Bosker, "Why Should a Melon Cost as Much as a Car?" (pp.37-42)

Be sure to read this short essay for Thursday, with the normal quiz to follow. Use the questions below as a rough reading guide:

* What is "hashiri," and why is it so historically important to the Japanese?

* What customs do the Japanese have that make fruit such an important commodity? Do we have anything like this in the US (with something other than fruit)?

* One of the people Bosker interviews, Monozumi, claims that "people in Japan are simply more concerned than foreigners with quality" (39). Do you think this is true? Are Americans more interested in cost than quality? 

* How can fruit be like a fine wine? What makes fruit growing an "art"?

* The author says that eating the gourmet strawberry was like "tasting in color for the first time" (37). What do you think she meant by this? Do we often have the opportunity to taste in color here?

* The author writes at the end of the essay that "something that initially seemed nonsensical, even trivial, had altered my definition of beauty" (42). What does she mean by this, and how did a simple melon do this? 

For Thursday: Houston, "Some Kind of Calling" (pp.163-171)

Remember that we'll  have the usual quiz over this essay, with one of the following questions as your short essay response. 

Reading Questions:

* What made her take a gamble on a property in a place she had never seen before that was way outside her price range? Was it something she saw, or was it simply a gamble?

* Related to the above, what made them want to sell it to her? Why her, specifically, a writer without a stable source of income?

* According to this essay, how does age change the way you look at the world? What does she see now in the property that she didn't as a thirty year-old?

* What does she mean when she writes, "age...gently dispels all of our heroic notions" (168)? What "heroic notions" did she have, and what was wrong or misguided about them?

* How did the property allow her to be "still" after a lifetime of roaming? How can a place teach you to do anything, esp. something that you're not used to doing or thinking?

* At the end of the essay, she writes, "How do we become who we are in the world? We ask the world to teach us. But we have to ask with an open heart, with no idea what the answer might be" (171). How do you think you can "ask the world" what to do with your life? And how do you hear the answer? 

Short Paper #1: The Power of Place due NEXT Tuesday

“One of the gifts of age, though, is the way it gently dispels all of our heroic notions. The whole time that I thought I was busy taking care of the ranch, the ranch was busy taking care of me” (Houston 168).

For your first Short Paper, I want you to write about a PLACE that shaped who you are today. Not a person or an activity (though you might reference both), but primarily a place where you started to become who you are today. It could be anything from a school, a church, a field, a car, a job, a room, or just an area of land. Just like Houston does in her essay, I want you to consider how a place can “take care of you,” and be an active agent in influencing your attitude, ideas, and personality.

Though a short paper, I want you to have roughly three parts in this essay: (a) a literal description of the place, the way an outsider would see it—what would I see, for example, the first time I walked into the place? (b) a significant experience that was instrumental in changing your relationship with this place, (c) what you feel you most learned or took away from this place. In other words, what do you most ‘see’ when you think of the place today?

NOTE: You can re-arrange the order of the essay, starting with c, then going to a, then b, if you like. Just make sure your essay has all three parts, even if you spend most of the time on b, for example.

THINGS TO CONSIDER / REQUIREMENTS

• Describe the area using specific details, and don’t just tell us how it looks. What smells or sounds accompany the place in your memory?
• Try to experience the place as an outsider, so you can see things you no longer notice. Then help us see what only you see when you go there.
• Talk about yourself—don’t make this a third-person paper. Otherwise, we won’t understand it.
• Quote from at least ONE of the essays in class to make a comparison between your space and theirs. Even though your work might not be as exciting or interesting as Mt. Rushmore, you can use Anderson’s ideas to help your own.
• Use the Quotation Sandwich when citing sources: INTRODUCE SOURCE + QUOTE & CITATION + RESPONSE. (we’ll discuss this in class)
• At least 3 pages long, though you can do more…

PAPER IS DUE IN-CLASS ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10^th. Any papers after class are late and are subject to the late paper policy (see syllabus).

For Thursday: Knighton, "Out of Sight" (pp.180-188)

Remember to read "Out of Sight" for Thursday's class; we'll have another quiz based on some of the questions below. These questions will also guide our discussion and give you ideas that will relate to our 'conversation' and the paper assignments to follow.

