Current Teaching Circles

July 26th– CWP Program at UC Berkely

Sept 28th– Foothill College

Past Teaching Circles

Diablo Valley College

College of San Mateo

Skyline College

Preface

Introduction

Letter to the Reader

The Reading-Writing Process

On Reading & Thinking:

The Activity and Art of Reading, Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren

On Writing & Revision:

Everybody is Talented, Original, and Has Something Important to Say, Brenda Ueland

A Way of Writing, William Stafford

How to Write a Critical Analysis, John Trimble

Shitty First Drafts, Ann Lamott

Simplicity, William Zinsser

On Visual Texts:

The Vocabulary of Comics, Scott McCloud

Audio Selections:

0.1: Anne Lamott

0.2: Louise Erdrich

1 Ideas about Gender: Boys & Girls

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

Strong Girls, from Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, Mary Pipher

Inside the World of Boys, from Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, William Pollack

Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls, Katha Pollitt

The War Against Boys, Christina Hoff-Somers

Fiction:

A&P, John Updike

Boys & Girls, Alice Munro

Boys, Rick Moody

Girl, Jamaica Kincaid

Poetry:

Barbie Doll, Marge Piercy

Wishes for Sons, Lucille Clifton

Graphic Fiction:

Gum of Mystery, Lynda Barry

Visual:

Quinceañera, Janet Jarman

Girl Culture, Hannah, 13 years old Lauren Greenfield,  (including short text of interview with Hannah)

Shacktown Child, Elm Grove, Oklahoma (1936), Dorothea Lange

Boy and Girl at Debutante Ball, Catherine Karnow

Audio:

1.1: Carol Gilligan

1.2: Paul Kivel

1.3: William Pollack

1.4: Joe Marshall

2 Ideas about Family: Parents & Children  

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

Nothing Lasts a Hundred Years, from Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Father, Richard Rodriguez

Notes of a Native Son (memoir), James Baldwin

Mother of the Year (memoir), Paul Theroux

Portrait of My Father as a Young Man and She Thing, from Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods–My Mother’s, My Father’s, and Mine, Noelle Howey

Fiction:

Mother, Grace Paley

My Mother’s Memoirs, My Father’s Lie, and Other True Stories, Russell Banks

Everyday Use, Alice Walker

River of Names, Dorothy Allison

Poetry:

A Chinese Banquet, Kitty Tsui

Nikki-Rosa, Nikki Giovanni

Graphic Fiction:

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (excerpt), Chris Ware

Visual:

Parents of Gay Children protest, New York: June 30, 1974

Mother and Child, Edward Curtis

Family eating dinner in kitchen, ca. 1960, William Gottlieb

Audio:

2.1: Richard Rodriguez

2.2: Paul Theroux

2.3: Grace Paley

2.4 Alice Walker

3  Ideas about Education: Stories from School

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

Claiming an Education, Adrienne Rich

New Spelling of My Name, from Zami, Audre Lord

Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Neil Postman

The Graduation, from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

Fiction:

The Lesson, Toni Cade Bambara

The School, Donald Barthelme

Saint Marie, from Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich

Paul’s Case, Willa Cather

Poetry:

We Real Cool, Gwendolyn Brooks

The History Teacher, Billy Collins

Graphic Fiction:

Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (excerpt), Marcel Proust, illustrated by Stephane Heuet

Visual:

Marshals escort girls from school, New Orleans, 1960

In the Schoolroom, Theophile Emmanuel Duverger

Schoolhouse and pupils, 1913

Audio:

3.1: Panel discussion on interdisciplinary studies with Leonard Shlain, Herman Haluza, Jamie Molaro, and Geoffrey Green

3.2: Adrienne Rich

4 Ideas about Love & Hate

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

Compassion and Love, from Reason for Hope, Jane Goodall

from All About Love, bell hooks

What’s So Bad About Hate? Andrew Sullivan

Hateful Things, from The Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon

Fiction:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver

Amor Divino, Julia Alvarez

The Lottery, Shirley Jackson

The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry:

Love Poem, Audre Lorde

Hate Poem, Julie Sheehan

Graphic Fiction:

Ghost World (excerpt), Daniel Clowes

Visual:

The Lovers, Rene Magritte

Kissing War Goodbye, Alfred Eisenstaedt

John & Yoko Bed-In, Gerry Deiter

Couple Hiding Their True Emotions, Fernand Zacot

Audio:

4.1: Discussion on the biology of love with Sue Gerhardt

4.2: Discussion on the psychology of love with Thomas Lewis

4.3: Discussion of hate and the Internet with Mark Potok

4.4: bell hooks

4.5: Jane Goodall

5 Ideas about War & History

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

The War Prayer, Mark Twain

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (excerpt), Philip Gourevitch

Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica (excerpt), David Rohde

The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq (excerpt),  John Crawford

Fiction:

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

Civil Peace, Chinua Achebe

Two Words, Isabelle Allende

War, Luigi Pirandello

Poetry:

The Colonel, Carolyn Forché

Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen

Graphic Fiction:

Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia (excerpt), Joe Sacco

Visual:

Ypres

Hutu Refugees Return to Rwanda

Children fleeing napalm, Trang Bang, South Vietnam, June 8, 1972

After a Car Bomb, Najaf, Iraq, 2003

Audio:

5.1: Srebrenicia Anniversary: Ambassador Swanee Hunt, General William Nash, General John W. Vessy, and Mike Shuster

5.2: Rwandan Genocide: Corinne Dufka and Louise Mushikiwabo

5.3: Iraq War: Michael Gordon

5.4: The Chilean Coup: Isabel Allende

6 Ideas about Crime & Punishment

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

Illegalities and Delinquency, from Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault

Prison Reform or Prison Abolition, from Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Davis

The Prison Industrial Complex, Eric Shlosser

My Life is My Sundance, Leonard Peltier

Fiction:

House of the Dead, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Outside Work Detail, Scott Wolven

Enemies, Jimmy Santiago Baca

Kiss of the Spider Woman (excerpt), Manuel Puig

Poetry:

The Report, Dick Allen

Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital of the Criminal Insane, Etheridge Knight

Graphic Fiction:

The Beast of Chicago: An Account of the Life and Crimes of Herman W. Mudgett… (excerpt), Rick Geary

Visual:

Tookie Williams

Attica Inmates Raising Fists in Unison During Riots

Woman’s chain gang in Maricopa, California

Audio:

6.1: Panel discussion on clemency and the death penalty: Arthur Serat, Michael Rushford, Wayne Owens, and Mike Perell.

7  Ideas about the Environment: Human vs. Nature vs. Human

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Letter to Thoreau, from prologue of The Future of Life, Edward O. Wilson

Silent Spring (excerpt), Rachel Carson

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard

Fiction:

The Old Man and the Sea (excerpt), Ernest Hemingway

Lessons from the Wolverine, from Fieldnotes, Barry Lopez

The Monkey Wrench Gang (excerpt), Edward Abbey

My Year of Meats, (excerpt), Ruth Ozecki

Poetry:

The World is Too Much with Us, William Wordsworth

November Cotton Flower, Jean Tomer

Graphic Fiction:

Moby Dick (excerpt), Will Eisner

Visual:

Caution tape warning of mad cow disease

Julia “Butterfly” Hill, environmental activist in redwood tree

Protests marking the 20^th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Disaster

Audio:

7.1: Wangari Maathai

7.2: Panel discussion of the future of the oceans with Leon Panetta

7.3: Panel discussion of the future of the oceans with Brian Baird

7.4: Panel discussion of the future of the oceans with Kate Wing

7.5: Panel discussion of the future of the oceans with John E. McCoster

8 Ideas about Art and Poetry: A New New Wave

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

Can Poetry Matter?, Dana Gioia

Introduction to Break Blow Burn (excerpt), Camille Paglia

Stakes is High, Jeff Chang

loops of perception, Paul D Miller (DJ Spooky that subliminal kid)

Fiction:

Seventeen Syllables, Hisaye Yamamoto

epilogue: women like us, from Krik? Krak!, Edwidge Danticat

New Wave Format, Bobbie Ann Mason

Envy: or, Yiddish in America, Cynthia Ozick

Poetry:

Beware Do Not Read This Poem, Ishmael Reed

Poetry, Marianne Moore

Graphic Fiction:

Cages (excerpt), Dave McKean

Visual:

Luna Cadillac, Jean Michel Basquiat

Tattoo Art

Poetry Reading at Nuyorican Poets Cafe

Writer Ted Johns Looking Up

Audio:

8.1: Paul Miller (DJ Spooky)

8.2: Jeff Chang

8.3: W.S. Merwin

8.4: Adrienne Rich

8.5: Panel discussion on Pablo Neruda: Robert Bly, John Felsteiner, Mark Eisner, and Elan Stevens

9 Ideas and the Mind

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

The Enchanted Loom, from An Alchemy of Mind, Diane Ackerman

Introduction to Mind (excerpt), John Searle

Neural Networks, from On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins

Blink (excerpt), Malcolm Gladwell

Fiction:

