. We learn
about each of these beginnings from three perspectives: John’s, Robby’s and Mrs.
Wideman’s.
When we finish this chapter, we will ask you to develop your perspective on Robby’s
decline. The work we will be doing day by day is intended to help you build up a
strong point of view that you can support through reference to Wideman’s text.
For Tuesday, please do this:
1. In your book, mark the different voices and perspectives that Wideman uses to write
this section. Even though he does not use quotation marks, you will be able to hear
most changes in voice. Using a double-entry notebook, select three passages in
different voices that stand out to you as important to this section about Garth and
Robby. Quote the passage in one column and note the page number. In the other
column say why you think it is important to an understanding of Garth’s death for
Robby.
2. Write 2 pages about why you think Robby says to John, “It all started with Gar
dying.” You should use your notes and the text to help build your response.
Note: To receive credit, you need to complete both parts of this assignment.
Goleman
Assignment 12: Due Friday, Oct. 28
Read in Brothers and Keepers, pp. 84-91
I know that had something to do with it. Living in Shadyside.(84)
For Friday, please do this:
1. In your book, note the different voices and perspectives that Wideman uses to write
this section. Using a double-entry notebook, select at least three passages (from any
points of view) that stand out to you as important to this section about living in
Shadyside. Quote the passage in one column and note the page number. In the other
column say why you think it is important to an understanding of the move to
Shadyside for Robby.
2. Write 2 pages about why you think Robby says to John, “I know that had something
to do with it. Living in Shadyside.” You should use your notes and the text to help
build your response.
Note: To receive credit, you need to complete both parts of this assignment.
Goleman
Assignment 11: due Monday, Oct. 31
Read: Brothers and Keepers, pp. 91-120
Another place to start could be December 29, 1950—the date of Robby’s birth. (91)
The final way John Wideman thinks he can begin the story of Robby’s decline is
with the day of Robby’s birth. Read this section carefully as you try to understand what
the day of Robby’s birth has to do with Robby’s problems as a young adult.
Please do this:
1. Choose 5 quotations that stand out to you as important to an understanding of why
this would be a place to start the story. Put the quotations in one column and your
commentary about their importance in the other column. Note the page number and
whose perspective the quotation is from.
2. Write 2 pages in which you explain why the date of Robby’s birth might be a place
to start the story of his decline into crime and imprisonment. Use quotations selectively
along with your commentary on them to build your explanation.
Goleman
En 101
Brothers and Keepers, John Edgar Wideman
Assignment 14 complete draft due for peer review: Friday, Nov. 4
finished draft due for teacher review: Monday, Nov. 7
Here is what John Edgar Wideman says about his investigation of Robby’s crime in an
earlier section of Brothers and Keepers:
You never know exactly when something begins. The more you delve and
backtrack and think, the more clear it becomes that nothing has a discrete,
independent history; people and events take shape not in orderly, chronological
sequence but in relation to other forces and events, tangled skeins of necessity
and interdependence and chance that after all produce only one result: what is.
(19)
We have now worked our way through “Our Time” once-- understanding,
interpreting and prioritizing the many causes offered for Robby’s problems from three
perspectives: John’s, Robby’s and Mrs. Wideman’s. Many of you have already
observed in your daily papers that there is not one cause to Robby’s decline. From the
above quotation, it is clear that John Edgar Wideman agrees. But even if most of you
think the causes are multiple and that the issue is complex, there is no clear agreement on
which causes are more important than others and how the causes you think are
important relate to each other. This is the work of your final paper.
And so, if you don’t mind the pun, you should think of this paper as “Your Time.” It is
your time to put forward your best understanding of the causes of Robby’s decline.
To do this, you need to select, arrange, and discuss the details of Robby’s life that
you think link together to form the best explanation of Robby’s problems. This is
NOT the same thing as a summary of the chapter because you need to say which
causes and which perspectives you think are most important and why. Draw on any
materials in the two chapters we have read that you think are important. You need to
work with and against the grain of Wideman’s text to form your own perspective.
