Syllabus: Writing 2
Spring, 2012
Ben Spanbock
spanbock@ucsc.edu
Writing 2: California History and Culture
Course description:
The state of California encompasses a tremendous amount of social, cultural, environmental and
regional diversity. Operating under the premise that our diverse community stands to benefit
from intellectually informed ideas and opinions, the purpose of this class is to introduce the
writing process as a method for engaging with problems faced in California today. Together we
will examine a number of short texts related to California history and culture, and engage with
problems that draw from and speak to a variety of specific academic discourses, including film,
journalism, literature, history, and cultural studies. Beginning with an overview of the place of
California in writing, we will work together to define the limits of the “California imaginary”
that will serve as our common grounds while students identify and pursue issues relevant to their
own interests. Students will practice both formal and informal writing techniques with the goal
of forming their own perspectives on relevant issues through acts of writing.
Prerequisites:
“Writing 2 satisfies the C2 (Rhetoric and Inquiry) requirement. Students must have satisfied the
Entry –Level Writing Requirement and the C1 (Introduction to University Discourse)
requirement before enrolling. Students who did not pass their college Core class with a grade of
C or better have not satisfied the C1 requirement.”
Course Website:
http://www.benspanbock.net/courses.html
List of Texts:
Michaels, Reid and Scherr. West of the West: Imagining California
Murray, Donald M. Write to Learn
Yamashita, Karen Tei. Tropic of Orange
Other short texts and videos available on the course website
List of Assignments and approximate page lengths:
News article summary
Origins position paper
Close reading paper
Film review
News article revision project
Prospectus with annotated bibliography
Creative Writing assignment
Research Project
2 pages
3 pages
4 pages
2 pages
4 pages
4 pages
2 pages
10 pages
(Specifics and requirements for each assignment will be distributed prior to the due date)
Grading:
“Writing Program faculty determine a student’s final grades for Writing 2 by considering all of
that student’s work at the end of the quarter. During the quarter, students will receive written
assessment and advice concerning what their work has accomplished and how it can be improved
rather than letter grades on individual assignments.” PLEASE SEE THE FINAL PAGE OF
THE SYLLABUS FOR THE COMPLETE WRITING 2 GRADING RUBRIC
Portfolios: At the end of the quarter, students must submit all completed work including drafts,
cover sheets, final versions, and comments together in a portfolio that will count for 75% of their
final grade. This will establish a collection of your work that you can refer back to, and that will
enable me to reference all of your work and my comments for final evaluation. Be sure to keep
all completed work from the quarter together in a folder as we move along through the
quarter!
Attendance and participation: Attendance and participation are crucial to successful
completion of this course, and will make up 25% of your final grade. Your first absence will be
excused, your second absence marked against your participation, and your third will result in a
lowering of your grade. Four or more absences is considered grounds for failing the course.
Regardless of your reason for missing class, you will want to keep up with your work. Because
of the condensed nature of the quarter system, more than three unexcused absences will result in
the drop of a full letter drop to your final grade.
Course Requirements:
1. Over the course of the quarter you will be expected to keep a writing journal and complete
several informal and/or exploratory writing assignments in addition to formal assignments
2. Students will work together during the quarter in revision groups which will meet frequently
during class, and in some cases before, after, or between classes. Revision groups will also have
regular check-in meetings with the instructor during the quarter.
3. Students will be responsible for coming to class ready to discuss all readings assigned to them
for that meeting. You will be expected to engage in informed discussions pertaining to a text’s
content, its formal features, its cultural context, or other relevant aspects as deemed necessary.
Course Policies:
 Be respectful of the rights, opinions, and differences of others.
 Please feel free to make use of office hours or talk with me whenever you have a question
 If you qualify for classroom accommodations because of a disability, please get an
Accommodation Authorization from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) and submit it
to me in person outside of class (e.g. office hours) within the first two weeks of the
quarter. Contact the DRC at 459-2089 (voice) or 459-4806 (TTY) or http://drc.ucsc.edu
 Academic integrity and scholarship are core values that should guide our conduct
and decisions as members of the UCSC community. Plagiarism and cheating
contradict these values, and can be very serious academic offenses. This quarter we
will address research and citation methods that will help you avoid plagiarism.
