COURSE TITLE: English 101: College Reading & Composition
SECTION: 3158
INSTRUCTOR: Prof. J.A. Giarelli
CLASS TIME: T/TH, 3:30-4:55
CLASSROOM: JH 313
OFFICE HOURS: TH, 12:30-1:30
OFFICE LOCATION: TBA
COURSE WEBSITE: LAexplore.com
EMAIL: jliterati@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: Angelino Club
COURSE DESCRIPTION/OBJECTIVES: English 101 is a transferable course in which students develop proficiency in college level reading and writing through the practice of well developed, logical, expository writing, using published texts and various other forms of cultural media. This particular course is a multi-cultural study of Los Angeles through the works of its writers, historians, filmmakers, musicians, artists, photographers, architects, ecologists, sociologists and students themselves.
COURSE GOALS: Upon completion of this course, the student shall have the ability to do the following:
1) Read sophisticated college level expository texts, distinguish main ideas and supporting points, evaluate the persuasiveness of arguments and evidence, critique assumptions and make relevant inferences about authorial motivation and biases;
2) Plan and write well focused, logically organized, thoroughly developed and coherent college level essays of 1,000 to 2,000 words, that analyze, interpret and compare concepts, and that argue for or against a position;
3) Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of the writing process and pre-write, draft, proofread, edit, revise work and respond critically and productively to the work of peers in revision groups;
4) Distinguish between different styles of written English and evaluate the appropriateness of a particular style, tone, or voice for a given audience. Vary sentence shape and structure for emphasis and effect.
5) Use all major forms of punctuation effectively, including colons, semi-colons, dashes and quotation marks.
COURSE PREREQUISITE/CO-REQUISITE: Students must achieve a passing grade in EN28/31 or the equivalent at a compatible college, or receive an appropriate score on the College Placement
Examination in order to be placed at this level.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOME (SLO): Students will plan and write a persuasive essay of 1,000 – 2,000 words in a 2 hour in-class session, based upon a prompt agreed upon by the English/ESL Department faculty.
BOOKS/MATERIALS/ASSIGNMENTS: All students in this class will be required to access and download the course reading materials from our course internet website at LAexplore.com, including non-fiction historical writings, print journalism, and fictional excerpts from longer works, all of which are highlighted as links in the “LA Literature” section in the tool bar at the top of the course website’s homepage. All of the readings are FREE and easily accessible, though some take a minute or more to download due to excessive length. All writing assignments for this course are posted in chronological order on the course blog, also located on the website homepage, and are based upon the course readings bundled into 7 segments, along with various other segments of that particular course topic, such as history, film, art,

and music. All essays must be of a 1,000 word length minimum, and must be typed into a Microsoft
Word document or the equivalent that can easily open on a PC. If you use a MAC, you will have to convert the document to accommodate a PC. All essay writing assignments MUST BE E-MAILED TO ME at jliterati@gmail.com
. You are NOT allowed to turn in a print copy of the assignment. Also, I do not read a student’s work before it is due in order to see if the student is “on the right track.” All late writing assignments MUST be emailed within 48 hours of the original due date in order to receive a grade. All late assignments shall incur one full grade reduction. Any “surprise quizzes” based upon the course reading assignments ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be taken at a later date, as the answers will already have been made public, so if you are absent on the day of a reading quiz, you will have to bite the bullet on that one. If you do not own a personal computer on which to do your writing assignments and to email them to me, there are many places on the LACC campus in which to use one, including the MLK Library, the new Student Center Writing Lab, and the English Department Writing Center in Jefferson Hall, Rm.
318. The Library Café across the street from the college also has internet services for a small fee. You should not take this course if this requirement presents a problem for you, as a computer is absolutely required for this class.
ANGELINO CLUB: As a supplement to the LAexplore course, the Angelino Club is an ASG (Associated
Student Government) chartered club, whose sole purpose is to examine, explore, and enjoy all aspects of Los Angeles above and beyond what the LAexplore class will do, from ethnic cultural events, to museum art exhibits, to unique restaurants and fun group gatherings off campus. Students who join the
Angelino Club will receive extra credit, which shall be averaged into their Final Grade for the course. So sign up, have fun learning more about LA, and also don’t forget to subscribe to the “Angelino Club”
Facebook page to see what your fellow Angelinos are thinking and doing.
