A Note About Books

All the books I ordered for you ARE in print. Sometimes they're harder to find, especially in big-box stores like B&N's and Border's. They stock books that they know they can sell a lot of. Unfortunately that leaves out a lot of our best poetry. Robert Lowell, for example, is an interesting case. Lowell's complete poems came out just a few years ago, and boy would B&N rather you buy that expensive, hardback book as opposed to the wee little single edition of Life Studies! How evil, right? If you're having trouble finding your books, looking online is the best way to go. Either that, or head on over to OUR little text and supply store and they should all be available for you. That's why it's there. 

The point: Don't count on just hopping in your car and taking a trip to Borders to find your books. Think ahead and carefully consider how long it will take to receive your books, etc., so you can get your assignments in on time. 

For My Screenwriters:

Ben Stiller and Jerry Stahl

Posted: August 30, 2009 10:47 PM

Two Young (-ish, at the Time) Punks Attempt to Re-Write Schulberg

Read More: Ben Stiller, Budd Schulberg, Jerry Stahl, On The Waterfront, Permanent Midnight, What Makes Sammy Run,Entertainment News

I guess you could say that our relationship with Budd Schulberg was typical Hollywood: we met him, we liked each other, and in the end, we kind of broke his heart. But that didn't mean we didn't stay friends. In Hollywood, nobody will hurt you like your friends. It's a given. Sometimes it's intentional, Sammy Glick-style, but it's worse when it isn't. Which doesn't make it any easier to write about. We both ended up loving Budd and, given the shot, like many others before us, we couldn't get the movie of his classic, What Makes Sammy Run?, made. Why us? Why did we think we could do what others had not done for 60 years? Why not us, we thought at the time. Of course, here we are 13 years later, and not quite there. Okay, nowhere. And Budd, rest his soul, was a lot more gracious about our failure than his indelible Sammy would have been. As Al Manheim, Sammy's Boswell put it: "Sammy always made you feel that any confession of failure was on level with admitting that you had a yen for nothing but female dogs and ten-year-old corpses..."

Recently we sat down to fake interview ourselves about how it all didn't happen, or maybe just to commiserate -- not as much about not getting the movie made, but about how we had finally lost an unlikely friend.

Ben: In '96 I got a new agent right before The Cable Guy bombed. His first piece of advice was not to do anything for six months. He said I was in "movie jail." I had time to read. Billy Gerber and Gene Kirkwood, at Warner Brothers, somehow got the idea to give me a shot at greatness. They said why don't you direct and act in Sammy. I read the book and loved it. Sounded like a good idea to me, especially considering my incarceration. The financing for the movie I was waiting to play Jerry Stahl in -- Permanent Midnight -- was taking a while to come through (if ever, according to my agent/jailer), so I asked Jerry if he wanted to work on re-writing Budd's script with me in the meantime. Why did I ask Jerry? I knew he was a good writer and I was scared out of my mind to try to do it alone.

Jerry: Ben Stiller, fresh off Cable Guy, Jerry Stahl, fresh off a park bench in MacArthur Park. In retrospect, I can imagine how thrilled Budd Schulberg, the man who wrote On The Waterfront, must have been to have a couple of giants adapting the greatest work of his lifetime.

It was not like we were the first to tackle Sammy. The book has already shown up as a live television drama on Philco Television Playhouse in '49. It was revived in 1959 as a two-parter on NBC, with future Dynasty giant John Forsythe as Al Manheim and Larry Blyden as Sammy. Steve Lawrence starred in a Broadway musical version in 1964. (Weirdly, three years before Hair.)

Ben: In the nine months it took to get the financing for Permanent Midnight, we re-wrote Schulberg. Our idea was that there be might be a way to contemporize the story, without re-setting it in the present. Keep the flavor of the era, but give it a little more "edge"... We even started writing in a suite at the Chateau Marmont. I seem to remember a bit of Musso & Frank's time, as well. Just to get that deep "Old Hollywood" feel. When we were done we had a great (or so we thought) script. We sent it to everyone and came to our first meeting -- thought we didn't know Budd was going to be there.

Jerry: We met around a tanker-sized mahogany table at Warner Bros. that might have been put there in the thirties. Budd came in: a shock of white hair, pink-cheeks, his blue eyes slightly watery but almost supernaturally piercing. He took us in, stayed quiet for a moment, and then spoke up in his trademark soft, susurrus stutter, and let us have it. With good reason. Whoever had typed up the title page left off "based on the novel by Budd Schulberg." (I blamed Ben. Ben blamed an assistant.) When Budd brought that up, out of the gate, I kind of loved him for it. He might have been an Oscar®-winning, two-legged incarnation of Hollywood History, but he was pissed, the way any writer would be pissed. And he let us know. Once he took us to school for our heinous faux pas, however, he relaxed and voiced only mild objections to our stab at rendering his classic for the screen.

