Writing History at the University of Houston

Spring 2005

English Composition Syllabus

John Biggers, Shotgun Houses, Third Ward (1966)
tempera and oil, 30 x 48 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Instructors:
Mary C. Gray The U of H Writing Center Agnes Arnold 217 mcgray2@mail.uh.edu Office hours: by appointment	Mike Perez The Department of English Roy Cullen 135 mvperez9@yahoo.com Office hours: Tues. – Thurs., 1:00 – 4:00

“How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?” – E. M. Forster

Welcome to the English Composition portion of the English/History course. You must also be registered for HIST 1378 with Dr. Mintz to be enrolled in this class. In these collaborative classes, we will be working toward developing critical thinking skills and strengthening written communication while becoming active historians. Readings in this class should both complement and enrich your studies in History. By examining texts from American writers and artists since 1877, you will discover that art and literature come not just from a person, but from a time and place, and, as cultural expression, are inseparable from historical process. We will also have the additional advantage of having experts from the College of Education to help us learn to integrate technology into our writing, plus consultants from the Writing Center to help us to formulate and execute our ideas.

Grading Policy

Writing Consultations and Workshops: Policy and Schedules

Calendar:

Note: Links to websites ouside of Writing History open in a new window; close that window to return to this page.

Learning to Look, Listen, and Create
Class 1: January 22	War Dept. (ca 1902). Roundup on the Sherman Ranch, Genesee, Kansas.	Introduction to the Course
		Receive prompt for Web Project 1: The West of the Imagination OR The Gilded Age/How the Other Half Lives

The 1890s as a Turning Point
Class 2: January 29	Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin), a Dakota Sioux Indian. 1921.	Read: "School Days of an Indian Girl" - Zitkala-Sa – 1900 Receive prompt for Essay 1: The Problems and Promise of American Life

Progressive America
Class 3: February 5	The New England Magazine, January 1892	Read: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - 1892 Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper' If you’d like, you can Listen to the Play.
		Read: How the Other Half Lives – Jacob Riis – 1890 Enter the site and read Chapter II – “Awakening” Take a virtual tour of The Lower East Side Tenement Museum
		In class - View Photographs by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine

The Meaning of World War I
Class 4: February 12		Web Project 1 due
		Read: “Dulce et Decorum Est” – Wilfred Owen – 1918
	Equipt (sic) for the trenches. ca. 1914.	Receive prompt for Web Project 2 - Anxiety & the Atom or the Invention & Explosion of Teen Culture

Becoming Modern
Class 5: February 19	Cover of Survey Graphic, March, 1925. University of Virginia.	Take a look through the March 1925 Issue of Survey Graphic. Read: "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926) “Ballad of the Landlord” by Langston Hughes.
		Read: From the Academy of American Poets website. “The Weary Blues” “I, Too,” “A Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1926) “Let America Be America Again” (1933) “The Great Figure” – William Carlos Williams (1921) The Figure Five – Charles Demuth (1926)
		In Class - View paintings and photographs of the Harlem Renaissance

The Great Depression
Class 6: February 26	Eighteen year-old mother from Oklahoma, now a California migrant. Dorothea Lange, 1937.	Read: Excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath (handout) - John Steinbeck – 1939 Additional activities (optional): Read the article on the National Public Radio website Listen to Brian Naylor's report on National Public Radio Listen to Woody Guthrie's 1940 song "Tom Joad" about The Grapes of Wrath Watch a scene from the 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath
		In Class - View depression photographs from Library of Congress


Class 7: March 5		History Test
		Work on Essay 1: The Problems and Promise of American Life and Web Project 2

World War II
Class 8: March 12	Attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.	Essay 1: The Problems and Promise of American Life DUE
	Attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.	Read: Poets of World War II – Edward Field & Harvey Shapiro “Will V-Day Be Me-Day, Too” – Langston Hughes - 1944 View Ansel Adams’ photographs of Japanese American internment at Manzanar: "Suffering Under a Great Injustice” Browse through Born Free and Equal, Ansel Adams' book on the Manzanar Camp.