ENGLISH DEPT. WRITING CENTER: If you are experiencing difficulty with your English language writing skills, I strongly advise that you visit one of the English tutors in the Writing Center, located on the third floor of Jefferson Hall in Rm. 318. All you have to do is walk in and sign up. It’s as easy as that. Just keep in mind that they are hired to tutor you, not to do all of the work for you. So please do not expect them to write the essay for you and then complain that they had an attitude when they wouldn’t. If I recommend that you see a tutor, I will check to make sure you actually signed up.
GRADING POLICY: All grades assigned to student course work shall be A-F, although a rare, exceptional essay will receive an A+. The Final Grade for the course shall be determined by averaging all grades from essay writing assignments, reading quizzes, class participation/interest, attendance, and the Mid-Term and Final Exams. I do not do a grade percentage breakdown, but suffice to say that the Mid-Term and
Final Exams do weigh more heavily than the regular essays and other areas of the course. Any missing assignments shall receive a grade of F. Each student shall be informed at mid-semester whether she/he is passing the course or should either greatly improve or receive a failing Final Grade.
ATTENDANCE POLICY: Attendance is recorded at the official start of each class. Students are allowed four (4) penalty-free absences, after which he/she will incur a full grade reduction of the Final Grade for the course. I DO NOT discuss student absences, as there are 100 reasons for not attending class, from emergency hospitalization to automobile accidents to sheer laziness. I also do not accept written excuses. Absolutely no absence is exempt from my attendance policy. Absentees and late arrivals are also responsible for any homework due on the day of absence, plus any lecture information missed and homework assignments given in class. One last word of advice on this matter: Please do not involve your professor in your personal life. That is exactly why I am generous with my “penalty-free absentee”

policy. Just please remember to use you “penalty-free days” wisely or they will catch up to you when you need them the most.
CLASS RULES : All cell phones and /or electronic devices must be turned off during class time.
Absolutely no cell phone and/or electronic device use is allowed in the classroom unless instructed by the professor, no use of laptop computers, I-Pads, Netbooks, Nooks, Kindles, I-Pods, no unrelated homework, no abuse of restroom privileges, no headphones, no ear pieces, no eating, no rudeness, no hate speech, no inappropriate behavior, no disrespect towards the professor or classmates. Any visible and/or hidden cell phone or electronic device will be confiscated until the end of class. If the student refuses to surrender the device, he/she MUST leave the classroom for the remainder of that class, and will not be given any missed tests, assignments, or lecture/discussion information by the professor after class. In the case of real, adult emergencies, you may use your phone outside of the classroom, however anyone who leaves class for more than 10 minutes will be marked absent, which will be applied to your penalty-free absence record. Please do not interrupt class to ask permission to do any of the above. You are now adults, so follow the rules. Please try to act in a mature manner during class, as we are all here for the common purpose of education, not behavioral modification.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: Violations of academic integrity include, but are not limited to, the following actions: cheating on an exam, plagiarism, working together on a specific assignment in which the professor has not instructed you to do so, submitting the same paper to more than one professor, or allowing another individual to assume one’s identity for the sole purpose of enhancing one’s grade.
OFFICE OF SPECIAL SERVICES (OSS): A student who feels that he/she might need academic and/or authorized accommodation based upon the serious impact of a disability should contact the Office of
Special Services (DSPS) 323-953-4000 (ext.2270), or visit the OSS office in Room SSV-100.
COURSE DROP: Dropping a class after Week 2 shall result in a “W” on your college transcript. Effective
July 1, 2012, every student is allowed 3 attempts to pass a class. If a student gets a “W” or a grade of
“D,” “F,” “I,” or “NP” in a class, that shall count as an attempt. A student’s past record of “course attempts” LACCD district-wide shall also be considered. Therefore, before the end of Week 2, you should carefully consider whether or not you can reasonably manage this course with the other factors in your life, such as work, family, and course load. Please do not hesitate to address your concerns with me, or see a college counselor in Room AD 108 (Cesar Chavez Bldg.)
COURSE SCHEDULE:
PART 1: (Week 1) Introduction; Course Syllabus; Course Website (LAexplore.com)
Reading: “About LAexplore” course website)
PART 2: (Week 2) Yangna to El Barrio: Roots of LA’s Multi-cultural Identity
HISTORY: Los Angeles In the Beginning: Pre-Colonial to 1850; Tongva & Chumash native cultures;
Spaniards, Franciscans, Pobladores and the Missions; Mexican Rancho Royalty: Pico, Dominguez,
Sepulveda, Avila, Del Valle, Rocha, et al.
