Course Syllabus for AP/EN 3180A6.0 (SU) Literary Nonfiction,2012
Handout Version, May 7, 2012
Lecture: Mondays & Wednesdays 2:30 – 5:30, FC 105
Instructor:Geoffrey Huck, Ph.D.
Voice mail: Ext. 33985 (messages retrieved only occasionally)
Course website:
Course Description
Literary nonfiction melds the accuracy of nonfiction with the dramatic force of fiction, the best of expository prose with the readability of the novel or the short story. In this course we read essays written by some of the best-known authors of this genre and closely examine their writing style - voice, audience, organization, argumentation, ornamentation, diction, etc. Students are regularly required to craft original essays of their own that demonstrate their understanding of and appreciation for the stylistic techniques these authors deploy.
Course requirements
Two original essays (150 to 300 words each) (20% each), seminar presentation (10%), fourquizzes (10% each), participation (10%)Tip for getting a good grade in this course:
Read this syllabus carefully and follow the directions given.
Brief description of assignments: Reading assignments: Each week students are to read several brief literary nonfiction essays from the assigned texts. These readings are discussed in the instructor’s lectures, students’ seminar presentations, or class discussionsand also should inform students’ writing assignments.
Essay writing assignments: Students write two exceptionally well-craftedoriginal literary nonfiction essays on assigned topics, employing specific stylistic techniques associated with oneof the assigned authors. The object is not simply to imitate an author’s style, but more importantly to isolate the elements that contribute to it and creatively to craft a new workof your own using some of those elements. Each essay should be preceded by a paragraph describing the specific stylistic techniques employed by the targeted author that you will use in your essay.
The seminar presentation: Each student is to leada seminar session lasting approximately 20 minutes on an assigned essay. The presentation focuses on the author’s style in the assigned essay and should attempt to explain what is notable about this style. The student should prepare a written version of the presentation to be handed in to the instructor at its conclusion.A maximum of eight points out of the ten that are allotted for the grade may be awarded for the style and content of the written version, and a maximum of two out of ten for the effectiveness of the presentation. A student who elects not to give an oral presentation will, of course, automatically lose two of the ten points. Students who choose or are chosen to participate in the first seminar presentation on May 28 will receive a bonus of one-half point if they score 9(or less) out of 10 on their presentation.
The four quizzes:These test students’ knowledge of the readings, class lectures, and discussions. All quizzes are multiple choice. You should expect to see at least some questions that ask you to identify the correct definitions of words found in the readings.
Reading List: Peterson et al. (eds.) The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction, 13th Edition, (W.W. Norton, 2012, 978-0-393-91218-0); Lillian Ross (ed.), The Fun of It: Stories from the Talk of the Town, (Modern Library, 2001, 978-0375756498)
Attendance:I will not keep an attendance log for grading purposes. However, it will be virtually impossible for you to achieve a good mark for class participation if you often are late to class or miss classes altogether.Note that participation does not mean simply attending: All students are expected to contribute to class discussions as indicated in the schedule, especially during seminar presentations.For purposes of the quizzes, students will be responsible for all information conveyed in class whether they have attended or not. If you miss a class, you should seek notes from another class member you can rely on.Do not ask the course director to recapitulate for you a class you chose to miss.
Extensions: Writing assignments are due at the beginning of class on the date indicated unless you are presenting a seminar that day, in which case you will automatically be given a one-week extension.In all other cases, anonmedical extension may be granted if the instructor receives a student’s request at least fourteen days before the assignment’s due date.A medical extension will be given only in case of illness or family emergency supported by a doctor’s note or a letter from York’s Counselling and Disability Services (CDS). Papers turned in late without an extension will be marked down as follows: 1-2 days, 1 grade point (e.g., B+ to B); 3-4 days; 2 grade points (e.g., B+ to C+); 5-6 days, 3 grade points (e.g., B+ to C); 7 or more days, 4 grade points (e.g., B+ to D+).A paper not turned in by the last date to submit term work (August 3), will necessarily receive a grade of 0 (zero) on that assignment.Note that if you turn in an assignment late, the instructor will only accept it in person or as an e-mail attachment. Do not leave an assignment in the PRWR or English office or under the instructor’s office door.
Make-up quizzes and presentations:A student who for medical or family emergency reasons cannot attend class on the day of a quiz or his/her seminar presentation and who has a doctor’s note or letter from the York CDS should arrange an alternate date with the instructor when a make-up quiz can be administered or presentation can be given. A student who must be absent from a quiz or his/her presentation for other reasons may also be given a make-up date if the instructor receives the request at least fourteendays before the normal quiz or presentationdate. Otherwise, students who are absent from a quiz or presentation will receive a grade of 0(zero) onthat quiz or presentation.
