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Fall 2008 Section Descriptions

Lower-Division Courses

College Writing 1

CW 1
Section: 1
CCN: 16403
Meeting time: M 10-12 a.m.
Meeting place: 201 Giannini Hall
Instructor: Melinda Erickson
Email address: erickson@berkeley.edu
Course description: A course for students who are non-native speakers of English, CW 1 develops an awareness of grammatical forms and academic vocabulary in written English. We will analyze a variety of texts--by professional and student writers--paying attention to the choices writers make when selecting words and composing phrases and clauses. The texts will also allow us to see how writers organize larger pieces of discourse to accomplish their rhetorical purposes. These analyses will lead to writing and editing tasks related to more complex grammatical forms and academic vocabulary.

Booklist: Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writers (Patricia Porter and Deborah vanDommelen), Focus on Vocabulary (Diane Schmitt and Norbert Schmitt), They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein)

CW 1
Section: 2
CCN: 16406
Meeting time: W 2-4 p.m.
Meeting place: 203 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Margi Wald
Email address: mwald@berkeley.edu
Course description:

Book list:

College Writing R1A

CW R1A
Section: 2
CCN: 16415
Meeting time: MWF 8-10 a.m.
Meeting place: 225 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Caroline Cole
Email address: cmcole@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Gender: Beneath the Surface
Course description: We often divide gender into two neat categories—male and female—and ignore many questions. Is gender constant or fluid? Is it biologically determined, socially constructed, or both? If gender is at least partially constructed, who or what constructs the categories? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being perceived as male or female? And, what happens when people blur the boundaries? This section of College Writing R1A focuses on the ways gender plays out in various areas, such as biology, language, advertising, novels and more. By reading texts from a range of disciplines and perspectives, students will examine and critique the way gender impacts our understanding of ourselves, others, and our world. While the readings will inform discussions on the course's theme, students will use these readings primarily as a means to engage in authentic critical literacy practices; the resulting examinations and critiques provide subject matter for students to learn and practice various rhetorical strategies, such extended summaries, traditional argumentation, compare/contrast arguments, problem/solution arguments, visual analysis, and literary analysis.

Book list: Herland: A Lost Feminist Utopian Novel (Charlotte Perkins Gilman), Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think & Feel (Jean Kilbourne), Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism and Achieve Real Academic Success (Charles Lipson), Course Reader

CW R1A
Section: 5
CCN: 16424
Meeting time: MWF 10-12 p.m.
Meeting place: 211 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Pat Steenland
Email address: steenpat@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Heroism, Love, and Sacrifice: Reading the Films of Ang Lee
Course description: Welcome to College Writing 1A. This is an accelerated 6-unit course which fulfills the Subject A and the first half of the Reading and Composition requirements. In this class you will write at least 40 pages over the course of the semester. This writing will take various forms—in-class writing, creative pieces, short one-page pieces and longer essays of 4-6 pages. I hope that this semester you will discover and strengthen your own voice as a writer. My goal is to help you develop as a critical and analytical reader, and a clear and expressive writer. In this process I hope you will attain a strong, engaged, confident and individual voice. This semester we are taking advantage of the university's choice of the films of the director Ang Lee as a common text. We will look at three of his films, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”; “Ride With The Devil”; and “Sense and Sensibility,” Ang Lee’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel. In conjunction with these films, we will read three texts: American Born Chinese, the award-winning graphic novel by Gene Yang; God of Luck, the most recent novel by Ruthanne Lum McCunn; and (of course!) Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. In our reading, viewing, and class discussions, we will explore the concepts of heroism, love and sacrifice. How are these concepts defined and presented in the films and in the texts? what relevance do they have for us? To aid us in our exploration of this topic, the author of one of our assigned texts, the writer Ruthanne Lum McCunn, will make a visit to our class.

Book list: Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen), God of Luck (Ruthanne Lum McCunn), American Born Chinese (Gene Yuan Yang)

CW R1A
Section: 6
CCN: 16427
Meeting time: MWF 10-12 p.m.
Meeting place: 225 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Michael Larkin
Email address: larkinm@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Politics and Prose
Course description: We’ll explore American politics—personal, generational, presidential. What are your generation’s political concerns? What are your political concerns? How might we make some sense of the presidential campaigns and media portrayals of same without merely being cynical? Does it make sense to vote at all? Whose voices are and aren’t being heard? What makes for
a compelling argument or rhetorical analysis of same? Enough with the questions, yes? Let’s get some answers. Through extensive critical reading and writing, this course will ask you to take a hard look at those questions and to think about how you might begin to answer them. Our lofty goal will be to make us all better writers and better informed citizens.

