Tulane University



Tulane University

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Writing: Authority, Power Play,

and Institutional Critique

“The highest duty is to respect authority.”

-Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903)

ENLS 101-08:

Spring 2007

Tuesday/Thursday:

10:00-11:50am

Room # 103, Norman Mayer

Course Description:

This course is designed to allow its participants to gain a foothold in academic discourse by furthering critical reading skills, developing the fundamentals of academic writing in all its many and varied forms, and inducing participation in contemporary intellectual debates. The questions that surround authority, of what it is, who should have it, why we obey it, and in what ratio to anarchy it should be fostered, provide interconnected areas of inquiry for all manner of intellectuals from many epochs of history. This has allowed the reading for this class to be chosen specifically from many academic disciplines in order to introduce college freshmen to good professional writing of many styles. This has been done both to encourage you to realize connections between readings from apparently disparate sources, and to illustrate those principles of good writing that transcend the specific strictures that govern various sub-discourses in academia. All reading material was chosen for its applicability to the course subject matter as well as its rhetorical skill and styling, and will be studied for both of these attributes. Every reading assignment will therefore be an exercise in reading on at least the two levels of content and rhetoric. Writing assignments are similarly designed to challenge students to engage with the content of the material while increasing the writing skills of invention, argumentation, editing, and style that will allow them not only to understand the questions prompted by authority but to intelligently respond to them, interrogate them and ultimately obtain the means to add their own voice to the ever-growing scholastic conversation on this topic.

Course Introduction:

Given the issues of Homeland Security, the disputed power of the United Nations, the use/abuse of the Geneva Convention by the United States government, and related concerns that have been constantly under scrutiny in the past five years, the question of authority and when its exercise becomes exploitation is a timely one. Along with its primary function as an introductory college writing course, this class is designed to provide the theories, vocabulary and background that will allow you to understand these issues beyond the level of surface phenomena and will (hopefully) open up avenues of possible further study in several related academic fields. The semester is divided roughly into three segments, general philosophy, government, and classroom authority, which are not meant to be mutually exclusive. There is considerable overlap between the three which allows them to seamlessly transition from one to the next, and students will accordingly be expected to remember and incorporate aspects of previously studied works in class discussion and writing assignments.

Required Books:

• Course packet

• 1984, George Orwell

• Blindness, Jose Saramago

Grades and Assignments:

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• 7 papers of 2-3 pages each: 3 pts each

o Rough draft – 1 pt +

o Final draft – 2 pts x 7 =

o 21 pts

• Two papers of 5-6 pages each: 20 pts each

o Rough draft – 5 pts +

o Final draft – 15 pts x 2 =

o 40 pts

• 1 research paper of 8-10 pages: 30 pts

o Rough draft – 10 pts +

o Final draft - 20 pts =

o 30 pts

• Presentation: 4 pts

• Editing Packet: 5 pts

Grading Standards:

The A Paper ... is characterized by the freshness, ambition, maturity, coherence, and complexity of its content. Its claims are stated clearly and effectively, supported well, with relevant nuances interpreted and delineated in ways that go beyond the obvious. It manifests a distinctive voice that explicitly engages a meaningful rhetorical context and, in turn, an actual audience. It situates itself thoroughly among assigned readings, perhaps even key, related texts in public discourse. It effectively balances the specific and the general, the compelling detail and the larger point, personal experiences and direct observations of the outer world. It grows out of large-scale revisions (both in terms of content and structure). It not only fulfills the assignment, but inventively uses the assignment as an occasion to excel. Its only errors are purely typographical and quite rare. Finally, it manifests a certain stylistic flair – the bon mot, the well-turned phrase, the significant metaphor – that helps to make it, for the reader, memorable.

The B Paper ... is characterized by content that is a relatively familiar, less daring, less integrated or a little simpler than one might hope. Its claims could use more support or more exploration, or could perhaps be stated more directly. Its voice could be more distinct and it could situate itself more engagingly in the rhetorical context and go farther to reach its audience. It could do more with the assigned readings, create a better balance between specific and general, detail and idea, personal anecdote and larger point. It fulfills the assignment, but in a way slightly perfunctory. It makes very few errors and shows no systematic misunderstanding of the fundamentals of grammar, but its overall structure might appear somewhat uneven. Finally, it could benefit from more large-scale revision and from more careful attention to its style at the sentence-by-sentence level.