Essay writing assignments – detailed instructions:For the first essay, you are to choose one writer among any of those assigned for reading and underlined in the course schedule either the week the paper is due or anyclass previous to it. For the second essay, you may choose any author assigned for reading and underlined in the course schedule between June 13 and July 25. Using the library or any other source, locate and read at leastone additionalnonfiction essay by that author that is not on the course reading list – the point is to get a good sense of the writer’s voice and style as used in a variety of situations. (This outside essay should be at least 1500 words long; if it is not, please read more material by this author until you have read at least 1500 words by him or her.)Analyze your writer’s stylein a paragraph from the outside reading,using techniques discussed in class.The assignment that you hand in should consist of three parts. (A) As a preface to your creative essay, write a brief paragraph of no more than 150 words describing the results of your analysis, indicating which style elements you’ve chosen to emulate. At the end of this one-paragraph preface, provide complete bibliographical information in MLA style for the outside reading(s). (B) Reproduce the target paragraph from the outside reading that you’ve analyzed. (C) The remainder of your paper will be a creative nonfiction essay of no less than 200 words and no more than 300 words of your own devising, adopting style elements from your target paragraph. The subject of your essay may be any in the list below. Nota bene: (1) Your essay should be strictly nonfiction.Do not write fiction; do not invent interviews, characters, etc. You will not receive credit for an essay that is obviously fiction.(2) In no more than one of your two essays should you yourself be the primary topic. You may write in the first person in both of your essays, but that does not mean that someone else cannot be the topic of these essays. For example, you may write an essay on the topic of your friend John Doe that begins, “I met John Doe for lunch at the Orange Snail last week,” and then go on to focus on some aspect of John Doe.(Most of the older articles in Ross from The New Yorkerare written in the first-person plural. These days, the “editorial we” has largely been abandoned in that magazine and most others in favor of the first or third person singular; you may try out first person plural in your essay if you wish, but you certainly are not required to.) (3) You absolutely should not plagiarize your author’s work or anybody else’s. Do not copy any of your author’s sentences word for word, though you may employ the grammatical structure of such sentences. Use vocabulary appropriate to your topic. For example, if your author is E.B. Whiteand your topic is a soccer game you attended and you observe that Whiteused certain colloquialisms current in the 1930s to enhance the impact of his article, you will want to use colloquialisms in your essay as well, but ensure that yours are appropriate to your era rather than to his. Think about how you can craft an essay on your subject that makes use of some of your author’s stylistic techniques, using your own words.How are the sentences structured grammatically and logically? What kind of vocabulary is in play? Are the sentences heavy with adjectives and adverbs? Try out your author’s sentence structure and see where it leads you. Are these techniques and strategies likely to be useful to you in your own creative writing? (4) An important criterion that will be used in grading your papers is quality of style. While “quality of style” is necessarily a subjective concept, violation of standard rules of writing will be looked upon with disfavour. (5) Please indicate at the top of your paper the essay #, date due, essay topic, author emulated. Failure to do so will result in a one point deduction.
Because there are only two creative essay assignments and because they each count for 20% of your final grade, you will want to take great care with them. They should be short, so there is no excuse for misspellings, unconventional punctuation, strange logic, imprecise or confusing vocabulary, or grammatical solecisms. If you need a good style book, I recommend Messenger et al.’s Concise Canadian Writer’s Handbook. If you remain perplexed, the Writing Department offers tutorials.
The written version of your presentation should be somewhat longerthan your creative essay assignments (2 or 3 pages, usually), but you should take no less care with it. I will take marks off for sloppily prepared work.
Essay topics: You may write your creative essay on any subject explicitly listed below. Please indicate the topic you have chosen in the heading of your essay, using the precise wording given here (e.g., “Sports, university/school). Do not write on the same broad topic (e.g., Sports) for both your creative essays.
