Month: October 2018

Hi all,

Your final draft is due before class on Tuesday morning. Email it to me as a PDF attachment. Here are key requirements:

• HIGHLIGHT all of your revisions so that I can easily differentiate the changes from the rough draft
• It must include a cover letter! This cover letter should be completely different than your last one but could comment on areas of improvement that were mentioned. You should reflect on your revision process.
• Size 12 font, double spaced, 1″ margins, page numbers, a title and appropriate MLA format with your name, my name, the class, and the date
•  PROOFREAD. Press the Spellcheck button but also read your paper, aloud to yourself ideally, to make sure sentences and punctuation are solid. Tutors at the Writing Center can also be of great help in this regard.
• MLA style citations (see syllabus for style guides or search on Google), and remember that if you’re in doubt you should just cite.

As mentioned in class this past week, your rough draft is due for our peer revision this Tuesday.

FORMAT: Your drafts should be double-spaced, in size 12 font, with 1 inch margins, and page numbers. In the header of the first page and in MLA format please include your name, our course number, my name, the date, and then a title for your essay.

Finish your draft with enough time to print and staple 4 copies. Bring those copies to class on Tuesday. This may mean finishing your draft on Monday, even if it is technically due on Tuesday morning.

Email your draft to me as an attachment so that I can comment on it.

Part 1: In an email to me, propose your topic for Major Assignment 2 in a 300 word paragraph. HEADS UP: This will be 10% of your grade for this assignment and will count as your “zero draft.” In your paragraph, I want you to explain why you’ve chosen this topic for a personal writing experiment investigating literacy.  In another paragraph of the same length, respond to the reading handout on “The Maker’s Eye.” Tell me what from the article inspired you. What skills do you want to work on in your re-writings of this assignment? Reminder: EMAIL THESE TWO PARAGRAPHS TO ME.

Part 2: In a response to this blog post, respond to the second reading for today, “The Meanings of a Word,” in 200-300 words. Choose a word and analyze its meanings. How does this word change according to its social contexts? What is painful about it, mysterious, or slippery? In other words, how does it slip from one meaning to the next depending on the conditions in which it is used and who is using it? How does its word-power slip from our attempts to control this word?

Read and annotate the poem “Dinosaurs in the Hood” by Danez Smith and the excerpt from the book-length poem “Citizen” by Claudia Rankine (both are in your email). Select a section from either reading to analyze in relation to gentrification. How are these writers making an intervention onto what Sarah Schulman calls “gentrification of the mind”? (We can loosely define this as the way gentrification homogenizes and flattens a community even in its ability to imagine difference, diversity, and new ideas.)

In your response to this post, write a 300-word analysis on how either of these writers tries to combat a “gentrification of the mind”. This is a rhetorical analysis (so be sure to mention audience, intention, and genre) but also a textual analysis, so be sure to reference details from the text you select.

Part I: After reading Michael Greenberg’s “Tenants Under Seige” article, Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” and Belmihoub and Corcoran’s short essay “Translingualism,” write a 250-word blog post that considers literacy in relation to the Housing Crisis. What messages in the latter two essays (Anzaldua, Belmihoub, Corcoran) do you think would be helpful to the problems outlined in the first (Greenberg)? In other words, how does literacy–the knowledge of and ability to use a particular kind of language–pertain to this crisis? You may decide to write on how problems of literacy perpetuate the crisis or, on the other hand, how a focus on literacy might lead to solutions.

Part II: Find an article published in the last week that relates to gentrification and bring it to class.

The next crisis that we will investigate is gentrification, particularly what has been called “The New York City Housing Crisis.” While we are somewhat leaving HIV/AIDS behind, the readings for this week will cover the overlap between the “aftermath” of AIDS and the development of gentrified neighborhoods.

I’ve emailed you the reading, which is 35 pages. In your response to this post, write about any one detail in Sarah Schulman’s discussion of gentrification that captured your imagination and explain why.

Whether on devices or printed, bring this reading to class on Tuesday, as we will be doing in-class activities with it.

Hi all,

Your final draft is due midnight on Sunday. Email it to me as a PDF attachment. Here are key requirements:

• It must include a cover letter! This cover letter should be completely different than your last one but could comment on areas of improvement that were mentioned. You should reflect on your revision process.
• Size 12 font, double spaced, 1″ margins, page numbers, a title and appropriate MLA format with your name, my name, the class, and the date
•  PROOFREAD. Press the Spellcheck button but also read your paper, aloud to yourself ideally, to make sure sentences and punctuation are solid. Tutors at the Writing Center can also be of great help in this regard.
• MLA style citations (see syllabus for style guides or search on Google), and remember that if you’re in doubt you should just cite

Remember to email me with any questions that come up. I can’t read whole drafts but I can respond to questions about specific comments that I made on your papers. Looking forward to reading them!