Not surprisingly, Budd had actually adapted Sammy for the screen before we ever rolled in. But nobody wanted to make his, either. Which may be one explanation of why he never leapt out of his chair screaming at the fact that he, the grand master, had to sit there and let two little pischers make carnival with his masterpiece. He was a gentleman.

There are good projects that don't get made all the time. Most aren't famous for not getting made. And most aren't written by an author who is Hollywood incarnate history, who literally penned one of the most quoted lines in Hollywood history, "I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am..." And which was what we felt like, after a while, for never being able to deliver what we knew would mean so much to Budd.

Ben: But still, we stayed in touch, years after there was any real talk of mounting the movie. Whenever I'd re-connect with Budd, he'd look at me with those alarmingly blue eyes, "Well...?" And I'd just sigh ... "Not yet, Budd, not yet." I had to get over the feeling that every time we saw each other we were both reminding ourselves of the unfinished business between us, and the frustration we both felt. I don't know if I ever did.

I gave him an award a couple of years back at some make shift film festival in Culver City. I dropped it off the podium, of course, and Budd just laughed. At some point he really could have just said, "Enough of you, Stiller, and your pseudo- Sammy crusade. You had my baby, and you didn't get it done." It would have been easy, even expected. But he didn't. Never. He always asked how my dad was, or how the project I was working on was going.

The last time I saw him was with his family at a little restaurant on the upper west side, a breakfast place. He looked dapper, as always. I could tell he was feeling a bit under the weather, a little rundown. He had a surgery, and was recuperating. We didn't discuss Sammy that last time.

Jerry: The last time I saw him, a week before his death, was in Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. He had collapsed that morning and lost a lot of blood. But his eyes were just as intensely blue -- his cheeks still rosy. He seemed serene -- even as a frenetic parade of nurses, family and occasionally, an actual doctor stepped in to check him. I mentioned that I happened to be working on something about Hemingway, and at the sound of his name, Budd perked up. "He was a b-b-b-b-bully." Apparently the great man began to push and taunt young Budd from the moment they were introduced. "So, you think you're a writer, huh?" Eventually, Papa was unlucky enough to suggest a boxing match. He threw a punch at Budd. And Budd -- no stranger to the ring -- threw one back. That was that. "He didn't like it when you fought back," Budd said.

Everyone in the room listened with rapt fascination. It was a hell of a story.

Poetry Workshop Groups (for now)

Group 1: 

M Bridgmon

L Briedenbaugh

C Buskirk

B Cartensen

C Cardelli

Group 2:

S Clemente

A Collier

I Horn

A Knaack

J Lombardi

Group 3:

C Rees

D Shepherd

J Spangler

J Stamm

K Wetterer

Just Some Reminders...

We have to get through the obligatory first-day essays this week. Once we've accomplished this, we'll resume our regularly scheduled programs.

For lit. students: We won't start discussing Robert Lowell's Life Studies (Section II) till Tuesday of next week. If you haven't already, grab your copies and while you're at it, go ahead and grab your copies of the first few books on our schedule at least (The Crucible, The Bell Jar). You might consider beginning The Bell Jar. It's a novel (though a small one) and make take you a bit longer to get through. 

Your first reading responses will be due next Tuesday on Lowell's Life Studies (Section II). We'll discuss this in class tomorrow. 

For screenwriting students: We'll see how things go, but we probably won't begin our discussion of On the Waterfront today. However, keep reading, and we'll certainly get to it next week. 

For poetry students: Go ahead and get your copies of Creating Poetry and Big-Eyed Afraid at least. We'll discuss chapter 2 in CP on Friday and begin our discussion of Big-Eyed on Wed. of next week. Wed. will also be the day your first reading response is due. We'll discuss this in class today and/or Friday. 

Office Hours

...are now officially Wednesdays and Fridays 9-11 am. The syllabi I'll be passing out this week will reflect the change.

Announcement for all and most especially for my American lit

Hello from hot and humid South Carolina!

A few announcements while I bake in the sun:

1. At our faculty meeting Wednesday I learned that all students in literature and creative writing classes
must write a first day essay both for accreditation purposes, and to learn more about our students' general
essay writing abilities. Therefore:

2. For my lit. Students, please just focus on Lowell's Life Studies Parts 2 and 4. We'll discuss Part 1 but I won't hold you
accountable for it. This is so we'll have a bit more time for course/section introduction,etc.

NYTimes Book Review of Kaplan's 1959: The Year Everything Changed

The image of the 1950s as placid, suburban and conformist is easily scratched away with the touch of a fingernail. Over the past 15 years or so, historians and writers have revealed that many of the big-bang explosions in politics, culture and technology of the 1960s were rooted in little bangs from the previous decade.