The C Paper ... is characterized by overmuch dependence on the self-evident, is dotted with cliché, and is inadequately informative. Its essential point is uninteresting or only hazily set forth or developed aimlessly. It has no particular voice, nor any significant sense of context or audience, nor any real engagement with other texts. In terms of the dynamics between detail and idea, it seems to lose the forest-for-the-trees or vice versa. It fulfills the assignment but does so in a way wholly perfunctory. It has grammatical errors that significantly disrupt the reading experience. It has not been sufficiently revised.

The D Paper ... is characterized by minimal thought and effort, which shows through the absence of a meaningful, central idea or the lack of any controlled development of that idea. It fails to fulfill some key aspect of the assignment. It makes no meaningful use of other texts nor ever situates itself in any sort of context. It needlessly offends its audience. Its sentences and paragraphs are both built around rigidly repeated formula and soon become predictable. It is riddled with error. It has apparently never been revised.

The F Paper ... is characterized by plagiarism or lateness or a total misunderstanding of the assignment or is simply incomprehensible owing to a plethora of error or desperately poor organization. It has not only not been revised – it really hasn’t been begun.

Class Standards:

• I do not accept late work.

• I expect all students to be on time.

• I expect all students to have read and thought carefully about the assigned material.

• I expect all students to scrupulously obey the standards set by the University Honor Code. If there is ever a question as to what these standards are, please see the full text of that document at .

Reading and Writing Schedule:

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UNIT 1 Conceptualizing Authority

Week 1: General concepts: questioning and defining authority

Jan 16: Class begins.

In Class: Overview of syllabus, expectations and policies (esp. honor code standards involving plagiarism).Introduction and basic lecture/discussion of historical definitions of authority.

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HW: Selections from course packet:

-Excerpts from Milgram’s original findings

-Lutsky, Neil. “When is ‘Obedience’ Obedience? Conceptual and Historical Commentary.” Journal of Social Issues. 51.3 (1995): 55-65.

-Wim, H. J. Meeus, and Quinten A.W. Raaijmakers. “Obedience in Modern

Society: The Utrecht Studies.” Journal of Social Issues. 51.3 (1995): 155

-175.

Jan 18:

In Class: Milgram Discussion (Watch clip of

Milgram’s original experiment footage),

mini-lecture on logic and reading BEYOND

CONTENT (a.k.a. “critical” or “close” reading) to make the rhetoric visible.

HW: -Short paper #1: 1-2 pages: Expand upon Tuesday’s discussion about authority figures and today’s discussion of Wim’s paper. Describe a situation in which you were confronted with an authority you did not want to obey, but did. Why did you “fall in line” in this instance? Was it entirely because of the methods of the authority? If not, to what degree, and in what ways did your own attitudes lead you to your ultimate acquiescence? Due Tuesday

-Read from course packet:

-Raven, Bertram H. and John R. P. French Jr. “Legitimate Power, Coercive Power, and Observability in Social Influence.” Sociometry. 21.2 (1958): 83-87.

-Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. New York: Vintage, 1978. pages 81-100.

Week 2: General Concepts: sources of authority

Jan 23:

In Class: Raven and French vs. Foucault 10 minute free-write, and discussion of the same. Student fallacy presentation. Peer editing of papers.

HW: Go to implicit.harvard.edu. Take at least one IAT test. Only then:

Read from course packet: Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2005: Chapter 3, “The Warren Harding Error: Why We Fall For Tall, Dark, Handsome, Men”

-Edit papers incorporating all relevant suggestions from peer editor. Final draft due Thurs.

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Jan 25:

In Class: Short paper #1 final draft due today; 10 minute writing activity on Gladwell; discussion of the same; student fallacy presentation; Discussion of papers, what was good/bad? discussion of peer editing, what was helpful?

HW: Short paper #2: 2- 3 pages (Sample topic: How would Foucault explain the results of the Milgram experiment? Include an analysis of those participants influenced by their peers) Due Tuesday.

Read from course packet:

-Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. Cambridge: South End Press, 1989: Chapters 1-2, and Appendix IV.

