Please note that this course format is available on the web at the address in the upper right-hand corner.  All essay topics -- plus many additional course materials I'll be distributing in class as the semester goes on -- will be posted to that address.

Instructor: Dr. Stephen doCarmo
Office: Penn 131
Hours: M 1:00-2:00; WF 1:00-3:00
Phone: 215-968-8267
E-mail: docarmos@bucks.edu

Required Texts
The Norton Introduction to Literature.  Edited by Jerome Beaty et al.  Shorter 8th edition.
White Noise, by Don DeLillo.
Writing Research Papers, by James D. Lester.  10th edition.

Catalog Course Description
In English Composition II, students write critical themes assigned in response to classroom study of short stories, poems, and plays.  After instruction in research techniques, students also write a research paper.

Prerequisites
A grade of C or better in COMP110 (English Composition I) or a valid transfer of a course equivalent to COMP110.

Methods
Classes will consist of small-group workshopping, class discussions, lectures, occasional film viewings, and one-on-one conferences with me, your instructor.

Course Objectives
We've got three chief objectives in this course.  They are:

1.  To help you develop an appreciation for imaginative literature, namely drama, poetry, and fiction;
2.  To help you gain the research and bibliographic skills you're going to need not only for other college courses but, quite possibly, for your professional life as well;
3.  To give you ample opportunities to improve your reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills, which are vital, of course, to all academic and professional pursuits -- not just English class.

Course Requirements
1.  You'll need to write three multi-paragraph "lit" essays that will grow out of our three different literature units -- one on drama, one on fiction, and one on poetry.  The first and second essays (your drama and fiction ones) should be about four pages long each, and you'll do them at home, on your own time.  The third essay (your poetry one) should be several handwritten pages long and will be done in class.

All of the essays you write, wherever you do them, should possess the attributes of good writing you learned in Comp 110 -- that is, they should be thesis driven; they should be well organized; they should have sufficient support for their claims; they should have good transitions between their ideas; and they should demonstrate good sentence structure, proper punctuation, correct diction, and correct grammar.  Maybe most importantly, they'll need to contain interesting and sophisticated ideas about the literature they respond to.  And while I'll provide you topic questions for each essay well in advance of its due date (even the in-class one), those questions will be broad and interpretable enough to require you to do your own thinking -- not just spew back information and ideas already familiar to you from class.

I'll put written comments on each of your lit essays and will give them A-F grades, with +'s and -'s possible.  Due dates for final and rough drafts are on the schedule at the end of this course format.

2.  You'll need to take about ten unannounced reading quizzes on the assigned plays, stories, and poems.  They'll be short (five questions each), they'll be given at the very start of class meetings, and they'll focus on important information from the readings rather than on abstract matters like theme or symbol.  (In other words, I might ask you how a certain character dies in act II of a play; I won't ask what her death "means" within the work as a whole.  That's the sort of thing we'll sort out together in class.)  Since these quizzes are information driven, you need only read, reasonably carefully, for each and every class meeting to do well on them.

I'll grade each of your quizzes on a 1-5 scale.  Get all five questions right and you'll get a "5," or an A, basically.  A 4 is a B, a 3 is a C, a 2 is a D, and a 1 is an F.

I'll drop your lowest quiz grade at the end of the semester, so don't panic if you bomb one or two.  But panic if you're bombing them consistently.

3.  You'll need to write a 2,500-word (roughly ten-page) research paper defending your opinion on some important contemporary cultural issue.  I'll give you lots more information about what I expect from this paper as the semester wears on.  But let me go ahead and tell you here that it will need to

a. quote and/or paraphrase roughly ten good external sources (and we'll talk in class about what "good" means);
b. come to me with your annotations of at least twenty external sources;
c. be written for a non-specialized, "lay" audience;
d. demonstrate all the same attributes of good writing your lit-based essays do -- that is, those named in #1 above;
e. adhere to MLA format, which we'll discuss.

4.  You'll need to turn in three developmental documents related to your research paper: a proposal, a progress report, and -- near the end of the semester -- a rough draft.  When the time comes I'll give you forms to direct you in writing the first two of those.  But the "progress report," I can tell you now, will require you to turn in an outline of your paper-in-progress and annotated external sources you've been reading.

These three documents are not graded except as part of your participation grade (see below).  But unless they have been turned in, I will not accept your research paper at the end of the semester!  So please get them done.  Their due dates are on the schedule at the end of this course format.

5.  You'll need to participate during class meetings.  Come to class consistently and on time, be considerate of me and your classmates, speak up intelligently in both small-group and large-group discussions, pull your weight in whatever other in-class activities I ask you to take part in, put an appropriate amount of time and effort into the developmental documents for your research paper, and I'll happily give you an "A" for this portion of your grade.

Grading
Your first at-home lit essay (the one for our drama unit) will be worth 10% of your final grade.
Your second at-home lit essay (the one for our fiction unit) will be worth 15%.
Your in-class lit essay (that for our poetry unit) will be worth 10%.
Your reading quizzes will be worth 15%.
Your research paperwill be worth 40%.
Your class participation will be worth 10%.

Attendance
You get five free skips -- "excused" or "unexcused" doesn't matter.  After that, your final grade for the course falls a third of a letter grade (from a C+ to a C, for instance) per absence.

Since I don't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences, you shouldn't burn up all your skips thinking it'll be okay to miss more classes later should you get sick or have an emergency.  Your five skips are for sickness and emergencies.  So budget them wisely.

Also...be sure to come to class on time.  I'll count three late arrivals as an absence.

Please note that no one who misses more than a dozen class meetings, no matter how extraordinary the circumstances, will be able to pass this course!

Rewrites
You can rewrite two of your three lit-based essays in order to improve their grades by as much as one full letter grade.  If you do a rewrite, please (a) turn it in within seven days of getting back the original, (b) include the original essay, with my comments on it, and (c) make significant improvements: simply re-arranging a few sentences or fixing some punctuation won't get you a higher grade.

