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Summaries of Other Words Essays
Heather Abel and Emily Chenoweth were best friends freshmen year at college. In “Emily” and “Heather,” they each recount that year and how their friendship grew, evolved, and eventually drifted away. The first time I read these two pieces I was intrigued and remain so after each re-reading. Since each writer deals with the same period of time (freshman and sophomore year) and the same events (college, the death of Emily’s mother), this would be an excellent piece to talk about perspective. Through these two pieces we see Emily’s and Heather’s side about what happened to their friendship. (Although in the book the “Emily” essay appears first, it would be an interesting exercise to have half the class read the “Heather” essay first. This would lead to a great discussion about what we assume to be the “true” and “correct” story.) However, I also think these pieces deal with aspects of women’s experience that we usually don’t get to read about. “Emily” and “Heather” do deal with the things we have come to associate with women’s experience—eating disorders, body image issues, mother/daughter relationship, boys. But the heart of this piece is about friendship and how women compete, negotiate, and attempt to make sense of their friendships. “Emily” and “Heather” are also about expectations—what we expect from our friendships, what we expect from our friends, what we expect to give as friends, and what we expect of ourselves. Although I’m discussing this in terms of “women’s” experience, I don’t mean this to be limiting. I think any student in our class who has had a “best friend,” lost a friend, or has had a friendship change will take something from this piece. In fact, I’m sure struggling how to make sense of their friendships is something many of our students are experiencing right now. (Peggy Woods)
In “Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body,” bodybuilder and writer Kathy Acker tells about her thwarted desire to write about the world of bodybuilding, that “geography of no language,” a place where to describe one’s experience in words is seemingly impossible. To try to understand her difficulty articulating what she experiences when she goes to the gym, she turns to Elias Canetti and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It’s hard to imagine a piece of writing that successfully interweaves a description of “doing reps” with meditations on Canetti’s experience of language and Wittgenstein’s language games, but Acker does it–in one paragraph relating a surrealist dream of Canetti’s, in the next discussing sets and squats. What results is a web of associations about language, with fascinating insights (“In a gym, verbal language or language whose purpose is meaning occurs . . .only at the edge of its becoming lost”) and provocative questions (“Is the equation between destruction and growth also a formula for art?”). I really like that she doesn’t shy away, either, from talking about the cliché that “athletes are stupid,” going beyond this narrow-minded view and exploring what it means to be “inarticulate.” I’ll be teaching this essay both because of its content and its innovative form (and engaging style). I think it will be a good piece for developing classroom discussions about writing, especially about why certain kinds of experience seem to elude words. Because of the way Acker weaves back and forth between her own experience and the words of Canetti and Wittgenstein, I might also consider bringing this in as a sample essay during the “Interacting with Texts” unit. I could also imagine developing an exercise or TBA unit around writing about something like bodybuilding–experiences that are hard to put into words. (A’Dora Phillips)
We are told that “Thailand has over a quarter of a million monks and twice as many prostitutes,” when we enter Faith Adiele’s “Orchids: Half Sacred, Half Profane,” a narrative of the author’s experiences becoming a Buddhist maechi, or laywoman, in Thailand. Adiele writes about race and gender identification as well as her positioning as an American woman journeying in her faith with imagery-rich language and two separate narratives, one of which uses stream of consciousness that enters into conversation with more traditional manifestations of the essay genre. In critiquing the sex-trade industry in Thailand, Adiele brings us to a global perspective in her discussion, using the motif of tropical (exotic) flowers as she moves through the essay (“Blowing Things Into Proportion”). In this way, the piece offers an interesting way to look at the intersections of the personal with larger contexts, as Adiele’s journey is framed by not only her own experiences but also those surrounding the gendering of women in Thailand and America, racial identification, cultural and religious practices, and economy. In terms of its classroom use, “Orchids” would work in the “Inquiring into Self,” “Interacting with Texts,” or “Adding to a Conversation” units, as it combines the self with these different spheres of influence, creating a space for discussion about the ways we interact with the world. That said, it seems like a great piece to potentially transition from Units I to II, as the essay focuses in on the contradictions within the individual/self as well as the contradictions within the larger Thai culture as the holy and the profane come together, widening the lens from a narrow portrait to examine the social landscape we navigate everyday. You could also use the essay to talk about reading practices and the different ways to approach a text with multiple narratives/voices. (Emma Howes)
