First-Year Courses in English (Division 361)

Fall Term, 1999 (September 8 - December 22, 1999)

A complete up to date listing of English Department course descriptions can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/.

For all English classes, registered students must be present at each of the first two meetings to claim their places. Any student who does not meet this requirement may be dropped from the course. NOTE: If you must miss a class due to religious observances, contact the instructor or leave a message for the instructor with the department (764-6330).

WRITING COURSES:

After taking or placing out of Introductory Composition, students may elect either English 224 or 225 for further practice in the fundamentals of expository and argumentative prose. English 325 offers the opportunity for work in argumentative and expository prose at a more advanced level.

Several sections of English 223, the beginning course in creative writing, are available each term. The work is multi-generic, and two of the following will be covered in each section: fiction, poetry, and drama, or you may take English 227 (Introductory Playwriting). A more advanced course for creative writers is English 323 (Fiction or Poetry), which is available after completion of the prerequisite, English 223. More experienced writers may apply for admission to specialized sections of English 327 (Playwriting), English 423 (Fiction), English 427 (Advanced Playwriting), and English 429 (Poetry). Admission to these advanced courses is by permission of the instructor, who may require writing samples.

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

By connecting the two terms of its title, Writing and Literature aims to help prepare the student to produce the range and quality of expository prose expected in college courses. Works of literature will be considered for their effective use of language and argument. They will serve as reference points for thinking and writing strategies. Characteristically, sections of English 124 will involve the writing of a minimum of five essays, with considerate attention given to the preparation of drafts and to revision. The literary works which will serve as points of reference will vary from section to section and from term to term. Section descriptions for courses not listed below can be found on the department’s Web page (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/courses/f99/f99courses/124cds.htm).

Section 001, 016.

Instructor(s): Hutton

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This introductory writing course will use three plays by Shakespeare as texts with which to practice and refine our reading and writing skills. The reading load is light so that we can concentrate our attention all the more on the subtleties and implications of a writer's technique - both Shakespeare's and our own. By the end of the semester we will have greatly improved our ability to read and interpret difficult texts with confidence and originality, and we will have written essays with a deepened understanding of how to build a sophisticated argument and use evidence effectively. Students will be expected to write and rigorously revise four papers of varying lengths; the course work will also include small group workshops, peer evaluations, and in-class writing assignments.

Section 002.

Instructor(s): Herold

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

The short version is that we will read some really good books, talk about them, write about them. Your interests will shape the course as much as mine. Mine include narrative, point of view, voice, and style. The work will be as student centered as possible – expect no lectures, but plenty of group assignments.

Course texts may include, subject to availability, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Room with a View, Mr. Vertigo, Snow Falling on Cedars, as well as a slim coursepack with a few short stories. We will also need a handbook.

Required work includes faithful and enthusiastic attendance and participation, two short exercises, three papers (with revisions) in the 3-6 page range, and one formal presentation.

Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 004.

Instructor(s): Murnen

No Description Provided

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Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 005.

Instructor(s): Cooley

No Description Provided

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Section 006 – Language/Logic.

Instructor(s): Spirn

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

What can we learn about about a person based on the way he or she speaks, writes, and reasons? Does language reflect a person's identity, or does it mask it? In this course, we will attempt to answer these questions by examining texts that explore people's use of language. Students will also examine their own use of language and reasoning in their written assignments. The goal of the course will be to develop strong academic writing skills and critical reading skills. We will read texts from a variety of genres - novels, poems, plays, short stories, and essays - that will help us examine and question the structure and language of our own essay writing. Authors may include J.D. Salinger, Alice Walker, David Mamet, and others. By the end of the term you can expect to have completed 20-30 pages of revised, polished prose.

Section 007 – The Art of Persuasion.

Instructor(s): Brown

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This composition class uses the study of literature to aid us in our approach to writing sophisticated, polished prose and helps to develop our ability to think analytically. In this course we will read some of literature's greatest moments of persuasion: Romeo's attempt to persuade Juliet to kiss him, Satan's ability to persuade Eve in Paradise Lost, or Swift's proposal that eating children might alleviate social ills (to name only a few). How does a writer persuade (or deceive) us into loving what we would otherwise detest, and detesting what we anally love. How does persuasion "work"? You will learn to write persuasively in this course by learning to improve your sense of audience, tone, voice, and style (among other features of writing). We will write in every class meeting, turn in weekly assignments, and learn to revise your work. By the end of the term you can expect to have completed 20-30 pages of revised, polished prose.

Section 008 – Literature of War: America in the 20th Century.

Instructor(s): Laskowski

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

The literature of the course critically examines war and its effects on combatants and non-combatants, in the battlefield and at home. Readings: Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms; Silko, Ceremony; Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars; O'Brien, The Things They Carried; Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle. Film: Stone, Platoon; Keen, Faces of the Enemy.

Requirements:

1. Class attendance, homework preparation, & participation in class discussion. Students who are unprepared will not be given full credit for attending class. The class is not television. After the third absence, the final grade is lowered one-half a grade level for each additional absence.
2. Four 5-7 page argumentative essays citing researched evidence of at least two differing points of view. Shorter essays or insufficient research will receive appropriately lower grades.
3. Eighteen 1-2 page critiques of other students' essays.

Section 009, 038 – Narrative, Argument, and Suspense.