Book list: March (Geraldine Brooks), Writing with Sources (Gordon Harvey), Lincoln at Gettysburg (Garry Wills), Millennial Makeover:  MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics (Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais), Course Reader.  Films (likely):  Street Fight, Primary Colors

CW R1A
Section: 7
CCN: 16430
Meeting time: MWF 10-12 p.m.
Meeting place: 125 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Jon Lang
Email address: see the CalNet directory for email
Course theme: The Decades
Course description: Each recent decade in American history might be said to have its own distinctive character: the 1950s is the era of the suburban American family; the 1960s, the period of civil rights and civil dissent; the 1970s saw the end of the Vietnam War. Each period has a character because the conflicts it represents endure: in the year 2008, the contemporary “decline” of the family produces a nostalgia for the 50s; the legacy of racial strife in American life can be traced to the “disturbances” of the 60s; and the memory of the Vietnam war haunts the conduct of the current conflict in Iraq. Through literature, film, and the non-fictional essay, we will focus on understanding the character of “the decades.” The course will present a basic review of the expository essay as a form; revision will be central to your development as a writer.

Book list: Rules for Writers (Diana Hacker), The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), This Boy’s Life (Tobias Wolff), Course Reader which will include essays written on the 1960s. Film: Far from Heaven (dir. Todd Haynes)

CW R1A
Section: 8
CCN: 16433
Meeting time: MWF 10-12 p.m.
Meeting place: 186 Barrows Hall
Instructor: John Levine
Email address: jblevine@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Shifting Perspectives
Course description: There are always two sides to an issue—and often many more sides, once we look carefully. The course will consider a number of different topics—evolution and intelligent design, how to read history, racial identity, life in the suburbs—and we will plumb each topic for its multiple perspectives. The more ambiguous a subject, the better. Right?

Book list: Ways of Reading (David Bartholomae & Anthony Petrosky), The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA (Gordy Slack), BFE (Julia Cho), The New St. Martin’s Handbook (Andrea Lunsford), one more text to be determined. Films/Videos: Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch), Freedomland (dir. Joe Roth, scrnply. Richard Price)

CW R1A
Section: 9 (for non-native speakers)
CCN: 16436
Meeting time: MWF 3-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 225 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: David Skolnick
Email address: dskolnick@berkeley.edu
Course theme: The Multifarious Facets of Food
Course description: "You are what you eat" goes the old saying. But how many of us consider the broader and deeper meanings of this proverb? The food we eat influences and is influenced by our personal preferences, our family, our culture, our media, and our politics, all of which enter into our daily lives either overtly or covertly, consciously or unconsciously. In this course, we will examine the various ways food intersects with our personal and public lives by reading, thinking critically, writing, and rewriting about, discussing, and eating the topic. We will define concepts, analyze our own and others' writing, learn how we are influenced by language, and, concurrently, how we can influence others with language. In the process, we will also examine what choices we can make and actions we can take when confronted with truths and perspectives that may surprise us. As this section of CWR1A is designated for non-native speakers of English, we will also focus on grammar error patterns and vocabulary, on both an individual basis and as a class.

Book list: Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser), My Year of Meats (Ruth Ozeki), Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writing (Pat Porter and Deborah vanDommelen)

CW R1A
Section: 10
CCN: 16439
Meeting time: MWF 12-2 p.m.
Meeting place: 225 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Ben Keating
Email address: bkeating@uci.edu
Course theme: The Self in Text
Course description: What do we mean when we say “I don’t feel like myself today”? It is a question of identity (and ultimately, “life story”), yes, but how, exactly, do we conceive of it? What about our political, cultural, and national identities? How do writers re(-)present themselves in their work? Proceeding from these broad questions, this course will examine how language constructs identity, or what Paul Eakin calls “self and self-experience.” As you might have guessed (this is an intensive writing course, after all), your own writing will take priority: the focus will be on sharpening your skill in the craft of thesis-driven essay composition. In our effort to articulate what it means to have a “self, ” what it means to have an “I,” we will examine film, photography, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. For 15 weeks, we will make arguments (then revise them and revise them), gaining along the way a more nuanced understanding of own identities as critical thinkers, readers, and writers.

Book list: Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri), How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves (Paul John Eakin), War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Chris Hedges), The New St. Martin’s Handbook (Lunsford and Connors), Course Reader (online)

CW R1A
Section: 11
CCN: 16442
Meeting time: MWF 12-2 p.m.
Meeting place: 186 Barrows Hall
Instructor: Verda Delp
Email address: vkd@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Learning
Course description: In this course, students will examine how an array of writers, working in non-fiction and fiction, represent their ideas about learning. Students will read texts that depict learning taking place in different times and places: Sherman Alexie’s account of how he learned to read and write from comic books; Frederick Douglass’ thoughts about learning to read and its relationship to freedom; Amy Tan’s treatise on the importance of learning about her “mother tongue”; Scott Sanders’ remembrances of his father’s carpentry lessons; as well as other authors’ texts about their learning. Students will look at their own experiences and ideas about learning in relation to the texts they read through class discussions and a series of writing assignments.

