Instructor / Nichole J. Hansen
Term / Spring Semester 2010
Meetings / MW 4:30-5:45 HUMN 190
“For some time, perhaps a little over half an hour after the arrival of the ladies, no sounds were heard, and the company gave obvious symptoms of impatience. They were then requested to draw nearer the table, which was in front of the ladies, and form themselves into a compact circle. Soon after faint sounds began to be heard from under the floor, around the table, and in different parts of the room. They increased in loudness and frequency, becoming so clear and distinct that no one could deny their presence, nor trace them to any visible causes.” George Ripley, on a séance held by Kate and Maggie Fox
"Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo.… Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage." M.R. James
“O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we . . . are, in very deed, Ghosts!” Thomas Carlyle
Contact Information
Office Location / ENVD 1B62C-BEmail Address /
Office Hours / TBA
General Course Information
Pre-requisites / WRTG 1150Course Description / Designed for Juniors and Seniors in the College of Arts and Sciences, WRTG 3020 strives to improve students’ writing and critical thinking skills. Through sustained inquiry into a selected topic or issue, students will practice advanced forms of academic writing. The course emphasizes analysis, criticism, and argument. Taught as a writing workshop, the course places a premium on substantive, thoughtful revision.
We will spend a majority of the class focusing on the developments of Spiritualism during the nineteenth century, a time that was fraught with dramatic cultural changes that threatened to break apart traditional ideas of spirituality. During this time, the Spiritualist movement stepped forward and claimed to reconcile these differences in its hybridization of Christian doctrine and scientific inquiry. This course will examine literary and artistic representations of Spiritualism during the Victorian age. In particular, we will explore how historical developments of the time—both technological advances and the increasing prioritization of domestic ideologies—were reflected within the precepts of Spiritualism itself. Using ideas presented in various scholarly sources, we will examine Victorian ghost stories in order to discover how this self-titled religion permeated the literature of the time. Potential topics will include Spiritualism’s pseudoscientific aspects, its historical developments, and its strained relations with Christianity.
Towards the end of the semester, we will move into an investigation of ghost stories from other cultures, including those of Russia, Scandinavia, China, Japan, and Australia. These will not be limited to the nineteenth century. Special requests will be taken into consideration
Learning Outcomes /
This course addresses the key criteria for an advanced writing course as specified by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (see below for further description). The course should develop your Rhetorical and Content Knowledge, as well as your knowledge of Writing Processes and Writing Conventions.
Required Texts & Materials / ₪ Access to various online resources (links and downloadable files will be available through CULearn): These sources will provide us with primary readings on our topic (e.g. ghost stories and other historical documents), supplementary information relevant to our topic, images relevant to our discussion, and educational information about rhetoric and writing.₪ A blank notebook that you will use for writing journal entries in class
Suggested Texts, Readings, & Materials / A writing handbook of your choice and a dictionary.
Course Policies and Objectives
Texts / You must bring every reading to class on the day that it is due. It will negatively affect your participation grade if you do not bring the reading to class. If you have electronic access to your texts, you may bring that in lieu of a physical copy. Texts will serve to develop both your rhetorical knowledge and your content knowledge (including historical, literary, and theoretical representations of our topic).Attendance / Regular attendance and active participation throughout the semester are necessary to this seminar/writing workshop. Students who miss class will need to ask classmates for the information and assignments they missed. Missing more than two classes will lower your final course grade by one third of a letter (i.e. A to A-) for each absence after the third. More than six absences will result in an IW, IF, or F for the course. Excused absences include death of an immediate family member, religious observation, or serious medical illness or accident. In the case of illness or accident, I require documentation from an appropriate official. In the case of a religious observation, I require notice in advance. All other absences are not excused.
This attendance policy includes workshop meetings. Missing a workshop is equivalent to missing a class. In addition, if you are not present for peer workshops, the final grade of the assignment will be dropped by one letter grade.