Instructor(s): Rubinstein , Glass

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Good writing depends on asking good questions, and making these questions interesting to your reader. It's also crucial to keep the reader's attention as you provide compelling answers. Powerful writing does these things by creating suspense, revealing information gradually, and withholding it at the right moments. Many narratives or arguments lead up to a final revelation, a climax, but a non-linear, even fragmented structure can be just as fascinating. Creating a compelling academic argument often involves the same processes as writing a suspenseful narrative. In this course, we'll explore the various ways in which writers create and hold their readers' interest, and students will work towards different understandings of how structure creates meaning. We'll read some classic suspense narratives, which may include stories by A. Conan Doyle, Poe, Wharton, and Shirley Jackson. We may also study Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and/ or Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. By the end of the term you can expect to have completed 20-30 ages of revised, polished prose.

Section 010.

Instructor(s): Buchanan

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course foregrounds literature; however, it is a course about writing. Hence, we will make use of literary works to facilitate discussions of issues of writing. We will read novels and stories that reflect on childhood and adolescence and that bring questions of race, class, and identity to the surface. You will then be asked to write on similar topics. Expectations for written work include: two 5-7 page essays, two 3-5 page essays, and at least ten 1 page papers. You will also be asked to keep a reading journal. Reading might include Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Kaye Gibbon's Ellen Foster, stories by Sandra Cisneros and Mark Richard, and William Faulkner's Absalom Absalom.

Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 012, 032.

Instructor(s): Thompson

No Description Provided

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Section 013 – The City and the Country: Explore Places in Literature.

Instructor(s): Vala

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

How are places important in literature and why should we care about setting? This course will explore the way various places - both rural and urban, American and British - function in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century texts. I hope to explore primarily the differences between the rural community and the bustling metropole: What are the experiences of the individual in each of these settings? How are places defined by the communities that inhabit them? To what extent does place itself become a character? From William Faulkner's depiction of Mississippi to James Joyce's portrayal of Dublin, literary places will provide the framework for you to improve your writing. Beginning on the level of word choice and sentence structure, we shall move in stages towards our ultimate goal: argumentative literary analysis. Texts may include Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, James Joyce's Dubliners; short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Oscar Wilde, and Flannery O'Connor; and poetry by Frank O'Hara and T.S. Eliot. Active participation is required. By the end of the term you will have written 20-30 pages of revised, polished prose.

Section 014.

Instructor(s): Gorman

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Writing and the ability to write effectively will shape the nature of your academic college experience. The skill of writing is necessary for whatever discipline you may pursue, whether that be in the humanities or sciences. If you are able to construct arguments and explain your positions convincingly using evidence, then you will be adequately equipped with the tools required for undergraduate success.

In this course, we will be reading novels, essays and poetry that focus upon the ideas of travel and writing. Through examining these novels and the ways in which they present their ideas, we will work towards understanding what makes style and language so crucial and so difficult. You will gain a great amount of experience in writing, revising, and critiquing papers. In class we will discuss what makes writing strong or weak (i.e., rhetorical devices, language, argumentation) through the examples of the novels and student -written papers with the aim of understanding what makes an excellent paper. We will focus on the revising of written work through workshopping sessions in small groups as well as in a larger setting. The writing and reasoning skills that you will utilize in this class will be useful in all the courses you will take at the University of Michigan. You can expect to produce between 20-30 pages of polished prose by the end of the semester.

Novels may include As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, Dark Child by Camara Laye and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. We will also be reading short articles on writing and crafting essays.

Section 016.

Instructor(s): Hutton

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 124.001.

Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 017.

Instructor(s): Dreiser

No Description Provided

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Section 019, 066 – Literature and Loss.

Instructor(s): Rebecca Egger (egger@umich.edu)

First-Year Seminar,

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will examine the ways in which twentieth-century writers have dealt with the issues of loss and death, and with the challenges of living in a world bounded by the fact of mortality. Because all living persons are, by definition, alive (!), writing about death becomes an exercise in probing the unimaginable, the traumatic, and the taboo. By examining the strategies that authors have developed to discuss this most elusive of subjects, we will explore – and write frequently about – such issues as mourning, memory, human connectedness, and the responsibility of the living to the dead. We will focus our study on three novels (Toni Morrison’s Beloved, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and Kate Phillips’s White Rabbit) and one nonfictional account (Elie Wiesel’s Night). Students will write four papers (4-6 pp.) and revise one. Though our subject is weighty, conversation should be lively and engaged; to that end, students should come to each class prepared to participate in discussion.

Section 020 – Reading and Writing about Gender and Genre.

Instructor(s): Bachmann

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

What is a man? What is a woman? How do writings in a number of genres represent, construct, and question the category of gender? Students will practice skills in critical thinking, close reading, and argumentative and expressive writing through intensive engagement with a variety of texts dealing with issues of masculinity and femininity, male and female roles, and identity. Examining fiction, essays, memoir, poetry, and drama, we will look at a wide range of interpretations and representations of this social category. Students will write 4-5 short papers, complete a number of informal writing assignments, and participate in class discussion about readings. Texts may include Virginia Woolf, Orlando; Tom Spanbauer, The Man who Fell in Love with the Moon; Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body; Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw; essays by Jay Prosser, Gayle Rubin, Judith Butler, Will Roscoe, and Freud; and poetry by Walt Whitman, Marlon Riggs, and Judy Grahn.

Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 021, 031.

Instructor(s): Fluhr

No Description Provided

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Section 022, 030.

Instructor(s): Heininger

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

As a framing theme, this course investigates the ways in which otherness and others (children, the poor, the undereducated, foreigners, exiles, non-middle-class Americans generally) are imagined in contemporary fiction. The goals of the course are to teach you methods of reading stories so as to develop your skills in attentive reading, critical thinking, an written analysis. Our readings and essays will focus on selected stories and novels from the United States, Canada, England, and Ireland. There will be short and long writing assignments amounting to approximately 30 pages of writing.

Section 023, 036 – Literature and Psychology.

Instructor(s): Whitworth

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Basic introduction to literary interpretation and the critical writing about literature, with an emphasis on the psychology of short fiction. Students will be expected to write three to four 4-6 page papers as well as several shorter response papers. Required texts: Hawthorne's Short Stories, The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels, Stories by Katherine Mansfield, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Seven Gothic Tales, Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources, The Little Brown Essential Handbook.

Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 024.

Instructor(s): Meier

No Description Provided

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Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 025 Š Public and Private Spaces.

Instructor(s): Amanda Watson (alwatson@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~alwatson/eng124.html

What separates personal spaces - our homes, the inner space of memory - from the world at large? Why is a "sense of place" important for so many writers? Through readings centered around questions like these, this course will introduce you to writing about literature. We'll visit writers' private spaces (Annie Dillard's Cabin, Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own) and public landscapes (Joan Didion's L.A., Stuart Dybek's Chicago). In the process, we will find models for our own writing; we will discover how to "translate" the raw materials of our personal experience - including our responses to literature - into words, and eventually into finished work that we can be proud to show others. You can expect to undertake four formal writing assignments for a total of around 25 pages of revised prose. In-class workshops and informal assignments will take you through the writing process and encourage you to become self-aware readers and revisers.

Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 026.

Instructor(s): K. Allen

No Description Provided

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Section 027 – Why Fiction?.

Instructor(s): Vasquez

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Why do many people spend Thanksgiving watching The Wizard of Oz? Why do conversations often become discussions of Jerry Seinfeld or William Shakespeare or Steven King? Why have more people written about Jane Austen's novels than the Bible? In this class we will explore how fiction seems to work: goals of authors, expectations of audiences, and how fictional content and structures often comment on the content and structure of human lives. We will read novels such as Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. We will also read short stories by James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Scott Fitzgerald, Charlotte Gilman, and Dorothy Parker, as well as nonfiction writings by Donald Murray, John Thurber, and Alice Walker. We will create similarly diverse sorts of writings: journal entries, responses to peer journal entries, fiction, and nonfiction. We will do a great deal of informal writing and multiple drafts of four more formal papers. We will discuss student informal and formal writings in small groups, large groups, and during several student/teacher conferences. This course will also ask that students work as hard on developing their class discussion skills as they work on developing their writing – a satisfying college career depends on being highly competent in both these arenas.

Section 028 – Literature and Geography.

Instructor(s): Tischler

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will consider how twentieth-century writers represent places. Descriptions of landmarks and well-known places help to orient readers as they make their way through a novel. Conversely, literary evocations of maps can also disorient readers as they ask us to look at places in new ways. For example, Gertrude Stein invites us to consider how America would appear if viewed through a magnifying glass; Virginia Woolf imagines flying over London and seeing it from above. We will discover how representations of places are linked to gender, sexuality, and geopolitics. Our readings will include works by James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf. You will be expected to submit weekly response papers and to write four essays.

Section 029 – Composition as Explanation.

Instructor(s): Wood

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

I conceive of this course as a series of exercises in thinking as much as in writing. To speak of writing and literature is already to confront preconceptions we have about what each of these terms means, particularly as they relate to ideas about ourselves and our reality. As students in a major American (and public) university, you are being asked to think and write in a variety of ways that reflect the different environments in which you live and work. We will think about how language both creates and is created by these environments, but at the same time gives us the means to question and perhaps overcome some of the differences between, for example, the kind of writing we do in an Engineering class and the kind of writing we do in an English class. This kind of questioning will allow us to develop some important definitions of both writing and literature, especially as those terms have come to have particular meanings for us through history. What's the relationship between the invention of printing and the idea that a poem expresses the personal emotions or thoughts of the poet? How can we talk about freedom in writing when we still have grammar? These are just some of the questions you can expect to explore this term as we consider what language is and how it works, and why it is not just a simple "tool" of communication in the way we are often led to believe. We will read a generous selection of texts both ancient and modern, with a special focus on writing being produced in our contemporary, allegedly "post-modern" world. Class time will be a mixture of both lecture and discussion, with a heavy measure of group critique and public debate about issues, ideas, and particular examples of student writing. Participation is a strong element of the course grade, as it is through sharing ourselves, our beliefs about and our approaches to writing, that we will further our understanding of who we are and how and why we write. Course requirements will include: mandatory attendance and participation, group workshop activities in which students will share their writing with each other and provide guided feedback for revision, occasional in-class writing, several short writing assignments, and three longer papers. The emphasis is on BOTH process and product, and student work on these papers will include prewriting activities, a finished draft (graded separately), and a final revision.

Section 030.

Instructor(s): Heininger

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 124.022.

Section 031.

Instructor(s): Fluhr

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 124.021.

Section 032.