This paper should be around four pages. You should aim for a complex argument based
on multiple, linked causes. In other words, I am asking for you to compose a strong
reading of “Our Time.” A strong reading will work with the text specifically, using
details and quotations to answer this question: Of all the information that John, Robby
and Mrs. Wideman bring forward to explain Robby’s decline into crime, which
information emerge for you as most important and why?
For Wednesday, November 2, do this:
Reread “Our Time” with the above assignment in mind. Mark any sections that stand
out to you now as important to a complex understanding of Robby that you had not
already thought about or noted. Make double-entry notes using these sections. We will
put them on the board and discuss them.
Peer Review: Assignment 13
Author:
Reviewer:
1. “Of all the reasons that John, Robby, and Mrs. Wideman bring forward to explain
Robby’s decline into crime, which set of causes emerge for you as most important
and why?” Which sentences in the author’s introduction best tell you what the author’s
position is in regard to this question? Write them here. If you can’t find an answer to
this question in the introduction, tell the author.
2. Assuming the author has said which causes emerge as most important, tell the
author what you expect to see in the rest of the essay.
3. “A strong reading will work with the text specifically, using details and
quotations to answer this question.” Point out two places where you think the author
uses details and quotations to build an explanation of what s/he thinks is most
important and why.
4. On the basis of what you find effective, point out two places that are not as strong
and explain why. Make suggestions for revision.
5. “You need to work with and against the grain of the text to form your perspective.”
Where does the author write against the Wideman point of view in order to put
forward his/her own? If you cannot find such a place, make suggestions for where the
author could usefully distinguish what s/he thinks from what Wideman thinks.
5. Whose perspectives, in particular, has the author cited to build his or her argument
about the multiple, linked causes of Robby’s decline? Can you think of a perspective
that would strengthen this argument? Explain your thinking to the author.
6. “You need to select, arrange, and discuss the details of Robby’s life that you think
link together to form the best explanation of Robby’s problems.” Does the conclusion
of the essay offer an explanation of how all the pieces link together? Does the author ask
questions about what remains difficult to understand or what in his/her own
interpretation s/he has doubts? Make suggestions for a conclusion that raises questions
and goes against the grain of the usual kind of conclusion.
8. What have you learned about our own paper by reviewing this one?
En 101
Assignment 15
Due: Wednesday, Nov. 9
We are about to begin the central project for the course: the writing of your own
Wideman-like paper about a person or an event in you life. To begin this project, we
need to define what a “Wideman-like” approach is. This is work for Wednesday. To do
this you will need to shift perspectives on Brothers and Keepers—to look at it now not
so much in terms of what Wideman says but in terms of what he does to write it.
As you skim the parts of the book we have read, look at what he is doing to tell the story
and make a list of what you notice. Here are three questions to help you generate this
list of Wideman’s research methods, stylistic features and approaches to knowledge:



What did Wideman actually have to do to gather the materials he needed to
write this book? What are all of the research methods you notice in the part of the
book you have read so far?
What are some features of Wideman’s style of storytelling and style of language
use that stand out to you?
What defines a Wideman-like approach to knowledge?
For Wednesday, do this:
In response to the questions above, prepare a double-entry list of Wideman-like
features. In one column, name the method, stylistic feature or approach. In the other
column, briefly note an example from the text and a page number. You should have at
least 6 features on your list to receive credit.
We will use your notes to generate a common list that will provide the foundation for
writing your own Wideman-like paper.
Goleman
En 101
Assignment 16: Planning letter due Monday, Nov. 14
We are embarking on a project that offers you a chance to add to the work begun by
John Edgar Wideman (and Oliver Sacks) in your own area of interest. Imagine that you
are asked to contribute a 4 - 5 page essay to a book that also includes writing by Sacks
and Wideman. This book is called Complex Portraits/Complex Causality. We’ve looked at
how Wideman employs multiple perspectives, examines context, asks difficult
questions, provides clear and meaningful stories and reflects on his role as writer.
Now it’s time to think about how to develop an inquiry of your own in a way that is
just as meaningful and compelling as the inquiries we’ve been reading.