Book list: The Writer's Presence: A Pool of Readings (Donald McQuade and Robert Atwan), A Lesson Before Dying (Ernest Gaines), All Over But the Shouting (Rick Bragg), The St. Martin's Handbook (Andrea Lunsford), Course Reader

CW R1A
Section: 12 (for non-native speakers)
CCN: 16445
Meeting time: MWF 12-2 p.m.
Meeting place: 211 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Margi Wald
Email address: mwald@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Politics and Perspectives
Course description: In this course, we will examine how perspective and persuasive techniques play a role in rendering, representing and interpreting events and experiences. We will focus our discussion on topics that emerge during the 2008 national election, including policies for immigration and education.  To further this exploration, students will engage with a variety of texts and craft a variety of critical, analytical essays through brainstorming, revision, peer response, and editing for grammar and word choice.

Book list (tentative): Asking the Right Questions (M. Neil Browne and Stuart Keeley), The Shame of the Nation (Jonathan Kozol), Don't Think of an Elephant (George Lakoff) , The Audacity of Hope (Barack Obama), Keys for Writers fifth edition (Ann Raimes), Course Reader

CW R1A
Section: 16
CCN: 16457
Meeting time: MWF 10-12 a.m.
Meeting place: 111 Kroeber Hall
Instructor: Katherine Lee
Email address: khlee@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Writing the Margins
Course description: When we say "margins" or "marginal," what often comes to mind is that which is at the border of: the blank spaces surrounding a piece of paper, the areas that border a geographical location, or what occupies the space at the edge. This class will explore alternative understandings of "the marginal" and how notions of the margin become increasingly complex when we consider both the ways that they are physically and socially constructed, as well as how intersections of politics, individual identity, language, time, and international frameworks continuously shape and re-define them. We will begin our class by reading essays written by writers who discuss the geographical margins of America in decidedly non-geographical ways. These essays will serve as the starting point for reading a broad range of texts (non-fiction, novels, poetry, music, films, museums) that will challenge us to think of margins, the marginal, and marginality as sites that embody more than the physical spaces they occupy or that which they are marginal to. As we read and discuss these texts, we will constantly return to the question of the role that writing plays in creating, describing, changing, and challenging our understanding of the margin.

Book list: Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (Saidiya Hartman), Bone (Fae Myenne Ng), Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! (Kenzaburo Oe), Course Reader

CW R1A
Section: 17
CCN: 16460
Meeting time: TuTh 9-12 p.m.
Meeting place: L11 Unit 2 Towle Hall
Instructor: Donnett Flash
Email address: dflash@berkeley.edu
Course theme:
Course description:

Book list:

CW R1A
Section: 18
CCN: 16463
Meeting time: TuTh 9-12 p.m.
Meeting place: L20 Unit 1 Central
Instructor: Jane Hammons
Email address: jhammons@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Are You Game?
Course description: If so, get ready to read and write about games, sports, and play. You will read a variety of texts—fiction, nonfiction, academic research articles, and works of art—and think critically about the issues raised by them as you participate in class discussion, write and revise your essays.

Book list: The Queen’s Gambit (Walter Tevis), A Book of Surrealist Games (ed. Mel Gooding), Writing Superheroes (Anne Haas Dyson), Keys for Writers, 5th edition (Ann Raimes), Course Reader

CW R1A
Section: 19
CCN: 16466
Meeting time: MW 9-12 p.m.
Meeting place: L11 Unit 2 Towle Hall
Instructor: Tyrone Johnson
Email address: geronimo.johnson@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Foodstuff
Course description: Should you diet or drive-thru; use sugar or Sucralose; go low-carb or no-carb? Is it I or me; i before e; a or an? What about that nosy comma, such a busybody, always butting in, and hanging around like an unemployed apostrophe. Do all those rules mean there's a recipe for good writing? We're going to answer that question, which is tricky because necessity and indulgence, desire and aversion, anxiety and joy, all govern our relationships with writing, eating, and reading. Our aim in this writing class is to define for ourselves what makes satisfying reading and good writing. Coming together as writers, we'll read a lot, write a lot, re-write a lot, and talk about writing—yes, you guessed it—a lot!  Using food as the lens, we'll explore the world around us, and plumb the truth of the proverb, "One who eats alone, chokes alone."  And speaking of eating, gird your stomachs, because we'll be reviewing dining facilities here at Cal. We'll analyze books, song lyrics, stand-up routines, TV shows, and films.  By the end of the class you will be able to explain the importance of revision as well as tell me why, in The Dark Knight, the criminal cabal convenes in the kitchen, and how the film not-so-subtly suggests that the war on terror is a recipe for disaster. And, because this is a writing class, we'll avoid clichés such as that last one, well, like the plague.

Book list: Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond (Lester Faigley), The Concrete Jungle (Upton Sinclair), The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollen), The Little Red Writing Book, Course Reader (online), and additional visual texts.