Everyone on the committee was reluctant to let Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” go. We all liked the piece for its ability to raise issues with our students about rhetorical choices, language, and diversity. However, since “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” appeared in both editions of The Text-Wrestling Book, we decided it was time to find a new piece. This was easier said than done. What we liked about “How to Tame Wild Tongue” was really a testament to Gloria Anzaldúa’s ability as a writer to weave discourses and genres and to raise difficult issues. So in order to find a new piece we decided to go back to the source. “The Homeland, Aztlán/El otro México” is also from Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera and, like “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” is a mix of languages (English and Spanish) and genres (poetry, film, expository prose). However, “The Homeland’s” central theme is about home and borders, about the political and personal effects of creating boundaries and borderlands (think “Interacting with Texts”). Anzaldúa weaves together the historical background of Mexico and the creation of the Mexico/U.S. border (think “Adding to a Conversation”) with her own family history to raise issues about immigration and what it means to exist and to be caught between two borders and two cultures (think “Inquiring into Self,” especially “Self in Contradiction”). (Peggy Woods)
In what she would possibly call thirteen “proactive approaches,” ranging from one paragraph to a few, Dorie Bargmann brings to life the kind of bird known as a grackle in “Thirteen More Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by way of vivid first-hand accounts observing the grackle (mostly in Austin, Texas), brilliant metaphors, playful and sober facts and “facts,” stories and “stories,” and thought-provoking associative links (and leaps) of logic (cultural, historical, biological, etymological, environmental, etc.). Literally, Bargmann researches the bird by building the bird—with what is there, may be there, and probably not. Her process illuminates the art of seeing—ways of seeing—and begs many insights and questions regarding ethos, pathos, and logos. This essay would be a beautiful candidate if one wanted to forge an experimental “Adding to a Conversation” unit, say, a sort of “creative research” paper, experimental in form and content, for the purpose of investigating the depth of reality, and notions such as primary/secondary research, perspective, writer/reader assumptions and beliefs, etc. It would also be a perfect go-to piece when faced with that inevitable discussion about showing vs. telling: “He drew himself up, like a scraggly, stern old prophet, and he fixed me with his yellow eyes, and he informed me that henceforth I was always to withhold a portion of bread from the rambunctious youngsters, and when they flew away, then I was to minister to him, the venerable.” (Jason Larson)
Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” is a fun, quick essay that could be extremely effective in the “Interacting with Texts,” “Adding to a Conversation,” and TBA units. It is contemporary and engaging, offering a complex host of questions about technology, artificial intelligence, and the reliance on both of these in the modern world. It brings up ethical and moral decisions that we must grapple with as well as more technical issues of writing, including study habits and research methods. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” also strikes a superb balance between traditional academic writing and personal, reflective writing, with Carr blending anecdotes and professional scholarship. A great read! (John Gallagher)
In “Brick Wall,” Charles D'Ambrosio introduces us to the Chicago where he grew up. However, to get us there, he takes us through the Paleozoic period, a fake antique furniture warehouse, the manufacturing of brick, and an old bar in which a number of working men make it through life as fated characters, struggling with loss, nostalgia, and history. My first reaction is to claim it for the “Inquiring into Self” unit. D'Ambrosio manages to explore his own beliefs through his personal history, which, more times than one, coincides with Chicago, and indeed human, history. It is a well wrought example of personal exploration through vivid contextual detail of his adolescence. But the essay could also be used for the “Interacting with Texts” unit, particularly in conjunction with another essay dealing with poverty, history, and cultural understandings of success and dignity. (Brian Mihok)
“My Memory and Witness” is a unique epistolary essay by Lis Goldschmidt and her older brother Dean Spade. The piece begins with Lis’ frustration as she begins to question the authenticity of her memories of an impoverished childhood. White trash parties and “people fronting like they’re poor or grew up poor or whatever–like it’s cool to be poor” make Lis question the validity of her experiences and seek facts from her older brother to confirm those memories as truth. “My Memory and Witness” provides interesting impetus for students to rethink their own memories and how fads around them may force them to question their own authenticity, and in turn, their identities. Shipler’s “At the Edge of Poverty” would be a nice partner for a unit focused on class. Used for its exploration of authenticity, the piece could be paired with Anzaldúa’s “The Homeland” or Kincaid’s “A Small Place.” (Staci Coleman Mitchell)
