Waugh / ENGL 1012
English Composition II: Seminar in Expository Writing (Fall 2011)
«the war that matters is the war against the imagination / all other wars are subsumed in it.»
– Diane Di Prima
MW 9:30–10:45am (3076) 4121B | MW 11:00–12:15am (1478) 3117B
Instructor: Kyle Skully Waugh | email: waugh.kyle@gmail.com
Office: Boylan 2311 | Office Hours: W 12:30am–2:30pm (or by appointment)
Course Description:
“Writing-intensive seminar focusing on a topic chosen by the instructor. Provides students with an opportunity to
explore a particular subject in depth and further develop skills of critical thinking, research techniques, and clear
expression necessary for academic writing.” – Brooklyn College Bulletin
Course Texts:
✩ Rosenwasser and Stephen, Writing Analytically 6th ed. (REQUIRED TO BUY)
✩ James Baldwin, “If Black English Isn’t A Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” — online at:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-english.html
✩ John Berger, Ways of Seeing (pgs 1/7–34/17) — for pdf: http://www.mediafire.com/?w5dxlwoudjj
✩ Christian Bök, Eunoia (excerpt)
✩ George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (excerpt)
✩ Ben Lerner, The Lichtenberg Figures (excerpt) — online (text and audio) at:
http://lyrikline.org/index.php?id=162&L=1&author=bl00&show=Poems&poemId=7372&cHash=56f2a03967
✩ Jonathan Lethem, “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism” — online at:
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387
✩ Barbara Klinger, “Contraband Cinema: Piracy, Titanic, and Central Asia” [Cinema Journal (March 2010), 49 (2), pg.
106-124] — available on JSTOR, a database accessible through the library website
✩ Susan Meseilas & Joy Garnett, “On the Rights of Molotov Man” — for pdf, google: “on the rights of molotov man”
✩ K. Silem Mohammad, Sonnagrams 1–20 (excerpt)
✩ Negativland, No Business & “Two Relationships to a Cultural Public Domain” — for pdf, google: “two relationships
to a cultural public domain”
✩ Tony Silver, Style Wars (film)
✩ Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal” — download at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080
✩ Siva Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights & Copywrongs (Introduction & Chapter 1) — online at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=sGjSY0rRC_wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=copyrights+and+copywrongs&
hl=en&sa=X&ei=4iYmT6yRC7G70QGj0aTvCA&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=copyrights%20and%2
0copywrongs&f=false
✩ David Foster Wallace, “Consider the Lobster” — online at:
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?currentPage=1
The goals of this class are the following:
★ Improving your abilities as a READER who writes
★ Thinking about writing as a PROCESS of developing ideas and arguments
★ Exploring different modes of CRITICAL THINKING
★ Strengthening your SKILLS as a scholarly writer
★ Learning how to RESEARCH a self-designed topic
Requirements and Expectations:
Attendance and participation are essential. Three absences are excused, but for each subsequent absence your grade will
fall by one level (i.e. B to B–). After six absences, you will automatically fail the course. I will take final attendance at
9:35am/11:05am. If you arrive after that point, you’re late. Three late arrivals equal one absence. All cell phones,
Blackberries, iPhones, gaming systems, whatever, must be turned off and put away at the beginning of class. If I see you
with any of the above, I’ll consider you late, etc.
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Waugh / ENGL 1012
You are required to bring print-outs of all the assigned readings to class (on the day it’s assigned, obviously), as well as
print-outs of your own work for the course. I will not receive assignments by email. Your assignments should be
double-spaced, in a standard 12-point font (e.g., Times, Garamond, Calibri), with 1-inch margins.
Sometimes we will write together in class. Come prepared each day with paper and a pen (as well as other required
materials). Occasionally I will ask you to turn in these writings at the end of class.
Emails: I will answer your emails within 48 hours. When you email me, consider it an opportunity to practice a more
formal kind of correspondence that reflects your abilities as a writer (so textspeak, abbreviations, and incomplete
sentences are inappropriate).
Grading Breakdown:
Attendance and Participation: 20%
Active participation as speakers, listeners, and writers is key, both to the usefulness of this course and to your
success as a student (and, arguably, as a human being). The ability to ask thoughtful and appropriate (and
sometimes inappropriate) questions is essential to all forms of participation. Because this is a seminar-style
course, you must be prepared to discuss all assigned reading at each class meeting. In addition to general
participation in our discussions, your participation grade has three other components: 1) You are required, one
time during the semester, to lead a portion of the class discussion, by presenting questions you’ve generated
about the reading assignment; 2) In workshops throughout the semester, you will comment on your peer’s
writings, helping one another to strengthen your ideas and prose; 3) We will occasionally have very small
vocabulary quizzes, which will exclusively cover unfamiliar words we encounter in the assigned readings.
Six 2–3-Page Short Essays: 40% (four at 7%; two at 6%)
The details of these assignments will be provided separately. Each of them will correspond to an issue raised in
one of the assigned texts, as well as to the analytical strategies addressed in other assigned readings. These
assignments will also introduce certain “constraints” on the writing process, beyond simply offering a prompt.
More on this soon.