CW R1A
Section: 22
CCN: 16475
Meeting time: TuTh 2-5 p.m.
Meeting place: 211 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Carolyn Hill
Email address: chill4@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Wanna Play?
Course description: Tons of reading, tons of writing, and plenty of play.

Book list: The Queen’s Gambit (Walter Tevis), A Book of Surrealist Games (ed. Mel Gooding), Easy Writer: A Pocket Guide (Andrea Lunsford), Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (Joseph Williams), Course Reader (online), and one TBA

CW R1A
Section: 23
CCN: 16478
Meeting time: MW 2-5 p.m.
Meeting place: 106 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Nigel Hatton
Email address: ndhatton@berkeley.edu
Course theme: The Rhetoric of Human Rights
Course description: What are human rights? Where do they come from? Who has access to them? Are they effective? Why bother with them? Throughout the semester, we will analyze non-fiction and fiction texts concerned with human rights, coinciding with the international community’s recognition of the 60th anniversary of a document known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The United Nations General Assembly adopted the UDHR on Dec. 10, 1948, in order to promote and encourage global peace, justice and freedom. Regarded as the most translated text in the world—it is available in more than 350 languages, some spoken by fewer than 50 people—the UDHR has become an integral part of the effort to make human rights the lingua franca of the world. As a writer and reader, you will examine, interrogate and critically engage with the discourse and architecture of human rights that has emerged since 1948. You will also look at the origins and foundations of human rights. Expect to delve deeply into the texts (reading and rereading), as well as revise your writing extensively (writing and rewriting).

CW R1A
Section: 24
CCN: 16481
Meeting time: MWF 10-12 a.m.
Meeting place: 140 Barrows Hall
Instructor: Mary Grover
Email address: marymgrover@gmail.com
Course theme: Coming-of-Age: Representing the Journey to Adulthood 
Course description: The expression “coming-of-age” carries provocative associations, such as sexual awakening, disillusionment, embattlement.  This course explores how our culture makes sense of the concept.  Through critical reading, analytical writing, and class discussion, we will examine the assumptions and arguments that influential writers and artists make when portraying how individuals come of age.  Our inquiry will be framed by committed participation in all facets of the writing process, including pre-writing activities, drafting, critique, and of course, revision, revision, and revision.  

CW R1A
Section: 25
CCN: 16484
Meeting time: TuTh 3-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 225 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Cody Gates
Email address: cgates@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Exploring and Exploding the Moment
Course description: We are exposed to a speedier and denser data stream with each passing day. What can we learn by slowing this barrage down, dipping into the stream and isolating a packet of time and experience? In this section of College Writing we are going to hit the pause button and crawl inside a few of these moments, not simply to admire or critique, but as an opportunity to find the questions that connect these frozen moments to the world we live in. What can a tennis match (from first serve to last point) tell us about race and class in America? What can the details of the first hours after a devastating natural disaster teach us about our relationship to our neighbors, our infrastructure, and our government? We know how an iPod works, but what does it mean? Through a variety of papers and approaches, we will attempt to decode some of the cultural language around us, applying the brakes in order to engage both the message and the medium with critique, analysis, reflection and evaluation.

Book list: Levels of the Game (John McPhee), A Dangerous Place (Marc Reisner), Don’t Think of an Elephant (George Lakoff), Keys for Writers, 5th edition (Ann Raimes), Course Reader

CW R1A
Section: 26
CCN: 16487
Meeting time: TuTh 9-12 a.m.
Meeting place: Unit
Instructor: Ryan Sloan
Email address: rsloan@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Vision and Revision: The Persuasive Image
Course description: What does it mean to really see something, to look closely? What do we uncover when we look again? Some questions we’ll tackle:
•What personal histories emerge from a simple photograph?
• How are images deliberately constructed to persuade us – not only in advertising products but also in film, religious iconography, political rhetoric and public debate?
• What can be learned in the synthesis of unlike images, as with the luminous stillness of a painting alongside a dangerous war criminal in Lawrence Weschler’s “Vermeer in Bosnia”?
• And what emerges in the flat visual style and witty, heartbreaking content of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis?

Book list: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Scott McCloud), The Complete Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi), Vermeer in Bosnia: Selected Writings (Lawrence Weschler), Course Reader. Films: The Impassioned Eye (Henri Cartier-Bresson), Three Colors: Blue, Persepolis, Mad Men: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “The Wheel.”

CW R1A
Section: 29
CCN: 16493
Meeting time: MW 3-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 234 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Heather Kirn
Email address: hkirn@berkeley.edu
Course theme: The Rhetoric of Identity: Slanting the Self and the Other
Course description: This course will investigate personal identity and how it's created through language and image. We will analyze a variety of texts—autobiographical essays, political speeches, newspapers, graphic memoirs, and film—in order to foster an ongoing inquiry about the rhetorical choices at work in defining one's identity. How do we as individuals shape the way we're represented to the world? How do our political leaders craft their personas? How does pop culture represent the identities of people we might typically deem evil or adversarial, and what happens when a film makes choices counter to our expectations? Lastly, so what? Based on our analyses of the texts, what larger conclusions can we make about self, identity, society, and the power of rhetoric?