Week 3: General concepts: Maintaining Authority in Modern Societies

Jan 30:

In class: Free-write; Chomsky discussion; Student presentation; Peer editing of papers. Watch as much of documentary: “Manufacturing Consent” as time permits.

HW: Read from course packet:

-Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. Cambridge: South End Press, 1989: Chapter 3

-Fritz, Ben. All the President’s Spin. New York: Touchstone, 2004: Chapter 6

-Edit paper. Final draft due Thursday.

Feb 1:

In class: Short Paper #2 final draft due today; Free-write; Discussion of Chomsky and Fritz; Student Presentation

HW: Short paper #3: 2-3 pages

Read:

-1984 pages 1-75

-Chomsky: appendix I: The Propaganda Model.

Week 4: General concepts: application to 1984

Feb 6:

In class: Free-write; discussion of first part of 1984; peer editing; student presentation

HW: Read:

-1984 pages 75-125

-course packet: select articles about Homeland Security

Feb 8:

In class: Short Paper #3 final draft due today; Guest lecture on legalities of Homeland Security by Madaline Herlong; student presentation; free-write

HW: Read:

-1984 pages 125-200

-course packet: Fritz, Ben. All the President’s Spin. New York: Touchstone, 2004: chapter 8

-Long Paper #1: 5-6 pages: rough draft due Thursday. Expand on Short paper #1. Analyze an experience or a related series of experiences you have had with authority in terms of the material we have covered in the past month. What types of authority were used to persuade you to obey? (Bertram and French) How was the power arranged? What codes of conduct/ethics were implicitly assumed by the participants? (Foucault) Were there any “Warren Harding” errors at work? (Gladwell) Was there any tactful obfuscation of the real issue at hand? Was there rhetorical juggling in the description of the task required of you? (Chomsky) Make informed decisions as to which of these theories applies to your experience. Does your experience contradict any of these theories?

Week 5: 1984 cont.

Feb 13:

In Class: Free write; student Presentation; discussion on 1984

HW: Read:

-1984, pages 200-250

Feb 15:

In class: Rough Draft of Long Paper #1 = DUE; Last student presentation; peer editing.

HW: Read:

-1984, pages 250-end

Week 6: Loose Ends

Feb 20: Mardi Gras!!!

Feb 22:

In class: Long Paper #1 Final Draft DUE. Last discussion of 1984;

HW: Short Paper #4, 2-3 pages

Read from course packet:

- Neubacher, Frank. “How can it happen that Horrendous State Crimes Are Perpetuated?” Journal of International Criminal Justice. 4.4 (2006): 787-801

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UNIT 2: Government, Authority and Anarchy

Week 7: Essentials

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There will only be 2 short papers during this unit (of only 1-2 pages each, instead of the usual 2-3) as you should be spending your time doing research for the 8-10 page research paper due March 27. Research may focus on any aspect of authority that intrigues you, but must be narrow enough to allow for the page limitation. Each student is responsible for scheduling a one on one session with me to discuss possible paper topics.

Feb 27:

In class: Watch “Judgment at Nuremburg”; writing exercise; peer editing; discuss Neubacher.

HW: Edit short paper #4

Read from Course packet:

-selections from Locke

-Buzan, Barry. “Peace, Power and Security: Contending Concepts in the Study of International Relations.” Journal of Peace Research. 21.2: 109-125.

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Mar 1:

In class: Short Paper #4 final draft due; Free-writing; discuss finding and narrowing down a topic and a thesis for a research paper; present examples of excellent student research papers; teach first 10 stylistic devices.

HW: Short Paper #5, 1-2 pages; rough draft due Tuesday

Read from course packet:

-selections from Hobbes

Week 8: Too little authority?

Mar 6:

In Class: free-write; discuss basic research techniques, sources, and methods of organization for a research paper; peer editing; 5 stylistic devices.

HW: Read from course packet:

- Burke, Edmund. A Vindication of Natural Society

- Rothbard, Murray N. “A Note on Burke’s Vindication of Natural Society.” Jounal of the History of Ideas. 19.1 (1995): 114-118

- You should have a firm grasp on your topic at this point. Bring in all notes and be prepared to explain to the class your thesis, and the probable direction your paper is taking.

Mar 8:

In class: Short Paper #5 final draft due today; free write; discuss Burke, the correct ratio of authority in government, and the part human nature plays in deciding that ratio; 5 more stylistic devices.

