Resources at this site are now being moved to
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(Summer 2007)

NOTES

REPORTS

SYLLABUS

WRITERLY ADVICE

Visit NOTES for previews & postscripts.

Check Notes for study questions concerning assigned essays.  In addition, please click on authors' names for additional background information. 

20 December 1999
Graded final exams and book reports may be picked up any time over the next month from the box outside my office. 

Monday, 13 December 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Scott Russell Sanders: Introduction (733) and "Under the Influence" (733-745); Gayle Pemberton: Introduction (746) and "Do He Have Your Number, Mr. Jeffrey?" (746-755). 

Wednesday, 8 December 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Scott Russell Sanders: Introduction (733) and "Under the Influence" (733-745); Gayle Pemberton: Introduction (746) and "Do He Have Your Number, Mr. Jeffrey?" (746-755). 

Monday, 6 December 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Wendell Berry: Introduction (670) and "An Entrance to the Woods" (671-679); Richard Selzer: Introduction (708) and "The Knife" (709-715); Phillip Lopate: Introduction (716) and "Against Joie de Vivre" (716-731).    (Please click on Wendell Berry to read a brief interview with the author.)

Wednesday, 1 December 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Edward Hoagland: Introduction (656), "The Courage of Turtles" (657-662) and "The Threshold and the Jolt of Pain" (662-668).  Joan Didion: Introduction (680), "Goodbye to All That" (681-688) and "In Bed" (689-691).

Monday, 29 November 1999
Handouts: "The Death of a Moth," by Annie Dillard; "A Drugstore in Winter," by Cynthia Ozick; "Aunt Poo," by E. B. White; "Living Like Weasels," by Annie Dillard; and "Too Err Is Human," by Lewis Thomas. 
Art of the Personal Essay: James Baldwin: Introduction (586-87) and "Notes of a Native Son" (587-604); Adrienne Rich: Introduction (639) and "Split at the Root" (640-655).
Check Notes for study questions concerning assigned essays.  In addition, please click on authors' names for additional background information. 

Monday, 22 November 1999
Handouts: "Bad Eyes," by Erin McGraw, and "How It Feels to be Colored Me," by Zora Neale Hurston.
Art of the Personal Essay: H. L. Mencken: Introduction (505-506); "On Being an American" (506-509); Robert Benchley: Introduction (510); "My Face" (511-512); James Thurber: Introduction (513); "The Secret Life of James Thurber" (514-518).  E. B. White: handout (TBA).  Check Notes for study questions concerning essays by Mencken, Benchley, Thurber, and White. 

Wednesday, 17 November 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: read Walter Benjamin: Introduction (362-363); "Hashish in Marseilles" (370-375): Jorge Luis Borges: Introduction (376); "Blindness": Natalia Ginzburg: Introduction (422-423); "He and I" (423-430).  For a collection of your  responses to Natalia Ginzburg's essay "He and I," please visit the natalia page.  For a collection of your responses to the essays by Borges and McGraw, visit the borges page.   Please click on authors' names for additional background information.

Monday, 15 November 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: reread G. K. Chesterson: "A Piece of Chalk" (249-252); read Virginia Woolf: Introduction: 255-56; "Street Haunting" (256-265); "The Death of the Moth" (265-267); George Orwell: Introduction: 268-69; "Such, Such Were the Joys . . .": 269-302. Check Notes for study questions concerning assigned essays by Woolf and Orwell.  In addition, please click on authors' names for additional background information. 
For a collection of your  responses to Woolf and Orwell, please visit the vw page.   And pay a visit to The American Chesterton Society (with special attention to his drawings "As I Am" and "As I would like to be."

Wednesday, 10 November 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Max Beerbohm: Introduction (236-37); G. K. Chesterson: Introduction: 248; "A Piece of Chalk" (249-252); "On Running After One's Hat" (252-254). 
Click on authors' names (above) for background information on Beerbohm and Chesterson.  Check out Beerbohm's caricatures 

Wednesday, 3 November 1999
Midterm exam at 1:15.

Monday, 1 November 1999
Philip Gerard : "Telling a True Story" and "Revising--with and without an Editor"--from Creative Nonfiction, 1996 (handouts). 

Wednesday, 27 October 1999
Annie Dillard, "The Stunt Pilot" (handout).

Monday, 25 October 1999
Susan Orlean, "The American Man at Age Ten" (handout).
Art of the Personal Essay: Introduction (xxiii-liv); Charles Lamb: reread "The Superannuated Man" (172-178); Robert Louis Stevenson: Introduction (212-213) and "An Apology for Idlers" (222-228).  Check out the links to Robert Louis Stevenson sites at the Authors page.

Wednesday, 20 October 1999
As you work on fashioning the transcript of your initial interview for today's class (see Profiles assignment), please also turn to Profiles Online and read the sample (online) interviews and profiles that are linked to this page.  The various Q&A interviews represent more polished versions of the transcripts that we're working on.  Make sure that by this date you've read the profile "The Inner Bezos," by Chip Bayers. 

Monday, 18 October 1999
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.  Guided by the links, background information, and study questions at the READING WALDEN page, reread all assigned chapters from "Economy" to "Conclusion."   Likewise, review the comments of your classmates at Responses to Walden.