Now Fred Kaplan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and columnist at Slate and an occasional contributor to The New York Times, has tried to further whittle down the decisive period to a single year in his new book, “1959: The Year Everything Changed.” Citing Lunik I, the Soviet spacecraft that plowed through the Earth’s atmosphere, and the strategist Herman Kahn’s frank talk about how to win a nuclear war, Mr. Kaplan writes, “It was this twin precipice — the prospect of infinite possibilities and instant annihilation, both teetering on the edge of a new decade — that gave 1959 its distinctive swoon and ignited its creative energy.”

However well — or poorly — young rebels in the heady ’60s may have amplified and executed the promised shifts in race relations, music, politics and sexual mores, Mr. Kaplan maintains, “These cataclysms spring not from the impulses or ideals of the baby-boom generation but rather from the revolts and revelations of 1959.”

To make his case, Mr. Kaplan offers readable, pocket-sized portraits of the most famous innovators from the ’50s — like Miles Davis, Norman Mailer and Gregory Pincus, co-inventor of the birth-control pill — as well as its less familiar ones, including George Russell, a theorist of jazz improvisation; John St. Clair Kilby, the microchip’s inventor; and Barney Rosset, the owner of Grove Press who sued to publish “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” after the United States Post Office confiscated copies of the uncensored version of the book for violating obscenity laws.

What becomes increasingly clear with every chapter, however, is that nearly any one of that decade’s other years could serve equally well, if not better, as a turning point. History rarely adheres to the Gregorian calendar, and the need to squish everything into the self-imposed 365-day timeline causes Mr. Kaplan at times to treat his argument like a gerrymandered district, stretching it beyond its natural shape.

Yes, 1959 can justifiably boast that it hosted Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba, Motown’s creation, the sale of the first practical business computer and the premiere of John Cassavetes’s independent film “Shadows.” Let’s even throw in the microchip: although that invention came in 1958, Texas Instruments didn’t announce it until 1959.

But critiques of conformity and materialism from David Riesman, William H. Whyte and John Kenneth Galbraith, as well as emblems of the generation gap, like “Rebel Without a Cause,” appeared earlier. Why choose Lunik as signifying the start of the space race and not Sputnik I’s trip around the globe in 1957, which led to the creation of NASA? Why pick Kahn’s lectures over the events of 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile and a presidential commission in the United States urged the adoption of a strategy to fight and win a nuclear war?

The development of the birth-control pill took years, so why choose the request for approval from the Food and Drug Administration and not the successful clinical trials in 1956, or its actual approval and sale in 1960? What’s the argument for singling out a poetry reading by Allen Ginsberg at Columbia University over his recitation of “Howl” in San Francisco in 1955 or the publication in 1957 of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and Mailer’s essay “The White Negro”? And does anyone really believe that the first report by the United States Commission on Civil Rights says more about the coming racial unrest and civil rights laws than the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 or the federal troops who had to protect the nine black students trying to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957?

In these cases and several others, the answer seems to be merely because it happened during the chosen year. That is unfortunate, because the irritating neon flash of 1959 distracts from the more insightful discussion of how musicians, writers, painters, comedians and others shared the same preoccupations.

Mr. Kaplan astutely focuses on jazz rather than on the much more familiar terrain of rock ’n’ roll, and he writes about it with particular feeling and fluency, tracing the impulse behind the music to other arenas. Ginsberg called the rhythm in his poem “Howl” “a spontaneous bop prosody.” Mr. Russell discerned links between the laws of music and those of the universe.Ornette Coleman described his compositions as “something like the paintings of Jackson Pollock.”

Others made larger leaps. Ralph Ellison wrote that jazz was the musical equivalent of America’s political system; the soloist, like the citizen, could do whatever he wanted as long as he respected the overall framework. Later, during the Black Power movement, jazz musicians offered a different analogy and saw Mr. Coleman’s innovations as “a political statement — breaking down chords and rhythms as a symbol for breaking down white authority and power.”

It would have been interesting to hear more on the relationship between formal structure in art and in politics. At one point Mr. Kaplan notes that Lionel Trilling, Ginsberg’s former professor at Columbia, believed form had a moral dimension. He understood how poets were seduced by the idea of discarding traditional structure because it promised freer and more genuine expression. But Trilling “found this notion illusory — and, more than that, dangerous, because unshackling formal structure could unravel the underlying social thread.” In art and society the impulse was similar: to throw off conventions, rules and traditions. That urge, minus the discipline that guided art, helped propel the events of the ’60s.

This book’s compact history showcases some of the significant, though lesser-known events on which the coming revolution was built. It doesn’t really matter if they can all be telescoped into a single year. In general, if you begin a sentence with “The

year ...” you should end it by noting the team that won the World Series or when you first fell in love.