LITERATURE: El Pueblo, from “History Of” series; Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson; Legacy of A Land
Grab, by Lalo Lopez; Whitewashed Adobe, by William Deverell; The Labyrinth of Solitude, by Octavio Paz;
Where Latino March Toward Justice Began, by Cecilia Rasmussen; Revolt of the Cockroach People, by

Oscar Zeta Acosta; Dia de Los Muertos, by Raoul de la Sota; I Don’t Buy My Tacos Too Close To Sex
Change Clinics, by Harry Gamboa;
MUSIC: Ranchero, Salsa, Rock-n-Espanol, Banda
ART: David Alfaro Siqueiros; Dia de los Muertos art; La Virgen de Guadalupe outdoor murals; urban street graffiti; gang tagging
FILM: Mi Familia; American Me; Blood In Blood Out (Bound By Honor); La Bamba; Stand and Deliver;
Zoot Suit; Born In East LA; Mi Vida Loca; Quincianera; Bajo La Misma Luna; A Day Without A Mexican
LECTURE/DISCUSSION: From the original 44 Pobladores (colonists) to 19 th century wealthy land-grantee
Rancheros, from 1940s Zoot-Suited Pachucos to 1970s Chicano Militants and Brown Berets, from today’s high profile Latino Politicos to immigrants still coming, documented or not, to El Gran Pueblo de Los
Angeles in the 21 st century.
FIELD TRIP: El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park: Union Station, La Placita Olvera, Latino Cultural
Heritage Museum; El Alisal (Casa de Adobe, Highland Park)
WRITING ASSIGNMENT : Essay # 1 (Topic TBA, based on above studies)
PART 3: (Week 5) New Eden to Paradise Lost: The Promise & Betrayal of the Anglo-American Dream
HISTORY: Stealing Water, Sub-dividing the Ranchos, and Building the Artificial City. The White Power
Elite: Doheny, Mulholland, Wilcox, Van Nuys, Otis, Chandler, Huntington, Hancock, Hearst, Hughes,
Getty, et al.
LITERATURE: Excerpts from: William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles, by Catherine Mulholland;
The Los Angeles Archipelago, by Carey McWilliams; Ask the Dust, by John Fante; Writers In Hollywood, by Raymond Chandler; Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West; Recount, by Carey McWilliams; Los
Angeles: A Rhapsody, by Aldous Huxley; Hollywood, by Truman Capote; The Slide Area, by Gavin
Lambert; LAPD Block Dust Bowl Migrants at State Border, by Cecilia Rasmussen; Blue Smoke and Steel, by Laurel Ann Boyen
FILM: Intolerance; Birth of A Nation; Sunset Boulevard; The Day of the Locust; Falling Down;The
Postman Always Rings Twice; Mildred Pierce; LA Confidential
LECTURE/DISCUSSION : Los Angeles was transformed from a place of great promise and idyllic charm that lured dreamers here since the first Spaniards arrived in the 1700s, to the target of cynical scorn by writers from the 1930s onward. The LA “Boosters” sold a slick package deal that didn’t deliver the goods for very long. The urban diaspora of “White Flight” that occurred in post-war America decentralized the city, not to be revived until a half century later as a hip commercial and cultural destination.
FIELD TRIP: Downtown LA’s “Historic Core:” Bunker Hill, Pershing Square, Angel’s Flight, Grand Central
Market, Bradbury Bldg., Broadway Theater District, Old Bank District, Grand Avenue “Cultural Corridor”
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Essay #2 (Topic TBA, based on above studies)
PART 4: (Week 8) The African-American Experience in Los Angeles: Restrictive Covenants to Urban
Revolts
HISTORY: Not Quite Paradise, by Rick Moss
LITERATURE: Excerpts from God Sends Sunday, by Arna Bontemps; If He Hollers Let Him Go, by Chester
Himes; Devil In A Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley; Guns and Trouble on the Blue Line Train, by Eric
Priestley; Down Central Avenue, by Mark Colasurdo; The Cool Jerk, by Keith Antar Mason; LA Love Cry, by Wanda Coleman
MUSIC: 1940s to Present: Jazz, Blues, Rock, Rap, Hip-Hop. “Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles,” by Clora Bryant
ART: African-American Museum (Exposition Park);
FILM: Devil In A Blue Dress; Boyz In the Hood; South Central; Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned;
Car Wash; Colors; Menace to Society

LECTURE/DISCUSSION: Blacks streaming out of the South and Mid-West towards the “Promised Land” of southern California found life in 1940s & 50s LA to be liberating on lively Central Avenue, yet racially restrictive throughout the rest of Los Angeles. They still had a hard road to tow before seeing change after the bloody urban revolt of the Watts Riot of 1965. Trailblazers like former slave Biddy Mason, renowned architect Paul Revere Williams, jazz musician Buddy Colette, and the election of Tom Bradley as the city’s first African-American mayor in the 1970s led the way towards equality for black Angelinos.
