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English 288.5 Fall 2002 TR 1:25-2:40 Thursdays: g28 Uris Hall Tuesdays: 107 Ives Hall |
Stuart Davis Senior Lecturer g39 Goldwin Smith 255-6281 • sad4 Hrs. W 2-4 & by appt. |
Expository Writing:
Making the News
Here's the minimalist description of this section of English 288.5 published by the English department..
In this course, we will think and write critically about how the news is made -- by public events and figures, but also by the media themselves -- and whom it’s made for. We will follow current newspaper, magazine, television, and Internet news reportage throughout the semester, considering it in the context of critical readings in American journalism and mass communications by such writers as Ben Bagdikian, Noam Chomsky, and Robert McChesney. Students will write short opinion pieces, analytic essays on media issues, and a final paper involving research.
More broadly, this is a course in analytic and investigative writing for students in all colleges and disciplines. Its focus is the American and, to a limited extent, the world news media and the news – foreign, domestic, and local – which they ("media" is a plural) mediate.
Texts ordered at the Cornell Store
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Econcomy of the Mass Media. Pantheon, 2002.
Robert W. McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times. Univ. of Illinois Press, 1999.
Robert K. Manoff and Michael Schedson, eds. Reading the News. [Pantheon, 1986]. Cornell Store Custom Publishing. (On hand 9/14
Peter Phillips and Project Censored, Censored:2002-03: The Top 25 Censored Stories. Seven Stories Press, 2002. (On hand, 10/7.)
Other course texts will include material on O/U/K electronic reserve (see the C.U.L. gateway at http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/), material distributed in class or served at the course website http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/Courses/engl288.5, and you are there), writings of course members, and at least two films. Make a habit of printing out course readings which you access in electronic form; You should be able to read .PDF files in Adobe Acrobat format on your or a public computer.
Following the news: reporting
Every course member is expected to track the news on a daily basis in print and, if possible, broadcast media. We'll talk about how to share the tracking task; people will regularly be asked to report on breaking stories, particular beats, OR vital background information. There's no substitute for conventional print and broadcast media, but a growing array of news-related websites is anchored at http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/Courses/engl288.5/288News.html.
Writing requirements
You will write six separately assigned papers, taking three of them (including the final paper, due Monday, December 16) through at least one stage of revision. Papers including revisions will be numbered sequentially, 1 through 10; total page budget will be 40-50 pages. Everyone in the group will present a 20-minute oral report to the group on a topic of current interest or on work in progress. Please keep in mind that anything you write in this course may be shared with other course members; by enrolling, you acknowledge your awareness of this fact.
Other course guidelines and specifications
• This discussion/reading/writing course demands your full engagement, i.e. full preparation, breathtakingly regular attendance and participation, punctual submission of written work, and thoughtful and constructive response to the writing of classmates. If you prefer not to work this way (a perfectly respectable preference), you should not take this course. If you remain enrolled and do not work this way, your grade will suffer severely.
• All the written work you do in this course must have been written for this course and not another and must originate with you in form and content, with all contributory sources fully and specifically acknowledged. Collaborative work of the following kinds is authorized: peer review and commentary and, if approved by the instructor in particular cases, collaborative projects by pairs of students. By enrolling in this course you affirm that you are familiar with Cornell's Academic Integrity Code, which is available on-line at http://www.cornell.edu/ Academic/AIC.html. In this course, the normal penalty for a violation of the code is an "F" in the course.
Some initial assignments
For Tuesday, 9/3
: Essay 1: "Where Do I Get My News, and What Do I Do with It?" Write a 2-3 page essay presenting yourself as a consumer and user of news. Write this as a reflective essay addressed to readers who want to know someting about your habits, preferences, and beliefs as a seeker of information about current public events. Reflect on what constitutes news for you, what attracts your interest, what you read and view out of a sense of duty, why you make the choices you do, and what effect these choices have on your life as a thinking member of the public. Through what media and news organs do you get most of your news, and how do you think they affect what you get and what you think? What kinds of events and stories do you find yourself following (or avoiding) regularly? Perhaps most important is a question implied in the previous ones: do you control your news diet or does it control you (or both)? -- and with what results? (If you do not know whether you can enroll in this course, you may defer handing in this essay until Thursday September 5, but you should come to class Tuesday prepared to participate in discussion of the initial question.)For Thursday, 9/5: Read Elaine Scarry's "Watching and Authorizing the Gulf War" (on electronic reserve). Consider Scarry's "framing assumptions" about "our" civil and military authority over war-making; consider the extent to which recent public deliberations over a prospective war on Iraq (see the links and documents at the course website) meet her standards for "authorization."