Book list: The Complete Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi), Comics and Sequential Art (Will Eisner), Writing Analytically (David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen), A Pocket Style Manual (Diana Hacker), Course Reader. Film: Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev)

CW R1A
Section: 34
CCN: 16505
Meeting time: MWF 12-2 p.m.
Meeting place: 223 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Teri Crisp
Email address: tcrisp@berkeley.edu
Course theme:
Course description:

Book list:

CW R1A
Section: 35
CCN: 16508
Meeting time: MWF 2-4 p.m.
Meeting place: 223 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Pat Steenland
Email address: steenpat@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Heroism, Love, and Sacrifice: Reading the Films of Ang Lee
Course description: Welcome to College Writing 1A. This is an accelerated 6-unit course which fulfills the Subject A and the first half of the Reading and Composition requirements. In this class you will write at least 40 pages over the course of the semester. This writing will take various forms—in-class writing, creative pieces, short one-page pieces and longer essays of 4-6 pages. I hope that this semester you will discover and strengthen your own voice as a writer. My goal is to help you develop as a critical and analytical reader, and a clear and expressive writer. In this process I hope you will attain a strong, engaged, confident and individual voice. This semester we are taking advantage of the university's choice of the films of the director Ang Lee as a common text. We will look at three of his films, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”; “Ride With The Devil”; and “Sense and Sensibility,” Ang Lee’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel. In conjunction with these films, we will read three texts: American Born Chinese, the award-winning graphic novel by Gene Yang; God of Luck, the most recent novel by Ruthanne Lum McCunn; and (of course!) Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. In our reading, viewing, and class discussions, we will explore the concepts of heroism, love and sacrifice. How are these concepts defined and presented in the films and in the texts? what relevance do they have for us? To aid us in our exploration of this topic, the author of one of our assigned texts, the writer Ruthanne Lum McCunn, will make a visit to our class.

Book list: Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen), God of Luck (Ruthanne Lum McCunn), American Born Chinese (Gene Yuan Yang)

CW R1A
Section: 36
CCN: 16511
Meeting time: MWF 2-4 p.m.
Meeting place: 83 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Michael Larkin
Email address: larkinm@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Politics and Prose
Course description: We’ll explore American politics—personal, generational, presidential. What are your generation’s political concerns? What are your political concerns? How might we make some sense of the presidential campaigns and media portrayals of same without merely being cynical? Does it make sense to vote at all? Whose voices are and aren’t being heard? What makes for
a compelling argument or rhetorical analysis of same? Enough with the questions, yes? Let’s get some answers. Through extensive critical reading and writing, this course will ask you to take a hard look at those questions and to think about how you might begin to answer them. Our lofty goal will be to make us all better writers and better informed citizens.

Book list: March (Geraldine Brooks), Writing with Sources (Gordon Harvey), Lincoln at Gettysburg (Garry Wills), Millennial Makeover:  MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics (Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais), Course Reader.  Films (likely):  Street Fight, Primary Colors

Book list:

Book list: Writing Analytically, 4th edition (David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen), Transforming Leadership (James Macgregor Burns), Slow Food Nation (Carlo Petrini), Murder in the Cathedral (T.S. Eliot), Lincoln at Gettysburg (Garry Wills)

Fall Freshmen Program
College Writing R1A

FFP CW R1A
Section: 1
Meeting time: MW 3-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 111 Kroeber Hall
Instructor: Cody Gates
Email address: cgates@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Exploring and Exploding the Moment
Course description: We are exposed to a speedier and denser data stream with each passing day. What can we learn by slowing this barrage down, dipping into the stream and isolating a packet of time and experience? In this section of College Writing we are going to hit the pause button and crawl inside a few of these moments, not simply to admire or critique, but as an opportunity to find the questions that connect these frozen moments to the world we live in. What can a tennis match (from first serve to last point) tell us about race and class in America? What can the details of the first hours after a devastating natural disaster teach us about our relationship to our neighbors, our infrastructure, and our government? We know how an iPod works, but what does it mean? Through a variety of papers and approaches, we will attempt to decode some of the cultural language around us, applying the brakes in order to engage both the message and the medium with critique, analysis, reflection and evaluation.

