Week 1 - The Sense of Place

Beginning reflection -- Write a brief description of the place you call "home," or of some other place you have a personal relationship with. Then, use your experience of reading Barry Lopez's The Rediscovery of North America to help you think even more deeply about an encounter you have had with a place, either past or present, but get in lots of details about the place--map it in words. In particular, think of the way Lopez defines the Spanish term la querencia: "a place in which we know exactly who we are. The place from which we speak our deepest beliefs" (39). For Lopez, calling a place home means developing this kind of a relationship with that place--a relationship which he contrasts with the attitude held by the Spanish explorers and by many groups within current U.S. society. Some questions/issues to think about:

Thanks to Karla Ambruster for help with this assignment.

Week 2 - Reading, Writing and Research

This week we'll use William Stafford's essay on writing to talk about the writing process (and his point is that it is a process) and review some things you learned in 101. We'll also discuss the techniques of summary, paraphrase, and quotation, and learn how to punctuate and document these. For some help, you can consult your Writer's Reference, or see this resource for using MLA format.

We'll use Richard Wright's experiences with reading to discuss the reading process and ways to read with 1) a critical eye, and 2) a writer's eye.  When you read, you should mark up your text and make notes in it.  Focus on specifics rather than large generalizations. Ask questions as you go: what does this mean or imply? Why does it appear in this place? Who is associated with it? Does it repeat, affirm, or deny something else? Arrange these notes into sentences, and the sentences into a log entry. To practice, you should write a log on the Eudora Welty story, "A Worn Path" and it's supplement, "The Point of the Story" (write one log for both).  Remember to note words you don't know, and to include a question with your response.  Reading Log Example.

On Friday, we'll meet in the library to learn more about how to search and re-search, and how to assess the utility of the stuff we find. Related to this, you might ask yourself the very question that Wright does in paragraph 3: "Now, how could I find out this Mencken?" (625).  Use one of the search engines on the resources page to find out about Mencken, and report on your findings to the class on Wednesday. 

Week 3 - Past

Begin writing logs for each of the pieces we read, unless instructed to do otherwise by your instructor.  During this week, we'll explore issues of the past: relating to it, writing about it, recovering (from) it.  You should also do an annotation on a source related to the history of your place.  Annotation example on The Geography of Nowhere.  Annotation example on The Rediscovery of North America.

Begin compiling a "Working Bibliography," and from there start to evaluate and manage the information in the sources.  Scan them first to determine their utility.  If they will be useful to you, read them more thoroughly to write an annotation on them. 

If you get more interested in Wendell Berry, the reading for Monday, see this interview.  E.B. White is a well-known craftsman of essays, but may be better known for his children's books, Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, and for his book on writing, The Elements of Style, with William Strunk.  Also, this week we'll begin discussing some chapters from The Geography of Nowhere.  Check out the author's home page, and his "eyesore of the month." 

Week 4 - Culture

This week we'll begin to examine the culture of particular places.  You can probably recognize that your own school has a different "culture" than schools where your friends go, even from that one only 10 minutes away.  Culture includes the language, ideas, beliefs, customs, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, and ceremonies of a particular group of people. Your culture influences how you think and behave.  We could talk about an American culture or a Southern culture or a more regional and locally defined culture.  If they "cruise the strip" in your particular town, that town probably has a particular culture, and we'll look into the "car culture" of America that Kunstler describes in "Joyride." 

Here is some help with documenting electronic sources using MLA style for your annotations. 

Week 5 - Nature

Most of know something about Henry David Thoreau.  We know him as the one who influenced Ghandi and Martin Luther King or as the hermit sitting meditatively by the pond. That myth of Eden, of stasis has a strong allure, and the reason it does may say more about our own complex, industrial situation than it does his. Is it an adolescent dream, to get away from our responsibilities?  For Monday's class, go the Thoreau webpage and find out something about this writer to report on to the class.

Remember, the annotations should do four things:  1) provide the MLA reference; 2) provide some summary of the material (MLA internal notation if you quote things, and you must cite the source if you're using the the author's words or ideas); 3) provide some commentary on the source:  evaluate and assess it; 4) tell how it will be useful in your paper. 

For this week's annotation, find out about your place's natural history or geography.  If you've only used the internet so far to gather sources, concentrate on other mediums from here on out.  

If you're still not sure about what this paper will look like, check the sample, or look at this profile of people and place in the Monday, February 7, edition of The Roanoke Times. 

Week 6 - Work

This week we’ll be discussing issues related work and commerce, and you might think about the economy in your own places. There may be a single industry associated with your place and providing the single reason for its being:  railroad, mining, agriculture, etc.  Studs Terkel’s piece about a spot welder should draw our attention to another kind of research, not the information we get second-hand from books or articles, but the kind we gain first hand (or primary research). As a field researcher, you get information directly from your informants (those you interview) or your own observations. But good field research still involves interpretation: give the data you collect that same kind of critical reading and analysis you give other sources and the conclusions you can draw from them.

Remember, you can turn in such interview or field notes as your week's annotations. To do field work, you must also do some preparation. You must schedule a visit or interview, and you should begin doing so now. There’s usually a place in every community--the grange hall, coffee shop, general store, etc.--where you can take the pulse of the community. Such locales would be good spots to park yourself and talk to residents. You might also know of someone in your area or place who knows a great deal about it. Give them a call, or, if they use email (remember, many older residents do not), send them an email interview. Avoid yes, no, or “leading” (where you “lead” them to an answer) questions. Instead, ask open-ended questions (like the kind we ask in our logs) that will get them talking, and you writing.