-Patricia Cohen

All Fall Syllabi Up!!

You may want to scroll through and cut and paste your own, though I will be passing out hard copies on the first day of our classes. (Bear in mind that both sections of American lit. are exactly the same except for start and stop time and class room number.)

Instructor: Dr. Lesley Jenike

Course: LA491/Lecture/02-Screenwriting

Time: Fall 2009, Wed 3:30-6:20

Location: #224 Kinney Hall

Office: #206 Kinney Hall (last door)

Office Hours: Tues/Thurs 3:20-5 pm by appointment

Phone: 614-437-7380

Email: lesleyjenike@gmail.com, ljenike@ccad.edu

Blog: www.ccadfall09.blogspot.com

 

Course Description: Our class will serve as an introduction to the composition of screenplays, and the critique of peers’ scripts in a workshop setting. We’ll be focusing on the basic three act structure, plot and character development, and how to think (and write) visually. We will use as our models finished films and their scripts. We’ll also discuss essays and articles by those who’ve worked in the industry, and consult writers of all stripes who deal with the art of storytelling in general. It’s my hope that our class will give you the skills you need to finish what you started here, and the drive to keep writing in the future.

 

Texts:

Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. Random House, 2005.

Scripts found on www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml (this list is subject to change):

1.     Rushmore (Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson)

2.     Sunset Boulevard (Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman)

3.     On the Waterfront (Bud Schulberg)

4.     Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen)

5.     Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola) www.dailyscript.com/scripts/lost_in_translation.pdf

6.     LA Confidential (Brian Helgeland) www.dailyscript.com/scripts/ellay-confidential_early.html

 Various handouts and supplemental materials distributed in hardcopy or electronically.

 A Note On Assigned Screenplays:

To save you money and give us flexibility, I’m asking you to access and read the above scripts electronically. I realize that not everyone has a computer at home, so I’ll break our reading assignments up into digestible pieces that you can easily read on public computers if necessary (i.e. up to pg. 60 of a 120 min/pg. script). Because we won’t have hard copies in our hands during class, I will also ask you to take copious notes in your WRITER’S JOURNALS.

 Requirements:

1. Your participation in the daily workings of the class, that is: exercises every week typed up for workshop critique, many of which will be the result of formal assignments, imitations, etc. (this number may fluctuate depending upon the number of students enrolled in the course), contributions to our conversations, and comments on peers’ exercises/scripts.: 30%

2. A detailed, scene-by-scene screenplay treatment and AT MINIMUM 30 minutes (30 pgs or the first act) of your screenplay 30%

3. Weekly written responses to reading assignments (600-800 words or roughly 3-4 double-spaced pgs.): 30%

4. Writer’s journal: I’ll ask you to keep a bound notebook for informal, handwritten exercises, movie-watching and script-reading notes, overheard bits of dialogue, character sketches, images that strike you, etc.: 10%

 A Note on Reading Responses: There may be weeks when I give you specific questions to respond to in your typed essays (especially in respect to the readings from Screenplay, so check our blog and your email accounts regularly), and sometimes I may give you the freedom to discuss what you wish. When generating your responses, you might compare/contrast the reading to other scripts/texts we’ve discussed, or even those we haven’t. You’re even welcome to include, to some extent, your own experiences in writing your own screenplays. The main idea is to get you to start thinking about filmmaking as structural and formulaic, a formula that you yourself can imitate! However, I DO expect your responses to have a main idea or thesis statement that includes SUPPORT FROM THE TEXT. I DO NOT WANT PLOT SUMMARIES OR SIMPLE STATEMENTS OF LIKE OR DISLIKE!!! I will be grading your responses not only on your reading comprehension, but also on your ability to construct well-organized analyses/arguments. Please TYPE your responses and double-space them, use the MLA citation format when necessary. Make sure, too, that the responses come out to about 600-800 words or about three-four double-spaced pages.

 A Note on Workshops: For the first ten weeks we’ll be working on exercises that may or may not be directly related to your final project (of course, it’s preferable that they are). They will take a variety of different shapes and pg. lengths (though for the sake of brevity and your pocket-books, I’ll ask you to keep things contained to no more than five pgs), and on a rotating basis (meaning not everyone every week), I’ll ask you to bring in copies to share with the class. We may not get to read/talk about everyone’s exercises, but you will be contributing to our overall experience and your course participation grade. In the final few weeks of class, I will be dividing you up into roughly four groups of four. Each person in their given group will be designated time for an in-depth discussion of AT LEAST ten pages (ten minutes) of their final 30 pgs/min. first act to be turned in on the last day of class. Each person will be asked to pass out a copy of his/her script to each member of class for discussion. NO EXCUSES.