Invisible Man (excerpt), Ralph Ellison

A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Ernest Hemingway

Seize the Day (excerpt), Saul Bellow

Night-Sea Journey, John Barth

Poetry:

The Brain is Wider than the Sky, Emily Dickinson

Among Schoolchildren, W. B. Yeats

Graphic Fiction:

Izzy the Cockroach and the Meaning of Life, from A Life Force, Will Eisner

Visual:

The Thinker, Auguste Rodin

Woman solving puzzle

PET scans of the brain

Audio:

9.1: Malcolm Gladwell

9.2: John Searle

10   Ideas about the Future: Fact & Fiction

Introductory Essay

Nonfiction:

On Time Travel, Nova interview with Carl Sagan

The Future Doesn’t Need Us, Bill Joy

Forecasting the Future, from What is Coming, H.G. Wells

Future Shock (excerpt), Alvin Toffler

Fiction:

Utopia (excerpt), Sir Thomas More

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula LeGuin

Oryx and Crake (excerpt), Margaret Atwood

Little Brother, Walter Mosley

Poetry:

Re-adjustment, C.S. Lewis

The Future, Rainer Maria Rilke

Graphic Fiction:

The Invisibles (vol. 1): You Say You Want a Revolution (excerpt), Mike Kennedy

Visual:

In Chair Overlooking Wormhole

Dystopia

Boy with Robert the Robot

Audio:

10.1: Edward Rothstein

ORGANIZATION

Each chapter is organized as follows:

Chapter introduction, introducing the themes and history of key ideas and readings

Four non-fiction reading passages

Four fiction reading passages

Two poems

One selection from graphic fiction

Three or four visual texts (paintings, photographs, advertising)

Links to several audio texts

Each type of text, whether traditional, visual, graphic fiction, or audio, is followed by questions for discussion and writing

End of chapter activities include:

Exercises in synthesis of ideas across readings

Suggested writing topics for research, argument, narrative/expository, or creative writing

Annotated suggestions for related video viewing

FEATURES

A multimedia approach to text. The readings in Sound Ideas are complemented by audio texts, including many from San Francisco’s National Public Radio Station KQED’s Forum with Michael Krasny, and by visual texts that are closely related to the themes. Thematic organization. Sound Ideas is organized into ten theme-based chapters. These themes, such as” On Gender Differences: Separating the Boys from the Girls” (Ch. 1), or “Ideas about Crime and Punishment” (Ch. 6) do not present oppositions—i.e., pros and cons of issues—but rather, multilayered and complex views of interconnected ideas. The goal is to help students think more deeply about complex issues, and to move beyond the idea of merely agreeing or disagreeing with an idea.

Creative thinking. Critical thinking is at the core of the questions for discussion and writing in this text. However, we hope to push students beyond the merely critical, and into drawing unique connections between readings, audio texts, and visual texts. In the same vein, our goal is to ask students to think not only critically about what they read, but also creatively in recognizing and evaluating ideas that we may not even have intended in putting these texts together.

Reading-writing connections. Sound Ideas also includes student discussion and writing activities that focus on the production and analysis of different types of texts, including visual texts, as well as the traditional composition.

Concern for multilingual readers. Many composition classes contain native, non-native, and Generation 1.5 speakers. Not only do these speakers come from a variety of linguistic backgrounds, they also come with varying levels of academic preparation, cultural understanding, and knowledge of academic expectations. As a result, “tried and true” readings and assignments are not as effective as they once were. These students benefit from a multimedia approach. In addition, in the discussion questions found at the end of each reading, one ore more “cultural focus” questions are included, encouraging students from all backgrounds to consider the multicultural implications of the text. These questions are not directed at particular groups of students—that is, the intention is not to spotlight students from various cultures as representatives of a particular cultural group or experience, but to ask all students to reflect on how culture and personal experience have informed their understanding of certain concepts.

Sound Ideas

Michael J. Krasny, San Francisco State University & KQED Public Radio

M.E. Sokolik, University of California, Berkeley

Sound Ideas has as its main premise that reading involves interpreting texts of many sorts—not just fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, but also visual text, the spoken word, and more. The differing learning styles of students and teaching styles of instructors help direct this approach: students learn best when exposed to information that is presented in a variety of different ways. Sound Ideas also has as its premise that today’s classroom may look different from the classroom of fifty years ago, or even just a decade ago. Students have a wide variety of linguistic backgrounds and types of preparation for college-level studies. This is not a handicap to overcome, but a wealth of experience to explore. Sound Ideas addresses the needs as well as the interests of an increasingly diverse student population, while maintaining strong connections to a history of ideas.