This course follows the administrative drop policy; any student who misses two classes within the first week of the semester will be administratively dropped.
Tardiness and Leaving Early: Class starts at the announced time; two late arrivals count as one absence. I will take attendance at the beginning of class and if you come in after I have taken attendance, you will need to check with me to make sure you are marked as present. Plan to be in class the full 75 minute session. Two early departures count as one absence.
Major Assignments / You should prepare assigned readings and papers in advance of the class period. You must come to class ready to comment on the text and/or the work of your colleagues. Peer Review of drafts submitted by your classmates will be a regular feature of this seminar. Be sure to save all drafts, and to save your work (including various drafts) on computer files. All drafts and all homework must be typed and stapled or it will not be accepted.
₪ Comparative analysis essay: For this essay, you will be writing a comparative study of two sources of your choice. Options will include comparing two images, comparing two stories, comparing an image and a story, comparing a secondary reading with a story or an image, etc. You must approve your focus with me. This assignment should prepare you to compare and contrast issues within a single paper, helping you to become a proficient reader, approaching texts with a writer’s awareness of craft and a critic’s ability to interpret and respond to a text’s meaning and effects. You’ll be asked to read critically, to recognize the rhetorical strategies authors have chosen—both in format and content—that invite the audience to interpret the text in a particular way. 4-6 pages.
₪ Research Project: This assignment aims to develop strategies of research that will enable you to become an active researcher. You’ll learn about research technologies available here at CU (on-line databases, electronic books and journals, bibliographic software, etc.) through a library seminar. More importantly, we’ll discuss how to evaluate a source for accuracy, relevance, credibility, reliability and bias by examining the source’s rhetoric and rhetorical situation. You will draw from the research and analysis you have done with your topic explorations to draft a research paper (must be either informational or argumentative).
₪ Creative Project: This assignment aims to develop your ability to apply the rhetorical and content knowledge you’ve learned over the semester to a project of your choice. You have many options for this project. Potential projects could include a ghost story, a piece of artwork, an analysis of a modern day film that discusses how the qualities of the ghost story and/or spiritualism are represented, or a more traditional analytical essay. More creative projects must be accompanied by a short analytical discussion of your project’s different strategies (rhetorical and otherwise).
Other Assignments / ₪ Presentations: Each member of the class is required to give one 15 minute presentations. The presentation is relatively informal and will require you to pick a short passage, image, or point relating to something we have read and lead a discussion on this matter. The form this presentation takes is very open—try to have fun with this. Remember that if we are not discussing your passage on the day you present, you will need to bring in copies for everyone to read.
₪ Quizzes: Periodically throughout the semester, we will have quizzes on concepts covered in class. If you miss a quiz because of an unexcused absence, you will not be able to make it up.
₪ Journals: Each week, we will devote a small amount of classtime to writing journal entries on different subjects. This assignment aims to help you develop discussion points and think reflectively about how your writing is developing.
₪ Weekly Paragraphs: Each Wednesday, you will hand in 1-2 paragraphs that address a question assigned in class. This short assignment is intended to help you focus on smaller scale writing concerns like paragraph cohesion and organization, sentence structure, word choice, and mechanics. You are required to do 7 of these.
Late Work / Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date listed on the syllabus. Late assignments will not be accepted and will lose one letter grade per day past the due date(excepting the excused absence reasons as outlined in the absences section of this syllabus). **Emailed assignments will NOT be accepted unless I specifically ask for them.**
Drafts / For your major essays, you will be writing rough drafts for review by your classmates and by me. While they are not graded, these drafts are integral to your success in this class. They must be passed in and passed in on time. I will not accecpt any Final Draft that has not gone through the workshop and revision process. You must attach all workshopped drafts to the final copy that you turn in to me.
Participation / Participation includes a variety of things, including but not limited to providing quality written and oral feedback during peer reviews and workshops; asking intelligent and relevant questions during discussions and following presentations; acting professionally and respectfully; and participating fully in all in-class exercises.