 Course Policies:

Attendance: It’s vital that you attend class and regularly participate in the discussion. In fact, the workshop depends on it! Don’t simply expect to show up for the class during which your script/exercise is to be discussed. Your peers deserve your respect and attention just as much as you do. Also, absences will disrupt the tight workshop schedule. You may miss one class for any reason without any repercussions, but if you miss more you may be asked to drop the workshop. If you miss a class when your exercise or script is “up” for critique, you’ll be relegated to the end of the next workshop session and there’s no guarantee we’ll get to your work. If you miss the class in which you are required to pass out an exercise, you’ll have to make arrangements to get copies to me and the rest of the class.

Other Late Assignments: You may always make up missed reading response assignments but if the assignment is not received by 5 pm the day it’s due, it will be docked five points (i.e. A to A-)

Other Stuff: Please turn off all electronica during class (unless you choose to take notes with a laptop on Tuesdays). Also, please remember to be respectful of others during class discussion (think before you speak!) and bring your texts and peers’ poems to class with you everyday. Be sure you have all the materials you need, you’re able to gain regular access to a computer and printer, and you have a way to save your work.

 ADA Statement: If you have a documented cognitive, physical, or psychological disability, which includes learning disabilities (LD), attention deficit disorder (ADD), depression, anxiety, or mobility, as described by Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it is recommended that you contact Disability Services at 614-222-3292.  Disability Services will assist you in arranging appropriate accommodations with the instructor.

 Schedule: (Subject to change)

 Note: (When you see an assigned reading beside a date, please have the reading completed by that date)

 *=Reading Response Due

#=Exercise Due

 Week 1

Wed 8/26: Introduction to course, introduction to screenwriting format/form, in-class exercises and readings

Read: Chapter 13, Screenplay, On the Waterfront (online)

 Week 2*, #

Wed 9/2: Beginning with a subject, determining dramatic need/conflict, in-class exercises and readings, continued discussion of On the Waterfront, screening scenes from On the Waterfront

Read: Chapter 1-2, Screenplay, On the Waterfront (online)

 Week 3*, #

Wed 9/9: Beginning with a character, the art of characterization, developing a character, in-class exercises and readings

Read: Chapters 4-5, Screenplay, Rushmore (online)

Week 4 #

Wed 9/16: Cont. work with character, in-class exercises and readings, screening scenes from Rushmore

Read: Chapters 4-5, Screenplay, Rushmore (online)

 Week 5*, #

Wed 9/23: How to begin: communicating important information quickly and visually, in-class exercises and readings

Read: Chapters 5-6, Screenplay, Sunset Boulevard (online)

 Week 6*, #

Wed 9/30: Incidents and plot points—for every action a reaction, in-class exercises and readings, screening scenes from Sunset Boulevard

Read: Chapters 8-9, Screenplay, Sunset Boulevard (online)

 Week 7*, #

Wed 10/7: Scenes and sequences: How to write them and what purpose do they serve? In-class exercises and readings

Read: Chapters 10-11, Screenplay, Broadway Danny Rose (online)

 Week 8#

Wed 10/14: Cont. work on scenes and sequences, in-class exercises and readings, screening scenes from Broadway Danny Rose

Read: Chapters 10-11, Screenplay, Broadway Danny Rose (online)

 Week 9*, #

Wed 10/21: Building the storyline scene by scene, in-class exercises and readings

Read: Chapter 12, Screenplay, Lost in Translation (online)

 Week 10#

Wed 10/28: Cont. work with treatments (beat sheets), index cards, outlines, etc. screening scenes from Lost in Translation

 Week 11*, #

Wed 11/4: Workshop Group 1

Read: Chapter 14, Screenplay, LA Confidential (online), Peers’ scripts

 Week 12

Wed 11/11: Workshop Group 2

Read: Peers’ scripts

 Week 13

Wed 11/18: Workshop Group 3 (GRADUATING SENIORS FINAL PROJECTS DUE)

Read: Peers’ scripts

 Week 14

Wed 11/25 NO CLASS THANKSGIVING

 Week 15

Wed 12/2: Workshop Group 4

Read: Peers’ scripts

 Week 16

Wed 12/9 LAST DAY OF CLASS/FINAL TREATMENT/30 PAGES DUE/FILM PITCHES 

Instructor: Dr. Lesley Jenike

Course: LA490B/Lecture/02-Writing Poetry

Time: Fall 2009, Wed/Fri 11 am-12:20 pm

Location: #224 Kinney Hall

Office: #206 Kinney Hall (last door)

Office Hours: Tues/Thurs 3:20-5 pm by appointment

Phone: 614-437-7380

Email: lesleyjenike@gmail.com, ljenike@ccad.edu

Blog: www.ccadfall09.blogspot.com

 Course Description: Our class will serve as an introduction to the composition of poetry, the critique of peers’ poetry in a workshop setting, and poetry’s basic tenets and forms. We will also discuss a wide range of twentieth century and contemporary American poetic models. It’s my hope that the class will give you the skills you need to keep writing even after our workshop has ended, and that writing and discussing poetry will ultimately enhance and inform your own artistic endeavors.