However, please review the university's Rules of Conduct regarding this matter to
help inform your study: http://www2.ucsc.edu/judicial/handbook.shtml
Schedule:
Week 1: Introduction/Paradise
Tuesday: Introductions and course overview; Distribution and discussion of syllabus;
Distribution and discussion of “Reader/writer’s statement” assignment
Thursday: Group discussion of readings; In-class free-write activity; Distribution and
discussion of “News article summary” assignment
Read: Julián Marías, California as Paradise; Joan Didion, Notes from a Native Daughter
Walt Whitman, Facing West from California Shores (West of the West); Tupac Shakur,
California Love (YouTube); “Unlearning to Write” (Write to Learn, 18-29)
Week 2: Origins
Tuesday: Group discussion of readings; In-class free-write activity; Group workshop
and free-write with news article
Read: “Start the Writing Habit” (WTL 39-46); “Focus” (WTL 57-81)
Bring: Reader/Writer’s Statement
Bring: Two newspaper articles related to a current issue or problem in California
Thursday: Group discussion of readings; Lecture on effective written arguments
“Quoting, paraphrasing, and plagiarizing” exercise; Hand out and discuss “Origins
position paper”
Read: Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years before the Mast (selection on WEBSITE),
Maidu Creation Myth (WEBSITE), and Henry Miller, “In the Beginning” (WOTW)
Bring: “News article summary” with original article attached
Week 3: Water Wars
Tuesday: Discussion of reading and responding to a rough draft; Peer-editing activity
Read: “Draft” (WTL120- 160)
Bring: “Origins position paper” draft
Thursday: Coversheet activity for “Origins position paper” Discussion of readings; Inclass viewing of scenes from Cadillac Desert
Read: Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain (Selections on WEBSITE), view PBS video:
Agriculture’s Effect on Frogs
Bring: “Origins paper”
Week 4: City Life
***Individual meetings to be scheduled for this week***
Tuesday: Discussion of readings; Lecture on effective close reading skills; Hand-out
and discuss “Close Reading” assignment
Read: “Cities” [excerpts from Simone de Beauvoir, Rudyard Kipling, Frank Norris, Jack
Kerouac, Maxine Hong Kingston] (WOTW 145-163) Hernandez, David. “When Mother
Nature Visits California” (WEBSITE)
Thursday: Discussion of readings; Free-writing exercise: California’s Urban Spaces;
Writing workshop using topic paragraphs; Class activity on using commas correctly
Watch: Gangs Wars: Oakland parts 1 and 2
Read: Ishmael Reed, My Oakland, There is a There There; “Fit Your Process to Your
Task” (WTL 220-239)
Bring: topic paragraph for “Close reading” essay
Week 5: Immigration, Labor, Social Movements
Tuesday: Coversheet activity for “Close reading” essay; Discussion of texts; Distribute
and discuss “Research project”
Read: Takaki, Ronald. Gam Saan Haak: The Chinese in Nineteenth Century America;
Steven Pitti, The Devil in Silicon Valley; Lorna Dee Cervantes, Freeway 280
(WEBSITE); Gretel Erlich, Heart Mountain (WOTW)
Bring: “Close reading” essay
Thursday: Discussion of texts; Free-writing exercise: My UCSC; Distribute, discuss,
and workshop “News article revision project”; Lecture on bibliographic citation
Read: Randy Shiltz, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk,
Cezar Chavez video (WEBSITE); Mario Savio, Why It Happened in Berkeley; Tom
Wolfe, The Cops and Robbers Game; Leonard Michaels, In the Fifties; “Revise and Edit”
(WTL 171-175, 195-207, 211-214)
Bring: Revised “Newspaper article” assignment with original article
Bring: “Research project” topic proposal with three potential thesis statements
Sunday: Special evening showing of Chinatown (Polanski, 1971) Time/Place TBA
Week 6: Film, Media, News
Tuesday: Class discussion of the film/readings; Free-write workshop on topics and
thesis statements
Read: Bugliosi, Vincent. “Saturday, August 9th, 1969.” Thompson, David. “Driving
in a Back Projection” (WOTW 16-29).