If you get a failing grade on a lit essay (a D or an F), you must rewrite it within seven days -- otherwise you won't have fulfilled the requirements for the course.  You can't revise more than two failing lit essays, though, and you can't improve them to better than a C+, so please don't think of this as a safety net.

Please note also that while late papers can be re-written, the penalty for lateness never goes away.

Skipping Assignments
Sorry, but you can't. All writing assignments (the three lit essays, the research paper, the developmental documents for the research paper) must be submitted to me; otherwise you won't receive a passing grade for the course.

Late Work
You can turn in late either of your two at-home lit essays at a penalty of one full letter grade per class period.  Penalties begin at the end of the class period when the assignment was due.

You can't turn in your in-class lit essay late (the "poetry" one); it's due at the end of that class period, no matter what.

You can't make up missed reading quizzes, since it wouldn't be fair to people who had to take it when it was originally given.

Also, you can't turn in your research paper late, since it's not due till our last day of class.  If for any reason you're not going to be able to meet that deadline, it's imperative you talk to me well beforehand.

Tutoring
If you need help with a writing assignment for this course, please work either with me or with someone in the Tutoring Center (Library 121).

If you'd like to listen to the advice of a friend, family member, or classmate who's read a rough draft of yours, that's fine -- great, even.  But nobody besides me or a Bucks tutor should be helping you actually write sentences for an essay for this course.  Please talk to me if you're confused about what constitutes too much help.

Special Needs
If you have a documented learning problem that requires you to have extra time on quizzes, extended deadlines for essays, or anything else, please talk to me about it as soon as possible.

Plagiarism
This is from the College Catalogue:

The expectation at Bucks County Community College is that the principles of truth and honesty will be rigorously followed in all academic endeavors.  This assumes that all the work will be done by the person who purports to do the work without unauthorized aids.  In addition, when making use of language, information and some ideas not his or her own, whether quoting them directly or paraphrasing them in his or her own words, the student must attribute the source of the material in some standard form, such as naming the source in the text or offering a footnote.

I've been teaching writing in college for ten years now.  And I've met very few students who weren't able to pass a comp course by simply doing their own work.  You don't need to cheat to get through English 111.  But you may need help.  I expect to give lots of it, as do the people in the Tutoring Center.  So please come put us to work.

Core Curriculum Goals & Objectives for Comp 111
This course fulfills the following BCCC core curriculum goals and objectives:

For the COLLEGE LEVEL WRITING II category:

Goals
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will:

1. develop and apply skills learned in College Writing Level I;
2. produce well-written and grammatically correct papers in a variety of academic and/or professional formats, applying appropriate organization and including necessary development and support;
3. use knowledge and skills to become open-minded, curious learners and careful, critical readers who can evaluate information, form connections within a source and between sources, discern implicit warrants within sources, and forge educated opinions based on the compilation and analysis of such information;
4. develop sensitivity to and respect for cultural norms and opinions other than their own.
5. become independent researchers and autonomous learners who can recognize the objectives of a task and understand the steps necessary to complete that task;
6. become knowledgeable about research involving both print and electronic sources;
7. understand plagiarism and know how to avoid it, including the use of formal documentation.

Objectives
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will be able to:

1. formulate an argumentative thesis and support it drawing on primary and secondary sources (1, 2, 3, 4);
2. organize support and development consistent with the requirements of a particular assignment (1, 2, 3);
3. write compositions that demonstrate unity, coherence, and development; varied and correct sentence structure and appropriate diction; and correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar (1, 2);
4. analyze a primary source effectively (3, 4);
5. evaluate the relevance and reliability of secondary sources (3, 4, 5, 6);
6. distinguish between referential and emotive language and between scholarly and unsupported sources (3, 5);
7. outline an extended research project (5);
8. write an extended research paper utilizing print and electronic sources in which they summarize, paraphrase, interpret, and synthesize primary and secondary sources; infer connections between sources; and recognize and avoid plagiarism through the use of a specified documentation format (3, 5, 6, 7).

For the CRITICAL THINKING AND READING category:

Goals
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will:

1. understand and express the meaning and significance of a variety of communications (Interpretation);
2. use methods, concepts and theories in new situations (Application Skills);
3. identify the explicit and implied features of a communication, especially in arguments that put forth a conclusion. (Analysis skills);
4. integrate and/or combine knowledge from multiple sources to create new knowledge. (Synthesis);
5. assess the credibility of a communication and the strength of claims and arguments. (Evaluation Skills);
6. reason from what they know to form new knowledge, draw conclusions, solve problems, explain, decide, and/or predict. (Inductive and/or Deductive Reasoning Skills);
7. communicate and justify clearly the results of their reasoning. (Presenting Arguments Skills);
8. monitor their comprehension and correct their process of thinking. (Reflection Skills);
9. be open-minded: strive to understand and consider divergent points of view.

Objectives
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will be able to:

1. formulate categories, distinctions, or frameworks to organize information in such a manner to aid comprehension (1);
2. make comparisons; note similarities and differences between or among informational items (1);
3. identify contradictions or inconsistencies in written or spoken language, data, images, or symbols (1);
4. use methods, concepts and theories in new situations (2);
5. identify the ideas presented and assess the interests, attitudes, or views contained in those ideas (3);
6. identify the main conclusion of an argument (3);
7. determine if the conclusion is supported with reasons and identify those that are stated or implied (3);
8. identify the background information provided to explain reasons which support a conclusion (3);
9. generalize information based on facts (4);
10. evaluate the credibility, accuracy, and reliability of sources of information.(5)
11. collect and question evidence (6);
12. locate and cite various independent sources of evidence, rather than a single source of evidence, to provide support for a conclusion (6, 9);
13. present an argument succinctly in such a way as to convey the crucial point of an issue (7);
14. present supporting reasons and evidence for conclusion(s) which address the concerns of the audience (7, 9);
15. make revisions in arguments and findings when self-examination reveals inadequacies (7, 8).