Our traditions often seem “bizarre, ludicrous, and surreal,” writes Judyth Har-Even in “Leaving Babylon: A Walk Through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony”; but they also bind us to one another and to time itself, affording continuity when the pieces of our lives “shatter like shards.” The essay is Har-Even’s account of receiving the Jewish writ of divorce in one of Jerusalem’s rabbinic courts. The piece is exquisitely attuned to ritual: in the ceremony described here, there are precise statements that need to be uttered and repeated, writing that must be penned in a particular kind of ink, precise motions of the hands that need to be completed in closely-prescribed ways. Interwoven with these ceremonial details are heart-breaking scenes from the dissolution of a twenty-seven-year marriage. Students should find here a forum for thinking about the complexity of their own relationships and how those relationships interface with religion and the state; but they may also be inspired by this piece to write about the role of ritual in their lives. The interweaving of theme and style–narrative snippets combined with an almost clinical reconstruction of ceremony–could also inspire students to try different kinds of organizational patterns in their writing. (David Fleming)
Michael Kimmel’s “What About the Boys? What Current Debates Tell Us—and Don’t Tell Us—About Boys in School” asks the fundamental question about boys in current U.S. culture: why are they so often the perpetrators of violence and why don’t we pay attention to this fact? Suitable for the “Inquiring into Self,” “Interacting with Texts,” or “Adding to a Conversation” units, Kimmel’s essay deals with not only these questions but how our society views as well as deconstructs itself. Students can use it to expand on their personal experiences throughout the various stages of their education. Further, Kimmel’s stimulating argumentative style lends itself to creating exciting and thought provoking conversations during the “Interacting with Texts” unit. It could also contribute to the “Adding to a Conversation” unit as an exceptional study, thoroughly researched with numerous examples that draw on various disciplines, including gender studies, biology, anthropology, and sociology. (John Gallagher)
“A tourist is an ugly human being,” writes Jamaica Kincaid in “A Small Place.” Since so many of our students (like us) have been, are now, tourists, and since so many of them (like us) think of traveling to beautiful, sunny places, whose inhabitants are “backward in that charming way,” as one of life’s great pleasures, this essay will shock, and even anger. It is in fact a scathing indictment of leisure travel–especially of the white-person-going-to-the-islands variety. Written in the second person, addressed directly to the tourist him- or herself, the piece is a present-tense account of an actual tourist disembarking at the airport in Antigua, traveling by taxi through the capital city, arriving at his or her hotel, marveling at the pale, silvery water and the gleaming, white beach, and spending his or her vacation there. The implied first-person voice behind the piece is a black Antiguan who hates “you,” the tourist, who despises everything you stand for. I know of no other piece that confronts so provocatively, so memorably, the “reality” of contemporary global tourism. As such, it could be a good “Interacting with Texts” essay, eliciting strong responses from students. But that might be too obvious a use of the essay; it could also work in the “Inquiring into Self” unit, especially since the “personal” voice, and intimate audience, is so strong, so captivating here. Or perhaps it could inspire some great “Adding to a Conversation” projects on the topic of global tourism. The piece is also a powerful stylistic model: its use of the second person, its angry sentences, its interminable paragraphs which peel back layer after layer the ugliness at the root of something so paradigmatically “beautiful,” so quintessentially “pleasurable,” as a vacation in Antigua. (David Fleming)
Fifty-three empty Cheez-It boxes. Five hundred crown bottle caps. A few dozen skeleton keys. In passing, one may think of these things as collections of something, but William Davies King, in “My Metaphor Weighs Tons,” diagnoses them to be his “singular multiplicities of nothing.” Of course, the skeleton keys and bottle caps are accompanied by cigar ribbons, airmail envelopes, a few dozen old dictionaries, etc. And the Cheez-It boxes are no-nothings when stacked up to his thousands of food labels of all types and kinds, a collection he considers to represent a number of sharp-edged paradoxes and ironies. King’s label collection may be “a burgeoning collection full of emptiness,” but his playful self-deprecating humor and reflective insights are dynamic enough to drill beyond existential ore. This piece not only illuminates the collector—or hoarder?—in all of us, but could also be used to help students further explore a unique skill or taste or ritual or whatever. Maybe it could help writers re-see personal contexts that are coming off as impersonal, general, featureless? At the very least, students should enjoy this short piece, and it could urge them to explore a distinct, thus distinguishing, variable in their personal history, even if that something is as small as a pipe-tobacco tin full of pebbles. (Jason Larson)
