Reading for Wednesday: A Visit to the Hacker House

The results are in, and with nineteen votes (one apparent abstention), the clear favorite for tomorrow's reading assignment is "Hacker House Blues: My Life with 12 Programmers, 2 Rooms, and One 21st-Century Dream," by David Garczynski (originally published at Salon almost a year ago). This was Jan's selection for his summer-reading essay, so let's all thank him for bringing it to our attention. Read it for tomorrow, and come to class with some thoughts and observations to discuss (no formal notebook assignment).

Poll No. 2 for December 6 Reading

Please vote in the run-off poll for our December 6 reading selection (responses will be accepted through the weekend; the winning essay will be announced on Monday).

Links to the selections listed are included below, in my November 27 blog post.

Feedback on Your Portfolio Reflection (in Progress)

Choose a partner, if possible, someone you've worked with on peer-editing one of your essays this semester (if not, that's okay too). Take about 20 minutes to read their draft reflection and to respond to the following questions on their draft (questions 1-3) and on your own draft or in your notebook (question 4):

1. What was the most interesting and/or surprising part of this draft reflection?
2. What did you want to hear more about?
3. List between one and three questions you were left with after reading this draft.
4. Did reading this draft make you think of anything you want to add to your own reflection? If so, make a note of it in your notebook or on your own reflection.

Your Choice of Readings for Tuesday, and a Poll to Determine Next Wednesday's Assignment

Please read one of the following essays for tomorrow, and answer these questions in your notebook:

"The New Mecca," by George Saunders

• How does Saunders depict himself, as an outsider to Dubai, throughout the essay? What uses does he make of his own inexperience and confusion in order to explore his subject?
• What specific detail(s) about Dubai circa 2005 stand(s) out to you after reading this essay? Which incident or episode made the strongest impression on you, and why?
• Consider this essay as a piece of writing: what are its strengths? Is there anything you would suggest to improve it?

"The Secret Life of Time," by Alan Burdick

• How does Burdick use personal experience to get into the abstract philosophical ideas the essay is exploring? Is this an effective technique?
• Which of the many philosophical and psychological ideas about time and how we experience it resonated most strongly with you, and why? Is your individual experience as a time-bound entity reflected in this essay at all?
• Consider this essay as a piece of writing: what are its strengths? Is there anything you would suggest to improve it? 

* * *

Please fill out a poll to indicate your preferences for our reading assignment on Wednesday, December 6. The options, all drawn from your summer-reading selections, are listed below, with links. Please complete this survey by the end of the day Wednesday, November 29.

"Shakespeare's Cure for Xenophobia," by Stephen Greenblatt
"The Waves," by Harry Arter
"The Lost Art of Stealing Fruit," by Charlotte Mendelson
"Woven," by Lidia Yuknavitch
"How Censorship Works," by Ai Weiwei
"My Lost Body," by Christina Crosby
"Shirt-Worthy," by David Giffels
"Welcome to the almost Cult-Like Fan-World of American Women's Pro Basketball," by Stephen Burt
"Hacker House Blues: My Life with 12 Programmers, 2 Rooms, and One 21st-Century Dream," by David Garczynski

The Final Portfolio

The culmination of your writing work all semester will take the form of your final writing portfolio, a selection of your strongest work supplemented with some reflection, revision history, and commentary. This will be graded as a culminating assignment, and will comprise 40 percent of your semester grade for the course.

The guidelines for the Portfolio are available for perusal and download here.

Sarah Vowell's "Trail of Tears"

Sarah Vowell's essay "What I See When I Look at the Face on the $20 Bill," which we read a few weeks ago as an example of an "information plus" essay, originated as a radio essay for This American Life, "Trail of Tears," which aired on July 3, 1998. The interviews with people she meets along the trip were in fact recorded for this radio essay, and you can hear the voices of her sister Amy, the tour guides, and others, which later appeared in quotation in the published essay. The story of the Vowell sisters and their road trip to retrace the Trail of Tears took up the whole episode, and you can listen to the complete audio version of her essay here.