If you visit, you might bring a tape recorder and even a camera to take pictures to paste into your final paper (we'll discuss how). When you report on your findings in your paper, you will work to interpret data and not just present details. We call the kind of research that interprets the practices, behaviors, and attitudes of particular groups ethnographic research. Ethnography (ethno=people + graphi=writing), a kind of cultural analysis, aims for in-depth understanding.

Week 7 -- Drafting the Proposal

During this week, we'll meet in the computer room to discuss some features of document design. We'll work through some of the things found in "Document Design" chapter of A Writer's Reference, such as format, headings, spacing, justification.  You should turn in a draft of your proposal to you peer review group, then read your group's drafts and comment on them, using the peer review sheet.  The comments should written with the same care a detail that you use to write logs, and you will turn them in and get credit for them as if they were that day's log.  The only difference:   we will be reading the writing that we produce rather than the writing in our book.   And, you should use the peer review sheet to guide your response. Please be specific (quote things--not just it was descriptive but what, specifically), analytical (help them think through the problem and place they will explore, help them analyze their audience); and helpful.  

Week 9 -- Stories

This week we will talk about actual stories (now, in your reading logs, you can refer to them as stories).  In your annotations, you should try to research about the literature or writers that are associated with your place.  For example, if you live near the Great Dismal Swamp, you should check out what William Byrd once wrote about it in The History of the Dividing Line (you can find excerpts in literature anthologies--see one of us for suggestions).   There might be other stories or myths associated with your place, such the as the "Jersey Devil" that we'll read about in The Pine Barrens.  What other ballads, yarns, or legends are there associated with your place?  Remember, after the break, you will turn in two annotations peer week. Interviews you conduct count, and so can pictures or maps that you dig up (you must still provide MLA references for them). Remember that an annotation is four parts:   the reference, a summary of what it is, some evaluation and commentary of whether of or not the source is good, and some discussion of how it will be useful to your project. 

For the week following break, we should pay particular attention to how we write about stories or literature.  Your will write the same reading log, but be as careful as you can in discussing the these carefully constructed pieces of writing.   Everything, I mean everything, in a short story was put there, and in the place that it is, for a reason.  For example, why doesn't the summary in the second- to-last paragraph of "I Stand Here Ironing" come earlier? After all, It seems to clarify and organize some impressions we might already have. But in a way, it seems incomplete in its clinical precision (meaning, behavior of human beings is not so easily explained away) and gives way to the final paragraph that begins with the request, "let her be" (415), focused on the brilliant image of the "dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron," which links the story's end to its beginning, and directs attention to the true central character.  But then again, we might debate that--who is the main character? 

Your log is an interpretation of an important question like this one. There may be no "right" answers, only better ones supported with evidence. Unlike an essay, a story's main point or theme will not be stated explicitly. You'll have to uncover it, through careful reading and re-reading--and writing.  

I think I have to say it:  this is one of my all-time favorite stories. The image of the mother standing there, wielding the iron, controlling the very symbol of the circumstances that have almost "flattened" (stories are metaphorical like this) her, painting her own self-portrait (like Whistler's), and calling for help not in adjusting Emily to the world but in making the world a place in which Emily can "be." 

Then there's the Faulkner and O'Connor stories. There's a sound that good writing makes:   ahhhhhhhhahh.  

Week 10 -- Places

The Stravinsky essay might focus your attention on the sights, sounds, and smells of your place as you attempt to evoke it for your reader.  The Houston essay, "Sand, Tattoo, and the Golden Gate," seems to about a father, but is also about being "anchored" in a place.  It's also deft at bringing these seemingly disparate elements (sand, tatoos, golden gates) together into a unified essay.   How will you similarly subordinate the parts of your essay into one whole?  What event, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and Houston's hiding behind the billboard, could you use to set your essay in motion? 

The McPhee essay about Atlantic City is another good one to study.  It might appear through a first reading that McPhee jumps around (no transitions), but he's skillful at weaving a dominant impression from both the board game and the actual places. Consider question #7 in your book:  "How much information about your own city or town could you find by walking a few of its streets?   Try it. Take copious notes on your observations and impressions.  Then devise a thesis that would help you organize your material into an interesting essay."  

Week 11 - All

This week we'll be reading John McPhee's The Pine Barrens.  McPhee is from Princeton, New Jersey.  See a brief profile by David Itzkoff, who studied writing with McPhee. Instead of the normal reading log, write a response to one of these questions, using web resources for help.  And, this time only, please email your response to your instructor before class.

1.  McPhee's name is virtually synonymous with non-fiction and essay writing.   He sold non-fiction essays for to the New Yorker for many years. At Princeton University, he has taught a course, "The Literature of Fact," that explores the principles of his approach to writing.  Select a few instances in The Pine Barrens where you feel that he does or does not handle facts artfully. Some resources that may help are a book on literary nonfiction, a university program in creative nonfiction, and an essay on McPhee as cultural interpreter.

2. You can sometimes tell an author by his readers. This rare book dealer has established McPhee as a collector's item, while the largest online book seller has every McPhee title in print. The Pine Barrens has been in print for 30 years, and reader responses will tell you why.  Enter "John McPhee" and explore other titles that interest you: what do the reader responses and collector prices say about McPhee's audience and "market" value? Do those factors influence his account of The Pine Barrens?

3. McPhee published his book in 1967.  Use the web to find out how have the Pine Barrens have changed since then. What are the key environmental issues that concern its visitors and residents? If you find differences, how do they reflect on his earlier reporting?