 Texts:

Dawson, Erica. Big-Eyed Afraid. Waywiser, 2007.

Drury, John. Creating Poetry. Writer’s Digest Books, 1991.

Kartsonis, Ariana-Sophia M. Intaglio. Kent State. 2006.

Rerick, Michael. In Ways Impossible to Fold. Marsh Hawk, 2009.

 Various handouts and supplemental materials distributed in hardcopy or electronically.

 Requirements:

1. Your participation in the daily workings of the class, that is: six poems (two per turn) brought in for workshop critique, many of which will be the result of formal assignments, imitations, etc. (this number may fluctuate depending upon the number of students enrolled in the course), contributions to our conversations, and comments on peers’ poems.: 30%

2. Six min., ten max. (this number may fluctuate depending upon the number of students enrolled in the course) poems REVISED and collected in a final portfolio or chapbook: 30%

3. Weekly written responses to reading assignments (600-800 words): 20%

4. A final exam consisting of terms/concerns raised during the course: 20%

 Course Policies:

Attendance: It’s vital that you attend class and regularly participate in the discussion. In fact, the workshop depends on it! Don’t simply expect to show up for the class during which your poem is to be discussed. Your peers deserve your respect and attention just as much as you do. Also, absences will disrupt the tight workshop schedule. You may miss three classes for any reason without any repercussions, but if you miss more you may be asked to drop the workshop. If you miss a class when your poems are “up” for critique, you’ll be relegated to the end of the next workshop session and there’s no guarantee we’ll get to your work. If you miss the class in which you are required to pass out a poem, you’ll have to make arrangements to get copies to me and the rest of the class.

Other Late Assignments: You may always make up missed reading response assignments but if the assignment is not received by 5 pm the day it’s due, it will be docked five points (i.e. A to A-)

Other Stuff: Please turn off all electronica during class (unless you choose to take notes with a laptop on Tuesdays). Also, please remember to be respectful of others during class discussion (think before you speak!) and bring your texts and peers’ poems to class with you everyday. Be sure you have all the materials you need, you’re able to gain regular access to a computer and printer, and you have a way to save your work.

 ADA Statement: If you have a documented cognitive, physical, or psychological disability, which includes learning disabilities (LD), attention deficit disorder (ADD), depression, anxiety, or mobility, as described by Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it is recommended that you contact Disability Services at 614-222-3292.  Disability Services will assist you in arranging appropriate accommodations with the instructor.

 Schedule:

Tuesdays we’ll discuss reading assignments and Thursdays we’ll workshop your poems.

 A Note on Reading Responses:

Some weeks’ assignments may be of your choosing, but there will be weeks when I assign specific exercises (like imitations) or ask specific questions, especially relating to some of the information in Drury’s Creating Poetry. (Check our course blog for explanations of assignments, schedule updates, extra readings, etc.)

 When generating your responses, you might compare/contrast the reading to other texts we’ve discussed, or even those we haven’t. You can place the reading in a cultural/historical context, and/or discuss it in relation to something you’ve been thinking about lately, or something we discussed in class. You’re even welcome to include, to some extent, your own experiences in writing your own poems. However, I DO expect your responses to have a main idea or thesis statement that includes SUPPORT FROM THE TEXT. I DO NOT WANT POETIC PLOT SUMMARIES OR SIMPLE STATEMENTS OF LIKE OR DISLIKE!!! I will be grading your responses not only on your reading comprehension, but also on your ability to construct well-organized analyses/arguments. Please TYPE your responses and double-space them, use the MLA citation format when necessary. Make sure, too, that the responses come out to about 600-800 words or about three-four double-spaced pages.

 *=Reading Response Due

 Schedule:

 Week 1

Wed. 8/26: Course Introduction

Fri. 8/28: Chapter 2, Creating Poetry

 Week 2

*Wed. 9/2: Up to and including pg. 41 (“When the City Calls Me Names”), Big Eyed Afraid

Fri. 9/4: Finish Big Eyed Afraid

 Week 3

*Wed. 9/9: Chapter 3, Creating Poetry, Big Eyed Afraid (Group 1 distribute poems)

Fri. 9/11 Workshop Group 1

 Week 4

*Wed. 9/16: Chapter 4, Creating Poetry, Big Eyed Afraid  (Group 2 distribute poems)

Fri. 9/18: Workshop Group 2

 Week 5

*Wed. 9/23: Up to and including pg. 50 (“Blues Turned to Bruise”), Intaglio (Group 3 distribute poems)