Then came a King, Rodney not Martin Luther.
FIELD TRIP: African American Museum (Exposition Park); Civil Rights Museum (Watts); Watts Towers;
Leimert Park Village; Biddy Mason Memorial (DTLA)
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Essay #3 (Topic TBA, based on above studies)
PART 5: (Week 11) Redefining America: The New Multi-Cultural Mecca
HISTORY: The Golden Years of Los Angeles’ Chinatown, by Cheng and Kwok; Italians in Los Angeles, by
Lothrop, Gloria Ricci; Korean Immigrants in Los Angeles, by Min, Pyong G.; Salvadoran Americans, by
Mumford, Jeremy; A Jewish Presence in Los Angeles, by Newmark, Harris;
LITERATURE: The Tattooed Soldier, by Hector Tobar; Where Worlds Collide, by Pico Iyer; Coming Home
to Van Nuys, by Sandra Tsing Loh; The Sexual Outlaw, by John Rechy
FILM: La Bestia (Documentary); When the Mountains Tremble, by Rigoberta Menchu; Gran Torino; The
Shahs of Sunset; The Celluloid Closet, by Vito Russo;
COMMUNITIES: Little Armenia, Chinatown, Fairfax District (Jewish), Historic Filipino Town, Thai Town,
Salvadoran Corridor, (Vermont & Washington), Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Leimert Park (African-
American), Little Italy, Little Saigon, Tehrangeles (Persian West LA), Weho (Gay West Hollywood), Little
Moscow (West Hollywood), Little Saigon (Monterey Park)
FIELD TRIP: Riding the Rails: Studying Multi-cultural LA on the light-rail trains, from the Blue & Gold to the Green & Expo Light-Rail Lines. Museum of Tolerance; Holocaust Memorial; Café Cultural,
“Salvadoran Corridor,” (Vermont Ave. & Washington Blvd.) “Art Walk” (Old Bank District, DTLA);
Japanese-American Museum; Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple (Hacienda Heights)
LECTURE/DISCUSSION: How is LA doing as the American “Multi-cultural Mecca” of the 21 st century?
Culturally identified communities are thriving. Artists, hipsters and gays are gentrifying downtown LA and its surrounding working class Latino neighborhoods like Echo Park, Silverlake, Highland Park and
Lincoln Heights.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Essay # 4 (Topic TBA, based on above studies)
PART 6: (Week 13) Living on the Edge…of the Continent: LA’s Eco/Geo/Psycho/Socio Demographics
LITERATURE: LA Inferno, by Mike Davis; Los Angeles Notebook, by Joan Didion; The Los Angeles
Archipelago, by Carey McWilliams; City of Quartz, by Mike Davis; Going Up In L.A., by Ruben Martinez;
Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, by Reyner Banham; The City of Robots, by Umberto Eco;
The Death of the Father, by Charles Bukowski
LECTURE/DISCUSSION: What exactly does writer Joan Didion mean in the documentary film, “Shotgun
Freeway,” when she says that the psychological instability of Los Angeles is a reflection of its physical instability?
FILM: Crash, Falling Down, Shotgun Freeway
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Essay #5 (Topic TBA, based on above studies)
PART 7: (Week 15) Crime, Corruption, and Scandal in the City of Angels
LITERATURE: Oil, by Upton Sinclair; Paradise, by James M. Cain; Red Wind, by Raymond Chandler; The
Barbarous Coast, by Ross Macdonald; Chinatown, by Robert Towne; Devil In A Blue Dress, by Walter

Mosley; The Tooth of Crime, and The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy; The New Centurions, by Joseph
Wambaugh, Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi
FILM: Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, LA Confidential, The Big Sleep, Gangster Squad, Chinatown,
Devil In A Blue Dress, Dragnet, Shotgun Freeway, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Sunset Boulevard,
Blade Runner, Repo Man, To Live and Die In LA, Escape from LA, American History X, Training Day, Jackie
Brown, Pulp Fiction
LECTURE/DISCUSSION: Is it the superficial culture of celebrity-worship or its history as a rebellious outpost in the desert, where the art of identity re-invention was born, that has attracted a morally and psychologically challenged population to Los Angeles?
WRITING ASSIGNMENT : Essay #6 (Topic TBA, based on above studies)
PART 8: (Week 17) FINAL EXAM: 2 hour in-class essay writing exam of approximately 2,000 words, based on a prompt agreed upon by the English Department Faculty .