Instructor(s): Thompson

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 124.012.

Section 034 – The Art of Interpretation.

Instructor(s): Moses

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

In this course we will read works of literature which deal with interpreting a culture, locale, and/or group of people to a "larger" audience. Readings will include short stories, poems, and novels by such nineteenth and twentieth century writers as Henry James, Charles Chesnutt, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Whitcomb Riley, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, and Amy Tan. We will use this literature to help you think about and practice writing as an act of interpretation. Writing assignments will be based on close readings of a text, but should also integrate outside resources and engage in the broader issues raised by a reading. Assignments will include one-page response papers to all of the reading assignments, two 4 to 6 page papers and two 5 to 7 page papers. You will also be expected to revise at least two of your longer papers and to participate actively in class discussions.

Section 035.

Instructor(s): Cicciarelli

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

In this section we will use contemporary literature to provoke classroom discussion and stimulate student writing. We will read four short novels, a collection of short stories and a volume of poetry, as well as various shorter pieces of fiction and non-fiction. Texts may include The Branch Will Not Break, Jesus' Son, Housekeeping, The Bluest Eye, Bone, High Fidelity, Into the Great Wide Open and Mystery Ride. We will use a workshop format to critique student essays and create a collaborative writing environment that will encourage the exploration and development of our individual voices. Active class participation will be a vital component of our work. While developing critical thinking and argumentation skills in our discussions, we will learn to make our writing a clear, persuasive account of our ideas and beliefs. This class will provide you with both technical skills and an awareness of the various forces that work upon the effect of your writing. Students will be expected to complete four revised essays of various lengths and several one-page response papers.

Section 036 – Literature and Psychology.

Instructor(s): Whitworth

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 124.023.

Section 037 – Educations of the Self.

Instructor(s): McDonnell

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will focus on developing your ability to interpret, discuss, and write about literary texts. We will read texts, primarily fiction and non-fiction, that investigate the relationship between education, writing, and ourselves. How does literature "teach" us to see our world and who we are? In what ways does our education affect our earlier relationships to familiar people and places? As we read authors and works such as Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory, Tillie Olson's "I Stand Here Ironing," and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, you will flex and tone your own analytical, oral, and writing skills. Peer revision and workshops are a central component of the class. These activities will help you acquire a sense of your own writing style and its particular strengths and weaknesses, in addition to improving crucial editing and revision skills in a collaborative environment. Assignments will include three revised essays of varying lengths (including one 7-10 page paper) in addition to peer critique, short written responses, and active participation.

Section 038 – Narrative, Argument, and Suspense.

Instructor(s): Rubinstein , Glass

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 124.038.

Section 039 – Not for Bedtime: Storytelling in African-American Literature.

Instructor(s): Mitchell

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Who tells stories? To whom? Why are they told? How do we analyze stories written by others? These are some of the questions we will answer in this composition course. We will use storytelling as a critical approach to the audience, content and form of writing. African-American literature is a rich source of stories in a variety of forms (folktales, fiction, plays, and poetry) from which we will draw. Our readings will include stories from Charles Chesnutt and Zora Neale Hurston, and more contemporary works such as Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak! and Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. While there will be much spirited discussion of the readings, our main focus will be the writing process itself. You will complete weekly reader responses (one to two pages) examining major themes, characterizations, and writing styles of the literature; four formal, revised essays (from three to eight pages); and several in-class writing exercises. By the end of this course you should be able to write more clearly and confidently, and with increased complexity, about a range of texts and ideas.

Engl. 124. College Writing: Writing and Literature.

Section 040.

Instructor(s): Salchak

No Description Provided

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Section 041 – Exploring the Mysterious in Our Worlds, in Ourselves.

Instructor(s): Krista Homicz (khomicz@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: https://coursetools.ummu.umich.edu/1999/fall/lsa/enll/124/041.nsf

Are you fascinated by the mysterious? How can we begin to talk about the mysterious events or occurrences that happen in the world around us, or about the mysterious feelings that you find in yourself? Join our discussion as we test our perceptions of reality and analyze our views of the unreal. We're going to investigate the unusual settings, strange characters, surreal events, and fantastic images conjured up by writers from different cultures and time periods. And, hopefully, in developing our ability to interpret the mysterious in literature through class discussions, we can find ways to interpret the mysterious in ourselves and our worlds in our own writing. For this journey into the mysterious, we will read and discuss a mix of literary genres which touch upon the peculiar, the unknown, or the supernatural. Some readings may stem from legends and folktales from African, Asian, Celtic, Mayan, and Native American folklore. Most of the readings will be from a selection of short stories with mysterious twists and problems (which may include Barth's Lost in the Funhouse, Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Borges' Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote, or others by Camus, Márquez, Hawthorne, Welty, Silko, and Wharton), and a few novels by authors who write about mysterious presences in different cultures (which may include Carlos Fuentes in Aura, Toni Morrison in Beloved, Henry James in The Turn of the Screw, and Maxine Hong Kingston in The Woman Warrior). Our writing and analysis will speculate on the social and psychological implications found within these works (for example, what our fears tell us about ourselves, and how we explain or understand the mysterious in our lives). Be prepared to share your thoughts and your writing with other students so that we can consider what you and other students find mysterious and fascinating. Course requirements include reading, participating actively in class discussion and collaborative discussion and writing work, writing in-class and out-of-class responses to reading, and writing and revising four formal papers.

