SYLLABUS

English 202: Writing about Literature / U.S. Multiethnic Literature

MWF 1:00-2:20 / Old Main 330-C

Professor Lysa Rivera

 lysa.rivera@wwu.edu 
360.650.2517

Office Hours: MWF 2:30-4:00PM

Office: Humanities #373

or by appointment

Course Description

Welcome to English 202, a course that will introduce you to various modes of academic writing specific to the discipline of literary study.  In this class, you will strengthen your close-reading skills, relying on academic writing to express your ideas and articulate, sustain and defend arguments rooted in strong textual evidence and analysis.  You will practice a process-oriented approach to writing by producing full-length essays in stages. Assignments include in-class discussion exercises, reading journals, and analytical essays that undergo draft and peer review processes. 

While all sections of English 202 focus on writing analytically about literary texts, they offer different thematic focuses. The focus of this particular section of 202 will be on writers who identify as being racially or culturally marginalized or “othered.” Working with texts from multiple genres, including novels, short-stories, poetry, essays, and graphic novels, we will trace the ways in which “minority” literatures engage common themes of alienation, fragmentation, dislocation, hybridity, resistance, and survival.

Required Texts

Helena María Viramontes, Under the Feet of Jesus

Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese

Additional required readings posted to Canvas (C)

Assignments & Grading

Participation [15%] To earn full participation credit, students must attend class regularly and demonstrate concrete and consistent engagement with the reading material and our discussion of it in class. This means that you must also complete most (if not all) of any in-class work we do, including any small group exercises I assign -- and I tend to assign several throughout the quarter. Please note that work done during class time cannot be made up, not even for partial credit. Participation also involves contributing regularly to classroom discussion. 

Short Essay Assignments (SEA) [30%] Students will write a total of four short essays throughout the quarter to demonstrate familiarity with the texts and the writing practices we examine in class. The essays are staggered so that students can build upon strategies each essay invites.

In-class Assignments (ICA) [25%] To keep things interesting and dynamic, I often assign in-class writing prompts and exercises related to the week’s reading. Assignments completed in class cannot be made up (they are how I monitor attendance, at times)

Writing Portfolio (with Final Paper) [30%] Instead of a final exam, students will submit a writing portfolio that showcases their writing for the quarter and concludes with a final 5-6 page argumentative paper on a text of their choosing. Because these portfolios are cumulative in that they will contain work produced throughout the quarter (to reflect the trajectory of your progress as a writer) it is very important that you save all of your work throughout the quarter.