Everybody loves Whole Foods… or do they? Field Maloney’s “Is Whole Foods Wholesome?” complicates the organic-food movement that has swept the nation over the past decade or so, searching for the “Achilles’ heel” in the Whole Foods supermarket chain that has come to symbolize “sustainable” food choices for much of mainstream (middle-class?) America. This essay encourages us to think critically about the choices we make in regards to our food purchases, even when they may appear ethical on the surface. The essay is fairly short, so it might be a nice piece to pair with other readings (perhaps “Consider the Lobster,” “The Braindead Megaphone” or “Ask Not…,” to name a few). In terms of units, it could easily prompt students’ interaction in “Interacting with Texts” or help construct a conversation in “Adding to a Conversation” as it encourages students to think past surface representations and towards the ways they might re-read advertising and the “texts” presented in supermarkets. As I read the essay I find myself also wondering about its potential in the “Inquiring into Self” unit as well, as it examines the larger social implications of an object (“Blowing Things into Proportion”) and points towards the contradictions in a chain that advertises one way of life but which falls in line with the thought patterns of another (“Self in Contradiction”). The essay also opens the door for discussion about socio-economic class and potentially race and gender, making it a good choice for classroom discussion. (Emma Howes)
Don’t be fooled by Scott McCloud’s title: more than a mere handbook for making sense of cartoon illustrations, “The Vocabulary of Comics” is an exploration of symbolism, representation, and the relationship between word and image. Oh, and it’s also a comic itself. Using this interplay between language and sketch, McCloud explores how we make sense of both the visual world around us, as well as the selves we understand to be at the center of that world. He writes, “Our identities belong permanently to the conceptual world. They can’t be seen, heard, smelled, touched or tasted. They’re merely ideas. And everything else—at the start—belongs to the sensual world, the world outside of us.” Attempting to separate personal identity from the outside world is an ideal theme for the “Inquiring into Self” unit, as we ask students to consider not only their histories and experiences, but also the possible deeper meaning and symbolic nature of those experiences It may also be a way to open up conversations and writing assignments around the images we’ve included throughout Other Words. (Leslie Bradshaw)
In “Human Restoration,” Bill McKibben traces the historical destruction of wolves from the Adirondacks and recent efforts to restore the species to this area. These restoration efforts, McKibben suggests, reflect humans’ need for wolves, and more generally, our way of shaping the world’s landscape to our desires. This human need for the wolf is the need to consume—the need to turn the howl of the wolf into a commodity. This essay could be an interesting choice for various versions of the “Inquiring into Self” assignment because it asks that we open ourselves to the possibility that the wolf, among other encounters with the natural world, might reshape our “endless neediness” and change our “politics, priorities, and sense of self.” “Human Restoration” is especially intriguing because it challenges us to place ourselves in the background and see aspects of nature as more than just things to experience. Because this essay contains ideas regarding our perspectives on and relationships to nature, it could also be used for Interacting with Texts. (Megan Trexler)
“I learned it all from the first grade to fifth,” begins John Medeiros, “when I learned the components of a sentence.” What Medeiros learns, however, far exceeds the schoolmarmish skill of naming a sentence’s nicknackery. Thus, Medeiros explores the components of his being within the arc of, the fundamental matter of, the confines of, “One Sentence.” For instance, not until Medeiros is a “faggot” or is in a “twinship” does “something inside [him] yearn to be . . .yearn to give the nouns in [his] life meaning,” as in “I am gay” or “I have AIDS” or “I tried to tell you I have AIDS.” And not until Medeiros “unfolds” into a verb, can he “slowly grow into an adjective to make [himself] more interesting . . .to [his] audience,” as in “your gay HIV-positive twin” or “their sick son.” What this sentence-essay achieves (and concludes) in seven hundred and fifty words is startling; its sincerity and push towards understanding is inspiring. This piece would of course be ideal to read and re-read for the “Inquiring into Self” unit (very self-reflective and very short, experimental but accessible), but it could also spur some great language-based exercises or discussion throughout the semester, or, perhaps, this piece could spark an idea for the TBA unit: in an era when concision (read cutting)has become a touchstone term for good writing, our students could spend some time dissecting the nervous system of the alphabet, and celebrate the eloquence of necessary excess, or the concision of depth. (Jason Larson)