Section 042 – Crisis in Writing.

Instructor(s): Amoko

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

What is good writing? What assumptions regarding context, appropriateness, and effectiveness have to be in place before we can begin to answer this question? This course will use a diverse range of texts addressing both real and fictional crises in an attempt to come to terms with this question. What rhetorical choices do writers employ in order to convey a sense of crisis (both real and imagined)? Our working hypothesis will be that the effectiveness of any writing is more a function of its rhetorical force than its specific substantive content (as important and compelling as that content may be). My goal will be to provide you with a sense of the range of choices available to you in your own writing. The writers to be studied will include Jonathan Swift, Flannery O'Connor, Joy Kogawa, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Franz Fanon, Stanley Fish, and William Safire. You can expect to write 20-30 pages of revised, polished prose by the end of the term.

Section 046, 047.

Instructor(s): Kingsley

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Among the many types of stories out there in literature-land, the ones we best relate to often have as their subject the messy business of growing up. "Literary types" call this the "coming of age" motif, and it's this which we will be exploring in our reading of not-what-you'd-expect novels, stories, memoir, and drama. Many, but not all, of these selections share the setting of student life, something which we should relate to even more. We will be journaling our responses to the readings, writing several one to two page pieces, and completing a variety of non-traditional assignments, but emphasis will be on developing reading and writing skills so that when we enter into each literary experience, we have with us a full kit of tools with which to talk about it. To that end a 3-5 page paper, a 5-7 page paper, and one 10-page paper will also be required.

Section 053 – Film and Society.

Instructor(s): Alan Howes (ahowes@umich.edu)

First-Year Seminar,

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

In this course we will view eight films by major directors, all of which deal with political or social issues, as the basis for discussion and writing. The earliest film is D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), the latest, Akira Kurosawa’s Rhapsody in August (1991). Other directors and films include: Charles Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux; John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath; Orson Welles, Citizen Kane; Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove; Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now; and David Lean, A Passage to India. We will also read some of the sources for these films. Frequent writing with opportunities for revision. Paper topics will be drawn both from the films themselves (e.g., the styles of different directors), and from some of the issues they deal with.

Section 066 – Literature and Loss.

Instructor(s): Rebecca Egger (egger@umich.edu)

First-Year Seminar,

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 124.019.

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

No one ever finishes learning to write, so this course focuses on helping students further develop their unique potentials as writers, readers, and thinkers. By analyzing texts from a variety of academic disciplines, students will come to understand the conventions writers follow to present their ideas effectively to their chosen audiences. What rhetorical strategies are common in different disciplines – and why? How and when might we use those strategies in our own writing? For instance, what writing strategies would we call upon for a lab report, and would we use any of those strategies for a philosophical speculation, a history exam, a love letter? Throughout the term, students will work to identify the writing skills they most need to develop, and they'll invent and refine a personal style of expression that can be adapted to different audiences and purposes. Course requirements include at least 40 pages of writing, including at least 20 pages of revised, polished prose. Section descriptions for courses not listed below can be found on the department’s Web page (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/courses/f99/f99courses/125cds.htm).

Section 001 – Writing for College and Beyond.

Instructor(s): Widmayer

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

You've just won the lottery, and you can look forward to a life working for yourself. Now you've decided to write your autobiography – but without a ghostwriter – because you've seen what they've done to the lives of your famous friends. This course will teach you the skills to make your writing interesting and effective for a wide variety of audiences – and maybe even get your autobiography published later on! In this section, we will read challenging essays by writers such as Annie Dillard, Langston Hughes, Amy Tan, bell hooks, Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, and Stephen Jay Gould in our quest to find out how each writer makes their writing worth publishing by anticipating and manipulating their audiences' reactions. Course requirements will include participating in class or small-group discussions, writing four essays with a mandatory rewriting of the first to start the salutary habit of rewriting, completing two library projects, and formulating critiques of your classmates' and your own writing.

Section 002, 004, 045.

Instructor(s): Daphne Swabey (swabey@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~swabey/

The goal of this course is to introduce students to academic writing, which can be defined as an ongoing conversation between people who enjoy exchanging ideas, finding out new ways of understanding problems, and developing their own intellectual muscle. Academic writing is therefore conversational, often questioning frequently skeptical, and sometimes downright exciting. By the end of this course students will understand how to apply the rhetorical strategies involved in replying to other academics in concise, well-developed, carefully crafted prose. There will be a minimum of four papers, as well as a weekly one-page paper on the reading assignments. Revision will be emphasized through the writing and rewriting of drafts. Participation is a vital part of the course, as is consistent attendance, and unflagging spirits. See www-personal.umich.edu/~swabey.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 003.

Instructor(s): Flores

No Description Provided

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Section 004.

Instructor(s): Daphne Swabey (swabey@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~swabey/

See English 125.002.

Section 005, 023.

Instructor(s): Herold

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

The central purpose of this class is to teach you to recognize the problems in your writing on your own. To that end, you will write several drafts of your papers, subjecting them to various kinds of peer critique. Thus the most important text in the course will be your own papers. Our topics will be supplied by Our Times, a collection of magazine articles on various contemporary subjects.

Just for a change of pace, we will also read a novel, Snow Falling on Cedars on and off through the term.

Course texts: A writing handbook, Our Times, Snow Falling on Cedars, a slim coursepack.