 Think of someone who puzzles or intrigues you that you would like to
understand in a more complex way than you do right now.
 Or think of something difficult or confusing or amazing that has happened to
you or someone you know well that you want to investigate thoroughly. Unlike
Sacks or Wideman, you do not have to choose a sad or painful subject; you might
offer a portrait or analysis of cause that looks at a remarkable person or event.
 Consider starting with a family photograph that catches your attention. You
could use this paper to go behind the scenes of that photograph to find out the
bigger picture, so to speak, and tell it.
This paper will go through a couple of revisions and then we will gather all your
complex portraits/complex causalities into a class book which everyone will read.
We’ll then write essays about the essays in the class book. In other words, your work
will be used as the other texts in the course have been used and you will be cited as the
author (you can use a pen-name if you like). Please choose a subject that you are
willing to see in this context. Also, choose a subject you can stay interested in through a
lot of research and a couple of rewrites.
For Monday, please begin this process by writing me a planning letter in which you
address these matters:
 What is the question that will frame your inquiry? (Even if you’re not sure yet,
play with a possibility here; you’re not obligated to stick with this subject.)
 Why are you interested in pursuing this question? What do you want to find
out more about ?
 What do you think makes your inquiry fit into a book that includes Wideman
and Sacks?
 What are some of the Wideman-like methods you think you can use to research
your question?
Goleman
En 101
Assignment 15 due: Friday, Nov. 18
Once you have an inquiry question for your Wideman-like paper and a plan for how to
begin, you should start to develop multiple perspectives on your topic of inquiry. You
can do this through reflective writing, interviewing, observation or research. Your
particular inquiry will determine which of these ways of gaining perspective you must
start with, but the work of acquiring multiple perspectives and examining contexts is
central to all.
I want to see the notes, interviews, free writing or research materials you develop for
Friday. Please attach to your materials a 1-2 page report of the following:
 what you have done so far
 what has been or not been useful about it
 what you plan to do next and why
Addressing these questions in your reports will make it difficult to get stuck or to fall
behind in this project.
Assignment 17 due: Monday, November 21
Read in Brothers and Keepers, “Doing Time,” 181-243
Using a double-entry format, choose 4 quotations where you find John talking about the
process of writing the book and figuring out how to end it. In the opposite column,
comment on what you see as the results of these reflections in the way Wideman
composes the last chapter. Please comment at some length in order to receive credit for
this assignment.
Assignment 18: due Wednesday, Nov. 22
You should also continue to work on telling stories, doing research, gathering
perspectives and contexts for your Wideman-like inquiry. Please prepare a one-page
work-in-progress report for Wednesday. If you are no going to be in class on
Wednesday, you must turn your report in on Monday. In you report, please address
these questions:
 What work have you done on this project since your last report?
 What has or has not been useful about it?
 What do you plan to do next and why?
Please note: A complete draft of this paper will be due on December 2.
Goleman
Class work
Here is the list of Wideman-like features that we developed in class. Please use the
right-hand column to brainstorm how you might work with these elements yourself to
advance your complex portrait or complex analysis further.
A Wideman-like approach involves:
How I might use this feature
Asking questions
Doing research: Interviews, statistics,
observation, background reading
(dialogue with others)
Using multiple perspectives and real voices
for new, more complex understanding
Remembering and imagining, telling detailed stories,
creating metaphors
Going against the grain of one’s own thinking
(dialogue with yourself)
Reflecting and being introspective
to determine what else one needs to know
Pursuing new stories and storytellers
to gain new contexts for understanding
Avoiding happily-ever-after ending
or oversimplified conclusions
Goleman
En 101
Wideman-like paper due for anonymous peer review: Friday, Dec. 2
Finished draft due IN CLASS, Monday, Dec. 5
 Typed: 10 font, single-spaced, numbered pages
 Titled
 Authored: use your pen-name
 Proofread
 23 copies collated and stapled for class distribution
For Friday, please type a draft of your complex portrait; if there are pieces you still need
to develop, you can note that in your draft. The purpose here is to start telling your
stories and piecing the parts together in a way that helps you to explore the question
you are asking.