HW: Read:

-Work on Research Paper

-Blindness, pages 1-100

[pic]Week 9:

Mar 13: Anarchy and Human Nature: Blindness

In class: Free-write; discussion of Blindness vs. 1984 as representative of the horrors of too little and too much authority respectively; 5 more stylistic devices.

HW: Work on Research paper!

Read:

-Blindness, pages 100-176

Mar 15:

In class: Rough Draft of Research Paper Due. (At least 6 pages!) Peer editing

HW: Read:

-Blindness, pages 176-276

Week 10:

SPRING BREAK

Week 11: Ending Blindness, and blindness.

Mar 27:

In class: Final Draft Research Paper DUE!! discuss Blindness (What happens to issues of race when the whole world is blind?); free-write; Stylistic device review.

HW: Read:

– Blindness, pages 276-end

Mar 29:

In class: Free-write; Discuss Blindness in terms of Locke/Hobbes/Burke (Why does Saramago choose to end it with the blindness of one of the main characters? What does the book indicate about the primitive nature of man?) Stylistic device competition (i.e. the students compete to see who can not only remember, but come up with examples for all the stylistic devices we have studies over the last few weeks)

HW: Read from course packet:

- Scorczewski, Dawn. Teaching one moment at a time. Boston: U Mass Press, 2005: selected chapters.

-Gale, Xin Liu. Teachers, Discourses and Authority in the Postmodern Composition Classroom. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996: selected chapters.

UNIT 3: Authority, anarchy, and power on a personal level: the classroom

Week 12: Microscopic power-relations

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Apr.10:

In class: Free-write; discuss Scorczewski and Gale (What does it mean exactly to share authority?)

HW: Read from course packet:

– “The Children’s Story” by James Clavell

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Apr 12:

In class: Free-write; discuss Clavell in terms of sharing authority vs. manipulation;

HW: Short Paper # 6, 2-3 pages; rough draft due Tuesday

Read from course packet:

- Anderson, Kirsti, and Elizabeth D. Miller. “Gender and Student Evaluations of Teaching.” Political Science and Politics. 30.2 (1997): 216-219.

-Moore, Valerie Ann. “Inappropriate Challenges to Professional Authority.” Teaching Sociology. 24.2 (1996): 202-206

Week 13: Gender, Race and the Classroom

Apr 17:

In class: Free-write; discuss Anderson and Moore in terms of Gladwell (How do our gender/race expectations effect our immediate opinions of authority figures?); peer edit

HW: Edit short paper #6

Read from course packet:

-“Ad Astra” by Falkner

-Martin, Reginald. “Ad Astra and Falkner’s Southern Reflections: The Black on the Back of the Mirror.”

Apr 19:

In Class: Short Paper # 6 final draft due today; Free-write; discuss Falkner in terms of rhetorical style, variety of sentence structure, tone, as well as the play of power between the white and black characters;

HW: Short paper #7, 2-3 pages, rough draft due Tuesday

Read from course packet:

-Gorzelsky, Gwen. “Ghosts: Liberal Education and Negotiated Authority.” College English. 64.3 (2002): 302-325.

-Jones, Donald. “A Comment on: ‘Ghosts: Liberal Education and Negotiated Authority.’” College English. 65.2 (2002): 211-213.

- -Gorzelsky, Gwen. “ ‘[Ghosts: Liberal Education and Negotiated Authority’]: Responds.” College English. 65.2 (2002): 214-215.

Week 14:

Apr 24:

In class: Free-write; discussion of the purpose of the teacher in the classroom (authority vs. guide vs. exemplar) and what teaching style is the most effective. 5 more stylistic devices taught; peer editing

HW: Edit short paper #7

Read from course packet:

-Long, Gary L., and Elise S. Lake. “A Precondition for Ethical Teaching: Clarity About Role and Inequality.” Teaching Sociology. 24.1 (1996):111-113.

-O’Brien, Jodi, and Judith A. Howard. “To Be or Not to Be: The Paradox of Value-Neutrality and Responsible Authority.” Teaching Sociology. 24.3 (1996): 326-330.

