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Fall 2007 English 111, 111H, and 112 Composition Course Themes Fall 2008
English 111
The sections of English 111 listed below have special themes and are open to all students. Requirements for all English 111 sections are the same. These sections give you the opportunity to explore a variety of writing and reading assignments connected with the announced theme. All sections of English 111 are reading-intensive. In DM sections, students will be joined, via interactive television, by students from a regional high school. The high school students are taking the course for dual high school and college credit.
Visions of the End David Williams sections 4 (MWF 10:00) and DM3 (MWF 8:00) It turns out I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Prod. Doug Petrie. Warner Bros. Television Network, Burbank. 25 Jan. 2000.)
In the fourteenth century, the Black Death ravaged Europe. Many thought the epidemic was a divine punishment, the beginning of the end of the world. In the 1950s, school children were taught how best to shield themselves from the lingering, background radiation of a nuclear attack. Many suggested that humanity had invented the tools of its own destruction. In 1998, the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact posited that global extinction could result from the impact of a massive meteor on Earth. Many pondered the fragility of human civilization in an uncaring, uncontrollable universe. Humanity has long pondered the end of the world. Different cultures have suggested very different fates for humanity. In this course we will discuss the human preoccupation with apocalyptic visions. What does it say about us that we ponder our own doom? How might society change with the realization that the end is near? How might the survivors of a great catastrophe pick up the pieces and rebuild? Readings will include Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Richard Matheson’s I am Legend, and several scholarly essays.
The Stories We Tell: Narrating American Culture Charles Bradshaw sections 10 (MWF 1:00) and 13 (WMF 2:00) This class will examine the relationship between stories Americans tell and their sense of themselves as a nation, a culture, or a “people.” How does what “we” tell “ourselves” distinguish “us” from the rest of the world? What stories do “others” tell about “us”? How does a story construct a nation? With these and other questions in mind, we will construe “story” broadly to encompass literature, media, and political rhetoric as we engage in close textual reading, analysis, research, and (oh yeah!) writing.
Signs & Symbols: Studying the Visual Kathleen Vandenberg sections 16 (TR 8:00), 19 (TR 9:30), and 25 (TR 2:30) This course will introduce you to the skills you need to improve your writing in a variety of discourses for application both in and out of the academic environment. Many writing skills will be explored, including those used to describe, analyze, explain, evaluate, and persuade. There will be a strong emphasis on audience-awareness, revision, peer review, research, and rhetoric. In keeping with the course theme, this class invites you to investigate, explain, analyze and evaluate visual images so as to encourage your engagement with, and critical analysis of, our current highly mediated, highly visual environment. Course readings, class discussions, and writing assignments will focus on methods for approaching the aesthetic and rhetorical features of images and will invite consideration of both how images can be read critically and intelligently and how and why images have been used persuasively. Required Texts: Guide to First-Year Composition Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s Reference. 5th ed. Berger, Arthur Asa. Seeing Is Believing: An Introduction to Visual Culture. 3rd ed. Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. Various handouts to be provided
Writing with Music David Carithers section 17 (TR 8:00) Thousands of years ago, Plato warned that “the methods of music cannot be stirred up without great upheavals of social custom and law.” Fast-forward to the twenty-first century and music continues to challenge the status quo. In this course, we will explore both the music of our lives and the ways musicians respond to cultural, political, and social issues through their art. Course readings will include studies of music and culture, creative writing inspired by music, and one biography of an influential musician. Writing assignments will include daily in-class writing, weekly journal entries, four essays, and a final portfolio of revised writings.
Page against the Machine Lana Warren section 28 (R 6:00 pm) The theme of this course is rebellion. Through readings, writing assignments, and class discussion, we will examine the protagonist who challenges authority at all levels. Readings will consist of two novels—Ayn Rand's Anthem and George Orwell's 1984—in addition to a selection of short stories by authors such as John Updike and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Among the specific topics we will delve into are the origins of rebellion and what makes rebels succeed and what causes them to fail. We will also consider our personal experiences.
