Texts
Latterell, Catherine G. ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture. 1st ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005. ISBN: 9780312430184.
Lunsford, Andrea A. Easy Writer: A Pocket Reference. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005. ISBN: 9780312433093.
Holson, Laura M. "Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old." The New York Times, March 9, 2008.
Gladwell, Malcolm. "The Coolhunt." The New Yorker Archive, March 17, 1997.
| SES # | READINGS |
|---|---|
| 1 |
Gladwell, Malcom. "Brain Candy." The New Yorker, May 16, 2005, 88-89. Klosterman, Chuck. "Campus Confidential." The New York Times Book Review, August 22, 2004, 10. Gallagher, Hugh. "College Essay." |
| 2 | Hale, Constance, and Jessie Scanlon, eds. Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age. New York, NY: Broadway Books, 1999. ISBN: 9780767903721. (Excerpts) |
| 3 | In ReMix, Introduction for Students, xxxi-liii and "Identity" chapter, 3-83. |
| 4 | Library session |
| 8 | In ReMix, "Community" chapter, selections |
| 9 |
Gladwell, Malcolm. "The Coolhunt." The New Yorker, March 17, 1997. Video: The Merchants of Cool. Frontline. Directed by Barak Goodman. Boston, MA: WGBH Boston, 2001. |
| 10 | In ReMix, "Tradition" chapter, selections |
| 12 | In ReMix, "Romance" chapter, selections |
| 14 | In ReMix, "Entertainment" chapter, selections |
| 16 | In ReMix, "Technology" chapter, selections |
| 24 | Last class meeting: celebratory reading and refreshments |
The Reader's Notebook
Part of your work for the semester will be to read all the material assigned as carefully and attentively as you can and to write informally about the reading you do. I will expect about half a page or so of written response to each reading selection. If you want to respond to two or three selections in one notebook entry because they are related in subject matter or style, your entry should be correspondingly longer. I expect your responses to be passages of prose and not just notes and jottings alone (though it is fine to do those jottings in addition to the prose entries, if you want). I expect them also to be informal, speculative, reflective of careful reading, and written in a spirit of questioning and exploration. You should feel free to use your notebook to raise questions, record observations, react as you feel moved to do, change your mind, reflect on or react to class discussions, note connections you see with other texts, both those assigned for the course and other things you've read, films or television or ads you've seen, things you've observed, and so on.
Each notebook entry must be headed with a full bibliographic citation of the piece you are responding to. (On handouts, I will provide the necessary publishing information.) Also, when you quote directly or refer to something in the text, you should cite the page of the source in parentheses (the MLA in-text citation style).
The criterion for a successful notebook is this question: Does what I have written adequately represent my experience of reading and thinking about what I have read?
In addition to responding to the assigned reading, I ask that you attend a reading, lecture, or other event relevant to our course topic and write a review/response in your notebook. I'll announce some events I think appropriate from time to time; you should feel free to do so as well. If there is an event you want to attend and you're not sure it would be appropriate, just check with me.
Your notebook entries should be typed. Keeping your responses on a disk as well is a good way to make sure a lost notebook doesn't present serious problems at the end of the semester, but always print out a hard copy and have it available for me to collect when I call for your notebook. And please keep your notebook writing separate from all the handouts, class notes, and other writing for the course.
I will collect notebooks for a quick review regularly but randomly; please bring your notebook with you to each class meeting.
My hope is that keeping the notebook will deepen and enrich both the reading and writing you'll do in the weeks ahead, and that it will help you in your efforts to further develop your abilities as a reader and writer, both in school and out.