March 19: Spring Break

Postwar, 1945-1960, The Cold War
Class 9: March 26		Web Project 2 due
		Compare “The Dream Keeper” and “Dream Variation” (1925) in Selected Poems to "Harlem - A Dream Deferred" (1951) – Langston Hughes
	Reiss, Winold. "[Langston Hughes, Half-Length Portrait, Seated, Facing Right, with Right Hand Under Chin]."	Receive prompt for Web Project 3 - Toward the 21st Century

The Tumultuous 1960s
Class 10: April 2	Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., behind bars in jail in St. Augustine, Florida. 1962.	Read: "Letter from Birmingham Jail" - Martin Luther King - 1963 "Statement by Alabama Clergymen" “Birmingham Sunday” (hand-out) – Langston Hughes – 1967 "The Times, They Are A'Changin'" - Bob Dylan – 1963 Receive prompt for Essay 2: American Legacies

The Vietnam War
Class 11: April 9	Barron, B. Young US Marine.	Read: “Facing it” – Yousef Komunyakaa, poet and Vietnam veteran. Consider how the design of The Vietnam War Memorial makes Komunyakaa’s poem possible. In Class: View American memorials and monuments as visual rhetoric "Goodnight Saigon" – Billy Joel – 1982


The 1970s and 1980s – America in Decline?
Class 12: April 16	MD Anderson Library University of Houston	Research in MD Anderson Library, UH

America in our Time
Class 13: April 23	Students in History-English Linked Courses	Read: "English Is a Crazy Language" (Handout) "English Belongs To Everybody" (Handout)


Class 14: April 30	Ticker Tape Parade for the Apollo 11 Astronauts	History Test
		Last Class Day
		Presentations of Web Project 3

Wednesday, May 4		Essay 2 due by 5:00 in the Writing Center
Friday, May 6, 5:00		Last day to turn in essays, with a letter grade penalty

Images Used:

American Indian stories / Zitkala-Sa. Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin), a Dakota Sioux Indian. Lincoln and London : University of Nebraska Press, 1985, frontispiece. Reprint of 1921 edition. Library of Congress. Online image. 18 January 2005.
<http://www.loc.gov>

Barron, Brian. Return to Saigon. 29 April, 2000. BBC News. Online image. 1 February 2005. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/718412.stm>

Biggers, John. Shotgun Houses, Third Ward. 1966. Online image. The Smithsonian American Art Museum. Purchase made possible by Anacostia Museum. The Smithsonian Institution. Online image. 3 January 2005.
<http://americanart.si.edu/highlights/artworks.cfm?id=AA&StartRow=6>

Cover of Survey Graphic. March, 1925. University of Virginia, Electronic Text Center. Online image. 18 Januray 2005.
<http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/>

Equipt (sic) for the trenches. ca. 1914. National Photo Company Collection. Library of Congress. Online image. 18 January 2005.
<http://www.loc.gov>

Lange, Dorothea. Eighteen year-old mother from Oklahoma, now a California migrant. 1937. Library of Congress. Online image. 18 January 2005.
<http://www.loc.gov>

NASA. Ticker tape parade for Apollo 11 astronauts. 15 September 1970. Online image. <http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/mirrors/images/images/pao/AS11/10075352.jpg>

New England Magazine. 1892. Illustrations from the "Yellow Wallpaper." 18 January 2005. Online image.
< http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/enam312/ywillus.html>

Reiss, Winold. "[Langston Hughes, Half-Length Portrait, Seated, Facing Right, with Right Hand Under Chin]." 1927. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Online image. 18 January 2005.
<http://www.loc.gov>

Students in History-English Linked Courses. Online image. Spring 2004.
<http://www.writinghistory.uh.edu>

"The terrific explosion of the destroyer USS SHAW when her magazine exploded after being bombed by Japanese aircraft in the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941." 7 December 1941. National Archives and Records Administration. Online image. 26 January 2005.<http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc>

University of Houston, MD Anderson Library Construction Project. Online image. 1 April 2005.
<http://info.lib.uh.edu/building/photos/index.html?id=212>

War Department. Roundup on the Sherman Ranch, Genesee, Kans. Cowboy with lasso readied looks beyond the herd on the open range to his fellow cowpunchers waiting on the horizon. ca. 1902. National Archives and Records Administration. Online image. 18 January 2005.
<http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc>