Course syllabus
ENGL 305: Modern Writing and Critical Thinking
2018 University of Auckland, Semester 2
LECTURE: 206-209 (ARTS 1 / Humanities Building, room 209) Monday 10-12pm
Tutorial 01: COMMERCE A, Room G17, Monday 2-3pm
Tutorial 02: 201N-211 (HSB North, Room 211) Monday 1-2pm
Associate Professor Lisa Samuels (l.samuels@auckland.ac.nz), Arts 1 / Humanities Building room 631. Office Wednesday 2:30-3:30 and by appt.
Course description
This course explores theories and practices of writing and criticality in academic, civic, and artistic contexts. We consider some of the scripts that organise literate social practices and how to perceive and extrapolate their principles. Our overall frame is Identity, Alterity, and Context.
Within that frame, we explore how we are affected by, how we navigate, and how we transform our immersive world of signs. We explore how writing functions in paper and digital environments and how we construe and read literary and non-literary texts for different purposes. We’ll engage critically with your writing and reading practices and we will also practice creative alternatives for recoding what we encounter. This is a critical skills class as well as an opportunity to study new writings and modes.
Readings are from multiple national and regional contexts: the US, Oceania, Canada, Japan, China, Aotearoa/New Zealand, South Korea, Sweden, England, Russia, and explicitly contested border sites. Our transnational critical thinking blends Euro and Anglo-American-Australasian critical modes with Oceania and digital criticality. We are studying the “trans” (transgenre, translingual, transformation) of writing: “liquid writing” that flows among identities, genres, modes, codes, and places.
Your work in the course will develop your ability to
- understand how writing and critical thinking creates and records individuals and societies;
- articulate underlying assumptions about writing, mind, and identity in textual practices;
- perceive how texts reproduce and/or swerve dominant discourses;
- perceive how becoming literate and making texts means more than acquiring a set of linguistic, technical, and genre skills;
- situate literary texts in other and wider fields of discourse;
- reflect on what being an active, critically aware writer and reader means for you as an individual, a collaborative maker, and a member of social groups.
Required texts
Course Pack, online readings, and Canvas material
Required assignments
40% Critical essay (2500 words) based on class discussions and readings. Required draft work (minimum 1000 words, 5% of essay grade) will be peer reviewed in tutorial. Your final essay (35%) is due on the date indicated, except for documented emergencies or special circumstances approved in advance.
25% In-class cumulative test (75 minutes, approximately 1250 words) on key terms and concepts from class discussions and readings. No makeups except in case of emergency.
20% 2 tutorial quizzes (10% each: 15 minutes, about 250 words each, total 500 words). No makeups.
15%. Informed and regular attention and participation in class (10%) and in class writing activities (5%). Writing activities undertaken in class and/or tutorials can expect to generate approximately 500 words.
You must pass all graded assignments in order to ensure a passing grade in the course.
Essay format
Assigned writings, unless directed otherwise, should be in this format:
- Type/word-process and print double-sided on clean paper.
- Use a 12 point easy-to-read font (e.g. Times New Roman, Arial).
- Space your text at 1.5 or 2.0 and use regular margins (2.54 cm. at left, right, top, bottom).
- Indent or block your paragraphs.
- Number your pages.
- Identify clearly your name, course number, and date at top right- or left-hand corner of page 1.
- Include a descriptive title. Do not print a separate title page: simply include title and identity information at top of page 1.
Some course writing will be in other formats. All essays must be tendered in hard copy, with an ENGL 305 coversheet, to the specified assignment centre. Coversheets may be downloaded from Canvas Resources.
Attendance and participation
Lectures examine the differing assumptions, techniques, contexts, and implications of the assigned readings. The second lecture hour will typically include break-out and group work that responds to the considerations of the first hour. Tutorials pursue discussion and some writing and reading activities; they also serve as the time for the two quizzes and for peer reviewing the essay drafting component.
To prepare for lectures and tutorials, read the assigned texts and compose any assigned writing before class. In addition to discussion during lecture hours, tutorials will be important times to review readings, participate in peer work, and freely discuss your questions.
Technology policies
On our Canvas site, you will find electronic copies of the syllabus and any paperwork distributed in lectures as required supplements to the course readings. All course announcements will be posted on the Canvas site and directed to your University email address.
During the term, I will ordinarily be able to read an email message within 48 hours and to reply within 72. Occasionally I may be unable to respond that swiftly and frequently I may reply sooner, depending on the nature of the query. I extend the same email expectation courtesy to you.
Please do not use cell phones, ipods, or other such devices during class. If you have an emergency situation that requires you to be contactable on a given day, please let me know so that the class can be prepared for the possibility of a momentary interruption.
