Course Schedule

**Please Note: Changes may be made to this portion of the syllabus throughout the semester. It is your responsibility to note such changes, whether they are verbally announced or emailed, and plan accordingly.

**Reading, writing, or viewing assignments are due ON THE DATE GIVEN. Students are always expected to have a copies of the text being discussed as well as any assigment due on that day.

WEEK 1 (9/8) Welcome!

Introductions. Review syllabus.

E.B. White’s “Here Is New York” (handout)

 

WEEK 2 (9/15) Introduction to College Writing

Reading: E.B. White’s “Here Is New York” &  Introduction to College Writing

Due: Response Paper #1: Diagnostic Essay

 

WEEK 3 (9/22) Rhetoric: Understanding Context & Aristotle’s Triangle

Reading: Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”& Donna Masini’s “Giants in the Earth”

In class: Galway Kinnell reading “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” & Lucille Clifton reading “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”

Due: Response Paper #2: Approaching Poetry

 

WEEK 4 (9/29) Rhetorical Modes of Persuasion: Ethos, Logos, Pathos, Kairos

Reading: Modes of Persuasion, Anzia Yezierska’s “America and I,” & “Remembering The 1911 Triangle Factory Fire”

In class: Watch clips from American Experience: New York: The Power and the People (1898-1918) (episode 4, Dir. Ric Burns, PBS)

Due: Response Paper #3: The Immigrant Dream

 

WEEK 5 (10/6) Building Arguments

Reading: Building Arguments

In class: Watch American Experience: New York: Cosmopolis (1918-1931) (episode 5, Dir. Ric Burns, PBS)

Due: Essay #1: Personal Narrative

 

WEEK 6 (10/13) Building Arguments, cont’d: Pointing Words, Transitions, Metacommentary & Source Integration

Reading: Using Quotations, “Selected Writing of Langston Hughes” & Ralph Ellison’s “New York, 1936” (handouts)

Due: Response Paper #4: “Cosmopolis”

 

WEEK 7 (10/20) Essay #2 Peer Review

Reading: Prologue to Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man (handout), Clint Smith’s “Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” As A Parable Of Our Time”

Also for homework: Jeff Wall’s After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue & Vinson Cunningham’s “Ralph Ellison and Gordon Parks’s Joint Harlem Vision” (Photo Slideshow)

Due: Essay #2 Draft for Peer Review

 

WEEK 8 (10/27)

Reading: Audre Lorde’s “Who Said It Was Simple” & Poetry Foundation Lorde Bio

In class: Watch Stonewall Uprising (Dirs. Kate Davis & David Heilbroner, PBS)

Due: Essay #2: Argument for Historical Moment

 

WEEK 9 (11/3) Research: Library Visit

Reading: Research, Coalition For The Homeless & Carey Dunne’s “Margaret Morton’s Humanizing Photographs of New York City’s Homeless Population”

WEEK 10 (11/10)  Research: Library Visit

Reading: Mark Naison’s “From Doo Wop To Hip Hop” (handout)

In class: Watch Hip Hop Evolution: The Foundation (Netflix original)

Due: Response Paper #5: Research Paper Proposal

 

WEEK 11 (11/17) Drafting the Research Paper

In Class: Edwidge Danticat’s “New York Was Our City on the Hill” and  Martín Espada’s “Blessed Be the Truth-Tellers” (accompanying audio) & “Litany at the Tomb of Frederick Douglass”

Due: Research Paper Outline

 

NO CLASS SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH!

WEEK 12 (12/1) Research Paper Peer Review

Reading: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Letter to My Son”

In class: Watch clips from I Am Not Your Negro (Dir. Raoul Peck, Magnolia Pictures)

Due: Research Paper Draft for Peer Review

 

WEEK 13 (12/8) Panel Discussions

Reading: Martin Espada poem “Return” (handout) & Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Letter to My Son”

Panel Discussions

Due: Research Paper

 

WEEK 14 (12/15) Final Exam

Final Exam