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Spring 2006

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

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

English Composition Policy Statement

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.

Syllabus

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
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
War Dept. (ca 1902). Roundup on the Sherman Ranch, Genesee, Kansas.
Class 1: January 17
Introduction to the Course
Class 2: January 19

Receive prompt for Web Project 1:

The 1890s as a Turning Point

Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin), a Dakota Sioux Indian. 1921.
Class 3: January 24

Read:
" School Days of an Indian Girl" - Zitkala-Sa – 1900

Class 4: January 26 Receive prompt for Essay 1: The Problems and Promise of American Life
Progressive America

The New England Magazine,
January 1892
Class 5: January 31

Read:

Class 6: February 2

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
Equipt (sic) for the trenches. ca. 1914.
Class 7: February 7

Read Dulce et Decorum Est” – Wilfred Owen – 1918

Class 8: February 9

Web Project 1 due

Receive prompt for Web Project 2:

Becoming Modern

Cover of Survey Graphic, March, 1925. University of Virginia.
Class 9: February 14

Look through the March 1925 Issue of Survey Graphic.

Read: "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" Langston Hughes - (1926)

Class 10: February 16

Read:

Class 11: February 21

Read:

  In Class - View art of the Harlem Renaissance
Class 12: February 23 Strategies for writing Essay 1
The Great Depression

Eighteen year-old mother from Oklahoma, now a California migrant. Dorothea Lange, 1937.

Class 13: February 28

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 14: March 2

History Test

Work on Essay 1 and Web Project 2

World War II

Attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Class 15: March 7

Peer Review Project 2

Class 16: March 9

Web Project 2 due

Receive prompt for Web Project 3 - Toward the 21st Century

Read: "Arrival at Manzanar" (handout) - Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston

Browse through Born Free and Equal, Ansel Adams' book on the Manzanar Camp.

 

In class: View Ansel Adams’ photographs of Japanese American internment at Manzanar:

"Suffering Under a Great Injustice

March 13-17: Spring Break
Postwar, 1945-1960, The Cold War

Reiss, Winold. "[Langston Hughes, Half-Length Portrait, Seated, Facing Right, with Right Hand Under Chin]."
Class 17: March 21

Peer review Essay 1

March 23
No Class
Class 18: March 28

Essay 1 DUE

Receive prompt for Essay 2: American Legacies

Compare “The Dream Keeper” and “Dream Variation” (1925) in Selected Poems to "Harlem - A Dream Deferred" (1951) – Langston Hughes

Class 19: March 30 Work on Web Project 3
The Tumultuous 1960s

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., behind bars in jail in St. Augustine, Florida. 1962.
Class 20: April 4

Read:

Class 21: April 6 Research in M. D. Anderson Library
The Vietnam War

Barron, B.
Young US Marine.
Class 22: April 11

Read:

  In Class: View American memorials and monuments as visual rhetoric
Class 23: April 13 Work on Essay 2 and Project 3
The 1970s and 1980s

MD Anderson Library
University of Houston
Class 24: April 18
Bring introduction to Essay 2 to class
Class 25: April 20 Peer review Project 3
America in our Time

Students in History-English Linked Courses

Class 26: April 25

Web Project 3 due

Class 27: April 27

History Test

Last class day

 

 

Tuesday, May 2
Essay 2 due by 5:00 in the Writing Center
Thursday, May 4, 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>

 

 

     
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