Syllabus: Writing 2 (22047)
Fall, 2012
Ben Spanbock
spanbock@ucsc.edu
Merill 130 Tu/Th 10:00-11:45
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
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
Please note: Any first year C1or C2 student is eligible to submit a Core or Writing 2 essay to the 20122013 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.
Schedule:
Week 1: Introduction
Thursday 9/27: Introductions and course overview; Distribution and discussion of
syllabus; Distribution and discussion of “Reader/writer” assignment
Week 2: En(gender)ing Paradise
Tuesday 10/2:
Read: Julián Marías, California as Paradise; Joan Didion, Notes from a Native Daughter
Walt Whitman, Facing West from California Shores (West of the West); “Unlearning to
Write” (Write to Learn, 18-29)
Bring: Reader/writer assignment
Thursday 10/4: Distribute and discuss News Article assignment; Discussion of
bibliographic citation
Read: Tupac Shakur, California Love; Katy Perry, California Gurls (YouTube)
“Start the Writing Habit” (WTL 39-46); “Focus” (WTL 57-81)
Bring: Five points related to the music videos; Two newspaper articles related to a
current issue or problem in California
Week 3: Origins
Tuesday10/9: Hand out and discuss “Origins position paper”
Read: Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years before the Mast (selection on WEBSITE),
Native Creation Myths (WEBSITE), and Henry Miller, In the Beginning (WOTW)
Bring: “News article summary” with original article attached
Thursday 10/11: Writing, reading, and responding to a rough draft; Peer-editing
activity; Origin debate
Read: “Draft” (WTL120-160)
Bring: “Origins paper” draft
Week 4: Water Wars
Tuesday 10/16: In-class viewing of scenes from Cadillac Desert; Distribute and discuss
“Research project”; Research Project workshop
Read: “Fit Your Process to Your Task” (WTL 220-239)
Bring: “Origins” paper; One additional news article related to your topic of choice
Thursday 10/18: In-class viewing of scenes from Cadillac Desert; planning for the
prospectus
Read: Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain (Selections on WEBSITE), view PBS video:
Agriculture’s Effect on Frogs “Revise and Edit” (WTL 195-207, 211-214)
Bring: News Article Revision project
Week 5: Immigration and Labor
Tuesday 10/23:
LIBRARY SEMINAR: CLASS MEETS IN MCHENRY LIBRARY RM #2353
“Research” (WTL 97-116)
Bring: Prospectus (2 copies)
Thursday 10/25: Discussion of readings; discussion on “effective” quoting
Read: Ronald Takaki, Gam Saan Haak: The Chinese in Nineteenth Century America;
Steven Pitti, The Devil in Silicon Valley, (website) Frank Norris, McTeague (WOTW)
Week 6: Cities
Tuesday 10/30:
Read: Simone de Beauvoir, San Francisco; Jack Kerouac, The Railroad Earth; Gretel
Erlich, Heart Mountain (WOTW). Continue reading sources
Thursday 11/1: Hand-out and discuss “Close Reading” assignment
Read: Maxine Hong Kingston, Twisters and Shouters; Ishmael Reed, My Oakland, There
is a There There (WOTW); Lorna Dee Cervantes, Freeway 280; Gangs Wars: Oakland
parts 1 and 2(WEBSITE); Continue reading sources
Week 7: Social Movements
Tuesday 11/6:
Read: Mario Savio, Why It Happened in Berkeley; Tom Wolfe, The Cops and Robbers
Game; Leonard Michaels, In the Fifties; Randy Shiltz, Willkommen Castro (WOTW)
Continue reading sources
Bring: “Close reading” essay
Thursday 11/8: Discussion of Reading; Discussion and formation of research groups
Peer review of research materials and sources
Read: Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange: Monday, Summer Solstice; Continue
reading sources
Bring: “Annotated bibliography” and research paper introduction
Week 8: California in the 90s
Tuesday 11/13: Discussion of readings; Research group Check-in
Read: TOO: Tuesday, Diamond Lane; “Tips for writing a research project” (WTL)
Thursday 11/15: Discussion of readings; Research group Check-in
Read: TOO: Wednesday, Cultural Diversity
Bring: Research paper update
Week 9: Writing about Research
Tuesday 11/20: Group meetings
Bring: Research Project draft
Thursday 11/22: No class- Thanksgiving
+++++++CATCH UP/ READ AHEAD IN TOO+++++++
Week 10: Imagining the Future
Tuesday 11/27: Discussion of Readings; “Research group” workshops
Read: TOO: Thursday, The Eternal Buzz
Thursday 11/29: Film: Bombay Beach
Bring: “Research project” FULL draft
Read: TOO: Friday, Artificial Intelligence
Week 11: Endings
Tuesday 12/4: Group discussion of readings; Information on assembling portfolio
Read TOO: Saturday, Queen of Angels “Shoptalk: Revise and Edit” (WTL 171-175)
Bring: Revision of “Origins” or “Close Reading” assignment (with original attached)
Thursday 12/6: Final discussion of Tropic of Orange; Class summary
Read: TOO: Sunday, Pacific Rim
Bring: Revision of your favorite Journal Entry
***COMPLETED PORTFOLIOS DUE DURING FINALS WEEK***
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.