Research Paper Portfolio: 40% (5% for the Initial Proposal; 5% for the Final Proposal; 5% Annotated
Bibliography; 10% for the First Draft; 15% for the Final Draft)
You will select one of the readings this semester as your starting point for an 7–9-page research paper, for
which you will write an Initial Proposal and a Revised Final Proposal, as well as compose an Annotated
Bibliography. All of these documents, along with the Drafts leading up to your Final Draft will be included in a
Portfolio, which you will turn into me at the end of the semester. Much more on this as the semester
progresses.
In English 2 courses, the passing grade range is A to C-. Students who do not pass receive an F or NC and must repeat
the course. A grade of F may result from excessive absences, a failure to complete course assignments, and/or
plagiarism. An NC (No Credit) may be given if a student has come to class and completed all the assignments, but the
work is not yet at a passing level.
I encourage everyone, but particularly students concerned about grammar and punctuation, to sign up for regular
writing tutor meetings at the Learning Center (Boylan 1300). See their website for the tutoring schedule and more
information: http://lc.brooklyn.cuny.edu/
Reading Schedule (additional writing assignments will be distributed separately)
(Please note: This is subject to revision)
* Days on which writing assignments are due, everyone should compose one question over the reading for class
discussion.
M 30
Introduction to the course; in-class writing
JANUARY
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FEBRUARY
W1
Writing Analytically (WA): “Toolkit of Analytical Methods I: Seeing Better, Seeing More” (23–28; 33–49;); Lerner: [“I’m
going to kill the president.”] (D.Q.)
M6
WA: “Analysis: What It Is & What It Does” (53–66); Berger: “Ways of Seeing” (D.Q.); “The Artist’s Mother”
(Whistler): http://coursecontent.westhillscollege.com/Art%20Images/CD_04/highres/AW13012P.jpg
W 8*
WA: “Analysis: What It Is & What It Does” (70–82); Berger (cont.)
DUE: Painting Response #1; in-class writing over painting; “Judith Beheading Holofernes” (Caravaggio):
http://coursecontent.westhillscollege.com/Art%20Images/CD_04/highres/AW13012P.jpg
M 13 – NO CLASS
W 15
WA: “Making Interpretations Plausible” (133-148); Lakoff & Johnson: Metaphors We Live By (D.Q.)
M 20 – NO CLASS
W 22
WA: “Reasoning from Evidence to Claims” (165–182; 187–189); Wallace: “Consider the Lobster” (D.Q.); in-class
workshop over metaphor, with student samples
M 27*
WA: “Analyzing Arguments” (191–205); Swift: “A Modest Proposal”
DUE: Metaphor Response #2 (to advertisement)
W 29
WA: “Using Evidence to Build a Paper: 10 on 1” (207–225); Meiselas & Garnett: “On the Rights of Molotov Man”
(D.Q.); in-class writing over reading
MARCH
M5
WA: “Making a Thesis Evolve” (227–245); in-class writing over “Las Meninas” photograph; workshop Swift
Response; “Las Meninas” (Velazquez): http://b-log.netfactory.hu/media/velazquez-las-meninas-5.jpg; “Las
Meninas” (Sussman): https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/wash/www/Objects/sussman.jpg
W 7*
WA: “Making a Thesis Evolve” (245–253); Baldwin: “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then, Tell Me, What Is?”
DUE: Swift Response #3
M 12
WA: “Recognizing & Fixing Weak Thesis Statements” (255–264); Film (in class): Style Wars
W 14
Style Wars (D.Q.); workshop Style Wars Response (focus on evolving/revising theses)
M 19*
WA: “Introductions and Conclusions” (349–373); Klinger: “Contraband Cinema: Piracy, Titanic, & Central Asia”
DUE: Style Wars Response #4
W 21
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Waugh / ENGL 1012
Negativland: “Two Relationships to a Cultural Public Domain” (D.Q.); Music (in class): Girltalk; Negativland;
Jaydiohead; TBA
M 26*
Bök: Eunoia; Mohammad: The Sonnagrams (with corresponding Shakespeare sonnets)
DUE: Mash-up/Collage Creative Writing #5 (with constraint explained)
W 28
Lethem: “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism” (D.Q.); Music (in class, cont.)
APRIL
M2
Vaidhyanathan: Copyrights & Copywrongs; grammar & punctuation troubleshooting; workshop Mash-up/Collage
Response
W 4*
WA: “Using Sources Analytically: The Conversation Model” (267–281); writing in-class with previous readings;
Introduction to Research Paper
DUE: Mash-up/Collage Response #6
M 9—NO CLASS
W 11—NO CLASS
M 16*
WA: “Finding, Citing, & Integrating Sources” (283–314)
DUE: Initial Proposals for Research Paper; workshop proposals
W 18
Library Visit
M 23
MLA citation and Annotated Bibliography workshop (w/ student sources)
W 25
WA: “Revising for Style: Word Choice” (375–389); workshop TBA
DUE: Revised Proposal with Annotated Bibliography
M 30
WA: “Revising for Style: The Rhetoric of the Sentence” (391–414); orkshop 1st Draft
W 2 (& R)
Conferences (w/ draft)
MAY
M7
Conferences (w/ draft)
W9
WA: “Revising for Correctness: Grammar & Punctuation” (417–452); workshop 2nd Draft
M 14*
DUE: Final Research Paper
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