For the RESEARCH SKILLS category:

The following Goals and Objectives for Research Skills were adapted from the Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education published by the ACRL.

Goals
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will:

1.  be able to determine the nature and extent of the information needed;
2.  access needed information effectively and efficiently;
3.  evaluate information and its sources critically and incorporate selected information into his/her knowledge base and value system;
4. understand many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and access and use information legally and ethically.

Objectives
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will be able to:

1.  define and articulate the need for information (1);
2.  identify a variety of types and formats of potential sources of information (1);
3.  reevaluate criteria used to make information decisions and choices (1);
4.  select the most appropriate investigative methods or information retrieval systems for accessing the needed information (2);
5.  construct and implement effectively designed research strategies (2);
6.  retrieve information on-line or in person using a variety of methods (2);
7.  refine the search strategy if necessary (2);
8.  extract, record, and manage the information and its sources (2);
9.  summarize the main ideas to be extracted from the information gathered (3);
10. articulate and apply initial criteria for evaluating both the information and its sources (3);
11. synthesize main ideas to construct new concepts (3);
12. determine probable accuracy by questioning (a) the source of the data and (b) the limitations of the information gathering tools or strategies and the reasonableness of the conclusions (3);
13. investigate differing viewpoints encountered in the literature (3);
14. determine whether the initial query should be revised (3);
15. demonstrate an understanding of intellectual property, copyright, and fair use of copyrighted material (4);
16. demonstrate an understanding of what constitutes plagiarism and will not represent work attributable to others as his/her own (4);
17. select appropriate documentation style and use it consistently to cite sources (4).

For the ADAPTING TO LIFELONG CHANGE category:

Goals
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will:

1. gain confidence in their ability to adapt to or initiate change.

Objectives
Upon completion of College Writing Level II, students will be able to:

1. assess their own abilities, motives, and use self-assessment to make decisions. (1)

Course Schedule
Please bring your Writing Research Papers text to every class for which a "research writing workshop" is scheduled.
And please be sure to do the readings for the date on which they appear!

Wednesday Sept. 3: Introduction to the course.  We'll go over the syllabus, and I may collect a writing sample from you, too.
Friday Sept. 5: Beginning of our DRAMA UNIT.  Discussion of Miller's Death of a Salesman, pages 1543-1555.  (Just read to "[BERNARD enters in knickers.].")

Monday Sept. 8: Discussion of Miller's Death of a Salesman, through page 1596.  (Just read to "[LINDA appears in the house, as of old.].)
Wednesday Sept. 10: Discussion of the remainder of Miller's Death of a Salesman (i.e. through pg. 1612).
Friday Sept. 12: Research writing workshop.

Monday Sept. 15: Discussion of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, pgs. 1477-94.  (Just read to the start of scene two on 1494.)
Wednesday Sept. 17: Discussion of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, through pg. 1519.
Friday Sept. 19: We'll be meeting in room 212 of the library on this day to learn some basic research strategies.

Monday Sept. 22: Discussion of the remainder of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.  (That is, through pg. 1542.)  I'll also bring you the topic question for lit essay #1 on this day.
Wednesday Sept. 24:Discussion of Susan Glaspell's Trifles (pgs. 1019-1029).
Friday Sept. 26: Class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on your Lit Essay #1 drafts.

Monday Sept. 29: Rough draft of lit essay 1 due.  In-class workshopping on drafts.
Wednesday Oct. 1: Beginning of our FICTION UNIT.  Discussion of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" (70-74) and Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (75-78).
Friday Oct. 3:Lit essay #1 due with all drafts, outlines, conference notes, etc.  After that...research writing workshop.

Monday Oct. 6: Discussion of Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" (41-63).
Wednesday Oct. 8: Discussion of Bharati Mukherjee's "The Management of Grief" (224-36).
Friday Oct. 10: Discussion of DeLillo's White Noise, through pg. 40.  I'll also bring you the "form" for your research paper proposal on this day.

Monday Oct. 13: Discussion of DeLillo's White Noise, through pg. 105.
Wednesday Oct. 15: Research writing workshop.
Friday Oct. 17: Research paper proposal due.  Also...discussion of DeLillo's White Noise, through pg. 163.

Monday Oct. 20: Discussion of DeLillo's White Noise, through pg. 219.
Wednesday Oct. 22: Discussion of DeLillo's White Noise, through pg. 271.
Friday Oct. 24: Discussion of the remainder of DeLillo's White Noise (that is, through pg. 326).

Monday Oct. 27: Research writing workshop.  I'll also bring you the topic question for lit essay #2 on this day.
Wednesday Oct. 29: Discussion of Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" (537-49).
Friday Oct. 31 : Two annotated sources due, which I'll collect just to make sure you're doing okay with them.  Also, discussion of Carver's "Cathedral" (580-90).

Monday Nov. 3: Class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on your unit-two essay.
Wednesday Nov. 5: Rough draft of lit essay 2 due.  In-class workshopping on lit essay-two drafts.  Be sure to bring a copy of your draft on this day -- I'll collect it!
Friday Nov. 7: Beginning of our POETRY UNIT.  Discussion of Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" (619), Etheridge Knight's "Hard Rock..." (624), Maxine Kumin's "Woodchucks" (627), William Blake's "London" (625), and Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" (634).

Monday Nov. 10:Lit essay 2 due with all drafts, outlines, conference notes, etc.  After that...research writing workshop.
Wednesday Nov. 12: Discussion of A.R. Ammons' "Needs" (652), Anne Sexton's "The Fury of Overshoes" (612), Sharon Olds' "The Victims" (780), John Donne's "The Flea" (664), and Mary Oliver's "Singapore" (683).
Friday Nov. 14: Discussion of Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" (699), Sharon Olds' "Sex without Love" (701), Randall Jarrell's "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" (727), and Michael Harper's "Dear John, Dear Coltrane" (762).