Required work: Faithful and enthusiastic attendance and participation, detailed written peer critiques, 4 papers with revisions, in the 3-6 page range.

Section 006.

Instructor(s): C. Harrison

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Writing is a skill that takes practice. As with any skill, writing requires constant doing and redoing. Students will give and receive peer criticism as well as comments from the instructor. They will learn to communicate their thoughts clearly and logically through journal entries, responses to reading assignments, and formal essays. The purpose of this course is twofold: to train students to think critically and analytically, and to guide them in expressing their thoughts through writing. Students will write and revise several papers of varying lengths. The total number of revised pages will number between 20 and 30. Essay topics will consist of argumentative subjects based on reading assignments as well as topics of the student's own choosing.

Section 007.

Instructor(s): Paterson

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course aims to prepare eager students for essay writing at the college level. To accomplish this feat we will read and analyze works by experienced writers in order to determine writing strategies. In our own compositions on a variety of subjects, we will practice coming up with topics for essays, writing with an intended audience in mind, and creating persuasive and engaging prose. Along with reading and writing nonfiction, students can also expect peer critiques (written and verbal comments analyzing classmates' papers) to be an essential part of the class experience. Requirements will include class attendance and participation and several essays of varying lengths. By the end of the semester each student is expected to have compiled between 20 to 30 pages of revised, polished prose (which means, of course, that you will be writing more pages than that).

Section 008.

Instructor(s): K. Bell

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

One will often hear two phrases associated with words: "Words are powerful" and "Words could never do it justice." The curious tension between these statements is where the joy of writing comes - struggling with unwieldy phrases until they capture at least a fraction of your experience, until these frustrating words become one of your most immediate tools of communication. The goal of this class is to enable each student to express themselves with language. We will read essays by many thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. DuBois, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, and David Foster Wallace, and through group discussion and individual written reader responses analyze how these thinkers structure their ideas, what poetic imagery they use in their arguments, who they're arguing to, etc. Each student will complete 20-30 pages of prose during the semester through four paper assignments which will range in length from two to ten pages. Students will take part in in-class workshops of their own and their peers' writing, including written peer reviews, and take part in frequent in-class written exercises. Revisions will be required for every essay. The final essay will be a research paper focusing on issues of the student's choice, and each student will give a brief class presentation on their topics.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 009.

Instructor(s): Rompf

No Description Provided

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Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 010.

Instructor(s): Burki

No Description Provided

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Section 011.

Instructor(s): Doshi

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is as much about reading as it is about writing. Reading a variety of non-fiction texts, students in this course will observe how different rhetorical modes operate within the different disciplines. While you will be introduced to the modes of argumentation deemed appropriate to the different disciplines, you will also be encouraged to develop your own style of writing, your "personal voice." In other words you will learn to experiment with your writing just as you will acclimate yourself to writing in different contexts, with sensitivity towards your audience. Class requirements include 4 papers of varying lengths, totalling 30-35 pages, short weekly response papers and written reviews of each other's work.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 012, 083.

Instructor(s): Kuhn

No Description Provided

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Section 013.

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will use reading as a way to practice and develop college writing skills. Working from the anthology Ways of Reading, we will focus on themes of writing in the "real" world, writing culture, and experimental writing "outside of the lines." Although our primary focus will be on the thesis-driven essay, this class will prepare students to meet the writing requirements of different disciplines. Four pieces of revised prose and several in-class writing assignments will be required.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 014, 017, 067.

Instructor(s): Csengeri

No Description Provided

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Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 015, 041.

Instructor(s): Cooley

No Description Provided

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Section 016, 018, 092.

Instructor(s): Su

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

In this course we will develop and refine skills of critical reasoning and writing. In our increasingly competitive economy, the ability to write clear, convincing prose is more and more necessary for advancement in any field. This involves firstly analyzing, synthesizing, and responding to others' texts. From this basis, one shapes and develops individual perspectives in sentences, paragraphs, and essays.

Revision will be the keyword of the course. Together we will write, rewrite, and rewrite again. I firmly believe that learning as a community offers the best way for developing individual abilities. Accordingly, active class participation will be important. Throughout the semester we will read and constructively critique each other's work. In our interactions over the semester each of us will struggle to become a better thinker and to develop a unique and effective writing voice.

Course requirements include 5 formal papers (4-6 pp.), 10 short peer critiques, various informal writing exercises, and active class participation.

Section 017.

Instructor(s): Csengeri

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.014.

Section 018.

Instructor(s): Su

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.016.

Section 019 – Secrets and Lies.

Instructor(s): Senders

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Pssst. Wanna know a secret? We'll be investigating the role of secrecy and lying in our lives and in the lives of others. We'll read, for example, about secrecy in the work of nuclear weapons scientists, initiation rituals in Melanesia, and American marriages. We'll also be asking and writing about the role of secrecy and lying in our everyday lives; how do we make sense of our experiences as liars, and how do we interpret the lying of others? Is secrecy antithetical or essential to democracy? How does lying influence "identity"? And what do we mean when we talk about "telling the truth"? Readings will include congressional hearings, anthropological accounts of secret societies, works of fiction, and sociological and literary theory. Expect to write 20-30 pages of revised, graded prose by the end of the term.

Section 020.

