ENG 368: The Art of the Personal Essay

 

Reading - Worth 20% of your grade. For 10 weeks you will be assigned a chapter or two of reading. You will compose a response to the reading and post it in the Reading Discussion Board. In order to receive credit your response must:

• meet the word-length requirement of 300 words
• use short quotes to support your response
• provide analysis (using literary terms) rather than summary (retelling)

Reading Responses is graded out of 10 total posts.

10 100% A
9 90% A
8 80% B
7 70% C
6 60% D
5 50% E

Workshop - Worth 30% of your grade. You will prepare written workshop responses, which we will use to fuel discussion during out Monday face to face class periods.

• meet the word-length requirement of 300 words
• use short quotes to support your response
• provide analysis (using literary terms) rather than summary (retelling)
• offer suggestions for revision

Workshop is graded out of 10 total posts.

10 100% A
9 90% A
8 80% B
7 70% C
6 60% D
5 50% E

 

Writing - Worth 20% of your grade. For 10 weeks you will be given 10 writing exercises that are designed as brainstorming activities that will help you complete a polished essay. Each writing assignment should be as close to 300 words as possible. It is very important to turn your writing in on time so that peers have time to respond.

Writing is graded out of 10 total posts.

10 100% A
9 90% A
8 80% B
7 70% C
6 60% D
5 50% E
Portfolio - Worth 30% of your grade. For the portfolio you will use material gathered from the 10 brainstorming activities you did throughout the semester. The portfolio will include analysis, along with a polished essay based on the topics and writings you explored throughout the semester. Grades for the Portfolio are based on the quality of your writing and your ability to describe why you made the choices you did based on literary skills. Please see the "Portfolio" button in Blackboard for complete instructions.

 

Spring 2010 Schedule
ENG 368 Art of the Personal Essay
  Monday Work Due at Noon Wednesday Work Due at Noon
Week 1 18-Jan

Questions About the Course: Study all of the sections in the Blackboard course (Announcements, Policies, Schedule, Materials, Discussion). If you have questions, please post them in the "Questions about the Course" Forum.

 20-Jan Please post a note about yourself in the "Virtual Cafe" Forum.
Week 2 25-Jan
Favorite Writers: In the Favorite Writers forum, post a 300 word note that describes your 5 favorite Living American essay writers (for our purposes they must be alive and they must be American). Consider the following questions: What draws you to their work? What career paths have they followed? What work of theirs have your read or would you like to read? If you don't have a favorite 5 in mind, then start by browsing our textbook, amazon.com, or literary magzines at www.newpages.com
27-Jan
Course Goals: In the Course Goals forum, post a 300 word note that clearly define 5 goals you have for the semester. You will use these goals when you write your final portfolio, so it is important that they are specific. Consider the following: What aspects of craft would you like to improve? What are your strengths and weaknesses with poetry: titling, speaker, characters, setting, theme, tone, structure, imagery, figurative language, and musical devices.
Week 3 1-Feb

Reading 1

Chapter 1 and 2
Atwood, Margaret, "Nine Beginnings"
Baker, Will, "My Children Explain the Big Issues"
Baldwin, James, "Notes of a Native Son"

 3-Feb

Writing 1, Scene Versus Exposition

Scene is cinematic. It uses sensory detail and sensory information to recreate experience, generally with location, action, a sense of movement through time, and dialogue. For today's writing, remember a scene that is of the utmost importance to your life. Write the scene with as much fidelity as possible. Have people enter and leave, describe what you saw, heard and felt. Use all the sensory detail you can.
Week 4 8-Feb

Workshop 1

Reading 2
Chapter 9 The Personal Essay
Bausch, Richard, "So Long Ago"
Beard, JoAnn, "The Fourth State of Matter"
Berry, Wendell, "Entrance to the Woods

 10-Feb

Writing 2, Specificity and Detail

Even in discussing the largest of ideas, our brains engage in the small workings of the senses first. The small sensory details in your essay can therefore do the most work towards representing complex and abstract emotions. For this activity, first make a list of as many unique sensory details as you can in relation to your essay topic (sights, sounds , smells, textures, and tastes). Then use those in a scene.

Week 5 15-Feb

Workshop 2

Reading 3
Chapter 3 The Body of Memory
Cooper, Bernard, "The Fine Art of Sighing"
Didion, Joan, "Goodbye To All That"
Dillard, Annie, "Total Eclipse" 		17-Feb

Writing 3, Character Development

Write character sketches that include all the unexpected details (instead of the expected details) about the people in your essay. Use them in a scene.