Monday Nov. 17: Discussion of Poe's "The Raven" (754).
Wednesday Nov. 19: Discussion of E.A. Robinson's "Mr. Flood's Party" (770), Langston Hughes' "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)" (908), and Marge Piercy's "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?" (918).  I'll also give you the "form" for your research-paper progress report on this day.
Friday Nov. 21: Research writing workshop.

Monday Nov. 24: Discussion of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" (926) and Wallace Stevens' "Anecdote of the Jar" (964).  I'll also bring the topic question for lit essay #3 (the in-class one) on this day.

Monday, Dec. 1: Discussion of four or five poems I'll have photocopied and given you well before this date.
Wednesday Dec. 3: Research paper progress report due, with all of your annotated sources!  Also...discussion of four or five more poems I'll have photocopied and given you well before this date.
Friday Dec. 5: Class replaced by one-on-one preparatory conferences with me on your upcoming in-class essay.

Monday Dec. 8: Lit essay 3 due.  (You'll write it in class on this day.)
Wednesday Dec. 10:Rough draft of research paper due.  In-class workshopping on your draft.
Friday Dec. 12: Class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on your research paper.

Monday Dec. 15: Class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on your research paper.
Wednesday Dec. 17: In-class workshopping on your research paper.  Please bring your draft.
Friday Dec. 19: Research paper due with all sources and notes.
 
 

Topic for the First "Lit" Essay
(10% of your final grade; due Friday October 3rd)

We’ve now read two plays (Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman [1949] and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun [1959]) that ask us to examine and question “the American dream” as most Americans have traditionally understood it.  Please write me a four-page essay explaining (a) what views and opinions of the American dream these two plays might be said to share, and (b) your own reasons for appreciating or not appreciating these plays’ ideas about “the dream.”

Additional Requirements and Pointers

Your essay should possess the attributes of good writing taught to you in Comp 110 – that is, it should be thesis driven; it should be well organized; it should have sufficient support for its claims; it should have good transitions between its ideas; and it should demonstrate good sentence structure, proper punctuation, correct diction, and correct grammar.

This assignment essentially requires you to write in the first person – that is, to describe personal experiences and observations while using the “I” pronoun.  You can, then, consider yourself licensed to do so – even if your high school teacher insisted to you you never should!

You should absolutely, positively quote the play you’re writing about to help you support your claims about it.  If you’re quoting from within a single line of dialogue, just put the character’s words within regular quotation marks, like this:

In a heated argument, Biff tells his father, “I am not a leader of men, Willy” (1608).

WILLY: [Astonished.]  What’re you doing?  What’re you doing?  [To LINDA.]  Why is he crying?
BIFF: [Crying, broken.]  Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake?  Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?  (1609)

You should “introduce” each and every direct quote you use.  That is, you should have a phrase or sentence of your own that lets your readers know whose words they’re about to hear, and in what context.  (See the first “model” quote above.)

Please don’t use exorbitantly long quotes.  Use just what you need to help you make your point.  If you want to cut stuff out of the middle of a long quote, show that you’ve done so by inserting ellipses (…) at the point where words have been removed.  You should never have ellipses at the beginning or end of a quote, though!

Please don’t use any sources beyond the plays you’re writing about – unless you talk to me about it first.

If briefly discussing a third play we’ve read (like Glaspell’s “Trifles”) will help you illuminate some aspect of the main ones you’re looking at, please feel free to do so.  (Don’t feel obliged to do this, however.)

Your essay, again, should be about four pages long.  It should be double-spaced.  It should be written in twelve-point font.  It should have one-inch margins on all its pages, top and bottom, left and right.  It should also have a good title!

I think that’s it.  If you’ve got questions…DON’T BE SHY!  Get in touch with me.  Don’t forget a rough draft of this essay is due on Monday September 29th, and that you can do a one-on-one conference with me on it on Friday September 26th.
 

Topic for the Second "Lit" Essay
(15% of your final grade, due Monday November 10th)

Please write a four-page essay in response to one of the following:

1.  Don DeLillo does a lot of thinking in White Noise about how “modern” people often willingly give up their individualities and let larger forces like consumerism, technology, crowds, and mass media do the thinking and acting for them.  My question is, how does DeLillo want us to feel about this?  Is he trying to scare us, or does he think this is perfectly natural, or what?

2.  Choose one of the following subject matters prevalent in White Noise and tell me what Don DeLillo seems to want us to know about it: death, technology, the “modern” family, consumerism, mass media and/or popular culture, images and simulations, the “generation gap” between old and young in America, love and “romantic” relationships, Nazism and/or fascism.

3.  Does Don DeLillo hope we’ll in some way change after reading White Noise?  Why do you think he does or doesn’t?

4.  Is White Noise a book most Americans would benefit from reading?  Why would or wouldn’t they?  (The answer to that question does not have to be “yes”!)

No matter which of the above you choose, you should at some point in your essay make a connection to some other text we’ve read this semester!

Additional Requirements and Pointers
In order to do well on this assignment, the essay you write will need to…
• have a clear and interesting central idea, or thesis, that’s plainly stated at some point in the essay;
• be well organized, with every part of the essay clearly relating to the thesis;
• have sufficient support for its claims, in the form of quotes from the text or observations about the “real” world;
• have clear transitions between its ideas;
• use grammatically correct sentences of varying lengths – not just noun-verb-object ones over and over; and
• use proper punctuation, correct spelling, and appropriate diction.

No first-person writing in this assignment, okay?  That means the word “I” shouldn’t appear in it at all – except in quotes from the text(s) you’re writing about.