Instructor(s): Hwa

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Writing will be an integral part of almost every college course you take. Why not learn to do it well? This course is a step-by-step approach to building and refining your writing skills so you can craft effective, original, and polished prose for different academic contexts. By learning to respond critically and intelligently to everything you read, from published articles to work generated by the class, you will discover how to improve your writing through self-assessment, revision, and the input of your classmates. Requirements include conscientious attendance, informal response papers, in-class and take-home exercises, peer critiques, and essays (and drafts) of varying lengths. You will leave with 20-30 pages of revised prose and approaches to writing that will serve you throughout your college career and beyond. This is a collaborative effort, so bring coffee (if you need it) and an eagerness to participate!

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 021.

Instructor(s): Cosgrove

No Description Provided

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Section 022 – Education and Identity: Examining the College Experience.

Instructor(s): J. Johnson

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

I hope that we find this course to be both worthwhile and enjoyable. I look forward to our discussion and evaluations of the diverse purposes, practices, and philosophies of the collegiate experience. As a college student, you are already an authority on many of the topics we will cover. Specifically, we will consider popular perspectives of the college experience, debates over the curriculum, intellectual development, and developing a sense of belonging in college.

In addition to examining the college experience, entering, understanding, and succeeding in the discourse community of collegiate writers is central to this course. And, we must bear in mind that developing strong argumentative writing skills is a messy, non-linear process. We will often find ourselves examining and revising thoughts we had previously found to be sound and complete. Some of our initial theses may evolve into wildly different notions by the end of the semester – or even by our second or third drafts. In order to be better writers, we have to be more complex thinkers. And, through writing, revision, and collaboration with each other, we will learn to express more complicated thoughts in coherent fashion

Finally, I feel that there is a good deal of "truth" in the statement, "you get out of college what you put into it." Hopefully, this class will get you off to a good start in deciding how you are going to get what you want out of your college career.

Section 023.

Instructor(s): Herold

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.005.

Section 024, 034, 047.

Instructor(s): O'Keefe

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This composition course will focus on critical thinking, reading, and writing, with an emphasis on the ethics of written discourse. The course entails identifying and exploring ethical questions involving such topics as civil rights, the media, and the educational system. We will practice identifying multiple points of view on an issue; generating and developing our own perspectives and positions; articulating our thoughts in convincing sentences, paragraphs, and essays; and summarizing, documenting, and responding to others' texts responsibly. Peer revision groups will study numerous pieces of writing, some by professional writers, many by classmates. In the process, we will develop effective rhetorical techniques relating to purpose, audience, organization, style, evidence, and academic conventions. Assignments will include four formal, revised essays of varying lengths (3-8 pages), peer critiques of each formal paper, several shorter exploratory papers, in-class exercises, and large and small group discussions.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 025, 032, 042.

Instructor(s): Meyer

No Description Provided

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Section 026.

Instructor(s): Whitworth

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

ENG 125 aims to help you find ways to make your writing more dynamic, polished, and persuasive. By the end of the course, you should have improved your ability to communicate your ideas clearly and effectively to an audience of college-educated adults. My hope is that over the course of this semester you'll come to think of writing as an incessant process of rereading and revision rather than as an attempt to produce a perfect, finished product in one or two sittings. You will, consequently, receive intensive instruction and practice in writing five fully developed and revised essays. Your classmates and I will help you learn to analyze your audience; to discover which of the many prewriting techniques works best for you; to organize and develop ideas in a coherent, unified structure; and to revise, rewrite, and edit your own work. You will also receive a thorough grammar review and gain a familiarity with MLA, APA, and Chicago-style documentation conventions for essays using secondary sources. Required texts: Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources, The Little Brown Essential Handbook, The St. Martin's Guide to Writing.

Section 027, 033.

Instructor(s): Phoebe Jackson (pjack@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: https://coursetools.ummu.umich.edu/1999/fall/lsa/enll/125/027.nsf

This course will help you prepare for the type of thinking and writing that you will need to be successful at the university. Our first step will be to engage our thinking of critical issues by reading short non-fiction and fiction pieces. To improve your writing, you will write one-page reading responses for each article you read and four papers of polished prose of approximately 5-6 pages in length. All of your papers will go through multiple drafts before an individual paper is finalized. To increase your ability to analyze text and to help your peers improve their written communication, you will be expected to read and comment upon early drafts of their papers. Your final grade will be based upon active class participation (which includes reading responses, peer responses, and multiple drafting) and four formal essays.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 028.

Instructor(s): Loncar

No Description Provided

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Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 029.

Instructor(s): Carroll

No Description Provided

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Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 030, 073.

Instructor(s): Dreiser

No Description Provided

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Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 031.

Instructor(s): Stanton

No Description Provided

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Section 032.

Instructor(s): Meyer

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.025.

Section 033.

Instructor(s): Phoebe Jackson (pjack@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: https://coursetools.ummu.umich.edu/1999/fall/lsa/enll/125/033.nsf

See English 125.027.

Section 034.

Instructor(s): O'Keefe

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.024.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 038.

Instructor(s): Nelson

No Description Provided

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Section 039 – Writing as Revision.

Instructor(s): Spring

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

"Have I said it before? I am learning to see. Yes, I am beginning. It's still going badly. But I intend to make the most of my time." R.M. Rilke

How do we begin to take part in academic and professional discourses? This class will explore how to enter such discourses through our reading, thinking and writing. These three acts require that we see and re-see, that we participate in the fundamental act of re-vision (of "seeing again"), in order to open spaces within established arguments and then expand them through personal and interdisciplinary analysis.

