Fall 2020
How Writers Read
  • Syllabus
    • Course Purpose
    • Course Policies
  • Schedule
  • Assignments
    • Required Readings >
      • McKee
      • Gallop
      • Silverman
      • Butler
      • Mamet
      • Porter
      • Campbell
      • Seitz
      • Rabinowitz
      • Phelan
      • Culler
      • Jensen
    • Inventory and Reflection
    • Reading List Proposal >
      • Recommended Texts
    • Reading Group Blog and Discussions
    • Annotated Bibliography
    • Final Reflection
  • Methods
    • Reading For
    • Register
    • Graphing Narrative Structure
    • Summarizing Narratives
    • Close-Reading and Genre >
      • Value Graph
      • Getting the Text
      • Tropes and Figures
    • Intertextual Codes >
      • Controlling Value >
        • Writing out Controlling Values
    • Rhetoric of Narrative >
      • Distinguishing Character
  • Scribbles
Image  adapted from "Bubbles" by  @Doug88888 Creative Commons license.

How Writers Read: Syllabus

​This sophomore-level course introduces students to theoretical methods of reading complex and sophisticated texts. Students will study theories of reading and writing that concern structure, register, genre, intertextuality, and rhetorical concerns. The course presents these theories and correlative methods through readings, and students then practice applying these methods during class discussions and in writing using a series of self-​selected texts as the objects of study. 
Prerequisite: College Composition II

For Writing Arts majors:
How Writers Read may be taken instead of Tutoring Writing or Communication Theory as one of the required electives for the Writing Arts major.
How Writers Read counts toward the Creative Writing Minor or the CUGS in Creative Writing.
In you are a Writing Arts major, and you are minoring in Creative Writing, then it is possible to count How Writers Read toward that minor IF you already have taken Communication Theory or Tutoring Writing.

How Writer's Read 
(CRN 44828)
WA 01201 section 1, 
fall 2020

T/Th: 11:00am - 12:15pm

Victoria 201
Instructor:       Dr. Drew Kopp
Office:               260 Victoria, 4th floor
email:                kopp[at]rowan[dot]edu
Office Hours: 
by appointment

Class Participation

Success in this course depends on each student
  • showing up,
  • on time,
  • having done the work.

However, occasions for showing up, on time, and having done the work will occur both inside and outside class, especially regarding your reading group responsibilities. Consequently, I will assume that you will be prepared for class, on time, and offer productive, frequent, and meaningful discussion and feedback on both actual and virtual discussions. Key to performing at this level is having something at stake for yourself as a participant in and co-creator of the course. You will articulate what you have at stake in your reading list proposal.
All work for the course will be presented within a small group collaborative blog set up through Wordpress

Required Texts

Novel to be read by entire class as beginning of semester: Giovanni's Room, by James Baldwin
This website, especially the lectures, will serve as an electronic text book for the course. I highly recommend that you read and re-read each of the lectures to keep deepening your understanding of the theories we are putting into practice this semester.
I will supply you with the remainder of the required readings for the course, which will be available through Dropbox.
Your proposed reading list will comprise the remainder of the required texts for the course.
I highly recommend Francine Prose's 2007 book Reading Like a Writer.

Required Activities

Using a collaborative Wordpress.com site, each student will generate an inventory and reflection of past readings (along with the range of genres and readerly roles you have played), which will then provide an occasion to propose a reading list that will drive the reading group discussions, the Annotated Bibliography, and the Final Reflection.

Assignment Breakdown

Reading Inventory  
"Reading for" reflective narrative
Reading List Proposal

First practice blog post (Reading for; value graph; summary)
Second practice blog post (close-reading and genre)
Third practice blog post (Intertextual Codes)
Fourth practice blog post (Rhetoric of Narrative)

Blog Posts (1 for each book; 4 total) 
Conversation (12 responses--3 per book)
Collaborative Annotated Bibliography and Final Reflection
Participation is a function of actual and virtual presence, which will be measured in terms of blog posts and replies.
2%
5%
5%

2%
2%
2%
2%

36% (9% per blog)
24% (2% per response)
20%

Grading

To receive an A in this course, you must accumulate at least 900 points; for a B, 800 points; for a C, 700 points; and a D, 600 points.  Please turn in all assignments, even if you believe they are poorly done.  The difference between an E grade and 0 is that an E carries points toward the final point total and is assigned for something turned in, while a 0 carries no points and is assigned when no assignment is submitted.
  • Both in-class and out-of-class writing will be assigned throughout the course.  If you are not in class when writing is assigned, you are still responsible for completion of the assignment when due.
  • Late work will not be accepted without penalty unless you make arrangements with me for an extension before the due date.  Otherwise, I will subtract 5 points per class day late from the total grade. 
  • An “incomplete” in the course is not an option unless 70% of the course work has been completed at the semester’s end.
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