Week 6 22-Feb

Workshop 3

Reading 4
Chapter 4 Writing the Family
Duncan, David James, "The Mickey Mantle Koan"
Fisher, M.F.K., "The Measure of My Powers" and "A Thing Shared"
Goldbarth, Albert, "After Yitzl"

24-Feb

Writing 4, Dialogue

Write dialogue that does plenty of work: it moves action forward, it characterizes, it adds details.

Week 7 1-Mar

Workshop 4

Reading 5
Gordon, Mary, "Notes on Pierre Bonnard and My Mother's Ninetieth Birthday"
Hemley, Robin, "Reading History To My Mother"
Iyer, Pico, "Where Worlds Collide" 		3-Mar

Writing 5, Memory

Write about a please that you remember only vaguely. Fill in as many details as possible from your memory, then look elsewhere. Can you fill in the details through talking with others? Looking at pictures? Reading your journal? Or doing research?

 
Week 8 8-Mar Workshop 5 10-Mar

Update Favorite Writers & Course Goals

Writing 6, Description

Strong description does not mean that you remember exactly how something looked, smelled, felt, sounded, or tasted.  Strong description is always partly fiction--meaning that you get to choose details that will work to create a strong dominant impression.  For this activity, choose one place that will appear in your story (you can do this later for all of the places you will describe).  The place should be room-sized so that it is small enough to describe in detail.  First, list 10 objects that appear in that place.  Then add adjectives to the list that help build a dominant impression. Write a scene using those details.
Week 9 15-Mar Spring 17-Mar Break
Week 10 22-Mar

Workshop 6

Reading 6
Chapter 10 The Lyric Essay
Kingston, Maxine Hong "No Name Woman"
Lamott, Anne, "Why I Don't Meditate"
Morabito, Fabio, "Screw" and "Sandpaper"
Mukerjee, Bharati, "A Four-Hundred Year Old Woman"

24-Mar

Writing 7, Researching

Although a personal essay is built primarily from first person experience, adding scientific, factual, or historic details can add a layer of meaning to your writing, and it can also increase the authority of the voice in your essay. Pick a subtopic in your essay and spend 15-20 minutes researching it. Then write a page of the essay that includes those details.

Week 11 29-Mar

Workshop 7

Reading 7
Chapter 6 Gathering the Threads of History
Price, Jennifer, "A Brief Natural History of the Pink Flamingo"
Rekdal, Paisley, "The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee"
Rider, Bhanu Kapil, "Three Voices"
Sanders, Scott Russell, "Buckeye" 		31-Mar

Writing 8, Music

Music can be a powerful emotional tool in writing. Make a list of several songs that you remember during the period of time when your essay takes place. Then write scene with the songs informing the narration.

Week 12 5-Apr

Workshop 8

Reading 8
Chapter 7 Writing the Arts
Sedaris, David, "The Drama Bug"
Selzer, Richard, "The Knife"
Simic, Charles, "Three Fragments"

7-Apr

Writing 9, Expertise

Identify an area of expertise you have. It could be as simple as text messaging, or as complex as playing the harp. Write a scene of your essay where your area of expertise informs the writing.

Week 13 12-Apr

Workshop 9

Reading 9
Chapter 8 Writing the Larger World
Staples, Brent "The Coroner's Photographs"
Sutin, Lawrence "A Postcard Memoir"
Walker, Alice, "Becoming What We're Called" 		14-Apr Writing 10-- Steal a line from another essay, and use it as your first line. Before you turn the writing in, take the line you stole out of yours.
Week 14 19-Apr

Workshop 10

Reading 10
Chapter 11 The Basics of Personal Reportage and Chapter 12 The Writing Process and Revision
White, E.B., "Afternoon of An American Boy"
Williams, Terry Tempest, "The Clan of One-Breasted Women"
Woolf, Virginia, "The Death of The Moth"

21-Apr Work on Portfolio
Week 15 26-Apr Work on Portfolio 28-Apr Work on Portfolio
Week 16 3-May Portfolio Due 5-May Happy Summer Break

 

 

Patricia Colleen Murphy, MFA * Arizona State University * 240M Santa Catalina Hall * 7271 E Sonoran Arroyo Mall * Mesa, AZ 85212