Students are permitted and encouraged to use laptop computers in class for taking notes and looking at prepared and online materials directly relevant to that class. It is vital that these computers NOT be used during class for matters external to our lectures and tutorials. If you repeatedly violate this policy, you will be asked to a meeting with your instructor and a University of Auckland official charged with overseeing classroom behaviour.
Disabilities Accommodation Statement
If you have a condition that impairs your ability to satisfy course criteria, please meet with me to discuss feasible instructional accommodation. Accommodation can be provided only for a documented disability. Please tell me about such circumstances by the second week of the semester or as soon as possible after a disability is diagnosed. Contact Student Disability Services for more information: <https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/on-campus/student-support/personal-support/students-with-disabilities/student-disability-services-staff.html> / email <disability@auckland.ac.nz> / phone 373 7599 ext 82936.
Required information from The University of Auckland
“The following text must be included in all course outlines in consequence of an Education Committee decision (2005): The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting his or her learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the world-wide web. A student’s assessed work may be reviewed against electronic source material using computerised detection mechanisms. Upon reasonable request, students may be required to provide an electronic version of their work for computerised review.”
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Weekly schedule
This schedule is subject to change, depending on our progress. You are responsible for knowing about schedule changes announced in class and/or posted on Canvas. Items listed for a given week are to be read before the lecture. Unless otherwise indicated, all readings are in our course pack.
Week 1 (16 July)
Identity, Alterity, and Context
Charles Olson, “Projective Verse” (1950)
Epeli Hau‘Ofa, “Our Sea of Islands” (1993)
Nathalie Stephens, “Echoes Enough of Echoes of Enough of Me: In Favour of ‘Not Going Anywhere’” (2004)
Week 2 (23 July)
Autography and proceduralism
Lyn Hejinian, My Life excerpts (1987)
Lisa Samuels, “Eight justifications for canonizing My Life” (1997)
TUTORIALS BEGIN THIS WEEK
Week 3 (30 July)
The digitas and digi-selves
Ni_ka, Hallelujah. (2004). <http://yaplog.jp/tipotipo/archive/236> & Electronic Literature <http://collection.eliterature.org/3/work.html?work=hallelujah>
Qianxun Chen, Shan Shui (2014). <http://collection.eliterature.org/3/works/shan-shui/ShanshuiV2/index.html>
Week 4 (6 August)
Symbolic bodies and translingualism
Gloria Anzaldúa, “How to tame a wild tongue” and “La conciencia de la mestiza / Towards a New Consciousness” (1987)
Tutorials QUIZ 1
Week 5 (13 August)
Genre and transgenre
Don Mee Choi, excerpts from Hardly War (2016)
Stanley Fish, “How to recognize a poem when you see one” (1980 essay)
Week 6 (20 August)
Don Mee Choi, excerpts from Hardly War (continued)
Tutorials: bring 1000-word draft of essay for peer workshop
Mid-semester break 27 August – 7 September
Essay due Wednesday 5 September by 3 PM to Arts Student Centre
Week 7 (10 September)
Extremity and gender
William Vollmann, from The Ice Shirt (1990)
Kathy Acker, “Seeing Gender” (1997)
Week 8 (17 September)
Place history
Ann Shelton and Stephen Turner, Wastelands (2010)
David Karēna Holmes, From the Antipodes (2002, excerpts)
Week 9 (24 September)
Appropriation and intertextuality
Tom Phillips, A Humument excerpts (3rd edition, 1980) & online http://www.tomphillips.co.uk/humument / “listen to the artist-author reading the whole of the sixth and final version of his text”
Barry Barclay, “That Damnable Symbol” from Mana Tuturu (2005)
Tutorials: QUIZ 2
Week 10 (1 October)
Collaboration and the object
Johannes Heldén and Håkan Jonson, Evolution (2014), http://www.textevolution.net/
David Clark, “The Discrete Charm of the Digital Image” (2005)
Week 11 (8 October)
Reading as gaming
Michael Kurtov, Kuryokhin’s Second Life (2015), http://collection.eliterature.org/3/work.html?work=kuryokhin
FINAL TUTORIALS
Week 12 (15 October)
Test, 75 minutes. Cumulative and closed-book. Bring your own plain lined paper or exam booklet with your name and ENGL 305 indicated on each page or on the exam booklet cover. Turn in both the test paper and your written answers at the end of the test period.
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Workload and deadlines for submission of coursework:
The University of Auckland's expectation is that students spend 10 hours per week on a 15-point course, including time in class and personal study. Students should manage their academic workload and other commitments accordingly. Deadlines for coursework are set by course convenors and will be advertised in course material. You should submit your work on time. In extreme circumstances, such as illness, you may seek an extension but you may be required to provide supporting information before the assignment is due. Late assignments without a pre-approved extension may be penalised by loss of marks – check course information for details.
Course summary:
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