“Is Lara a feminist icon or a sexist fantasy?” This simple question begins Maja Mikula’s quite nuanced exploration of “Gender and Videogames: the political valency of Lara Croft.” As Mikula draws on such classic feminist scholars as Germaine Greer and Laura Mulvey, it would be easy to assume you know where this essay is headed: Lara Croft must be bad for women. But don’t be too hasty. Considering the ways players both objectify and relate to Lara, Mikula concludes “She is indeed a sex object; she is indeed a positive image and a role model; and many things in between.” This essay is an ideal model for the “Adding to a Conversation” unit, as Mikula weaves together multiple perspectives and withholds her judgment on the ultimate nefarious or liberatory nature of her topic. (Leslie Bradshaw)
“Life in the Dorms” is unlike any essay we’ve published before. A chapter from Rebekah Nathan’s My Freshman Year, it’s a closely-observed account of contemporary dorm life, written by a cultural anthropologist who, midway through her academic career, returned to college for a year to see what student life was like. This could be an intriguing choice for the “Adding to a Conversation” unit, showing students what “real” research is like in many disciplines: careful observation of everyday life, based on the detailed notes of a participant-observer. But it could work in other units as well. There are fascinating passages about the physical space of residence halls and how students use their time. It’s also a sobering look at our “over-optioned” university culture. And there are potentially rich connections to gender and photography. Even if you don’t actually assign this essay in your class, you will learn a lot about your students and their lives from reading it! (David Fleming)
Michael Pollan’s “Why Bother?” takes up the personal lifestyle changes that are necessary to address climate change. Pollan says that these individual changes, especially growing your own food, beget other solutions, unlike the “cheap-energy” mindset that translates everything into money, and, consequently, passively relies on market-based solutions to solve climate change. Pollan advocates personal lifestyle changes because of their power to save carbon and “heal the split between what you think and what you do” and “commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen.” This essay would work well for the “Inquiring into Self” unit because of the way it asks us to address both the relationships between our multiple identities and broader contexts and the intersections between our beliefs and our actions. While this essay might lend itself to various approaches to that unit, it could also work well for Interacting with Texts, as it raises important issues of climate change and our relationship to the environment. (Megan Trexler)
Economical, graceful, collaborative, connected . . .“The Last Bus Home” by Miranda Purves and Jason Logan is a lovely multimedia piece from the New York Times, barely a page of text and a page of drawings, about a handful of bus and subway lines in New York City whose service may be eliminated due to budget cuts. That this would impact individuals–impinge upon their ability to get to where they need to go and put an end to the relationships they’ve formed with fellow straphangers–is artfully made by both the writer (who takes one of the buses with her son Woolfie every morning) and illustrator. That this essay is a collaborative, multimedia piece makes it perfect for opening up discussions about the current landscape of writing, with the increasing emphasis on merging text and image. But it also provides a wonderful example of brevity and concision, showing how a few well-chosen words, details, and statistics can create an entire world. Because it’s short, I can imagine reading it aloud in class to begin a discussion about one or more of the above issues, perhaps even during the “Adding to a Conversation” unit as an introduction to research, since the third paragraph includes such a deft mix of research-based details. I also think it could inform an image/text-based TBA unit. (A’Dora Philllips)
“Knowledge Is Power” isn’t easy to characterize, which is one of the reasons I love it. Part social critique, part memoir, part visionary call to arms, it demonstrates the power of placing one’s own personal experience within the context of larger societal issues and trends. In it, María Cristina Rangel, a Northampton resident, documents her arduous journey from single Latina mom (who was living in poverty in Washington State) to Smith College student (she studied as an Ada Comstock Fellow) to young professional trying to manage issues such as daycare and living on subsistence wages with two young children. Along the way, she explains with great clarity why welfare reform has proven so detrimental to the lives of women in poverty, delves into the issue of education and class, and explores the presence of the U.S.-Mexico border as a constant motif in her life, “a metaphor for every instance in which I have dared to cross the unknown.” This is an excellent piece to consider using in the “Inquiring into Self” unit, as we encourage students to place themselves within a larger context and could also be employed in the “Adding to a Conversation” unit to talk about the power of primary research, of using oneself and one’s own experience to inform impassioned writing. (A’Dora Phillips)