You should absolutely, positively quote the text(s) you’re writing about to help you support your claims about it.

You should always, always introduce your quotes, letting your reader know whose words they’re about to hear and in what context they originally appeared.  For example:
 

Watching the tourists at the Most Photographed Barn in America, Murray tells Jack, “‘They are taking pictures of taking pictures’” (13).

Remember to “block quote” any quote that will run more than about four lines in your essay.  (You do this by double-indenting the quote from the left margin and leaving off the quotation marks.)

Please put a page number in parentheses after each direct quote or close paraphrase you use.

Please don’t use exorbitantly long quotes.  Use just what you need to help you make your point.

If you want to cut stuff out of the middle of a long quote, show that you’ve done so by inserting ellipses (…) at the point where words have been removed.  You should never have ellipses at the beginning or end of a quote, though!

Please don’t use any sources beyond the text(s) you’re writing about – unless you talk to me about it first.

You can assume your reader is familiar with the texts you’re writing about – thus you shouldn’t burn big chunks of your essay doing plot synopsis!  Just jog your reader’s memory briefly on characters and events in the texts that are important to your case.

Please write for strangers.  That’s to say you shouldn’t ever use phrases like “The first topic choice says,” or, “In class last week someone said,” because no one but me will understand what you’re talking about!

Book titles are italicized.  The titles of “long” plays are, too.  Short stories and poems get quotation marks around them.

Your essay, again, should be about four pages long.  It should be double-spaced.  It should be written in twelve-point font.  It should have one-inch margins on all its pages, top and bottom, left and right.

You shouldn’t skip lines between paragraphs!

Give your essay a good title.

I think that’s it.  If you’ve got questions…DON’T BE SHY!  Get in touch with me.  Don’t forget a rough draft of this essay is due on Monday November 3rd.
 

A Few Terms for Describing How Poems Use Sound

Meter is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.  “Iambic” is a common sort of meter, in which every other syllable is stressed (e.g. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”).  If there are five stressed syllables in an iambic line, it’s called iambic pentameter – “pent” meaning “five.”

Rhyme is what you have when words end with identical-sounding vowel and consonant sequences.  (“Contrary” and “bestiary,” for example.)

If words have identically spelled vowel and consonant sequences at their ends but don’t sound the same when you say them (“cough” and “rough,” for instance), you’ve got half rhyme, or eye rhyme.

If rhyming words are at the ends of lines in a poem, you’re looking at end rhyme.

If there are rhyming words within a single line of a poem, you have internal rhyme.

If nearby words start with the same consonant sound (“dig” and “dirt”), it’s called alliteration.

“Consonance” describes nearby words that have the same consonant sound somewhere within them.  (“Ragged” and “ugly.”)

“Assonance” names nearby words that have the same vowel sound in them.  (“Mischief” and “cinder.”)

Lastly (for our purposes), onomatopoeia is what you’ve got when a words sounds like the thing it names.  (“Meow” is a towering classic – but “creak” and “bang” might count, too.)

Some Important and Not Unusual “Internal Structures” in Poetry

A poem’s “internal structure” is its organizing principle – or the “rule” it adopts for itself to dictate how it will move forward.

A poem organized by narrative internal structure is mainly concerned with telling a story.

A poem organized by dramatic internal structure will also tell a story, but it will be broken up into a number of clear and discreet stages, or little “acts,” the same way a play typically is.  (Stanza breaks will often represent the beginnings and endings of those various “stages.”)

A poem with a contrastive internal structure is mainly concerned with comparing two (or more) different, possibly even opposed, people, places, things, or ideas.

A poem that uses discursive internal structure is mainly concerned with making a persuasive argument in some highly organized, structured way.  (A poem with this type of structure might almost seem like a treatise, or a little manifesto, when you read it.)

A poem with a descriptive internal structure will aim mainly to deeply, accurately, and probably sensuously describe some person, place, or thing.

A poem that uses a meditative internal structure wants first and foremost to explore some interesting idea or concept, and it may let its speaker’s mind work through that insight or idea with little regard for chronology, narrative, or “treatise building” of any clear or methodical sort.
 

Topic for the Third “Lit” Essay
(To be written in class on Monday, Dec. 8th)

Please write a multi-paragraph essay in response to one of the following two prompts:

1.  How do you personally know a good poem when you see one?  Please reference and directly quote at least two poems we’ve read in class, and make good use of vocabulary we’ve learned in this unit.

2.  Choose a worthy song and explain why its lyrics can stand alone as good poetry.  In making this explanation, you should reference and quote at least one poem we’ve read for class and make good use of vocabulary we’ve learned in this unit.  Note: You’ll need to give me a copy of your song’s lyrics with your essay!

Additional Requirements and Pointers
To do well on this assignment, the essay you write will need to...

• have a clear and thoughtful thesis statement;
• be well focused, with every part of the essay clearly relating to the thesis;
• be well organized and have clear transitions between its ideas, so that the reader is never confused about how any given sentence or paragraph grows out of the one before it;
• have sufficient support for its claims, in the form of either quotes from the poems it’s about or observations about the “real” world;
• use grammatically correct sentences; and
• use proper punctuation, correct spelling, and appropriate diction.

While you need to write about at least two poems for either of the topics above, I wouldn’t advise tackling more than three or four.  I’d rather see you think deeply about two or three poems than just scratch the surface of five or six.

Just because we didn’t get around to discussing an assigned poem during class time doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write about it in your essay.  In fact, I’ll probably be impressed to see you taking on a work we didn’t talk about in class.

Please resist the temptation, should you feel it, to respond to the topic question with answers like “good poems are short,” or “good poems are easy to understand,” since you probably won’t squeeze a good essay out of either of those!

You shouldn’t write in the first person for this essay.

Please write for an audience of strangers – not just for me.  (In other words, you shouldn’t be writing sentences like “You asked us what we think makes a good poem,” since no one but me will understand this.)

