assignments ENGL 101 Writing Rhetorically: BOOK CLUB
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 [email protected] www.leetorda.com On Zoom: https://bridgew.zoom.us/j/3806648927 |
Fall 2021 Open Hours for students (office hours):
MW (in-person or Zoom) 1:30 to 2:30 T (Zoom only) 10:00 to 11:00 R 1:45 to 2:45 (in-person or Zoom) And by appointment Make an appointment, either face to face or on zoom, during office hours or at another time: Let me know you want to meet by adding yourself to my google.doc appointment calendar here: https://goo.gl/3CqLf. If you are meeting me on zoom, I will send you a zoom link for the time you sign up for. |
Overview. As I mention elsewhere on this website, reading is neither as easy as it seems like it should be, nor is it as impossible to get better at it as a lot of mediocre readers think. You can get better by practicing reading for one thing. You can also improve your reading by thinking about how you read, by figuring out what you can do to improve the quality of your reading, and by making connections between talking about what you read and writing about what you read. Book club will give you experience in these kinds of practices that good readers engage in.
Reader’s Notes are one way that we will work on improving our reading this semester; book club is another way. Reader’s Notes is an exercise that is meant to help you remember the short reading you do in quality ways. But Book Club is about the long haul. At some point in your college and life careers you’ll have to read something long that takes some time to do and is maybe not what you would pick up to read in your spare time. That’s what book club is designed to help you do.
What? Did you think I was going to give you some speech about the joy of reading? I admit: I love to read. I could spend entire days reading—that’s what I do on vacations. But I know that most people are not that way—no one in my family is. Do I think that you can learn to enjoy reading certain books? Yes. Do I hope you’ll enjoy the book you read for this class? Absolutely. But I’m not holding my breath. My job is to help you read, remember, and usefully write about a book even when you are not interested in it.
Details. You will be evaluated on your attendance an effort during book club meetings, the quality of your journals, and your final presentations. On or about the first day of class I’ll ask you to pick what book you want (I use the term “pick” loosely) from a list of descriptions (of the titles I list under TEXTS above). You’ll meet with your book club leader for the first time during the first few weeks of class and from then on out.
HOW TO DO BOOK CLUB
Write a book cub journal reflection. During the book club meeting when you are all done with the book, write a reflection on the experience. Write about all of the following
DURING THE FINAL EXAM
You and your groupmates will do a five minute review of your book. You will need to give us a brief (very, very brief) summary of the book and then a review, one, for instance, that you would post on Amazon. For an example of such a review, you can literally read about a billion of them on the amazon website.
ONE MORE THING: Participation in book club is one of the ways you will earn your one credit in ENGL144. And so, in the interest of making sure this is perfectly clear, I will now repeat the attendance policy as it appears in the Policies for this course (please note, in particular, the bolded portions of the passage):
Attendance and Preparedness for Class and ENGL144. What happens day-to-day in this class only works if we are all here and ready to work as much as possible; therefore, attendance is mandatory. Here is my policy on how absence will affect your evaluation in this class:
ABOUT ENGL144 AS IT RELATES TO THE ATTENDANCE POLICY FOR 101: ENGL144 consists of work done in Book Club, and a weekly meeting with a writing fellow attached to this course. Attendance at these weekly activities is mandatory for passing ENGL144 and failure to do so will adversely affect your success in ENGL101. I will receive weekly attendance and progress reports on all three activities. Thus:
Reader’s Notes are one way that we will work on improving our reading this semester; book club is another way. Reader’s Notes is an exercise that is meant to help you remember the short reading you do in quality ways. But Book Club is about the long haul. At some point in your college and life careers you’ll have to read something long that takes some time to do and is maybe not what you would pick up to read in your spare time. That’s what book club is designed to help you do.
What? Did you think I was going to give you some speech about the joy of reading? I admit: I love to read. I could spend entire days reading—that’s what I do on vacations. But I know that most people are not that way—no one in my family is. Do I think that you can learn to enjoy reading certain books? Yes. Do I hope you’ll enjoy the book you read for this class? Absolutely. But I’m not holding my breath. My job is to help you read, remember, and usefully write about a book even when you are not interested in it.
Details. You will be evaluated on your attendance an effort during book club meetings, the quality of your journals, and your final presentations. On or about the first day of class I’ll ask you to pick what book you want (I use the term “pick” loosely) from a list of descriptions (of the titles I list under TEXTS above). You’ll meet with your book club leader for the first time during the first few weeks of class and from then on out.
HOW TO DO BOOK CLUB
- Forming Groups, Picking Texts. During the first days of class, you will get into groups and select your texts from the four books featured under “texts” on the Policies page for this class. I will provide you with descriptions of all four texts to help you choose. You will need to choose your text as a group.
- Where/When Book Clubs meet. As I say here and elsewhere, Book Club is one of the activities you will participate in in order to earn your 1 credit for ENGL 144. That means that you will meet during the class period directly following our regular English class in zoom on Wednesdays starting the week of 13 September 2021. The zoom link to your book club will be embedded in your book club journal google.doc that we will set up the week book club starts. And I will also email you the zoom link (like I did for the start of class). This part can seem confusing at first, but after that first time it will become routine. Book club ends the week before Thanksgiving break.