New and Final Syllabus! And Multimedia Project!

Here is the fourth and final installment of the syllabus for this course.

And the detailed assignment of the Multimedia Project can be accessed here.

"This Is Water" in-class work

Work for David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”

Individual work (15 minutes):

In your notebook, I asked you to write about which passages you would choose to include in a hypothetical short film based on this commencement speech. Look at those passages and draw from them three major themes or idea categories that you would want to hit on in this hypothetical film. Also in your notebook, list them in short phrases (no more than ten words; a single word is fine) and choose a one- or two-sentence quotation that you think illustrates each of them especially well. Spend about five minutes on this.

Now shift gears for ten minutes, putting the film idea on hold and writing in response to this prompt: David Foster Wallace says “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” What do you worship now, as a not-yet-adult, and how do you feel about that? And what do you aspire to worship as an adult, five years out of college or so, and beyond? (It’s okay if the two are the same. It’s also okay if either or both answers might make you look good––or bad––in the eyes of others. Try not to judge your own answers too much; just be as honest as you can).

Fifteen minutes of group work:

Back to the film idea. Get into groups of three or four and share your ideas about a film based on “This Is Water,” which passages you would want to include, what ideas or themes you would want to highlight, and what visual strategies you might use to bring them to life (as well as music, typography, special effects, and any other tools filmmakers have at their disposal). Agree on a rough and preliminary vision, and create a fewer-than-120-word pitch for a short film, along with a working title. Record your group members’ names, your pitch, and your working title in this Google Doc. (The title can’t be “This Is Water.” Come up with your own!)

"This Is Water" audio

An audio recording of David Foster Wallace delivering the 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College can be accessed here. It's worth listening to in full, to get a sense of Wallace's tone and style, and to hear it as a speech delivered to an audience on a specific occasion.

Listing Your Information

For the "Information Plus Reflection" essay, you need, as always, to cite your sources. All of the formal research you've done should be documented in a Works Cited list (MLA style), giving complete bibliographic information for every source. In addition to this bibliography, you should also compile a list of all of the types or categories of information that has been incorporated into the essay, old and new--stuff you already knew but were drawing on when you wrote the essay, and stuff you specifically sought out and learned to enhance and develop this essay. Especially be sure and include elements that contributed to the final draft, but which it didn't make sense to cite as a formal source (e.g. casual conversation that wasn't an "interview," childhood memories, stuff you know from taking U.S. History). 

Some examples of these lists from previous Nonfiction Writing classes can be viewed here.

One-Syllable Writing

Write on one of the following prompts for ten minutes using only one-syllable words:

• Describe your ideal day of summer break, or your ideal snow day
• Choose a value that is important to you and explain why you cherish it
• Tell the story of a time you were crushed by a turn of events or a piece of news
• Write anything that’s in your head that you’re moved to write about at this moment

Whittemore and Erdrich Activities

First, 5 minutes of individual work: Write a paragraph in response to one of the following:

1.     Look over the writing you did in response to the “my name” prompt from earlier in the semester. Imagine you’ve been asked to turn it into a brief information-plus-reflection essay. You’ve just read “The Names of Women,” and are required to incorporate at least one quotation or detail from that essay into your own essay. Which would you choose and why? How might you use it in your hypothetical essay?

2.     Imagine that Katherine Whittemore has been asked to make this essay more personal in order to revise it for a different audience and/or context than the one it was originally written for. What advice would you give her on possible ways to make the essay more personal in its focus?  What do you think she might add, considering the kind of expertise and ideals she likely has that you can glean from reading the essay? What areas of this essay seem to have room for or possible segues to more personal narrative or reflection?