When quoting poems, put slashes where line breaks occur.  (For instance, “I placed a jar in Tennessee / And round it was, upon a hill.”)

Since this essay will be on-the-spot writing, I won’t weigh spelling and punctuation as heavily as I might with a multi-draft essay.  So don’t spend more than a few minutes of the hour proofreading.

You have a whole hour.  Use it!  If you’re done writing in twenty or thirty minutes, there’s a good chance you’re not demonstrating the depth of analysis I’m hoping for.

Critical Vocabulary We’ve Used in Our Poetry Unit
We’ve discussed the difference between denotative and connotative meanings.

We’ve discussed the difference between “poetic” diction and “low” diction.

We’ve acknowledged various sound effects: rhyme, “eye” rhyme, end rhyme, internal rhyme, meter (of which “iambic” is one sort), assonance, consonance, alliteration, and onomatopoeia.

We’ve acknowledged the importance of the speaker in a poem – especially when the speaker is someone you’re not supposed to like or trust.

Relatedly, we’ve talked about tone in poems – as in, the tone of voice you’re supposed to hear when you read a poem.

Lastly, we’ve discussed various types of internal structures in poems: narrative, dramatic, meditative, contrastive, discursive, and descriptive.
 

Instructions for the Researched Essay
(40% of your final grade, due December 19th)

Please write a roughly ten-page (2,500-word) researched essay arguing your position on some important debate playing itself out in our culture today.

Additional Requirements and Pointers

Please don’t forget that I won’t accept your final draft unless I’ve gotten from you the research-paper proposal and the progress report due at various points during the semester.

When I take up your final draft, I must get with it

(1) whatever drafts, outlines, and/or organizational exercises you’ve done that helped you produce your final draft, and
(2) at least twenty annotated sources read before or during the drafting of your paper (and these should adhere to the guidelines already given to you!).

Of the twenty-plus sources you annotate, roughly ten should wind up quoted and/or paraphrased in your paper (and so listed on the “works cited” page at the end of your paper).

If between ten and 15% of your final draft is comprised of direct quotes from outside sources… that’s good.  If, as you’re working, it becomes clear you’re going to deviate significantly from that rule of thumb, you should talk with me about it.

Please make sure the entirety of your paper adheres strictly to MLA form.  You have, to help you with this, your Writing Research Papers book, the MLA pamphlet the Bucks tutoring center provides, and the MLA “template” paper I’ll give you soon.

Your paper should have a clear and unmistakable thesis.  It should be well organized.  It should have clear transitions between its paragraphs.  It should have ample support for its major claims.  It should use appropriate diction.  And it should be well proofread, with very few errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation.

Your paper shouldn’t have a cover sheet or a plastic cover.  It should look exactly like the MLA “template” paper we’ll be looking at in class pretty soon.

I think that's it.  It's imperative you come to me with whatever questions you've got, so...don't be shy.  You know where to find me.

Some Possible Topics for the Comp 111 Research Paper

Please note these are only suggestions!  You don’t have to choose the topic for your paper from this list!  Any topic about which there’s serious debate in our culture – and about which you have a strong and defensible position – will do.

Gun control and/or the National Rifle Association
School uniforms for public-school kids
Free music downloads on the internet
Fuel cell technology
Israel and the Palestinians
Security spending after 9/11
U.S. defense spending
The U.S. in Afghanistan and/or Iraq
The Catholic Church’s sex scandal
Gays and lesbians in the military
Gay and lesbian marriage
Gays and lesbians in Christian churches
Depictions of minorities in the mass media
Children and violent entertainment
Media and eating disorders
Bilingual education in public schools
Proposals for a national health care system
The U.S. health insurance crisis
Funding for the arts in public schools
Public funding for controversial art
U.S. Immigration Policy
NASA and the future of manned space flight
Campaign fund reform
The HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa
Feminist politics in the new century
The “glass ceiling” for women and minorities in private industry
Free speech and the world-wide web
Human cloning and/or stem-cell research
College athletics and Title IX
The cost of higher education
 

Instructions and Requirements for Research-Paper Annotated Sources

When I get from you your progress report for your Comp 111 research paper (due early December), it must, must come to me with at least twenty annotated sources, roughly ten of which should actually wind up cited in your paper.

An "annotated source" is a print (or photocopy) of a source you’ve read with your notes and “highlightings” on it.  A source can be...

• a book (or part of a book);
• a journal or magazine article;
• a newspaper article;
• a pamphlet;
• a review (as of a movie, play, novel, etc.);
• an interview with a specialist; or
• a good, professionally produced website.

PLEASE NOTE that of your twenty annotated sources, no more than ten should be websites, pamphlets, reviews, interviews with specialists, and/or newspaper articles!  This means at least ten should be books (or parts of books) and/or articles from periodicals!

In order for a printed or photocopied source to count as a source, I’ll need to see that you’ve…

• given it a number (1-20, or however many you’ve got),
• written all the information about it required for a proper MLA bibliographic citation at the top of its front page,
• highlighted or underlined its most important (or “quote-worthy”) passages, and
• taken appropriate notes in its margins and/or “blank spaces,”
• written on the back of its last page (or stapled to it) a short paragraph reminding yourself why the source is (or isn’t) going to be useful to you in your project.

In the event that one (or more) of your sources is something you can’t mark up and turn in with your final draft (a library book, say, or a personal interview), your careful notes on that source will count as an annotated source.

It’s vital, in the notes you take on a source you can’t copy, that you have quotation marks around words you’ve copied directly from the source and that you note the page numbers (when appropriate) on which ideas and information you’ve pulled out appear.

You should number these annotations right along with your “regular” (photocopied) ones. You should also include on them all the information about the source you’ll need for an MLA citation, and include on them a few sentences about why that source is or isn’t likely to be useful to you.  (In other words…do all the things you’re doing for your “regular” annotated sources!)
 