Classroom Behavior / Please do not personally slander or verbally attack a classmate, fiddle with your cell phone, or listen to your ipod during class. Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Those who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline.
Information Literacy / We will attend a library seminar, taught by a knowledgeable library expert from CU. The seminar will take up one class period and will provide advanced information about conducting research in addition to reviewing the unique and diverse resources the University of Colorado Library system has to offer. As part of our own review of the material covered in this segment, you will complete a library 'scavenger hunt', which will require you to find certain types of sources related to your individual research topic.
Writing Center / The Writing Center is an incredibly valuable resource that I strongly encourage each of you to use. The service is free but you do need to make an appointment. Information is available at http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/writingcenter.html. During these appointments, you will meet one on one with a writing tutor who can help you at any stage of the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, revising) or with any writing issue (organization, thesis/claim, style, grammar, clarity, citations, research, and argument and evidence).
CCHE Criteria / This course addresses the key criteria for an upper-division core course as specified by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE), as well as by the Program for Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) approved WRTG 3020 Curricular Goals:
₪ Rhetorical Knowledge. The course takes a rhetorical perspective on academic research, reading, and writing activities that target real-life audiences in relevant academic disciplines. We will use a variety of rhetorical texts, most available online (The Purdue University OWL being one example), to inform our conversations. Our development of rhetorical knowledge will be applied in our discussions (oral and written) about the historical developments of Spiritualism during the Victorian Age and in our analysis of the ghost stories from that time period.
₪ Writing Process. The course offers learning opportunities aimed at understanding writing from the audience or reader perspective by focusing on peer review of work in progress. Through our library seminar, 2 class presentations, and a research project, you will also have opportunities to integrate various technologies (e.g., Internet search engines, electronic discipline-specific databases, PowerPoint) and to develop advanced information literacy skills in your research area.
₪ Conventions. The documents you will write for this course will call upon the key genres of academic communication (comparative rhetorical analysis, research proposal, annotated bibliography, and research argument. In the process, you will learn about genre conventions appropriate to your disciplinary focus and/or to your academic or civic audience. (The Instructor and/or the Class will serve only indirectly as audiences for your writing.) You will also learn about how to draw on specialized vocabularies in ways that still make your work accessible to secondary audiences and
about the role of textual features and document design (e.g., bold-face heading sections) as persuasive tools.
₪ Effective application. All of the assignments in the course are geared to real-world audiences—including members of your chosen discipline. In the process, you will become familiar with writing in a disciplinary or specialized rhetorical situation, even as you make your work accessible to secondary audiences in other related fields.
Students with Disabilities / If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities. Contact: 303-492-8671, Willard 322, and
The University of Colorado at Boulder policy on Discrimination and Harassment / The University of Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and the University of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships apply to all students, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member who believes s/he has been the subject of discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at 303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. Information about the ODH, the above referenced policies and the campus resources available to assist individuals regarding discrimination or harassment can be obtained at http://www.colorado.edu/odh
The Honor Code / We will discuss plagiarism in some depth in the upcoming weeks, but take time to familiarize yourself with the Student Honor Code. All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council (; 303-725-2273). Students who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion). Other information on the Honor Code can be found at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/honor.html and at
http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/. Plagiarism is unacceptable and will result in an “F” in the course, and your case will be reported to the honor council.
ESL students / If you speak English as a second language and feel that you need extra assistance, you should contact me before the third class meeting so that I can better assist you in the course, advise you about special ESL courses, and/or refer you to appropriate services on campus.
CULearn / Course documents are available through CULearn—syllabus, assignments, and some relevant links
Helpful Links / ₪ A selection of ghost stories available through PDF.
₪ A website that walks you through the citation process.
₪ http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL), a very helpful resource that can provide an answer to most questions about writing.
Grades