Next, you'll do some collective searching, writing, and commenting in a group of two or three for about 15 minutes:

With the first two of the following three tasks, you can change the sentences radically, but try as much as possible not to change the meaning of the sentences or phrases within them. Work with the words from the original as much as you are able. Also label your two sentences with the names of your group members:

1.          Take one of the longest sentences from either of these essays and break it into two sentences, then then post it in this Google Doc. When you post it, please:

·         List your group members’ names

·         Identify the “Original sentence” with that label and the first three or four words, an ellipsis, and the last three or four words.

·         Label the new sentences “Broken up.”

2.          Then take two relatively short sentences that are next to each other and turn them into one sentence. Label the new sentence “Combined” and post it, after identifying the “Original sentences” their first three or four words, an ellipsis, and their last three or four words.

3.          Now, as a group, judge whether the broken up or combined sentences you created are better, worse, or about the same as the originals, and briefly comment on this in the doc. Label it “Comment.” 

Then, back to some individual work: when your group has finished its sentence work, answer the following questions in your notebook (5-10 minutes):

1.     Do you feel like you learned anything from the sentence breaking-up/combining exercise above? If so, what? 

2.     What, if anything, do these short essays seem to you to have in common with one another?

Procrastination Revisited

In our poll of your procrastination habits at the start of the semester, this class's self-scores clustered in the high-mids, around 6 or 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. We had one 3, two 4's, three 5's and three 6's, five 7's (and a 7.5), two 8's, one 9 and one 10.

Recall your own self-score, and in your notebook, reflect on your procrastination level for your writing in this course so far, and then specifically for your work on Essay 3 to this point. Have you been more or less involved in the writing process, or more or less involved in procrastination of the unhealthy variety? Discuss and reflect.




When you're done reflecting on the writing process and procrastination, write for at least ten minutes on the following prompt:




You can't go to college. For whatever reason, it's not an option. What do you do with the next ten years of your life?

Prompts for "The Apple"

In your notebook (10 minutes)

1.     Do you like apples? If so: name your favorite variety and describe it in detail. Try to use both descriptive language and metaphorical language to create a vivid sensory portrait of this variety. (If you like apples but don’t have a favorite variety, vividly describe in detail your Platonic ideal of an apple, flavor- and texture-wise.) If not, describe in as much detail as possible why not.

2.     Look through the apple chapter and find:

·        Two facts that were new to you and struck you as interesting or important

·        One big idea or revelation that came from your reading this chapter

3.     Think of a “coevolutionary” relationship you have with some plant or animal (see Pollan [p. xiv] in the “Introduction” photocopy if you need to be reminded what he means by “coevolution”).  Describe that relationship and the effect it has on your life.

In small groups (6-8 minutes):

Share the new facts and revelations that you gleaned from the apple chapter.

Look at the chapter and the photocopied sources page. What do you notice about the combination of different kinds of information Pollan blends, what he does with the information, and how he shares his sources in the notes? Try to come up with at least two specific observations. Each of you should write a concise summation of these observations in your notebook in your own words.

"The Spirit of the Million Man March" and "The Botany of Desire"

Michael Pollan's Introduction to The Botany of Desire is available for viewing and download. Read this for Friday, October 20, and instead of the usual notebook questions, articulate the basic premise for Pollan’s book. Sum it up in your own words and quote a moment where he sums it up himself.

* * *

On Wednesday in class, we listened to an episode of the Historically Black podcast, "The Spirit of the Million Man March." As you listen, please take note of the following:

• Two detailed memories that Kamille Washington shares
• Two detailed memories that B. T. Washington shares
• At least two moments of reflection from either or both voices
• At least one historical fact or bit of information from either or both voices
• Two historical facts or bits of information from another source (narrator Keegan Michael Key or other voices the podcast quotes)

Some FM's for Reference

As Catherine Prendergast reminds us, Nonfiction Writing is not a course in the arcane rules of English grammar and usage--you might have noticed that we haven't yet diagrammed a single sentence, although I have given some general reminders and overviews of a few common issues of punctuation and usage. Much of your sense of a sentence's "correctness" will be instinctual for you, as a native speaker and reader of English: you can hear a subject-verb disagreement when you read a sentence aloud. A sentence fragment sounds and feels incomplete.

