English 246 Lamonica
"A long, long time ago I wrote a story for boys
which I sold to Youth’s Companion.
It was purely juvenile in treatment; its motif was not only very
strong, but very true . . . As years went by, I was worried about the
inadequate treatment I had given to that motif, and by the fact that I had
treated it for boys merely. At last
I came to the resolve to take the same motif and handle it for men. I had o access to the boys’ version of
it, and I wrote it just as though I had never used the motif before. I can only say that it had never entered
my head that there was anything ethically wrong in handling the same motif
over again in the way I did.” --Jack London
in a letter to R.W. Gildner reprinted in Writing
With the Masters From Personal Experiences, by Ruth Fennick, Elaine Dion, and Janice
Neuleib with the
permission of the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Rationale
When we study the practices and strategies of experienced or “master” writers, one of the things we learn is that in their search for inspiration they frequently look to their own past work. Inspiration can come in the form of the glimmer of an idea left unexplored or unresolved, from a piece of abandoned prose, even from a published text. As noted above, Jack London wrote two versions of his story “To Build a Fire,” one for adults and one for children, and published them both. Other writers explore common themes through a variety of texts, even genres. And it’s common practice for scholars and academicians to re-tool scholarly works for lay audiences or to take chapters of their own unpublished theses and dissertations and publish them as journal articles for others in their field. (This is called having a “research agenda.”) Drawing upon our own earlier work is the strategy we’re going to explore through this project.
Assignment
I’ve asked you to begin Project V by bringing to class a previously composed text of your own. Your goal for this assignment is to use that text (or some other text or piece of text—one of your Warm Up activities from the beginning of the semester, for example)—as the “jumping off place” for an (almost) entirely new piece.
As usual, it seems to me that there are an almost infinite number of directions this assignment might take you. You might simply take a previously complete piece and revise it for a new audience, purpose, or forum. You might take a single idea (a sentence, phrase, word, or insight) from a previously composed text and develop it into a text of its own. It’s up to you.
Writing Strategies
As we work our way through this project, I’m going to ask you to “stretch” as writers by using some writing processes and strategies that may be new to you. These will include:
Ø Using previously composed texts as the inspiration for new work
Ø Response technique: “What is almost said? What do you want to hear more about?”
Ø Error analysis
Deadlines
The following deadlines have been established to ensure that we can engage in tasks in common in the classroom on certain days. Please be sure to complete each task on time so that you can join in the class activities.
Deadline Task(s)
to be Completed
4/1 Project
V: Bring a previously composed text to
class
4/3 Project V: Proposal
4/5 Project V: Draft for Response
4/8 Project V: Draft for Editing
4/10 Project V: Final Unit Draft
Project V:
Analysis/Reflection (in class)
Formatting
In order to avoid confusion among drafts, please use the following format for your headings:
Your Name
English 246/Lamonica
Name of Draft (as given in “Deadlines” above)
Due Date (as given in “Deadlines” above)
Assessment
Assessment in English 246 is an on-going process. As you work on each project, your classmates and I will provide formative assessments of your writing. Formative assessment is simply formal or informal feedback designed to provide direction during the course of a project.
At the end of the time allotted for the project, I will provide an assessment that is both formative and summative in nature. That is, I will offer comments designed to help you find a direction, should you decide to continue work on the project for inclusion in your portfolio. I will also, however, assign an advisory grade for the project. I will arrive at this advisory grade by applying to your work the “Grading Standards for Individual Texts,” which can be found in the Instructor Folder and on the Web. These standards are extrapolated from the “Portfolio Grading Standards” by which your final portfolio will be evaluated at the end of the semester.
Please remember that grades on individual texts are advisory only. They are “progress grades,” meant to give you an idea of where your text currently stands. Your final grade for the course will be largely determined by your portfolio grade. This grade is not an average of previously assigned advisory grades, but a separate grade arrived at by applying the “Portfolio Grading Standards” to the body of work you submit in our portfolio.