.
To build your inquiry in a complex way, I suggest that you refer to the list of Widemanlike methods. That list can give you ideas of how to keep your inquiry going when you
get stuck.
For Monday, your final drafts are due for class distribution. Please make arrangements
for printing or copying your paper in time for the beginning of class. If you do not have
your copies ready for class distribution, you will receive a zero for class that day and
your grade on the paper will be lowered one letter. I will not distribute late papers; it is
too time-consuming.
Everyone wants to read you paper and we need it for the next assignment and so, please, make
every effort to bring it to class on Monday at 11:30.
Note: Let me take this down a level: for those ready on Monday, there will be chocolate.
Wideman-like Paper
Peer Review: Dec. 2, 2005
Author’s Pen Name:
Reviewer’s Real Name:
Author: Before you submit your paper for review, reread it yourself and use the
margins to ask your reviewer specific questions that you want feed back about. Number
each marginal note you make.
Reviewer: Read the entire paper first. Then, respond to the author’s questions in this
space. Please use the numbers in the margins to help the author match your comments
with his/her questions. When you are finished, please address the prepared questions
on the back of this sheet.
1. We have spent considerable time analyzing the methods of a Wideman-like
approach. Using the list on the blue handout, tell the author something about his/her
use of these methods that you have not already explained. For instance, does the author
know which methods you find most effective? If not, explain. Is there anything in this
paper you wish you knew more about? Tell the author what that is and which methods
might help.
2. Does the form of this paper tend toward (1) a traditional biography (this happened
and then this happened) or does the form contribute to (2) an appreciation of how
multiple perspectives/contexts complicate the author’s understanding of people and
events? If you answered (1), then give the author some ideas about what s/he can do to
shape this paper into a more complicated inquiry. If you answered (2), give the author
a suggestion of how s/he might push the form of this paper a little more experimentally
forward for maximum effect. (Think particularly about the beginning and end.)
3. Tell the author what you have learned about your own paper by reviewing this one.
Assignment 19: Reading the class book
You now have copies of each other’s complex portraits/complex cause essays. These
inquiries are the final reading for the course, joining “To See and Not See” and Brothers
and Keepers as texts for analysis and response. Here’s what we’d like you to do for the
paper due Tuesday, May 10:
Write an essay in which you discuss three Wideman-like moves from at least two
papers that you admire and that you think you could apply to your own essay for a
gain in meaning.
Analyze each of the three moves you choose, explaining what it does for the paper
that you admire and how you think it adds meaning to it. You will need to support
your ideas with specific uses the papers themselves. Quotations and details will help
you to explain what you think is effective about a move the writer makes and why.
We also want to know how you think you could apply the moves you have
identified to your own paper. You can do this in a final section or you can do it after
the analysis of each move. How might you continue your own inquiry using moves
you have seen and admired in classmates’ papers? That’s the question behind this
final assignment—a question that invites you to imagine further development of
your own paper.
Here’s a day by day breakdown of our process:
Due Tuesday, May 3
Read the entire class book. As you read, mark all the places where an author’s use of a
Wideman-like method stands out to you as particularly strong and effective. Explain in
the margins what you like about the moves you have chosen. Of all the places you have
marked, which ones give you ideas for how you might have continued developing your
own inquiry? Star those. Bring the entire class book with you to class.
Thursday, May 5
Choose three moves from at least 2 papers that you might want to write about in
relation to your own paper. Before applying it to your paper, however, we’d like you to
analyze each move closely on its own terms.
 What is the writer saying and doing in the section you like?
 What makes it Wideman-like?
 What do you think this section adds to the essay as a whole? If it were removed,
what meaning would be lost?
Bring your typed responses to class. No late assignments accepted.
Tuesday, May 10 (LAST CLASS!!) PAPERS DUE: Typed, Titled, Proofread
No late papers except for emergency or illness
Please bring copies of your papers to class for all the authors you cite. You should
remove your name from your paper to maintain anonymity. We think you will find it
interesting to see your papers discussed and admired in each other’s essays--a nice way
to end the term.