Writing New York
ENGLISH 2150 HMWC
Spring 2018
Professor Jennifer Sylvor
MW 9:55 – 11:35
17 Lex, Room 713
Office: VC 7-290, cubicle O
Office Hours: W 12:30 – 2 and by appointment
Email: [email protected] (the best way to reach me)
Course Blog: blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/writingnysp18
This course will be at once a continuation of English 2100’s introduction to college writing, research, and analytical practices AND an exploration of New York City through literature, journalism, photography, film, digital media and our own lived experiences. Together we will be exploring New York City’s representation in literature and other cultural artifacts, considering our own relationship to and experiences of New York City, and delving into some of the most pressing issues facing our city today.
Central to this course is the difficult, yet satisfying and stimulating work of writing. Formal assignments include personal narrative, analytical essays, and a research project on a work-related subject. The course will emphasize both the process and the product of essay writing. Every piece of good, successful writing undergoes an evolution and develops over time through reading, questioning, and careful editing. For this reason, you will learn how to develop, organize, draft, and revise your essays through the processes of critical reading, informal writing assignments, in-class workshops, self-analysis, peer review, and individual conferences with me. While the schedule below includes due dates for your formal essays, expect that you will be working on your writing in and out of class, in an ongoing way, all semester long.
After completing ENG 2150 or ENG 2150T, you should be able to:
- Critically analyze texts in a variety of genres: Analyze and interpret key ideas in various discursive genres (e.g. essays, news articles, speeches, documentaries, plays, poems, short stories), with careful attention to the role of rhetorical conventions such as style, tropes, genre, audience and purpose.
- Use a variety of media to compose in multiple rhetorical situations: Apply rhetorical knowledge in your own composing using the means of persuasion appropriate for each rhetorical context (alphabetic text, still and moving images, and sound), including academic writing and composing for a broader, public audience using digital platforms.
- Identify and engage with credible sources and multiple perspectives in your writing: Identify sources of information and evidence credible to your audience; incorporate multiple perspectives in your writing by summarizing, interpreting, critiquing, and synthesizing the arguments of others; and avoid plagiarism by ethically acknowledging the work of others when used in your own writing, using a citation style appropriate to your audience and purpose.
- Compose as a process: Experience writing as a creative way of thinking and generating knowledge and as a process involving multiple drafts, review of your work by members of your discourse community (e.g. instructor and peers), revision, and editing, reinforced by reflecting on your writing process in metacognitive ways.
- Use conventions appropriate to audience, genre, and purpose: Adapt writing and composing conventions (including your style, content, organization, document design, word choice, syntax, citation style, sentence structure, and grammar) to your rhetorical context.
Required Text:
Writing New York, ed. Phillip Lopate (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.: 2008, 1998)
Most of our readings will come from this anthology, so you will want to acquire it immediately and bring it with you to class. Feel free to purchase a used copy. Links to additional readings will be provided on the class blog.
Course Policies:
Attendance: Regular attendance and active participation are a critical part of this course and will affect your grade for the semester. In accordance with college rules, anyone with more than 4 absences may be dropped from the course with a grade of “F”. Grounds for excused absences are documented cases of illness or family emergency, observance of religious holidays, and attendance at scheduled university sports competitions. Please notify me well in advance if you know that you will be missing a class. Students are responsible for all work covered in their absence.
Lateness: Coming to class late is disruptive and disrespectful. Three late arrivals will be treated at an unexcused absence. Arriving more than 15 minutes late will be considered the same as an absence.
Preparedness: It is your responsibility to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. Please come to class with your text (or the ability to access it electronically in class.) Additionally, you should come to each class with a pen and paper, prepared to complete in-class writing assignments. On days when we’ve scheduled peer review, you will be asked to bring copies of your work to share with your peers.
Participation: This class cannot succeed without your participation. I hope you will feel comfortable adding your voice to our classroom conversations on a regular basis. Expect that you will periodically be asked to share your writing with the group and to offer feedback on your classmates’ writing. Keep the Golden Rule in mind and treat your classmates’ work with the same respect and consideration you’d like your own writing to receive.
Technology: I understand that some of you may choose to use laptops or tablets to take notes or to access assigned texts in class. However, let me be clear: there is absolutely no texting, no cell phone usage, and no internet use during class time. If you fail to adhere to this policy, you will be asked to leave the room, and you will be considered absent for that session.
Blog: We will be making ample use of our class blog. I will upload all handouts and assignments to the site. We will be using the blog to share and comment on outside sources related to our theme. Make it your business to log on to the blog regularly and to comment on your classmates’ posts. If you have ideas about how we might make better use of this or other technology, please let me know.
Essays: All written work will either be submitted at the beginning of class on its due date or submitted electronically via turnitin.com. Grades will be reduced at a rate of one half-grade a day for each day an essay is late. Essays must be typewritten in 12 pt. type and double-spaced. Informal writing assignments may be handwritten unless I specify otherwise. Late drafts will receive no feedback.