Apr 26:

In class: Short Paper #7 final draft due; discuss Long and Lake, and O’Brien

HW: Write long paper #2, 5-6 pages; rough draft due Tuesday. Design the ideal classroom environment. Argue convincingly and with reference to course material (all three units) for the amount of authority that should be granted to the teacher vs the students. Choose those classroom practices (i.e. types assignments, group work, sample paper topics) that your classroom would have and explain why they further your classroom goals. For what reason did you choose your particular ratio of student/teacher power? What do you hope to accomplish by this choice? (NOTE: References to articles and books must be cited correctly and included in a bibliography.)

Week 15:

May 1:

In class: Peer edit papers. Final draft due (a hard copy please) the day of the final.

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Natalie Schmidt:

aslanat@

Norman Mayer 202

Office Hours:

Monday 2:00-3:00

Thursday 12:00-2:00

“There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive; it has status, it establishes canons of taste and value; it is virtually indistinguishable from certain ideas it dignifies as true, and from traditions, perceptions and judgments it forms, transmits, reproduces. Above all, authority can, indeed must, be analyzed.”

- Edward Said (1935-2006)

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of all truth”

-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Activity: Have students write their own definition to the question, “What is Authority?” (Students will be encouraged to think about authority figures they have personally known in the past as examples of effective and less-than-effective wielders of authority and to pinpoint why some authority is respected more than others). Students will then be grouped into pairs and collaborate on a combined definition. Each pair will then present their definition to the class and a collaborative definition will be written on the board. This will be a springboard for future discussion of authority and will allow the students to see how their definition is effected by each reading and the overall changes it undergoes during the course of the semester.

Students should be able to Compare/contrast Milgam’s original findings with modern interpretations of the same and similar experiments. Class discussion will focus on the implications of Wim article in terms of what authority requires of its followers in order to be effective. Beyond content, Point out rhetorical flow, structure, and logic used in all scientific articles read for the day. Discuss “close reading” as a practice. Assign students to pair off and take five fallacies (per group) which they will present on specific days in the next four weeks.

In discussion of close reading above, I will show the class my own copy of the reading complete with underlining, notes, references and the outside material I was inspired to look up while reading, including definitions of any difficult vocabulary. In every article that we read I will look for abstruse vocabulary and make sure they have looked up these words on their own. Using the teacher’s personal work as an example was encouraged by several articles on sharing authority.

Raven and French have been paired deliberately with Foucault. They focus on defining the types of power an individual can exercise while Foucault, of course, focuses more on the manner in which societies and systems of belief remain in power. Thus, this week’s reading anticipates (in reverse order) the changing scope of the course itself from the level of the national down to the classroom. Raven and French introduce the students to abstract theories of power and give them a vocabulary with which to approach Foucault’s theories. They also break power into definable categories, providing a foil for Foucault, who emphasizes that, in real situations, those categories are never distinct, but coexist in different ratios in both individuals and institutions.

Chomsky’s work is included because of it’s immediate relevance to Foucault’s theory of hidden power, and provides a nice lead-in to 1984, where students can see propaganda and its effects in their most exaggerated forms.

Every class will begin with either a 5-10 minute, subject directed free-write, or one of the many other exercises found in Peter Elbow’s Writing With Power designed to stimulate invention.

Every piece of writing will be peer edited before being turned in. Students will receive the full amount of points for rough drafts as long as the length requirement is met, and basic assignment is carried out. All peer editing sessions will result in a written sheet of good points and suggestions for improvement. The written peer editing sheet will go home with the writer of the paper, but will be returned to the editor the following class period. At the end of the semester each student will select five of the editing sheets they felt were most helpful to their recipients and turn them in as their editing packet. These packets will be graded according to their insightfulness, helpfulness, attention to specific criteria of the assignment, etc. All of this is to urge students to take their editing seriously, and to make a genuine effort to help their classmates.

The first unit of this course is designed to teach basic argumentation skills. Along with mini lectures on the basics of essay writing and logical paragraph progression, Students will teach each other 35 of the most common logical fallacies. The class will be broken up into groups. In those groups the students will be assigned 3-5 fallacies (depending on the size of the class) and will be asked to find examples of them in published works, their daily conversation, internet blogs or another part of our culture that we are apt to encounter on a daily basis, thus emphasizing the common misuses made of logic in everyday life. This presentation will be worth five points of their final grades

I have chosen, rather unusually, to put the largest paper, the research based paper, in the middle of this course because it fits more logically with the material on governments, there being more possible research topics that can be inspired by the comprehensive material covered here. This also allows the course to end with the second long essay which requires the students to design their own model classroom, a project which takes into account all of the material covered in the entire course and acts as a final review and exam of both writing techniques and reading material.