Fri. 9/25: Workshop Group 3

 Week 6

*Wed. 9/30: Finish Intaglio (Group 4 distributes poems)

Fri. 10/2: Workshop Group 4

 Week 7

*Wed. 10/7: Chapter 5, Creating Poetry, Intaglio (Group 1 distributes poems)

Fri. 10/9: Workshop Group 1

 Week 8

*Wed. 10/14: Chapter 6, Creating Poetry, Intaglio (Group 2 distributes poems)

Fri. 10/16: Workshop Group 2

 Week 9

*Wed. 10/21: Up to and including pg. 31 (“X-Ray”), In Ways Impossible to Fold (Group 3 distributes poems)

Fri. 10/23 Workshop Group 3

 Week 10

*Wed. 10/28: Finish In Ways Impossible to Fold (Group 4 distributes poems)

Fri. 10/30: Workshop Group 4

 Week 11

*Wed. 11/4: Chapter 7, Creating Poetry, In Ways Impossible to Fold (Group 1 distributes poems)

Fri. 11/6: Workshop Group 1

 Week 12

*Wed. 11/11: Chapter 8, Creating Poetry, In Ways Impossible to Fold (Group 2 distributes poems)

Fri. 11/13: Workshop Group 2

 Week 13

*Wed. 11/18: Chapter 9, Creating Poetry, handouts (Group 3 distributes poems)

Fri. 11/20: Workshop Group 3 (GRADUATING SENIORS FINAL CHAPBOOKS DUE/TAKE HOME FINAL EXAM)

 Week 14

Wed. 11/25: CLASS CANCELLED FOR THANKSGIVING

Fri. 11/27: CLASS CANCELLED FOR THANKSGIVING

 Week 15

*Wed. 12/2: Chapter 11, Creating Poetry, handouts (Group 4 distributes poems)

Fri. 12/4: Workshop Group 4

 Week 16

Wed. 12/9: FINAL EXAM

Fri. 12/11 LAST DAY OF CLASS/FINAL CHAPBOOKS DUE/READING

Instructor: Dr. Lesley Jenike

Course: LA390/Lecture/05- Readings in American Literature

Time: Fall 2009, Tues/Thurs 2-3:20 pm

Location: KH 224

Office: KH 206 (last door on left)

Office Hours: Tues/Thurs 3:20-5 pm or by appointment

Phone: 614-437-7380

Email: lesleyjenike@gmail.com, ljenike@ccad.edu

Blog: www.ccadfall09.blogspot.com

 Course Description: Our course will focus on American poetry, fiction, and drama from the mid-twentieth century (approximately late 1940’s to early 1960’s) as a means for exploring larger American literary, cultural, political, historical, and theoretical trends. Our class is designed not only to improve your knowledge, but your critical writing and reading skills as well.

 Texts:

Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? NAL Trade, 2006.

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. Vintage, 2004.

Lowell, Robert. Life Studies and For the Union Dead. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Penguin, 2003.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. Vintage, 1991. 

O'Conner, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories. Mariner, 1977. 

O'Hara, Frank. Meditations in an Emergency. Grove, 1996.

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Harper, 2006.

 Various handouts and supplemental materials distributed in hardcopy or electronically.

 Requirements:

Weekly Reading Responses (600-800 words/ approx. 3-4 typed pages, double-spaced): 20%

Weekly Quizzes/Group Presentations: 20%

Mid-Term Exam (will include mainly essay/long-answer questions): 20%

Final Paper (6-8 pgs. double-spaced, MLA citations): 20%

Attendance/Class Participation: 20%

 (You will submit reading responses on Tuesdays and take short quizzes on Thursdays)

 A Note on Quizzes and Reading Responses:

 Some weeks’ assignments may be of your choosing, but there will be weeks when I assign specific exercises (like imitations) or ask specific questions. (Check our course blog for explanations of assignments, schedule updates, extra reading, etc.)

 When generating your own responses, you might compare/contrast the reading to other texts we’ve discussed, or even those we haven’t. You can place the reading in a cultural/historical context, and/or discuss it in relation to something you’ve been thinking about lately, or something we discussed in class. You’re even welcome to include, to some extent, your own experiences. However, I DO expect your responses to have a main idea or thesis statement that includes SUPPORT FROM THE TEXT. I DO NOT WANT PLOT SUMMARIES!!! I will be grading your responses not only on your reading comprehension, but also on your ability to construct well-organized analyses/arguments. Please TYPE your responses and double-space them, use the MLA citation format when necessary. Make sure, too, that the responses come out to about 600-800 words or about three-four double-spaced pages.

 Our quizzes will generally be in short-answer/essay format because I’m more interested in helping you develop ideas and less interested in making you memorize facts. I’m looking to see that you’ve read and digested our texts, and that you’re able to make connections between them.