Sports: Professional, amateur, university/school, children’s, family, neighbourhood, pick-up, sports for seniors, sports for animals, sports for the disabled, a run/walk for charity, exercise; favourite physical activities
Economics, business, money, finance: poverty, wealth, prices, coins, entrepreneurs, factories, budgets, tuition, scholarships, social services, government initiatives, accountants, economics classes, taxes, governmental regulation, recession, unemployment, food recalls
Movies, videos, music: review of a movie or video you’ve seen, the kind of movies you like/don’t like, the movie business, the experience of going to movies, filming in Toronto, VHS & DVD, JPG format, what you like in a movie, a movie or recording star you’d like to meet or you have met or seen, home videos, YouTube, learning to play a musical instrument, MP3 players, iPod, a local band or concert
Science, nature, medicine, technology: ecology, nature, wilderness, scientists, science classes, pets, animals, plants, drugs/pharmaceuticals, medical problems, doctors, diseases, bioengineering, a new invention or product
Crime, misdeeds, the law: petty crimes, graffiti, lying, stealing, rape, crimes in the news, victims, a crime of which you were the victim, a crime that you committed, criminals, laws(new/old/good/bad/needed/unnecessary)
Books, language: the kind of book you love or hate, audio books, reading books online, text messaging, new portable digital book devices, your experience trying to write a book, the ten best books of all time, bookstores,the problem with textbooks, slang, dialects, learning a foreign language, speech impediments and/or therapy, public speaking, sermons, sign language
Grading rubric – essay writing assignments
I. Analysis of target writer’s style / outside reading: 2 points
II. Application to your own essay: 2 points
III. Vocabulary: 2 points
IV. Voice: 2 point
V. Cohesion / Coherence: 2 point
VI. Grammar: 4 points
VII. Spelling, punctuation: 2 points
VIII. Clarity / effectiveness: 4 points
TOTAL: 20 points
Presentations – detailed instructions:Before the third week of classes, the instructor will post an assignment sheet listing all seminar presenters, dates, and subjects of presentation. If you have a preference regarding date or subject, please let the instructor know by the end of the second class. For your presentation, you shouldnot select either of the two authors who serve as targets for your creative essay writing assignments. In any case, seminar presenters will automatically be given one extra week to complete the writing assignmentoriginally due on the date of their presentation.In the 20-minute presentation, you should offer a short biography of the writer as well as a thorough analysis of the writer’s style, giving examples from the assigned reading(s) to support your conclusions. (You do not need to find or analyze “outside” readings for this author.) You will also need to explain what is notable about this style: Why do you think it is considered exemplary? Can you find fault with it? You should look especially closely at the author’s word choices. Keep in mind Blake’s dictum, “As Poetry admits not a Letter that is Insignificant, so Painting admits not a Grain of Sand or a Blade of Grass Insignificant—much less an Insignificant Blur or Mark" ("A Vision of the Last Judgment"). This precept could as well be applied to the literary essay, where every word counts and has significance in virtue not only of its denotation, but also of its sound, its connotations, its register, its “feel” in its sentence. Are there any “Blurs” or “Marks” in the essay? Is every word the perfect choice in its context? How exactly do the author’s word choices contribute to the effectiveness of the essay?Pay particular attention to repeated words, syllables, sounds, grammatical constructions. Also pay attention to surprise elements – words, phrases, or sentences that are unexpected and therefore stand out in context. You might want to prepare visual media (Powerpoint, handouts, etc.) to supplement your presentation. At the end of the class, you should hand in a written version of the presentation to the course director. Nota bene: This is not an exercise in literary theory or literary criticism. You are to focus exclusively on the mechanics of the author’s style.
Grading rubric – presentations
I. Breadth of analysis – Have you covered everything you should have? (2 points)
II. Depth of analysis – Have you given each point its due?(2 points)
III Style of presentation (written version) – Is your written presentation itself stylistically well composed and well organized? (4 points)
IV. Style of presentation (oral version) – Is your oral presentation effective and interesting? (2 points)
TOTAL: 10 points
E-mail Etiquette
All e-mail messages sent to the course directorshould be crafted according to the recommendations listed in “E-mail Etiquette for Professional Writing Students” in the Professional Writing Program Supplemental Calendar
E-mailed requests for any information that is explicitly contained in this syllabus probably won’t be answered. (But if you notice an error or are confused on a point, please let me know.)
On-line Tutorial for Students on Academic Integrity
All students are required to take the on-line tutorial at /, print a copy of the results of the on-line quiz, and hand it in with their first essay to verify their completion of the module.You will receive a zero (0) for any paper handed in one week or more before you hand in the results of the Academic Integrity tutorial.
Students with disabilities: If you have a disability and require accommodation on assignments and/or quizzes, please notify the course director as early as possible in the term. York provides services for students with disabilities (including physical, medical, learning and psychiatric disabilities) needing accommodation related to teaching and evaluation methods/materials. It is the student's responsibility to register with disability services as early as possible to ensure that appropriate academic accommodation can be provided with advance notice. Failure to make these arrangements may jeopardize your opportunity to receive academic accommodations. Additional information is available at
York’s Academic Honesty Policy and Student Conduct Standards: All students are expected to familiarize themselves with York’s Academic Honesty Policy at and the Standards of Student Conduct at . Students and instructors are expected to maintain a professional relationship characterized by courtesy and mutual respect and to refrain from actions disruptive to such a relationship. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the instructor to maintain an appropriate academic atmosphere in the classroom, and the responsibility of the student to cooperate in that endeavour. Further, the instructor is the best person to decide, in the first instance, whether such an atmosphere is present in the class. A statement of the policy and procedures involving disruptive and/or harassing behaviour by students in academic situations is available on the York website