Bring: “News article revision project”
Bring: “Film review”
Thursday: LIBRARY SEMINAR: CLASS MEETS IN MCHENRY LIBRARY
Read: “Research” (WTL 97-116)
Bring: Prospectus
Week 7: Exploring, Researching, and Refining
Tuesday: Discussion of Reading; Workshop on writing an annotation
Read: Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange: Monday, Summer Solstice; Continue
reading sources
Bring: “Close reading” essay revisions
Thursday: Discussion of Readings; Discussion and formation of “research groups”
Peer review of research materials and sources; Lecture on different approaches to
organizing a research paper
Read: TOO: Tuesday, Diamond Lane; Continue reading sources
Bring: “Annotated bibliography”
Week 8: Writing about Research
Tuesday: No class- group meetings scheduled for Sunday/Monday of this week
Bring: Current draft of Research Project
Thursday: Discussion of Readings; “Research group” workshops
Read: TOO: Wednesday, Cultural Diversity; “Tips for writing a research project”
Bring: “Research project” full draft
Week 9: Imagining the Future
Tuesday: Discussion of Readings; “Research group” workshops
Read: TOO: Thursday, The Eternal Buzz Casey, Edward. “Getting Back into Place”
[excerpt on WEBSITE]
Thursday: Research project coversheets and class discussion; Film: Bladerunner
(please get to class as early as possible to accommodate the length of the film)
Bring: Completed “Research project”
Week 10: Endings
Tuesday: Group discussion of readings; Information on assembling portfolio
Read: TOO: Friday, Artificial Intelligence and Saturday, Queen of Angels
Bring: “Creative Writing” assignment
Thursday: Final discussion of Tropic of Orange; Class summary
Read: TOO: Sunday, Pacific Rim
***COMPLETED PORTFOLIOS DUE DURING FINALS WEEK***
Please note: Any first year C1or C2 student is eligible to submit a Core or Writing 2 essay to the 20112012 Humanities Don Rothman Writing Award competition. The purpose of the Don Rothman Writing
Award is to honor the achievements of one or more first-year students in the genre of non-fiction,
academic analytic writing, and to recognize excellence in writing pedagogy. Up to five students will
receive an acknowledgement and monetary award up to $300 during a Fall 2012 awards ceremony.
Please see your instructor for more details.
COMPLETE WRITING 2 GRADING RUBRIC:
Final grades given in Writing 2 are comprehensive. They account for all aspects of a student's work over
the quarter -- the conceptual work of reading, thinking, and writing; the cooperative work of participating
in a writing community; and the procedural work of completing reading and writing assignments, meeting
deadlines, and attending class, writing group meetings, and conferences.
Writing Program faculty members will determine a student's final grade by considering all of his or her
work at the quarter's end. During the quarter, students will receive written assessment and advice
concerning what their work has accomplished and how it can be improved rather than letter grades on
individual assignments.
Note: The final grade of D in Writing 2 grants credit towards graduation, but it does not satisfy the
Rhetoric and Inquiry (C2) General Education Requirement. Students who receive the grade of either D or F
must repeat Writing 2 to satisfy the C2 requirement.
A (OR P) The grade of A is appropriately given to students whose preparation for and execution of all
course assignments (for example, reading, in-class discussions, presentations, group projects, informal
writing, essay drafts, and revisions, etc.) have been consistently thorough and thoughtful. In addition, by
the end of the quarter students who earn an A are consistently producing essays that are ambitiously and
thoughtfully conceived, conscious of the demands of a particular assignment, purposeful and controlled,
effectively developed, and effectively edited.
B (OR P) The grade of "B" is appropriately given to students who have satisfactorily completed all class
assignments, although some of these efforts may have been more successful than others. By the end of
the quarter, students who earn a B are consistently producing essays that are clearly competent in that
they meet the demands of assignments, are controlled by an appropriate purpose, are sufficiently
developed, and are accurately edited. A "B" performance may well reveal areas of strength that are not
sustained throughout.
C (OR P) The grade of C is appropriately given to students who have fulfilled course requirements
although, in some instances, minimally so. By the end of the quarter, students who have earned a C have
provided sufficient evidence that they can produce focused, purposeful writing that satisfies the demands
of an assignment, is adequately developed, and is carefully edited although, in some instances, achieving
that standard depended on multiple revisions.
D OR (NP) The grade of D is appropriately given to students whose work has been unsatisfactory in some
significant way: they have not completed all the course requirements and/or their essays have not yet
achieved the level of competency described in the Writing Program's standard for passing work in Writing
2. Students receiving a D must repeat Writing 2 to satisfy the C2 requirement.
F OR (NP) The grade of F is appropriate for students whose work in Writing 2 is so incomplete or so
careless that it does not represent a reasonable effort to meet the requirements of the course.