Turnitin.com: You will be submitting your formal writing assignments to me via turnitin.com. I will be reading and commenting on your work electronically using turnitin.com’s platform. In order to upload work to the site, you will need to create a turnitin.com account and to enroll in our course on the site. To do this you will need the following information:
Class ID: 17292828
Enrollment Key: newyorkcity
Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and cheating are serious academic offenses and will not be tolerated. Plagiarism means presenting another author’s words or ideas without crediting them to their source. When you include another author’s words in your work, whether from a printed source, from the internet, or from a live presentation, those words must appear in quotation marks and be properly cited. When you include another person’s ideas in your work, you must indicate where you found those ideas, even if you are paraphrasing rather than quoting them. If you have any questions at all about what constitutes plagiarism, please consult me. Any work submitted for this course that has been plagiarized will receive a failing grade and be reported to the dean.
Cheating is also a serious academic offense. Examples of cheating include, but are not limited to: submitting essays or portions of essays written by other people, including friends and family; collaborating on an assignment without the explicit permission of the instructor; submitting an essay written for one course to another course without the explicit permission of both instructors; submitting work as one’s own that has been purchased or copied from a paper preparation service or website. All work submitted in this course must be entirely your own!
Writing Center: I will always be available to work with you on developing and executing ideas for your essays, reviewing writing mechanics, and revising and refining your work. For additional support, you are encouraged to visit the Baruch College Writing Center in VC 8-185. You can call 646-312-4012 to make an appointment or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Formal Assignments:
- My New York (personal essay)
- Literary New York (literary analysis)
- Exploring New York (trip report)
- New York Issues (analytical research paper)
- NYC: The ReMix (multi-modal presentation)
New York Minute:
In addition to your formal writing assignments, you will each be responsible for two “New York Minutes” over the course of the semester. For each NY Minute, you will identify something NYC related that you wish to share with the class. This could be a news article, video, or piece of writing you want to share and comment on; a cultural event, restaurant, film, or museum exhibit you want to review or recommend; an important issue you want to raise with your peers; or simply your own reflections on the work we are doing in class. The topic and form your NY Minute takes is up to you. You will create a blog post and upload it to our class blog, and then during our “New York Minute,” you will have a chance to tell the class about your post. We will be signing up for dates for the New York Minute in class, and the schedule will be posted on our course blog. Your post must be uploaded before class on the day that it’s due.
Grading:
Your grade will be calculated as follows:
Attendance and participation (including homework and in-class writing) 20%
New York Minutes 10%
My New York 10%
Literary New York 15%
Trip Report 10%
New York Issues 20%
NYC: The ReMix 15%
Schedule:
What follows is a tentative schedule for the semester. Expect that we will be modifying the schedule as the semester progresses.
M 1/29 Introductions
W 1/31 Anselm Berrigan, “Things to Do between Home and School, 1986”
Jayne Cortez, “I Am New York City,” “I Am New York City II”
M 2/5 E.B. White, “Here is New York”
W 2/7 Jane Jacobs, from The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Alfred Kazin, from A Walker in the City
M 2/12 Lincoln’s Birthday – College Closed
W 2/14 “My New York” – Draft Due (bring three copies to class)
M 2/19 Presidents’ Day – College Closed – “My New York” – essay due (electronic submission)
T 2/20 College on Monday Schedule – Colson Whitehead, from The Colossus of New York
W 2/21 Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
M 2/26 “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
W 2/28 “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and Occupy Wall Street
M 3/5 James Baldwin, from The Fire Next Time
Zora Neale Hurston, “Story in Harlem Slang”
W 3/7 Baldwin and Hurston
M 3/12 Brooklyn Bridge poems (Whitman, Mayakovsky, Crane)
W 3/14 Jenny Zhang, from Sour Heart
M 3/19 Draft of Literary Analysis Due (bring three copies to class.)
W 3/21 Film: Spike Lee, Dir., Do the Right Thing
M 3/26 Do the Right Thing, Introduction to Research Project
W 3/28 Research Project, Group Work, Jacob Riis, “The Downtown Back Alleys”
M 4/2 Spring Break
W 4/4 Spring Break
M 4/9 Research Proposal Due
W 4/11 College on Friday Schedule – No Class
M 4/16 Issues Based Readings, tbd by Research Working Groups
W 4/18 Issues Based Readings, tbd
M 4/23 Research Essays – Draft Due (bring three copies to class)
W 4/25 Conferences (in lieu of class)
M 4/30 Issues Based Readings, tbd
W 5/2 Creative Re-Mix Proposals
F 5/4 Research Papers Due (electronic submission)
M 5/7
W 5/9 Presentation of Creative Re-Mix Projects
M 5/14 Presentation of Creative Re-Mix Projects
W 5/16 Presentation of Creative Re-Mix Projects
F 5/18 Final Reflection Due
