For Tuesday: Bautman, Cover Story (pp.1-14)

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why does Bautman open her essay with a history lesson on modern Turkey, when her essay is really about her experiences wearing (or not wearing) the veil? How does this help us understand her story and place it in the appropriate context? Also, how might it relate to what’s going on in America today?

Q2: In Rogers’ essay, the Chinese look at her strangely because she’s alone; why do the Turkish look at Bautman strangely? What marks her out as a “foreigner” or an “American,” even though she is Turkish and speaks the language? Does she understand this from the outset, or does she have to learn it, as Rogers does?

Q3: Later in the essay, Bautman says that not wearing the veil was “out of principle,” but then reflects, “To whom was I communicating that principle? With what degree of success?” (9). What does she mean by this? Why does Turkish society force her to question her values about being a woman and an American?

Q4: Bautman uses a French science fiction novel, Submission, to help illustrate her larger ideas in the essay. In one passage, she explains that his novel depicts Islam “not as a depersonalized creeping manace…but as a system of beliefs that is enormously appealing to many people, many of whom have other options. It’s the same realization I reached in Urfa. Nobody has everything; everyone is trading certain things for others” (13-14). What do you think she means by this? Why does the novel—and Bautman herself—come to see Islam in Turkey as less threatening as she once believed?

Short Paper #1: Welcome! Now Please Get Lost...

For your first writing assignment, I want you to write a short essay helping a tourist experience something ‘real’ and authentic about your hometown/homestate. Many outsiders might skip your town altogether, or even consider Oklahoma (or another state) not worth spending the night in. But the best trips are the ones we don’t plan, and the places we never intended to see (or didn’t know how to see). So try to introduce them to ONE local/unique experience (not the whole town or city), and try to convince them that this is a more worthwhile experience than going where everyone else goes. Keep it mind that it doesn’t have to be stereotypically “exciting” or “amazing.” In fact, the less it seems touristy the better!

As you begin to write, consider some of the following:

• What will they see here? Experience here? What might they not understand? How can they appreciate it?
• Why is this place/event important to you? What do you see in it that makes it so meaningful?
• What does it say about local culture and values? Why is this unique to this part of the world?
• How does it connect to the experience of travel from one (or both) of the authors in class?

REMEMBER, be specific and help them see what you see, and guide them through this place, event, experience assuming they know nothing about it. Also, be sure to use at least ONE of the essays in class as a way to connect this to the larger conversation. Make sure they know that this isn’t just a used bookstore in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example: it represents something much larger, and can help the tourist get “lost” in their own travels and find something unique about themselves—or their world.

REQUIRMENTS

• At least 2-3 pages, double spaced
• Must quote from one of the essays in class, and integrate this quote into your conversation (we’ll discuss doing this in class)
• Be descriptive and consider what this represents about local culture or human nature
• Due NEXT THURSDAY by 5pm—hard copy, to my office door; no e-mails, please!

For Tuesday: Rogers, "One Person Means Alone" (pp.207-223)

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Several times the author is asked “yi ge ren,” or, “Are you one person”? What are they really asking her here, and how does it relate to the Chinese concept of guanxi? What makes being alone so vitally different in China than in America?

Q2: According to the essay, why does Chinese society place less value on personal privacy, especially in intimate situations (using the bathroom, showers, etc.)? In America, we might assume bathroom privacy is a universal concern…why isn’t it in China?

Q3: On page 219, the shopkeeper calls her a “poor foreigner,” but Rogers adds that “[it] was the last time she’d refer to me as a foreigner. I’d always be one, but the next time I came in to buy something, she called me Luo Yi Lin, the name I’d been given by a Mandarin tutor just after I’d arrived to China.” What makes her suddenly belong in this society? What is she able to do that makes her more than a “lost tourist” or a “foreigner” here?

Q4: One of the reasons Rogers worries about being too intimate with her students and colleagues is because she’s a lesbian in a society that may or may not be accepting of it. Do you feel she has the right to preserve some of the privacy/intimacy she would keep hidden in America? Does entering a new culture with new rules force you to “out” yourself? Why or why not?

For Thursday: Tower, "No Amount of Traffic" (pp.243-253)

Here's a link to the essay in Outside magazine: https://www.outsideonline.com/2086161/no-amount-traffic-or-instagrammers-or-drunks-can-take-magic-out-semi-wilderness

Definitions: trodden, vehement, preternaturally, postrandial, “gourmandizing pantomime”

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: At the end of the essay, Wells asks, “what do we want from the woods? Primitively put, we want the woods to put in us a feeling that doesn’t happen indoors” (253). What experiences does the modern world of “indoors” and “technology” not give us that we seek outside? Do you think people who grow up in more urban areas even know what to look for when they go outside? You might consider the question he asks earlier, “Am I getting it?”

