Prof. Jason Frydman Office Phone: 718-951-5258

English 1 Fall 2009, Section M11BF, M.W. 11:00-12:15pm, Boylan 2154

Prof. Jason Frydman Office Phone: 718-951-5258 Office: Boylan 2416 Email: [email protected]

Office hours: M.W. 10:00-11:00am, and by appointment.

Course Description English 1 offers you the opportunity to develop your critical reading, thinking, and writing skills. We will assemble a toolbox of intellectual strategies enabling you to read, analyze, and respond to high-level academic and professional texts. The course is organized in three units, each focusing on a distinct mode of essay-writing. Unit 1: The Personal Essay, will ask you to make individual thoughts and experiences relevant to a wider community. Unit 2: The Lens Essay, will teach you how to appropriate a conceptual lens through which you can analyze a given topic. Unit 3: The Conversation Essay, will demand that you to participate in a conversation being conducted implicitly or explicitly among multiple authors and texts.

Course objectives: - To develop and express complex thoughts in grammatically correct English - To enhance critical reading skills - To improve essay-writing fundamentals: making arguments; using evidence to support that argument; crafting effective styles and organizational structures. - To learn three types of essays: the personal essay, the lens essay, and the conversation essay

Required materials Ordered at Shakespeare & Co.: The Brief Bedford Reader, 10th ed. (Bedford/St. Martin’s, ISBN 0312472072) Diane Hacker, A Writer’s Reference with Integrated Exercises (Bedford/St. Martin’s, ISBN )

Course policies Grading Your grade for the course will be determined as follows: Attendance, homework & participation: 30% Personal Essay: 15% Lens Essay: 25% Conversation Essay: 30%

Classroom Environment We are all responsible for making the classroom a space for open-minded inquiry, passionate debate, and mutual respect. Expect to be engaged, contradicted, and surprised. Neither silence nor intimidation are acceptable. You may not take notes on a laptop. Cellphones must be turned off and out of sight.

Attendance In the case of an absence, you must e-mail me, preferably before class. If you miss class, you are responsible for the work you missed, so please get the notes from a classmate (I can help facilitate this). Unless they are due to religious observance, you are allowed two absences before your participation grade is affected. Your fifth absence will result in a whole letter reduction of your final grade. Your eighth absence will allow you a D in the class at best.

Arriving to class late disrupts your classmates’ learning and makes your own learning more difficult: two tardy arrivals equals one absence, so please be on time.

Writing and Grammar Exercises At-home writing assignments must be typed and printed out when you arrive to class. All students should bring either a perforated notebook or have loose-leaf paper available for in-class writing. Grammar exercises can be written in the Hacker exercise workbook.

Plagiarism The faculty and administration of Brooklyn College support an environment free from cheating and plagiarism. Plagiarism in this course will result in an F on the assignment, possible failure for the course, and a report to the Dean’s Office of Academic Integrity. Please consult the CUNY Academic Integrity Policy and the Brooklyn College procedure for implementing this policy at: http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/policies.html. Each student is responsible for being aware of what constitutes cheating and plagiarism and for avoiding both. The following website may help clarify the difference between permissible and impermissible forms of borrowing: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html. If you are still uncertain about these guidelines, please consult me before handing in your assignment.

Disabilities In order to receive disability-related academic accommodations students must first be registered with the Center for Student Disability Services. Students who have a documented disability or suspect they may have a disability are invited to set up an appointment with the Director of the Center for Student Disability Services, Ms. Valerie Stewart-Lovell at 718-951-5538. If you have already registered with the Center for Student Disability Services please provide your professor with the course accommodation form and discuss your specific accommodation with him/her. 8/31 Introduction; syllabus review; writing activities.

Unit One: The Personal Essay

9/2 Read pp. 57-63 (AWR) and then read Harold Taw, “Finding Prosperity by Feeding Monkeys” (BBR). Following the model provided on 61 (AWR), sketch an outline of Taw’s piece.

9/7 No class (BC closed)

9/9 Thesis and Purpose. Read Barbara Lazear Ascher, “On Compassion” (BBR). Answer the “Questions on Meaning” from p. 168. Grammar exercises S4-a.

9/14 From the Specific to the General. Read Gretel Ehrlich, “Chronicles of Ice” (BBR). Answer the “Questions on Meaning” from p. 247. Grammar exercises G2- 1 and G2-2.

9/16 Principles of Editing. Read George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant” (BBR). Writing exercise: Narrate a personal encounter you participated in or witnessed. Use this encounter as part of a brief essay in which you tell your audience “Something I Believe.” Grammar exercises W2-1, W2-2, W3-1.

9/21 Something I Believe – The Personal Essay

Personal Essay: In the essays we have read this semester, the authors often make ethical demands upon their readers, yet they do so without telling them outright what to do. In fact, sometimes the examples and anecdotes they offer make it seem even harder to figure out what to do. Using at least one detailed personal encounter, write a 3-4pp. essay about something you believe. Your essay should have general ethical implications, but it should also involve some grey area or uncertainty. Please bring four copies to class on 9/23.

9/23 Workshop Personal Essay.

9/29 No class. Grammar exercises G6-1, G6-2, G6-3.

9/30 No class. Grammar exercises P1-1, P1-2, P2-1.

Unit 2: The Lens Essay

10/5 Read Maya Angelou, “Champion of the World” and Amy Tan, “Fisk Cheeks” (BBR).

Final draft of Personal Essay due. 10/7 Read W.E.B. Du Bois, “On Our Spiritual Strivings” (handout). Write a 1-2pp. essay in which you interpret the essays by Angelou and Tan using Du Bois’s concept of “double consciousness.”

10/14 Read Yiyun Li, “Orange Crush” (BBR). Respond to the “Questions on Meaning” (147).

10/19 Read Bruce Catton, “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts” (BBR).

Lens Essay: Choose a person, thing, event, or concept to be a lens for an analysis of a social or historical phenomenon, or a text of your choosing (5pp. Due November 4). Please bring in a draft of at least 1-2pp.

10/21 Catton cont’d. Bring 1-2pp. revision plan.

10/26 Read Fatema Mernissi, “Size 6: The Western Women’s Harem” (BBR). Respond to the “Questions on Meaning” (223-224).

10/28 Mernissi cont’d. Grammar exercises W4-4.

11/2 Workshop Lens Essay.

Unit 3: Conversation Essay

11/4 Judy Brady, “I Want a Wife” (BBR). Respond to the “Questions on Meaning” (282).

Final draft of Lens Essay due.

11/9 Deborah Tannen, “But What Do You Mean?” (BBR). Respond to “Questions on Meaning” (331).

11/11 Tannen cont’d. Write a 1-2pp. mini-essay on “Suggestions for Writing” #4 (332).

11/16 Martha Nussbaum, “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” (handout). Write a one-act play in which Yiyun Li, Fatema Mernissi, and Martha Nussbaum have a conversation and/or debate 2-3pp.

11/18 Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father.

11/23 Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father. Conversation Essay: Using at least two readings from this semester’s learning community, one of which must be Obama’s Dreams from My Father, write a conversation essay in which you explore and make an argument about different understandings of a value, such as heroism, or a concept, such as global citizenship. 5-6pp, due 12/9.

12/2 Workshop Conversation Essay.

12/7 TBA

12/9 TBA. Final draft of Conversation Essay due.