Booklist: Levels of the Game (John McPhee), A Dangerous Place (Marc Reisner), Don’t Think of an Elephant (George Lakoff), Keys for Writers, 5th edition (Ann Raimes), Course Reader

FFP CW R1A
Section: 2
Meeting time: MW 3-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 233 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Katherine Lee
Email address: khlee@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Writing the Margins
Course description: When we say "margins" or "marginal," what often comes to mind is that which is at the border of: the blank spaces surrounding a piece of paper, the areas that border a geographical location, or what occupies the space at the edge. This class will explore alternative understandings of "the marginal" and how notions of the margin become increasingly complex when we consider both the ways that they are physically and socially constructed, as well as how intersections of politics, individual identity, language, time, and international frameworks continuously shape and re-define them. We will begin our class by reading essays written by writers who discuss the geographical margins of America in decidedly non-geographical ways. These essays will serve as the starting point for reading a broad range of texts (non-fiction, novels, poetry, music, films, museums) that will challenge us to think of margins, the marginal, and marginality as sites that embody more than the physical spaces they occupy or that which they are marginal to. As we read and discuss these texts, we will constantly return to the question of the role that writing plays in creating, describing, changing, and challenging our understanding of the margin.

Booklist: Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (Saidiya Hartman), Bone (Fae Myenne Ng), Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! (Kenzaburo Oe), Course Reader

FFP CW R1A
Section: 3
Meeting time: MW 3-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 246 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Laurie Doyle
Email address: doyle.la@sbcglobal.net
Course theme: The American Dream: Language and Landscape
Course description: What does the American mean to those at home and abroad? In this course we will explore differing perceptions of the American Dream through the dual lenses of language and landscape. We’ll examine the immense role language and setting played in the life of African American leader Malcolm X, study the impact of varied communication forms on a diverse set of characters in an award winning novel, and analyze linguistic and environmental factors (in the broadest sense of the term) affecting millions of Americans working minimum wage jobs. In addition to writing a range of essays from personal to argumentative, students will have the opportunity to conduct field research, read short works by some of the best authors worldwide, and view films related to the course themes.

Booklist: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Malcolm X et al.), My Year of Meats (Ruth Ozeki), Nickel and Dimed (Barbara Ehrenreich), St. Martin's Handbook (Andrea Lunsford), Subject and Strategy (Paul Eschholz and Alfred Rosa). Films: Autobiography of Malcolm X (dir. Spike Lee), Halving the Bones (dir. Ruth Ozeki)

FFP CW R1A
Section: 4
Meeting time: TuTh 3:30-6:30 p.m.
Meeting place: 2305 Tolman Hall
Instructor: David Skolnick
Email address: dskolnick@berkeley.edu
Course theme: The Multifarious Facets of Food
Course description: "You are what you eat" goes the old saying. But how many of us consider the broader and deeper meanings of this proverb? The food we eat influences and is influenced by our personal preferences, our family, our culture, our media, and our politics, all of which enter into our daily lives either overtly or covertly, consciously or unconsciously. In this course, we will examine the various ways food intersects with our personal and public lives by reading, thinking critically, writing, and rewriting about, discussing, and eating the topic. We will define concepts, analyze our own and others' writing, learn how we are influenced by language, and, concurrently, how we can influence others with language. In the process, we will also examine what choices we can make and actions we can take when confronted with truths and perspectives that may surprise us. As this section of CWR1A is designated for non-native speakers of English, we will also focus on grammar error patterns and vocabulary, on both an individual basis and as a class.

Booklist: Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser), My Year of Meats (Ruth Ozeki), Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writing (Pat Porter and Deborah vanDommelen)

FFP CW R1A
Section: 5
Meeting time: TuTh 3:30-6:30 p.m.
Meeting place: 14 Haviland Hall
Instructor: Mary Grover
Email address: marymgrover@gmail.com
Course theme: Coming-of-Age: Representing the Journey to Adulthood 
Course description: The expression “coming-of-age” carries provocative associations, such as sexual awakening, disillusionment, embattlement.  This course explores how our culture makes sense of the concept.  Through critical reading, analytical writing, and class discussion, we will examine the assumptions and arguments that influential writers and artists make when portraying how individuals come of age.  Our inquiry will be framed by committed participation in all facets of the writing process, including pre-writing activities, drafting, critique, and of course, revision, revision, and revision.  

Booklist:: Reviving Ophelia (Mary Pipher), Raising Cain (Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson), Why Do They Act That Way: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen (David Walsh)  

FFP CW R1A
Section: 6
Meeting time: TuTh 3:30-6:30 p.m.
Meeting place: 106 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Heather Kirn
Email address: hkirn@berkeley.edu
Course theme: The Rhetoric of Identity: Slanting the Self and the Other
Course description: This course will investigate personal identity and how it's created through language and image. We will analyze a variety of texts—autobiographical essays, political speeches, newspapers, graphic memoirs, and film—in order to foster an ongoing inquiry about the rhetorical choices at work in defining one's identity. How do we as individuals shape the way we're represented to the world? How do our political leaders craft their personas? How does pop culture represent the identities of people we might typically deem evil or adversarial, and what happens when a film makes choices counter to our expectations? Lastly, so what? Based on our analyses of the texts, what larger conclusions can we make about self, identity, society, and the power of rhetoric?