 Please keep all your reading and responses and quizzes because some of the ideas there might be useful in your final papers.

 A Note on Group Presentations:

 At the end of each “unit” (except for the last) I will ask groups of four-six people to add to our conversations by conducting a little extra research on the author(s), literature, art, music, film, political and social scenes of the period to share with us.

 Policies:

Attendance: You may miss a week’s worth of classes for any reason without any repercussions. After a week, your grade will suffer and you may be asked to drop the class. Please come to class on time. Repeated tardiness will result in an absence.

Late Assignments: You have until 5 pm the day an assignment is due to get it to me on time. For each day thereafter, the assignment will be docked five points or A to A- (for example).

Missed Quizzes: You’ll take a short quiz to make sure you’ve been keeping up on your reading every Thursday. If you happen to miss a quiz, you have a week to make it up. After that you’ll take a loss. See me during my office hours to make up quizzes.

Other Stuff: Please turn off all electronica during class (unless you choose to take notes with a laptop). Also, please remember to be respectful of others during class discussion and bring the texts under discussion to class with you EVERYDAY. Be sure you have all the materials you need (paper, pen, books), you’re able to gain regular access to a computer and printer, and you have a way to save your work.

 ADA Statement: If you have a documented cognitive, physical, or psychological disability, which includes learning disabilities (LD), attention deficit disorder (ADD), depression, anxiety, or mobility, as described by Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it is recommended that you contact Disability Services at 614-222-3292.  Disability Services will assist you in arranging appropriate accommodations with the instructor.

 Schedule: Keep in mind that our day-to-day schedule is subject to change. (When you see pages beside a date, please have those pages read by that date.) Beyond the readings listed, I will also be bringing in supplementary poems, essays, films, etc. to help us better understand the literature and its socio-political contexts.

 *= Reading Response Due

#=Quiz

 UNIT 1/Mid-Century Madness and the Compulsion to Confess

Week 1

Tues 8/25: course introduction

Thurs 8/27: “Part One,” Life Studies

 Week 2

*Tues 9/1: “Part Two,” Life Studies

#Thurs 9/3: “Part Four” Life Studies.

 Week 3

*Tues 9/8: Acts 1-2, The Crucible

#Thurs 9/10: Act 3, The Crucible

 Week 4

*Tues 9/15: Act 4, The Crucible and “Myopia: a Night,” “Returning,” “The Drinker,” “July in Washington,” and “For the Union Dead,” For the Union Dead.

#Thurs 9/17: Up to and including Chapter 5, The Bell Jar

 Week 5

*Tues 9/22: Up to and including Chapter 11, The Bell Jar

#Thurs 9/24: Up to and including Chapter 16, The Bell Jar

 Week 6

*Tues 9/29: Finish The Bell Jar

Thurs 10/1: Group Presentations

 Unit 2/Race, Class and Regionalism: Are We Moving Toward Equality or Away From It?

Week 7

*Tues 10/6: Act 1, A Raisin in the Sun

#Thurs 10/8: Up to and including Scene 2, Act 2, A Raisin in the Sun

 Week 8

*Tues 10/13: Finish A Raisin in the Sun

#Thurs 10/15: “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” A Good Man is Hard to Find

 TAKE HOME MIDTERM

 Week 9

*Tues 10/20: “The Displaced Person,” A Good Man is Hard to Find

#Thurs 10/22: “Good Country People,” and “The Artificial Nigger,” A Good Man is Hard to Find

Week 10

Tues 10/27: Group Presentations

Unit 2/Who’s in Charge Here? Issues of Gender and the “Nuclear Family”

#Thurs 10/29: Act 1 “Fun and Games,” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 Week 11

*Tues 11/3: Act 2 “Walpurgisnacht,” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

#Thurs 11/5: Act 3, “The Exorcism,” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 Week 12

*Tues 11/10: Up to and including Chapter 20 (Part 1), Lolita

#Thurs 11/12: Finish Part 1, Lolita

 Week 13

*Tues 11/17: Up to and including Chapter 20 (Part 2), Lolita

#Thurs 11/19: Finish Lolita (SENIORS’ FINAL PAPERS DUE)

Week 14

Tues 11/24: Class Presentations

Thurs 11/26 CLASS CANCELLED FOR THANKSGIVING

Unit 4/Popular Culture, Cosmopolitanism, and the New Media

 Week 15

*Tues 12/1: Up to and including pg. 25 (“A Terrestrial Cuckoo”), Meditations in an Emergency

#Thurs 12/3: Finish Meditations in an Emergency

 Week 16

Tues 12/8: Discussion of final papers

Thurs 12/10 LAST DAY OF CLASS

 FINAL PAPERS ARE DUE NO LATER THAN NOON, 12/14