Coursework will include intensive, thoughtful reading of all assigned texts; an in-class and reader-response journal; active participation; faithful, early morning attendance; four essays and extensive revisions; and graded peer critiques and workshops.

Required Text: Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers, by D. Bartholomae and A. Petrosky.

Section 040.

Instructor(s): Sulzer

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Dedicated to creative, coherent argumentative writing, our course will be time-consuming and expectations will be great. Texts will be political and philosophical in nature: radio reports, newspaper articles, documentaries, environmental essays, readings on American culture. We will talk throughout the semester about various approaches to argumentative writing, working together to discover the art of this form. Thirty pages of finished work and participation in regular peer reviews required.

Section 041.

Instructor(s): Cooley

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.015.

Section 042.

Instructor(s): Meyer

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.025.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 043.

Instructor(s): P. O'Keeffe

No Description Provided

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Section 044, 048 – This section is restricted to students from the Michigan Community Scholars Program (formerly known as the 21st Century Program).

Instructor(s): Scott Kassner (skassner@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~skassner/Eng125.html

This section of English 125, developed specifically for students enrolled in the new Michigan Community Scholars Program in Mary Markley Hall, will focus on writing within the context of community service. In addition to attending the course and doing course assignments, students will work for selected community groups as part of their Community Scholars Program community service commitment or as an additional commitment. Ideally, much of the students' writing will be done "for" the community groups in the form of newsletters, public relations announcements, reports, pamphlets, etc. Also, students will use writing to reflect upon their community service experience, and there will be reading and writing assignments that will ask students to consider community service learning within the context of contemporary American society and higher education. Students should be aware that the specifics of the course may change as the Community Scholars Program evolves.

Section 045.

Instructor(s): Daphne Swabey (swabey@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~swabey/

See English 125.002.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 046.

Instructor(s): Roux

No Description Provided

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Section 047.

Instructor(s): O'Keefe

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See English 125.024.

Section 048 – This section is restricted to students from the Michigan Community Scholars Program (formerly known as the 21st Century Program).

Instructor(s): Scott Kassner (skassner@umich.edu)

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~skassner/Eng125.html

See English 125.044.

Section 049.

Instructor(s): Young

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will cover the fundamentals of effective college writing, with special attention to the thesis paragraph and the use of examples and evidence. We will use our reading assignments as models to analyze professional writers' styles and structures of argument. Through a series of four student papers, we will break down the writing process into its main components. Early in the term students will write and revise drafts in order to establish themselves as clear and confident college writers. By the end of the term you will have written 20-30 pages of revised, polished prose.

Section 050.

Instructor(s): DeRoo

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

The purpose of this course is to give you tools that will enable you to strengthen your general writing skills, both during the semester and long after you have completed the course. Regardless of your future ambitions, being able to write well is essential to your pursuits and goals. Nearly all vocations and fields of study require the ability to communicate your ideas and thoughts clearly and concisely on the page. Using peer critiques, workshops of your rough drafts, in-class exercises and assignments, and assigned readings by published essayists as bouncing boards for discussion and learning, we will explore different aspects of the essay form to sharpen your writing skills, including methods of structure and form, style, voice, and theme. Required work: 4 revised papers of 4-8 pages; peer critiques; summary-response questions to reading; in-class exercises.

Engl. 125. College Writing.

Section 051.

Instructor(s): Bredle

No Description Provided

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Section 052.

Instructor(s): F. Delbanco

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is designed to introduce students to essay writing at the college level. Whatever subjects you go on to study, critical composition will constitute a major part of your work here at the University of Michigan. In this class we'll take time to focus on every aspect of the writing process, from choosing a paper topic to revising your final draft.

Since reading and practicing are the two surest ways to improve writing, we'll be doing a lot of both over the course of the semester. Requirements will include four separate revised essays (totaling about 25 pages of polished prose), several ungraded in-class assignments, and readings from a wide range of modern masters (including George Orwell and Joan Didion). Workshopping will play an essential role in this class; by examining and critiquing drafts of each other's work we will learn to be expert editors – of each other and of ourselves.

Section 053, 087, 090.

Instructor(s): Kremer

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

"Lure the reader in!"

The imperative above reflects your task, always, as a writer: engage the reader. Make the reader want to keep reading. In this section of English 125: College Writing, you will concentrate first on "Writing," then on the modifier "College." By the time we get to "College," you will have engaged your creative, analytical, critical, intuitive, humorous, serious and committed writerly personas, and – here's the secret – you will remain engaged with the whole gang as you fine-tune various approaches to exposition, narrative, argument, textual analysis and the wide and compelling world of writerly rhetoric.

Coursework includes attentive and engaged reading of all assigned texts; discussions and workshops; written peer critiques; frequent short writing assignments and exercises, including process-writing on your own work; four essays and their substantive revision; and presentation of a dramatic monologue.

Required Texts, available @ Shaman Drum Bookstore: A Community of Writers, Peter Elbow & Pat Belanoff, eds., and The Little, Brown Compact Handbook, Jane E. Aaron, ed.

Other required materials: Coursepack, available @ Acc-U-Copy, 518 E. William, dictionary, thesaurus, and a journal, loose-leaf binder or