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Creating IN-TEXT Citations Using MLA Style

I’m working here with the following source:

Suozzo, Andrew.  “The Chicago Marathon and Urban Renaissance.”  The Journal of Popular Culture 36.1 (2002): 142-159.

In his essay “The Chicago Marathon and Urban Renaissance,” Andrew Suozzo suggests that

only after a somewhat shaky history in the eighties and early nineties did [Chicago’s] marathon come together to the point that it can now attain world supremacy in the number of participants.  This meteoric rise closely follows the city’s dramatic recovery from a “rust-belt” city whose future was in grave doubt to a revitalized metropolis capable of retaining an affluent citizenry and attracting a well-helled body of tourists.  (Suozzo 142)

Here, since I’m working with a lengthy quote (one over four lines long), I’ve “block quoted” it, double-indenting it from the left.  Note that I don’t put quotation marks around a block quote, and I put the in-text citation after the period that ends the sentence.

The brackets in the above quote indicate that I’ve somehow altered Suozzo’s words.

Or I can use a “short” quote from it:

In his essay “The Chicago Marathon and Urban Renaissance,” Andrew Suozzo suggests that the Chicago marathon’s “meteoric rise closely follows the city’s dramatic recovery from a ‘rust-belt’ city . . . to a revitalized metropolis” (Suozzo 142).

The quotation I’m using is relatively short, so I don’t “block” it.  I simply put quotation marks around Suozzo’s words and incorporate them right into my own sentence.  After I close the quotation marks, I put the author’s name and the page number his words appeared on in parentheses.  Only after that do I end my sentence with a period.

The ellipses above ( . . . ) tell my reader I’ve removed some of Suozzo’s words.

Or I can paraphrase it:

It has been suggested that the Chicago marathon’s rise to international fame in the 1990s directly paralleled the city’s return to affluence and fashionability (Suozzo 142).  With this in mind, we might also say that….

Even though I’ve only paraphrased Suozzo here (that is, I’ve re-expressed his thought in my own words) I still have to give him credit because I’ve used his idea!

BUT I CAN’T DO THIS!:

The Chicago marathon’s rise to international fame in the 1990s clearly parallels the city’s return to affluence and fashionability in the same time period.  With this in mind, we might also say that….

Here I’ve borrowed Suozzo’s idea, but I’ve given him no credit!  I can’t do this, of course, because it’s plagiarism.

CREATING IN-TEXT CITATIONS

In-text citations are the little parenthetical tags I put at the end of each direct quote or paraphrase in my essay.

In MLA style, it’s the author’s last name and the page number on which the quote appeared that go in the parentheses.  There’s no comma or any other type of punctuation between them.

If there’s no author’s name provided for the source (though the majority of your sources should be authored!), I simply put an abbreviated version of the title, and then the page number.  Had there been, then, no author given for the article I was quoting above, my in-text citation would have looked like this: (“Chicago” 142).

If you can’t provide a page number for a quote because, maybe, you got the source using EBSCOhost, or because it’s from a web page, then don’t put anything at all after the author’s name or the abbreviated title.  If your reader doesn’t see a page number, they’ll automatically know it was an electronic source, or a personal interview, or something else for which a page number couldn’t be given.

PLEASE NOTE…
1.  You should never put a URL (that is, a web address) in an in-text citation!  You should only put URLs on your works cited page, where you give all the MLA-required info about each source you’ve quoted.  Put the web page’s author’s last name in the in-text citation – or an abbreviated version of the page’s title, if there’s no author named.

2.  You should never put a publishing company’s name or a book’s year of publication or anything else not described above in an in-text citation!

3.  If a work has more than one author, put only the first author’s name, alphabetically speaking, in the in-text citation.

4.  If your essay quotes or paraphrases more than one work by an author, you should give an abbreviated version of the title of the work being quoted in each in-text citation.  If, then, I have more than one Andrew Suozzo work cited in my essay, the in-text citation for the quotes I used above would look like this: (Suozzo, “Chicago” 142).

5.  If I’m going to be quoting a number of phrases or facts in a row from a source, I can hold off and put my in-text citation after the last one only.  But I need, with my own phrasing, to make it clear to my reader as I begin that string of quoted phrases or facts that I am relaying here so-and-so’s words or ideas.

6.  Use your own good judgment about what sort of ideas and/or facts need to be attributed to a source.  You don’t have to have an in-text citation if you’re telling me that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, or that the Great Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929.  These things are general knowledge.  If you’re telling me, though, that 289 people died from gunshot wounds in Philadelphia in 2002, then you’re going to need a source, since this isn’t something that could be confirmed from, say, an encyclopedia.
 

Research-Paper Proposal Form

Please write out your answers to each of the following questions.  Your answers, plus two annotated sources, are due in class on Friday, October 17th.

1.  What will the general subject matter of your paper be (e.g. divorce law, animal rights, music on the internet, U.S. Middle-East policy, etc.)?

2.  I know it’s early, but…what point do you think you might want to argue about the subject matter above?  (In other words…what are you right now imagining your paper’s thesis will be?  State it in a clear, complete, single sentence – for example, “Peer-to-peer music-sharing services like KaZaA don’t violate copyright law and should not be shut down.”)

3.  Please brainstorm a list of the types of factual information you’ll probably want to get your hands on early on.  (For example, info about the history of internet music sites, statistics on how many people use those sites, facts about record sales since those sites have gotten big, etc., etc., etc.)

4.  The Ebscohost database, remember, allows you to ask for publications related to certain subject areas.  Are there any subject areas you know  you’ll want to check off before you begin your Ebscohost search (e.g. law, business, psychology, education, the arts, politics, etc.)?

5.  Are you likely, do you think, to find entire books pertinent to your thesis?  Why or why not?

6.  What terms, off the top of your head, do you imagine you’ll want to search on to start finding good books and articles on your topic?