Booklist: The Complete Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi), Comics and Sequential Art (Will Eisner), Writing Analytically (David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen), A Pocket Style Manual (Diana Hacker), Course Reader. Film: Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev)

College Writing R4A

CW R4A
Section: 1
CCN: 16526
Meeting time:
Meeting place:
Instructor: Staff
Email address:
Course theme:
Course description: CANCELED

Booklist:

College Writing R4B

CW R4B
Section: 1
CCN: 16532
Meeting time: TuTh 2-3:30 p.m.
Meeting place: 106 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Stephanie Bobo
Email address: sbobo@berkeley.edu
Course theme:
Course description:

Booklist:

CW R4B
Section: 2
CCN: 16535
Meeting time: MWF 11-12 p.m.
Meeting place: 203 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Kaya Oakes
Email address: kaya_o@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Adventures in the Musical Underground
Course description: Folk, punk, and hip hop all started as underground musical movements, forged by subcultural communities of rebellious individuals looking for a means for self expression. Today, all three music forms have changed, and have arguably been co-opted by advertisers, corporate-owned media outlets, and retailers. We'll examine the roots of each of these movements, and read, write about, and discuss how and why each of them changed.

Booklist: Chronicles (Bob Dylan), Our Band Could Be Your Life (Michael Azzerad), Can't Stop Won't Stop (Jeff Chang), The Craft of Research (Booth, Colomb, and Williams), one more book TBA

CW R4B
Section: 4
CCN: 16541
Meeting time: MWF 2-3 p.m.
Meeting place: 225 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Jon Lang
Email address: see the CalNet directory for email
Course theme: Monsters and Modernity
Course description: Monsters used to represent fear of the unknown: unmapped regions in the medieval period were marked by dragons; imperialists in the 19th century bringing the “light” of civilization into the dark continent of Africa feared cannibals. In the modern period, monstrosity is associated not so much with the unknown as it is with knowledge/science/technology/rationality whose function is to achieve human mastery, in the name of progress, over our selves, over nature, and even over time and history; and simultaneously monstrosity characterizes those—who embodying the conflicts produced in the modern period—are ambiguously situated between humanity and nature or humanity and machine. Modern monsters include mad scientists, bestial men and women, re-animated corpses, and cyborgs. In addition to two short analytical papers (5-8 pp) based on course readings or viewings, students will propose one research project culminating in a long essay (8-10 pp) in order to confront monsters of their own choice.

Booklist: "The Rat Man" (Sigmund Freud), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson), Dracula (Bram Stoker), Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (Joseph Williams), Course Reader. Films (tentative): The Fly (David Cronenberg), Alien or Bladerunner (Ridley Scott)

CW R4B
Section: 5
CCN: 16544
Meeting time: TuTh 9:30-11 a.m.
Meeting place: 225 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Gail Offen-Brown
Email address: gob@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Public History, Personal Story
Course description: This course will examine how artists and writers, working in a range of genres, explore and represent intersections between the personal and the public, between story and history.  We will work with excerpts of photographic essays from the Depression era (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and James Agee and An American Exodus by Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor); a graphic novel representing the Holocaust and its legacy (Maus by Art Spiegelman); a nonfiction study of multicultural America (A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki); and another text TBA.  In writing a series of essays in response to these texts, students will develop their ability to critically read and analyze visual images as well as words. A central focus of the course will be investigating the research process, and coursework will culminate in a research portfolio.

Booklist: Ways of Reading Words and Images (David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky), Maus, Books I and II (Art Spiegelman), A Different Mirror (Ronald Takaki), The Craft of Research, 3rd edition (Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb, and Joseph Williams), additional text TBA, Course Reader

CW R4B
Section: 6
CCN: 16547
Meeting time: TuTh 12:30-2 p.m.
Meeting place: 203 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Gail Offen-Brown
Email address: gob@berkeley.edu
Course theme: Public History, Personal Story
Course description: This course will examine how artists and writers, working in a range of genres, explore and represent intersections between the personal and the public, between story and history.  We will work with excerpts of photographic essays from the Depression era (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and James Agee and An American Exodus by Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor); a graphic novel representing the Holocaust and its legacy (Maus by Art Spiegelman); a nonfiction study of multicultural America (A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki); and another text TBA.  In writing a series of essays in response to these texts, students will develop their ability to critically read and analyze visual images as well as words. A central focus of the course will be investigating the research process, and coursework will culminate in a research portfolio.