- Read the Book. And I mean it. Read the book on your own time, a little at a time. I would suggest that you figure out during your first book club meeting how many pages you should be reading per week. Add up the pages of the book and divide it by the number of book club meetings you have. As I showed you in class, pay attention to how you read and what you need to do to be prepared to write good journals and have good discussions.
- Write a Book Club Journal. At the start of each book club, you’ll have the chance to reflect on your reading I writing. I would prefer for you to handwrite your book club journal. You will turn in your journal at the end of book. club to your book club faciliator. If writing by hand does not work for you, you can set up a google.doc and share the link with me. You'll need to keep your book club journal in that same google.doc all semester long. I can help you set up the .doc if you need it. DO NOT email me your book club journal.
WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT IN YOUR JOURNAL: Spend some of the time summarizing what you’ve read so far. Spend some of the time trying to figure out what the theme of the book is—what the author is trying to get you to understand about life and the world and all of that. You can always write about what you don’t understand about the book. It’s always a good idea to take a guess about it anyway—I’m not so worried about you being right. I want you to try to figure out the book especially when you don’t entirely understand it. Your book club facilitator will collect your book club journals and get them to me. I will read them and give you comments on them just like I do for the Reader’s Notes. When you get those comments back, you can respond to them in the next journal you write. You can also use my comments to help you talk about the book in book club. You’ll reflect on the book club journals a couple of times during the semester, so hold on to them when you get them back. - Talk about the Book. After you are done writing your journals, you will have some time to talk about the book. I would suggest starting the book clubs by reading your journals out loud to each other. That will get things started. Another thing you could do, as I say above, is read my comments out loud to each other. And the added bonus there is that it will kill time because it will take awhile for you to figure out my handwriting. You can also talk about what is confusing to you. You can talk about what is funny or sad or scary or interesting or boring in the book. Just, you know, talk about the book. It might feel weird at first, but you can do it. NOTE: Your facilitator is NOT there to lecture. They just want to help you talk about the book. They’ve given up their time to work with you. They want you to succeed. So I mean it: be nice to them. And, more than that, be a fun and interesting part of their day, for crying out loud. Make them want to do this another semester. Make them look forward to meeting you each week. If you are not kind to your book club facilitator and I find out, there will be hell to pay.
- Do a Little Outside Research; Present it to your groupmates. When I return your book club journals to you, I will write a note every so often asking you to do a little research on some particular topic that I think, if you and your group understood it better, you might understand the book better. The more stuff you know in your head, the easier reading is. You don’t have to do a major research paper when I ask you to do this. You can google it or use Wikipedia. This is low stakes research. Type up what you learn (like a half page to a full page), and bring it to your book club. Read it to your groupmates to help you discuss the book. Turn in what you write to your facilitator at the end of book club and he/she will get it to me. You won’t have to do this every week. Different people will do the research and present periodically throughout the semester. Everyone will go once or twice.
Write a book cub journal reflection. During the book club meeting when you are all done with the book, write a reflection on the experience. Write about all of the following
- How did writing about the book in the journal help or not help you to read better?
- How did talking about the book with others in the book club help or not help you to read better?
- How did doing a little research about parts of your book help or not help you to read better?
- Did you learn anything about how you might read other books for other classes from doing this project?
- In the end, what did you think of your book?
DURING THE FINAL EXAM
You and your groupmates will do a five minute review of your book. You will need to give us a brief (very, very brief) summary of the book and then a review, one, for instance, that you would post on Amazon. For an example of such a review, you can literally read about a billion of them on the amazon website.
ONE MORE THING: Participation in book club is one of the ways you will earn your one credit in ENGL144. And so, in the interest of making sure this is perfectly clear, I will now repeat the attendance policy as it appears in the Policies for this course (please note, in particular, the bolded portions of the passage):
Attendance and Preparedness for Class and ENGL144. What happens day-to-day in this class only works if we are all here and ready to work as much as possible; therefore, attendance is mandatory. Here is my policy on how absence will affect your evaluation in this class:
- You are allowed three absences in ENGL101, free and clear, no excuses necessary.
- You are allowed three additional absences in ENGL 144. Again, free and clear, no excuses necessary.
- After your three absences in 101 and 144 (3 absences per class), any and all absences, regardless of the reason, will adversely affect your final grade in the course you miss them in.
- After six absences in 101 and 144 (6 absences per class), you will fail the course you miss them in.
- Excessive late arrivals will accumulate to equal at least one absence.
ABOUT ENGL144 AS IT RELATES TO THE ATTENDANCE POLICY FOR 101: ENGL144 consists of work done in Book Club, and a weekly meeting with a writing fellow attached to this course. Attendance at these weekly activities is mandatory for passing ENGL144 and failure to do so will adversely affect your success in ENGL101. I will receive weekly attendance and progress reports on all three activities. Thus:
- The attendance policy described above applies to the writing conferences you will schedule with your Writing Fellow: missing a writing conference counts as missing a class.
- The attendance policy applies to the book club meetings scheduled directly after this class: missing book club counts as missing a class.