Please attach to this form two annotated sources adhering to the instructions and requirements I’ve given you in class!

Dr. doCarmo’s Hints for Evaluating Web Pages

1.  This is probably the single most valuable criterion I can offer you: Authoritative, dependable, worthwhile web pages (herein referred to as good web pages) are usually found on organizations’ web sites.  By “organization” I mean a company, corporation, or – best of all – a not-for-profit group of some sort.  These web pages, then, will have a “.org” or (less desirable) a “.com” in their addresses.

2.  Good web pages are not only published by organizations; they’re published by well established organizations that tell you how to contact them.  It’s good if the not-for-profit group or company whose site you’re in tells you something about their history and/or their mission.  And they should absolutely, positively give you their street address, their phone number, their e-mail address….  If they don’t give you those things…run!  It’s a good sign they’re shady – and in that case, you don’t want to trust or legitimize things they tell you.

3.  Good web pages are most often not published by lone individuals.  If it’s clear you’re simply in someone’s personal site (like a “blog,” for instance), where s/he says whatever s/he wants without the sanction or supervision of a larger organization…you may not want to cite them.

4.  Good web pages are usually authored.  That is, even though they’re published in some organization’s larger web site, there’s an individual credited with doing the writing.  And it’s all the better if that person has his or her credentials listed – stuff like degrees held, where s/he’s worked in the past, where else she’s published writing….  Stuff like that.

5.  Good web pages cite the sources of the information they themselves offer.  If a web page offers facts, statistics, or specialized information but doesn’t tell you where it got any of it…you again should think twice about citing it.

6.  Good web pages most often have good writing on them.  So if you notice the text you’re reading on a web page is full of the types of errors I’d get on your case about if you committed them in a Comp 111 essay (bad grammar, lots of punctuation and spelling errors, poor organization or unclear thinking), be wary.  Smart and well-informed writers take the trouble to make their sentences sleek, smooth, and – in a word – correct.

7.  Good web pages most often look professionally produced.  This is a tricky criterion, though, because an uninformed, inexpert writer might simply have good Netscape or Dreamweaver skills, and so might make his or her bad info or uniformed opinions look slick and professional.
 

A Quick Brush-Up on the Best Ways to Find Good Sources for Your Research Paper

1.  The best way to find magazine, newspaper, and scholarly-journal articles is EBSCOHOST.

Go to Bucks’ homepage (www.bucks.edu).  In the blue bar across the top of the page, click on “library.”  Then, in the vertical blue strip on the left, click on “electronic resources.”  Then click on “Ebscohost.”

You’ll now see a list of sub-databases within the Ebscohost database.  Look for those pertinent to the subject matter you’re interested in and “check” their boxes so they become activated.  (You’ll probably always want to have the “MasterFILE” database turned on, since it’s the best general-purpose search engine.  And if you’re interested in finding newspaper articles, be sure to activate the “Newspaper Source” database.)

After you’ve turned on the sub-databases you want, hit “continue.”  You then come to the “search” dialog box where you enter the terms you’re interested in searching, then see what Ebscohost turns up for you.  Remember you’ll need to be patient and tweak your search terms till the right articles start turning up.  And don’t forget that using “Boolean” terms as you search (“and,” “or,” “not”) can be really helpful.

2.  The best way to find books is with the BCCC LIBRARY CATALOG.

Go to Bucks’ homepage (www.bucks.edu).  In the blue bar across the top of the page, click on “library.”  Then, in the vertical blue strip on the left, click on “BCCC Library Catalog.”  You’re then given a list of Bucks County Public libraries you can search.  Our BCCC Newtown library is under “iLink Libraries.”

After choosing the library you’d like to search, you’re given a “search for” dialog box that allows you to search by subject matter, title, or author.  Remember again that you need to be patient and tweak your search terms, and that “Boolean” terms (“and,” or,” “not”) may be helpful.

Don’t hesitate to search libraries other than the Newtown one, even if you can’t get to them physically – our librarians will get books from other places for you using inter-library loan (ILL).  To make an ILL request, go to the library’s homepage, click the “library services” link in the blue vertical strip on the left, click on “interlibrary loan form for books,” and follow the instructions.

3.  The best way to find good web pages is with LII.ORG – that is, the Librarians’ Index to the Internet.

When you arrive at http://www.LII.org, you’ll find a search dialog box and an extensive list of topics that will link you to good web pages on various topical subject matters.

Remember that a great deal of what’s available on any given topic on the web is garbage, and that LII.org will help you cut through all the garbage (in a way Google, say, or Yahoo won’t) to find good and reliable pages.  LII.org is put together by professional academic librarians who have scoured the web hunting down trustworthy web pages written by experts in lots of different fields and topics.  Pretty much anything you find using LII.org will be an acceptable source for your research paper.
 

Research Paper Progress Report
(Due Wednesday, December 3rd)

1.  Please give me your thesis statement as you believe it will appear in your essay.  It should be presented in a single, complete, well-focused sentence, and it should state an opinion or make a proposition that plenty of perfectly reasonable people could disagree with or need to be persuaded of.

2.  Either attach to this sheet – or write out on the back of it – a reasonably detailed outline illustrating the steps and stages by which your essay will progress and your thesis will be argued.

3.  Taking into consideration the outline you’ve devised, do a little thinking in the space below about the types of sources you need that you haven’t yet gotten your hands on.  Certain facts, information, or statistics?  Good background or historical information?  An articulate expression of your adversaries’ positions?  A profile of an important person in the field you’re thinking about?  What else?

4.  Please include with this sheet (a folder or manila envelope might be a good idea) at least twenty annotated sources adhering to the instructions I gave you early in the semester.  This progress report isn’t acceptable without them – and your research paper isn’t acceptable without the progress report!
 

Rubric for the Research Essay