Is Chivalry Dead? Love and Romance through the Ages Daniel Pigg section DM1 (MWF 8:00) In this 111 section, we will look at a variety of texts that in some way touch on the issue of chivalric behavior, beginning with Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and including several plays, poems, and films up to the present day. The world of chivalry is often defined by the representation of Arthur’s world of knighthood, hence the reason for our beginning with the Middle Ages. We will look at how the concept has changed in the next five hundred years by examining Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and The Tempest, Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, and a couple of twentieth-century films such as Ever After. We will find that chivalry isn’t dead; it has merely taken on a different form. Students in this course will also be joined by students from Lake County High School via distance learning.
To Be Written in Stone: Memorials as Metaphors Tim Hacker section DM2 (MWF 8:00) In the words of architecture critic Robert Campbell, “the purpose of a memorial isn’t really memory; memory we can get from books. It’s catharsis.” Catharsis—the emotional jolt we feel from art—does not come about by accident. Architects intentionally design memorials to achieve that result in us, the viewers. The nature of this three-way relationship, between architect, memorial, and viewer, is the topic of our class. We’ll begin by learning about architectural concepts with Chambers for a Memory Palace, an easy-to-understand, book-length dialogue between two architects. We’ll apply these concepts, in the first half of the semester and in our first three paper assignments, to the memorials of Maya Lin: the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL; the Yale Women’s Table; and the great Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC. In the second half of the semester we’ll look at memorials, both in this country and in Europe, to the Holocaust. They will challenge our ideas of what architecture is—and of the relationship of architecture to feeling and memory. This section is joined by interactive television with students from Camden Central High School who are taking the course for dual credit.
Family, Community, Coming of Age Leslie LaChance section DM4 (MWF 9:00) What does it mean to be an outsider? An insider? What is the nature of an individual’s relationship to a given community or to one’s family? How are we defined by our membership in or exclusion from particular communities? How do we shape the communities in which we live and work? How do our communities and families shape us? This section of English 111 is a multi-media course. We study literary texts and electronic sources in which family and community figure as major themes. The reading list includes William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, and William Shakespeare’s Henry the IV Part I. Students write analytical essays and short response papers about course materials. We will also see at least one film.
An Abbreviated History of Western Education Rob Franks section DM5 (MWF 10:00) What happens when we cross the threshold into the classroom? How has our cultural past, in addition to the recent techniques of modern schooling, affected our attitudes toward gathering and sharing knowledge? In this class, we will examine learning throughout the ages, emphasizing education in Greece, in the Medieval University, in Prussia, and finally (and especially) in historical and contemporary America. In an attempt to answer the question “why school?” the class, as it attempts to trace how educational systems have developed, will study historical documents, watch interviews with students and teachers, and examine literary works. Also, since everyone in class will likely have contrasting views on education, we will explore our personal experiences with schooling—and our personal experiences with learning—as a starting point for discussion. Students will also compose a number of essays, both personal and scholarly, in response to their readings and viewings. Students in this section will be joining a group of dual-credit high school students at McKenzie High School via interactive television.
English 111 Honors
The English 111H sections listed below are open to students with an Enhanced ACT score in English of 28 or above. Honors English is not more difficult than the standard English 111 classes; rather, the courses are approached differently and may include some enrichment activities that are not available in regular English 111 classes.
Living with Each Other Chris Hill sections 3 (TR 8:00) and 4 (TR 11:00) In this class, we will be focusing on writing in an academic context; materials will include essays from ancient China and Greece; Renaissance Italy; nineteenth-century England; and twentieth-century Latin America. We’ll be dipping our feet in streams far apart in time and in place. Our readings will all examine various aspects of social relations: what does it mean to be human? How can we best govern ourselves? What is the true means and end of education? Students in this course will be asked to do a lot of writing, both in class and out. Since this is a composition course, we will use our readings and discussions as material for writing personal and academic essays. Writing and working within writing groups will occupy a large portion of our time together.
