ENGL 1C -- Dr. Firtha -- Lesson One -- Barstow Community College

A note before we begin:

English 1C is a reading- and writing-intensive class. The required readings are also difficult, college-level texts. Thus, to be successful in English 1C, it is important to know what essential skills you should have developed already with regard to academic writing. By now, you should have completed English 1A or its equivalent. This means that you should have experience writing essays that are more developed than five-paragraph essays, and that you should know how to use MLA format for citations and layout. If you do not or if you need to brush up your skills before turning in your papers, a good resource is http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ . MLA format is especially important to this class because you will be dealing directly with a number of texts and referring to them in your papers. You need to be able to cite them properly, for improper citations, just as lack of citations, counts as plagiarism. There is a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism. Your finished written products should also be relatively free of grammar and punctuation errors. If you need help with this, the tutoring lab at BCC can provide some assistance in person or electronically,

A few more notes to start with--

Part of your grade for the class will be based on participation, which will be accounted for by your participation in the discussion forums. You will be expected to make two posts per week that contribute to the discussion in the weekly forums. These posts should, thus, not only respond to the issue at hand, but also address other students' responses to the issues as well.
You will be expected to write one paper approximately every two weeks. Please look ahead a week to keep up.
The reading questions each week are intended for you to show that you have completed and understood the reading. The reading questions should be used as a guide to the key points of the readings. As the lesson progress, you should be coming up with more of your own questions, so I will be providing fewer. These questions should also help you think through the weekly reading quizzes so that you poick the best answer.
Demonstrating understanding of the readings is the first step to critical thinking. Only after one thoroughly understands the readings, can s/he analyze and respond to the ideas presented in the texts. The texts for thsi class are difficult, college-level texts. Therefore, you should fully expect to read each assigned essay multiple times to develop your understanding of the subtleties of the texts. You should also read with dictionary nearby and keep a list of key terms.

Paper #1--Explication--Be sure to look ahead to lesson #2 for the the first essay assignment. It is due at the end of next week.

Questioning

Critical reading is close reading. In large part, it involves reading and rereading a text while asking yourself questions and becoming aware of the questions piqued in your mind as you read. Critical reading also involves trying to answer the questions that are raised as you read in attempt to gain further insight into the text. While you will, no doubt, come up with long lists of questions for each text, perhaps, the most important question you will ask is how does X contribute to the meaning of the text?

Take a look at the short poem in chapter 1 of your book, entitled "The Four Marys." To fully understand this poem, you will need to thoroughly examine it by becoming aware of all the questions that come to mind while you are reading. For instance, beginning with the title, you should ask yourself questions such as (but not limited to):

Who are the four Marys?

Where do the Marys come from?

Why are there four?

Are these women national figures?

After this comes the date 1563. This should add to your questions:

We know this poem is in English, so you can ask: Who were some famous Marys in Great Britain around this time? (perhaps, you’re beginning to answer your own questions around this time by thinking, Mary Queen of Scots and Bloody Mary)

Who were some famous authors around this time? What did they write?

Who was the monarch of England? (you should be thinking Queen Elizabeth, sister of Bloody Mary.)

Next you may note that the poem is anonymous. This should inspire even more questions, which should include:

Who wrote this poem?

Was the author a man or a woman?

If it was a woman, to what class must she have belonged to be able to read and have the leisure time to write?

Why would the author choose to remain anonymous?

When you start to come up with some plausible answers to these questions, you should start asking yourself how does this question and answer contribute to the meaning of the text? For instance, how does the author’s choice to remain anonymous contribute to the meaning of the text? how does the fact that there are famous Marys contribute to the meaning of the text? how does the fact that Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed by Queen Elizabeth contribute to the meaning of this text? You may not be able to come up with answers to all of the questions you have listed, but the answers you do come up with will help you understand and think critically about the text.

You should be doing something similar to this for every text you read for this course.

As you read, you should be keeping notes of your questions. You should then be trying to answer those questions as you go through the essay. You may not be able to answer all of them and that is fine. What you should be doing is using them to help you think through the essay and understand the subtleties of the essay. Indeed, much of critical thinking is based in understanding the more subtle layers of the text--the connotations and implications of what you are reading. Below are a list of starter questions to help you examine what you are reading. What can you add to these?

P. Williams Questions

When does personhood begin?

Who gets rights?

How is violence against people camouflaged?

According to Williams, how is the ideal child more important that the actual child?

What types of babies are seen as "valuable"?

who is marked? And how does this "marking" play into the "rights" and people are accorded under the law?

What are black women supposed to do?

Why does Williams feel socially widowed?

How is the black body used as a instrument by the law?

What power do those inhabiting the black body have socially?

Sedgwick Questions

What is sex?

How is sex different than gender?

Why are these terms sometimes confusing? Describe some of the usual slippages in terms. How have there terms been used in the past? in the 70’s? why? What bearing does this terminology have on Feminist Studies and Gender Studies?

What is sexuality?

How does the idea of sexuality problematize sex/gender?

How does sexuality relate to gender?

How does sexuality relate to sex?

How is identity defined "in relation"?

How is sexuality related to race and class?

Drafting Workshop #1

Your assignment:

During these first two lessons, you will be working on noting and answering your own questions about the texts. Then next week, you will submit them to turnitin.com by Wednesday by uploading an RTF file (see directions for saving and sending below questions).

Create a list of questions that come to mind as you read and re-read this week's reading assignment. Keep in mind that all of the questions above were just for the title, author and date published of a poem. You should be able to come up with many more questions for an essay.
After creating your list of questions, review the list and jot down your answers. You do not have to answer every question, but you should answer all that you can. Sometimes this might involve a little simple research. (For instance, with you can quickly find out the adademic definitions of sex and gender.)
Follow exercise 2 by asking yourself how each question you answered contributes to the meaning of this text.

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