Q2: In the previous essay, Santillan realizes, “if you don’t lose yourself, you’re never going to find yourself.” But getting lost is easier said than done. How hard is it to get lost in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Why might the park rangers and the National Parks Service not want you to get lost, and have a “finding yourself in nature” experience?

Q3: Wells writes that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has transformed “from an actual place to an abstract pop phenomenon” (249). What do you think this means? How does a place stop being a place and become something else? How does this change how people visit and experience the park?

Q4: Tower has a very humorous and poetic way of describing the place and the people in it. Discuss a brief passage (or even a sentence) that makes you see the place in a different light, either as a way to make fun of it, or to appreciate what it actually is (in his mind).

For Tuesday: Kushner, The Land of the Lost

For Tuesday: Kushner, The Land of the Lost (pp.138-147)

NOTE: Here is the article if you don't have the book: http://www.davidkushner.com/article/land-of-the-lost/

I. DEFINITIONS (define all of the following, but feel free to look up other words as well that you don't know):

phenomenon; languish; detrimental; cognition; tempestous 

II. Answer TWO of the following in a short paragraph each—a few sentences. Remember, give a thoughtful and useful reponse rather than just an ‘answer.’ These are not yes or no questions, and I’m not looking for a specific answer...I want to see how you respond to these questions and what you think the essay is getting at. The more work you put into these questions, the more you’ll have to say/write in your larger papers.

Choose TWO of the following:

Q1: Why does the essay suggest that “Compulsive use of mapping technology may even put us at greater risk for memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease” (140)? How could a technology aid designed to help us get around actually impair or ability to move around?

Q2: Based on the essay, why did Icelanders find Santillan such a fascinating character? Are they making fun of him? Feeling sorry for him? Or something else? What did he come to represent for the Icelandic nation (and perhaps, for the author)?

Q3: For ancient cultures, the author explains, “time reckoning and direction were intertwined” (146). How does this work, and why might this be an important way of seeing the world? Why have we lost this in our own society?

Q4: Scientists now call the phenomenon of dying based on bad GPS directions “death by GPS” (140). Why do you think people would ignore common sense and logic and drive to their doom based on digital directions? Do you most people are more—or less—likely to do this? Or is Santillan an exception?

Welcome to the Course

Welcome to the Fall 2018 semester and Freshman Composition I! 

This is a first-semester writing course that attempts to teach you the fundamentals of college-level writing, which consists primarily of writing for an audience, understanding context, responding to appropriate research, and controlling tone and rhetorical purpose. To do this, we’ll read and discuss several ‘real-world’ conversations so you can understand why these issues matter in our society (and many others). I also hope to make you a more critical reader as well, since books, essays, and stories create the blueprint for our own ideas and responses (esp. in writing). For this class, we’ll focus our writing on the loose theme of travel and culture, and how other cultures, languages, and contexts challenge our understanding of the world—and quite often, ourselves. 

MOST IMPORTANTLY, be sure to buy the two books for the course! We'll be using the first, Best American Travel Writing 2017 almost immediately, so you don't want to get behind. Consult your syllabus for questions about the required work and the class schedule, but feel free to e-mail me with any questions at jgrasso@ecok.edu.

See you in class! 

For Tuesday: Boo, behind the beautiful forevers, Chs.10-13

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Discuss how one of these chapter titles really acts as a "thesis" to the ideas that follow. How did it help you understand and appreciate each story? Remember to consider the titles not merely literally, but also as symbols/metaphors for the characters and their inner dramas. 

Q2: Why are people so callous to pain and suffering in the city considering they can relate--and often face the same suffering themselves? Consider the man hit by a car at the beginning of Chapter 10 who everyone--even Sunil--ignores and leaves for dead. Indeed, the only attention paid to the man is when he's long dead and his corpse is disturbing small children." You might consider Zehrunisa's quote at the beginning of Part 4 which reads, "Don't confuse yourself by thinking about such terrible lives."

Q3: Manju and her friend (from the Dalit caste), Meena, often spend time in the public toilets for a little "girl time." Reflecting on these moments, Boo writes that "The minutes in the night stench with Manju were the closest she had ever come to freedom" (185). What does this say about the life of a young girl of the slums, even in the "New" India? Why is she so unenthusiastic about her future--so much so, that she often contemplates committing suicide? 

Q4: Abdul writes that "Even the person who lives like a dog still has a kind of life" (198). According to him, why is suffering, scavenging, and neglect still a worthwhile life--if not the best one? What does his time in prison allow him to see about the world of the slums? And does this strike you as a strictly Indian perspective (like doing one's duty), or is it more universal?