* Knighton writes that "a safari, by cliche and assumption, is overwhelmingly driven by photography" (181). How might photographs and the act of taking pictures get in the way of having an authentic experience with the environment? 

*  Why does the author learn that taste, as much as sight, is crucial to understanding the animals in a given environment? What can taste allow you to 'see' on a safari? 

* The author talks of wanting to collect "audio postcards" in the essay. What is this, and why might it be as valuable as a photo--or even more so?

* What is the limitation to "simply point[ing] to a distant scene and label[ing] it with names and facts like captions" (184)? Why doesn't this really capture the beauty and danger of the wild?

* How might this essay relate to the world outside of the safari? Do we read the world too much with  our eyes? What could we 'see' if we chose to listen--or taste--as much as look? 

For Tuesday: Anderson, "Peak America" (pp.28-36)

For Tuesday's class, be sure to read our first essay from The Best American Travel Writing, "Peak America." Usually when you read an essay for class, I'll give you a brief reading quiz over the material--a very short questions, and sometimes, a single essay question. This not only proves to me that you've read the material, but also, that you can apply it to bigger ideas outside of class and in your own life/culture. 

NOTE: I always give you a few questions to consider on the blog as a 'reading guide,' to help you if you find the essay confusing, boring, or even too simple. Like the photograph we looked at on Thursday, there are so many different ways to read a single essay, so I want you to consider as many as possible before you give up on it. ALSO, the reading guide questions often show up in some form on the quiz...

READING GUIDE (to help you read the essay & prepare for the quiz) 

1. When the author leaves the Mall of America, he says "we were on a different pilgrimage, in search of a different America" (28). What kind of 'America' is he looking for, and why does he call it a 'pilgrimage'?

2. How does knowing the context of Mt. Rushmore change how we 'read' it? How is it a little like the Weegee photograph we viewed on Thursday? Does it make the work more meaningful? Less? More problematic? 

3. The author says that "Rushmore is a ubiquitous American image, tattooed on the inside of every citizen's eyelids" (33). What happens to him and his family when they finally do experience it first-hand? Does it live up to the expectation? Does it transform them? Move them? Excite them? Disappoint them?

4. At the end of the essay, Anderson writes, "There is something childish about this fantasy--the way it tends to conflate virtue and size. Why does goodness have to be huge?" (35). Based on this, what is his critique of not only Mt. Rushmore but the way Americans view history in general?  How did he learn this at the monument? 

Welcome to Fall 2019

Welcome to the course! This is the course blog for both of Dr. Grasso's sections of Freshman Composition I, and will be used for the following: (a) reading guides/questions for the articles, (b) to post all writing assignments as soon as they're assigned in class, and (c) other general announcements affecting the class. So whenever you miss class, be sure to check the blog to make sure you didn't miss anything important, and to see what we're doing the following class period (since the schedule on your syllabus might change). 

Be sure to buy the two books for class immediately, since we'll start reading from The Best American Travel Writing 2018 next Tuesday, and Wild only a few weeks after. If you don't keep up with the reading, you will fail the quizzes (see the syllabus) and be unable to write the assignments, so don't fall behind simply because you don't have a book! 

Let me know if you have any questions at jgrasso@ecok.edu or come to my office at HM 348. See you in class! 

Final Exam: Dec.11th and 13th (see below)

Comp I, Final Exam

When: Tuesday, Dec.11th @ 11:30 (for 11:00 class)

                        Thursday, Dec. 13^th @ 9:00 (for 9:30 class)     

What: You will need to bring both books from class, as well as paper and something to write with.

How: I will be grading you on your ability to (a) use the primary sources to create a conversation; (b) to quote and cite properly; (c) that your paper has sufficient development and techniques (Introduction, naysayers, context) for a basic conversation paper.

The Final Exam will give you three quotes/ideas to respond to, and ask you to construct a specific response to it using other ideas from behind the beautiful forevers and at least one of the essays from Best American Travel Writing 2017. I will grade this paper leniently, since you’re writing it on the spot, but I will expect you to master the basics of citation and organization. I’m also checking to make sure you’ve read and thought about each book, so the better you can show me that, the better you’ll do on the essay.

Hint: Look over your daily response questions from behind the beautiful forevers since I’ll be pulling a lot of the questions from those.