“I stand before you as an impure-American. An ambiguous-American.” So writes Richard Rodriguez in “The North American,” an evocative look at our contemporary interracial society, one that is increasingly brown even as our language for talking about race, ethnicity, and culture remains stubbornly black-and-white. The center of gravity for the essay, as with so much of Rodriguez’ writing, is California; but its gaze is very much oriented to the north-south axis that connects Mexico and the United States. Used to thinking of our national experience along an east-west route, we need to realize that our cultural geography has shifted. Young people in this country seem to instinctively know this, and many students will immediately recognize the mestizaje world described and celebrated here. As for “America” itself, Rodriguez has a simple message: “you are going to end up with Mexican grandchildren.” (David Fleming)
George Saunders’ “The Braindead Microphone” investigates the idea of attention—or, more precisely, inattention. It calls for a more intelligent and wholesome form of debate, seeking to destabilize the media’s current form of public discourse; that is, the quick and loud name-calling in which numerous commentators participate. Ideal for the “Interacting with Texts” unit as a way to initiate a conversation, the essay can also be adapted for the “Inquiring into Self” and “Adding to a Conversation” units as being personally invested in a research area with spot-on methods and sources. (John Gallagher)
Our students are entering their first-year of college under a cloud of economic upheaval—high unemployment, a tanking economy, rising tuition costs, rising health care costs, soaring credit card interest rates, etc. As a result, they may be holding even tighter to the traditional idea of the American Dream—those who work hard and get a good education will have “the good life.” David Shipler’s essay calls this idea into question by examining how myth works to cast America as the land of opportunity, but, even more importantly, how this creates an America that blames the poor for their inability to get out of poverty regardless of how hard they work. “At the Edge of Poverty” asks us to question our own assumptions about the American Dream and why we see or, as Shipler points out, why we don’t see the poor. He also asks us to examine poverty itself and to see it as a complex issue about choice, opportunity, circumstance, and what America considers to be the standard of living. I see this as a great essay for the “Interacting with Texts” unit because of all the issues being raised. I also think this could be a great starting point for the “Adding to a Conversation” unit by opening the door to a range of possible research topics. One word of caution: This is the introduction to Shipler’s The Working Poor: Invisible in America. You and your students may feel the author doesn’t go into sufficient depth about these issues, and you may be left wanting more after reading this essay. I would encourage you to point your students toward The Working Poor. (Peggy Woods)
In this chapter from Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag explores the controversial connection between art and atrocity. Photographs have the capacity to serve both as records of an event as well as artistic depictions of it, often layering an aesthetic appreciation onto an historical document. This can lead to complications when the event depicted is calamitous or tragic, since “Photographs tend to transform, whatever their subject; and as an image something may be beautiful—or terrifying, or unbearable, or quite bearable—as it is not in real life.” Using this essay to interpret and consider images, such as the photograph of the “Comfort Woman” in the text, would make for a great TBA unit on visual culture or an expanded “Interacting with Texts” unit that focuses close reading skills on both words and images. It could also be a good pairing with McCloud’s “Vocabulary of Comics.” (Leslie Bradshaw)
Written for Time Magazine, Richard Stengel’s “A Time To Serve” addresses our need, as the writer puts it, “to keep the republic.” He offers a ten-point plan for a national service initiative that would develop leadership in the public as well as invest in the country’s economic future. Issues raised include the role of the citizenry in a republic, the history and success of similar past initiatives, and the costs of such a program. This essay could be used in the “Interacting with Texts” unit as a reference point in which to create a conversation about several social issues including volunteerism, philanthropy, voting, government spending, soft and hard skilled industries, and political agendas. The essay could also be used for the “Adding to a Conversation” unit since it utilizes research, but because it is intended for a wider audience, it would also be a good example of a more mainstream (vs. academic) use of sources. It could also be used for the TBA unit in a proposal-based assignment. (Brian Mihok)