Critical Analysis and Production of Culture: Actively Making Meaning in Contemporary America Beth Powell section 2 (MWF 11:00) This is a workshop class in composition where students will address, through writing, reading, and discussion, the questions: What is “culture”? How do we “read” culture in contemporary America? To investigate the answers to these questions, we will explore the modes of communication that transmit culture—such as print, audio, images, and video. We will also explore the products of culture that are created by those modes: the news, television, movies, stories, comics, and even fashion and advertising. We will critically analyze these products so that we can understand how we shape and are shaped by cultural practices and texts. This investigation and critical analysis will provide the basis for the writing that students will practice in the course. Students will practice strategies for composing and will sharpen their composition skills through writing essays where they explore how culture interacts with daily life. Writing in this course is perceived as a mode of learning, as a way to make meaning, and, especially, as communication. The textbooks for this course are Reading Culture, 6th edition, edited by Diana George and John Trimbur, Pearson Longman; Writer’s Resource: A Handbook for Writing and Research, 2nd edition, edited by Elaine Maimon et al.; and Guide to First-Year Composition, edited by David Carithers and Chris Hill, Fountainhead Press.
English 112
The sections of English 112 listed below have special themes and are open to all students. Requirements for all English 112 sections are the same. These sections give you the opportunity to explore a variety of writing and reading assignments connected with the announced theme. All sections are reading-intensive. Students enrolling in English 112 need to have completed either English 110 or English 111 with a grade of C or better.
From Ulysses to YouTube: Narrative Forms and Functions Christopher Coffman sections 1 (MWF 8:00) and 2 (MWF 9:00) This course is designed to improve your writing for application both in and out of the academic environment. A variety of writing skills will be explored and practiced, but our focus will be the elements of argumentation and research. Our thinking will be unified by a set of questions related to storytelling. People have always been storytellers, and, whether pursuing our fix on the Internet or in a book of poems, we continue to consume stories. Indeed, stories help us understand who we are, and we often feel we know another person only once we have learned his or her “story.” Yet what is it about stories that is so appealing, and what do they help us to understand that we otherwise might not? These questions demonstrate that our understanding of stories lags behind our relation and consumption of them. Much of our discussion will be concerned with the forms and functions of stories, and the means by which stories produce social knowledge and a sense of identity. Readings and projects will include work with print, visual, and hypertext narratives.
Disturbed and Confused: Composing Responses to Film Composition Kathleen Vandenberg section 3 (TR 1:00) Films that shock, disturb, and provoke will be viewed in order for students to practice transforming their own strong personal responses into reasoned, researched, and organized academic arguments. Students will acquire the skills they need to create written compositions that are reader-directed, employ appropriate terminology and tone, and evidence their ability to think critically and analytically about complex visual/verbal texts. Students will be exposed to many different perspectives, cultures and belief systems while watching and analyzing the composition of controversial films by such foreign and American directors as Kim Ki-duk (Korean), Lars von Triers (Danish), Michael Haneke (Austrian), Michael Powell (British), Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch (American). Readings of these films will be complemented by readings of novels, academic essays and scripts. Required Texts: A Short Guide to Writing about Film by Timothy Corrigan Dogville vs. Hollywood by Jake Horsley A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
It’s My Right, Right? Heidi Huse sections 4 (TR 2:30) and 5 (TR 2:00) It’s a presidential election year, a pretty important election this time around as it turns out. Is voting a constitutional right? Who gets to vote? Who gets to decide who votes? What, exactly, are our constitutional rights? What, exactly, is free speech? We’re going to explore our rights this semester, particularly voting and first amendment rights, as subject matter for learning to conduct in-depth research and effectively report research findings in persuasive essay writing. Our reading will center on Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy’s book on the Bill of Rights, In Our Defense; Betty Collier-Thomas and VP Franklin’s anthology Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements; and Sharon Rudahl and Paul Buhle’s graphic novel Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman. We’ll also watch the movie The Pentagon Papers which centers on Firstt Amendment, free speech rights in a Hollywood version of an historical moment in American politics. You will also conduct your own in-depth research into a specific constitutional amendment and share your results with your classmates on Blackboard discussion forums and in a class presentation at the end of the semester.
If you have any questions about these classes or about the English Department generally, please call Lynn Alexander at 731.881.7300 or visit our website at http://www.utm.edu/departments/chfa/english/.
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