We want to make sure that our final drafts are as correct and clear as possible, in terms of grammar and punctuation, because we don't want to inhibit the reader's ability to understand what we're saying, and we don't want to look dumb. As part of the editing and revision process, you should attend to grammar, and if you're not sure what the rule is, look it up. We don't order a specific "manual" for Nonfiction Writing, although there are plenty of books out there that could serve as useful resources (and they all contain basically the same information). There are also now a number of easy online resources you can consult, when need be, to clear up confusion about rules and usage: search Grammar Girl, consult the University of North Carolina's handy Tips and Tools, or browse Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL).

New Syllabus, New Essay Assignment

As we embark on the second quarter, a new syllabus has been provided to chart our course through the first week of November. During this time, you will be working on the next essay, which will be an informative/research-based personal essay.

The His'er Problem, Updated

In preparation for tomorrow's class, please read "How to Avoid Grammar Mistakes: RTFM, Baby," by Catherine Prendergast. Just read it--no need to complete the notebook questions for this one. (A late addition to the new syllabus.)

*   *   *

Today's prompt (small-group work):

You are interns for a small online magazine that focuses on language and culture. Your boss wants you to write a casual but informed 600-word piece on gender-nonspecific language in the twenty-first century. It should introduce the basic issue of gender specific language and give a very brief bit of history (feel free to use Anne Fadiman as one historical source), and it should end by offering readers advice on and/or range of options for how to approach gender nonspecific language.

Begin by making a list of places where you might find information about this––this can include print and online resources, but also any other information source you could access within a small budget (for example, contacting experts or commenters in any number of fields or areas by phone, email, etc.)

Then spend a few minutes trying to find two or more sources to check for basic information that you can use to begin to shape the very first draft of your piece.

Create a rough outline for the piece you envision (including references to any information you intend to gather from more time-intensive means like interviews).

If you have time, write the first couple of paragraphs.

Directed Writing: Reconstructed Conversation

As you come to the final stages of the writing process for your second essay, let's review some of the insights you gained by reflecting on your process for the first essay. Click here to access the Google Doc (now in read-only mode!) where you shared some of those insights.

* * *

And now, today's directed writing prompt:

Using reconstructed direct quotation, re-create a conversation where you:

·      Learned something important about your family (or a member of your family) that you didn’t know before

·      Learned something important about a friend that you didn’t know before

·      Figured out something significant about yourself that you weren’t fully aware of

·      Suddenly found yourself liking or respecting someone more, or less.

·      Got some news that either made your day or ruined your day.

Choose two of the options above and write a brief dialogue where you re-create that conversation. Feel free to invent dialogue for yourself and for the other person, but be sure all the dialogue is true to the spirit of the conversation as you remember it. Each dialogue should fill at least one page and no more than two pages of your notebook.

*  *  *

Spend as much time on this as you need for the remainder of the period. If you finish, you can work on editing your essay in progress.

Prompts for "What I See When I Look at the Face on the $20 Bill"

In your notebook (5 minutes):

Did you find the ending of Sarah Vowell’s essay to be satisfying or not? Why or why not? Be as specific as you can.

If you have time: Did this essay seem a good length, or is it too long? If you felt it was too long, try to identify two or more areas you would cut.

* * *

In groups of 3 or 4 (8 minutes):

Imagine Sarah Vowell’s process in collecting information for “What I See when I Look at the Face on the $20 bill”:

What research do you think she did for this essay apart from the road-trip with her sister?

What strategies and tools do you imagine she used to collect information during her trip?

If you have time, find as many different kinds of information as you can in this essay and label each. Everyone should have three already listed in your notebook, so start by collecting those, then see if there are any you may have missed.