Andrew Sullivan writes in “Why I Blog” about an already shaky concept–truth–and how the “extremely porous” borders of the blog make truth even less identifiable. Beginning with an analysis of the ship log as the closest one could come to real-time truth, devoid of the alterations and revisions of hindsight, Sullivan hones in on the immediacy of blogging and its effects on writing. His conclusion that “blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics,” revives writing to a living, breathing thing. Most interesting about Sullivan’s piece may be his analysis of how reader-centered blogs tend to be and what the ramifications of this may be for journalism. This piece could be the basis for a TBA unit in which students create their own blogs. The attention Sullivan pays to the blogosphere of his own blog provides a model of how students could analyse their own blogospheres. I think this piece also shows promise as an opening piece for students to read. So many claim on the first day of class that they are not writers. Perhaps Sullivan’s thorough analysis of this new genre of writing can convince them otherwise. (Staci Coleman Mitchell)
In “The Language of Discretion,” Amy Tan urges the reader to reject “one-dimensional” statements about language and behavior, such as the assumption by white mainstream American culture that the Chinese are “discreet” because they don’t have words for “yes” and “no.” “It’s dangerous business,” she argues, “this sorting out of language and behavior.” Tan uses a series of situations from her bicultural and bilingual experience to demonstrate that what might seem like “discretion” to white Americans is nothing of the sort to Chinese. Tan even takes on linguistic analyses of language difference, which still operate one-dimensionally. Tan’s essay offers us the opportunity to think both deeply and specifically about the relationships between language and reality, language and culture, and cross-cultural communication. The essay might pair nicely with Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place,” which explains what Antiguans think of the white tourists who frequent that island. Both essays help us shift our frames of reference. We might take a step back from our own language use to examine the ways it adheres us to certain places, cultural ideas, and selves. We confront the idea that we are not autonomous users of language, nor does language entirely shape our reality; rather, we are intricately related to our languages and cultures in ways that merit careful exploration. (Morgan Lynn)
“Ask Not What You Can Do For Your University, But What Your University Can Do For You” is a unique essay in our reader because of its publication in The Daily Brewin’, a UCLA student webzine. This essay describes the shift in ethos in the American university system from a “high-brow institute of knowledge” to a business enterprise. In response to this shift, students take on the role of customers, viewing their university education as a purchase. This could be a generative text to have students engage with in the “Interacting with Texts” unit because its representations of education will likely seem relevant and timely, and its characterization of students’ apathetic and entitled attitudes towards learning has the potential to provoke strong responses from them. Because this essay contains examples of research, it could also serve as a possible model or subject of analysis in the “Adding to a Conversation” unit. Whether for Unit II or III, this essay could make an interesting pairing with “Life in the Dorms” because it offers another perspective on higher education and university culture. (Megan Trexler)
Who do we elect as our leaders? Drug addicts? Certainly not. Gambling addicts? No, not intentionally anyway. And why? Because to do so would put our every security at risk. In “1983: New York, Cure For An Addiction,” Kurt Vonnegut poses this as precisely what's happening in our government. We elect men and women who are addicts, but not to substances or betting. Instead our leaders are addicted to preparations for war. He surmises that if we held our leaders to the same standards as we do all addicts, we would elect a very different set of people. This essay would work for the “Interacting with Texts” unit because it asks the reader to interact with the questions it is posing. These work quite literally as opportunities to talk about a potential conversation between reader and author. The essay could also work for the “Adding to a Conversation” unit as a resource for generating research ideas, including global politics, the nature of addiction, conflict, and democracy. (Brian Mihok)
Confession: “Consider the Lobster” is the only David Foster Wallace piece I have ever read, but I really like it. This essay, written for Gourmet Magazine, addresses the Maine Lobster Festival (affectionately dubbed “MLF”) and raises questions about the rituals of preparing and eating lobster, as that animal appears both at the larger-scale festival and in individual kitchens. The essay combines humor, satire, and facts creating a fun essay to read that likens an ordinary New England event to “a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest,” using research and details to examine closely the lobster dinner. While I was initially thinking about this piece in terms of the “Inquiring into Self” unit (particularly “Blowing Things Into Proportion” or “Self in Contradiction”), after a few readings I think I prefer it in the “Adding to a Conversation” unit, as an essay entering into the conversation surrounding the MLF and American food industries in an unexpected and interesting way, showing the power research can wield when used in a creative way. It would also be an excellent way to talk about addressing an audience, as Wallace is reflexive about his role in writing to readers of Gourmet, both in extensive footnoting and in the narration itself, particularly in identifying ways the piece strays from the essays typically presented in the forum. (Emma Howes)