Booklist: Ways of Reading Words and Images (David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky), Maus, Books I and II (Art Spiegelman), A Different Mirror (Ronald Takaki), The Craft of Research, 3rd edition (Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb, and Joseph Williams), additional text TBA, Course Reader

CW R4B
Section: 7
CCN: 16550
Meeting time: TuTh 2-3:30 p.m.
Meeting place: 250 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Yuet-Sim Chiang
Email address: chiang@berkeley.edu
Course theme:
Course description:

Booklist:

College Writing 10A: Introduction to Public Speaking

CW 10A
Section: 1
CCN: 16553
Meeting time: TuTh 9:30-11 a.m
Meeting place: 103 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Carolyn Hill
Email address: chill4@berkeley.edu
Course description: How do you feel about speaking in public?  Are you petrified by fear?  Do you love the attention?  Do you wish people would listen to what you have to say? Maybe you want your audience to cry, to laugh, or to spring into action.  Maybe you want to sell a product, convey an idea, or get a job.  Maybe you just want to toast your best friend's wedding.  Sometime, somewhere, you're going to be standing in front of a bunch of strangers who are all waiting for you to open your mouth and dazzle them. This class will help you shine.

Booklist: The Art of Public Speaking (Stephen E. Lucas)

CW 10A
Section: 3
CCN: 16558
Meeting time: MWF 1-2 p.m.
Meeting place: 203 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: John Levine
Email address: jblevine@berkeley.edu
Course description: If you think delivering a speech is a mystifying process, something only politicians, performers, and prophets can do, this course will take the mystery out of public speaking for you. We will study speeches and learn about strategies for addressing small and large groups. Whether it’s reporting on the events leading up to World War II or persuading an audience to support stem cell research or making a toast at your cousin’s wedding, public speaking is an important skill that you’ll find useful inside and outside the college classroom. Like anything else, speaking takes practice; you will gain plenty of experience reading, writing and performing speeches in a safe, supportive environment.

Booklist: The Art of Public Speaking (Stephen Lucas), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (Anna Deavere Smith)

Upper-Division and Graduate Courses

College Writing 110

CW 110
Section: 1
CCN: 16565
Meeting time: TuTh 2-3:30 p.m.
Meeting place: 235 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor: Jane Hammons
Email address: jhammons@berkeley.edu
Course description: This writing workshop will offer you an opportunity to write essays and other nonfiction prose that speak both personally and politically to the issues and audiences you wish to address. The readings will focus on the rhetorical strategies of writers who have used the essay as a cultural form to challenge the norms of the time and place in which they live(d). As a writer, you will do a lot of exploratory writing before you get to your final draft. The drafting process will require both in-class and out-of-class writing. Using Writing With Power, you will learn how to elicit the feedback you want from the readers of your drafts. As you learn more about your writing process, you will also become a more critical reader of your own work.

Booklist: The Situation and the Story (Vivian Gornick), The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism (Kerrane and Yagoda, eds.), The Art of the Personal Essay (Phillip Lopate, ed.), Writing With Power (Peter Elbow), Course Reader

College Writing 151: Introduction to Principles of Professional Communication

CW 151
Section: 1
CCN: 16567
Meeting time: MWF 11-12 a.m.
Meeting place: 101 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Caroline Cole
Email address: cmcole@berkeley.edu
Course description: This course introduces students to key principles and rhetorical strategies of writing texts in non-academic settings. Although informed by rhetorical theory, this course encourages students to examine and practice a range of techniques to create appropriate and effective texts. By concentrating on audiences, purposes, forms, and formats of professional correspondence, students will write and design a variety of documents which emphasize content, organization, tone, and readability. The course may address issues of oral communication; however, the primary focus will be on learning and conscientiously applying techniques to generate written documents in business contexts.

For more information, please visit the course website, <http://writing.berkeley.edu/courses/Cole/cw151/> .

College Writing 300: Introduction to Theories and Practices of Teaching College Composition

CW 300
Section: 1
CCN: 16574
Meeting time: M 4-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 221 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Gail Offen-Brown
Email address: gob@berkeley.edu
Course description: This seminar introduces students to current composition theory and practice, and encourages students to test and critique those theories and practices against their own experiences as students, writers, and teachers. We will consider issues such as teaching philosophies, course design, instructional methods, and assessment. Students in this interactive class will read articles, listen to guest speakers, exchange ideas and materials, and reflect on the role of writing in the university. This course is open to all GSIs. It meets the campus policy requiring GSIs who teach a Reading and Composition course to complete a semester-long, graduate-level pedagogy course.

Book list: Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (John C. Bean), Course Reader

CW 300
Section: 2
CCN: 16577
Meeting time: Th 4-6 p.m.
Meeting place: 206 Wheeler Hall
Instructor: Melinda Erickson
Email address: erickson@berkeley.edu
Course description: This seminar provides an opportunity to explore the role of writing in the university. We consider current theories and practices in composition studies, drawing on your experience as a student, writer, and teacher. We explore such issues as syllabus and assignment design, instructional methods, and assessment. This seminar is open to all graduate students. It fulfills the provision of the Graduate Council policy requiring all GSIs to complete a pedagogy seminar and also satisfies the specific requirement for those GSIs who teach Reading and Composition courses.

Book list: Engaging Ideas (John C. Bean), Teaching Guide (UCB Teaching Resource Center), Course Reader