Wednesday, 13 October 1999
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau:  Read,  "The Pond in Winter" (Chapter 16),  "Spring" (Chapter 17), and "Conclusion" (Chapter 18).
For discussion in class.

UPDATE 12 October 1999
If received on time, your paragraphs on the assigned two chapters of Walden are posted at Responses to Walden.   By this Wednesday's class (Oct. 13), please review the comments of your classmates.

Monday, 11 October 1999 [online class]
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau:  Skim "Baker Farm," "Higher Laws," "Brute Neighbors," and "House-Warming" (Chapters 10 through 13).  Read "Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors" (Chapters 14) and "Winter Animals" (Chapter 15).   RESPOND TO ONLINE STUDY QUESTIONS (which will be posted this weekend to the READING WALDEN page) by Tuesday, Oct. 12.
Please turn to the Reading Walden page for questions on "Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors" and "Winter Animals."    In concise and coherent paragraphs, please respond to the questions via e-mail no later than 6:00 p.m. this Tuesday (October 12).    Responses will be posted to the Responses to Walden page on Tuesday evening.

UPDATE 10 October 1999
If received on time, your paragraphs on the assigned three chapters of Walden are posted at Responses to Walden.   By this Wednesday's class (Oct. 13), please review the comments of your classmates.

UPDATE 6 October 1999
Please turn to the Reading Walden page for questions on "The Bean-Field," "The Village," and "The Ponds."  In concise and coherent paragraphs, please respond to the questions via e-mail no later than 5:00 p.m. this Sunday (October 10).    Responses will be posted to the Responses to Walden page on Sunday evening.

Wednesday, 6 October 1999 [online class]
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau:  Read "The Bean Field" (Chapter Seven), "The Village" (Chapter Eight), and "The Ponds" (Chapter Nine).  RESPOND TO ONLINE STUDY QUESTIONS (which will be posted to the READING WALDEN page) by Sunday, Oct. 10.

Monday, 4 October 1999
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau: Skim "Reading" (Chapter Three); Read "Sounds" (Chapter Four), "Solitude" (Chapter Five), and  "Visitors" (Chapter Six).  Please visit the READING WALDEN page on this site for detailed guidelines on the reading assignment as well as background information and notes on Thoreau and his text.

Wednesday, 29 September 1999
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau: Skim "Economy" (Chapter One), and read carefully "Where I Lived and What I Lived for" (Chapter Two).   Please visit the READING WALDEN page on this site for detailed guidelines on the reading assignment as well as background information and notes on Thoreau and his text.

Monday, 27 September 1999
Review of writing strategies employed in essays by E. B. White: "The Eye of Edna" (handout), "Walden" (handout), "The Ring of Time" (Art 538-544), and "Once More to the Lake" (Art 533-538).  Be sure to visit NOTES for previews and postscripts.
FYI.  For more information about E. B. White, visit Authors.

Wednesday, 22 September 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Henry David Thoreau, Introduction (479-480) and "Walking" (480-504); E. B. White, Introduction (532) and "The Ring of Time" (538-544).
Handouts (distributed in class on 13 Sep.): Susan Orlean*, "All Mixed Up" (lengthy piece on Sunshine Market, a grocery store in Queens, New York); John Berendt, "A Savannah Story" (excerpt from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil).
Handout (distributed in class on 20 Sep.): E. B. White, "The Eye of Edna"
* FYI.  If you're interested in learning more about this New Yorker writer and author of The Orchid Thief (who, beginning in her teens, "desperately, desperately wanted to be a writer"), check out this online profile of Susan Orlean, "Bright-eyed Lady of the Orchids."

UPDATED (Post-Floyd)
Monday, 20 September 1999
Handouts (distributed in class on 8 Sep.): William Zinsser, "Writing about Places: The Travel Article"; Katy Pace Byrd, "Reading the Signs"; Manuela Hoelterhoff, "Walt's Wonderful World Turns Out to Be Flat": E. B. White, "Walden"; Jan Morris, "Fun City: Las Vegas, USA"; John Muir, excerpt from A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf.

Monday, 13 September 1999
Continue discussion of essays by Montaigne, Addison & Steele, Samuel Johnson, Maria Edgeworth, Lamb, and Hazlitt (see preceding assignments).

Wednesday, 8 September 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Addison and Steele: Introduction (122-23); "Twenty-Four Hours in London" (129-133); Samuel Johnson: Introduction and "The Boarding House" (136-140); Maria Edgeworth: Introduction and "An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification" (145-157); Charles Lamb: Introduction, "New Year's Eve," "A Chapter on Ears," "Dream Children: A Reverie," and "The Superannuated Man" (158-178); William Hazlitt: Introduction and "On Going a Journey" (179-189) and "The Fight" (198-211).

Wednesday, 1 September 1999
Monday's readings continued.
Francis Bacon (handouts): biographical sketch (20-21); "Of Deformity" (28-29); "Of Studies" (29-30).

Monday, 30 August 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Introduction (xlv-liv); Seneca (3-15); Plutarch (16-22); Sei Shonagon (23-28); Kenko (29-36); Ou-Yang Hsiu (37-39); Montaigne (43-112).

Wednesday, 25 August 1999
Art of the Personal Essay: Annie Dillard (692-706).