Sunset over a field, a stone wall (Hadrian's Wall) and overgrown plants
“Sunset | Hadrian’s Wall” by Tom Webster via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

Week 7:  Unit 2 Work Continued

Class Info

  • Dates: Tuesday, 3/14-Monday, 3/16
  • Meeting Info: Tuesday and Thursday 10:00-11:15am in room N618

Objectives

  • To read together and brainstorm research topics for Project 2
  • To continue reading Nella Larsen’s Passing
  • To complete any unfinished work, especially Project 1: Discourse Communities and the reflection post

For Tuesday, 3/14

Reading

Writing

  • take notes and annotate while reading Passing
  • share research about Passing, Nella Larsen, or something related in this Discussion thread
  • Choose a word and contribute to our Glossary, following the instructions about what to include and how to post.

In Class Tuesday, 3/14

  • What research about Passing and its universe can we do right now?
    • author’s language, discourse community, who is the audience, how does the author include/exclude with language
    • do we want to know what happens? do we want to read the last page?
    • author’s life–biography, or research about their time period, events that they took part in
      • Larsen’s heritage
      • Harlem Renaissance
    • what else did the author write? other authors at the time? Literary history
    • understand more about whites-only hotels in Chicago in the 1920s; about passing more broadly
  • Reading op-eds
    • how much is the author’s opinion? how much is fact? how much research does it involve?
    • what kind of subjects are these about?

For Thursday, 3/16

Reading

  • Novel: Passing by Nella Larsen
  • Readings from our in-class research
  • Additional op-ed examples

Writing

  • take notes and annotate while reading Passing
  • Choose a word and contribute to our Glossary, following the instructions about what to include and how to post.
  • Begin brainstorming possible topics of your op-ed for Project 2 and freewriting in this Discussion thread. Also, find an op-ed to share with the class, either about a topic you brainstormed about or another that is interesting to you.

In Class Thursday, 3/16

  • English Department writing activity
  • NYT video op-ed: “Greta Thunberg Has Given Up on Politicians”
  • find an op-ed about a topic you’re interested in reading about
  • what are the genre features of the opinion essay?
    • in groups or on your own, look at the op-ed you found plus the three from Tuesday.
    • write a short description of the kind of information you find paragraph by paragraph.
    • make a list of the features they have in common
    • starts with something catchy, raises an issue
    • examples
    • starting to show what the problem is
    • realization about the situation
    • example
    • what a problem is
    • counterpoint to the problem with a different example
    • showing this example as a cause of the problem
    • thesis–in the middle here
    • evidence/data/support eg from an expert
    • so-what stuff, related to the expert’s info, author’s experience
    • “according to the expert”
    • here’s why it matters
    • ends with a solution/call to action
  • what are we interested in writing about for Project 2? what research will we need to support the argument?
  • sharing topic and research ideas
  • planning for Project 2
  • Podcast/Interview: “On Passing” (both audio and written transcript available)–time permitting!