In this unit, the focus as far as student writing is concerned will shift from argumentation to style and each class period will involve teaching 5-10 stylistic devices from the appendix of A Rhetoric of Pleasure. Students will be required to incorporate 15 Rhetorical devices into their research papers.

The chapter included from Gladwell’s Blink, is included because it deals with the bestowal of authority and trust upon individuals for illogical reasons; Warren Harding, for example won the presidency because he looked the part, not because he had any outstanding qualifications. This bring echoes the issues discussed earlier with Wim’s paper; i.e. the complicity, conscious or not, of obedience to authority. Gladwell also brings up the issues of gender and race and how they effect authority figures that will be brought up once again in the last unit of the semester concerning the classroom.

The Harvard website contains a test that reveals subconscious gender and race biases, not just on the level of a chauvinist/racist, but on the more insidious level of what types of objects, adjectives we associate with certain genders/races. I have insisted they take one test because it brings the abstract principles of the chapter onto a more personal level.

The Neubacher article uses the Milgram experiment and explains how its results are applicable to a government/global setting. It provides a nice line of continuity from unit one to unit two.

Locke, Hobbes and Burke have been included because they discuss not only the granting of authority to those in power, and how and why that situation came about, but the innate good/evil nature of man and how our view of man’s elemental state effects our opinion of the necessity and amount of authority that must be in place to effect order. This relates back to the Milgram experiment and the Nuremburg trials within which there was also the pressing question of whether the people involved were evil or merely manipulated by a bad system. This will lead in to our coming discussion of anarchy and on what level anarchy can work.

Blindness, in a nutshell, is the story of a plague of “white blindness” that slowly overtakes the entire world’s population. The story focuses on the first man to succumb to the plague and his experience in a quarantined asylum, but as the rest of the world goes blind and the inmates break out, the story incorporates the disintegration of entire nations. Blindness has been included because it provides an insightful view of an institution (and eventually a world) falling into anarchy. In it there are examples of people who validate the claim that people are inherently brutish and violent, as well as those who prove the reverse. Locke, Hobbes, and Burke will be ever present in our discussions as well as the ever applicable Milgram, and the question of obedience to a leader and all the authors read in Unit one as the story progresses and new internal governments are formed within the asylum.

Blindness provides the perfect counter-balance to 1984. Orwell’s novel portraying the horrors of too much authority in government, while Saramago portraying the equal horrors of too little.

Blindness has also been chosen for its terse rhetorical style, which is especially applicable to contemporary academic rhetoric. Saramago provides a great style for students to imitate, as opposed to, say, Dickens, whose style of writing no long has a place (other than as an object of study) in the academic world.

“”The Children’s Story” by Clavell takes place in a grade school classroom in a country that has just been taken over by a fascist-type government. The story begins at two minutes to nine and ends at 9:23 in which time the entire class is converted to the cause espoused by their pretty, new teacher (Their old teacher had mysteriously disappeared), is convinced to cut up the American flag, and throw the flagpole out into the playground. This story is particularly relevant to the course in that the clever rhetorical moves and propaganda used by the teacher to convert her new students are frighteningly akin to those moves recommended in the articles about sharing authority. This brings up the question of manipulation and how some forms of sharing authority are (just like Noam Chomsky shows on the level of governments) just hiding the power in more insidious and hidden forms.

This last unit will focus on applying all previously gained understanding of authority and power to the classroom. It will, in effect, “bring home” all the points the class as a whole has labored to produce for the past 12 weeks.

Writing skills will be focused on honing the skills already learned up to this point. Editing will become a major focus, and I will urge student editor to become extremely scrupulous in their work as I will become more demanding as to the quality of work turned in to me.

Students will be writing continually in this course. They will have a short paper, or some draft of a long paper due almost every week. The goals of this stringent writing schedule being, a) to overcome any fear of the blank page they have, if only by repetition b) to make sure they have not only read the material assigned but have thought about it and analyzed its meaning and c) to give them opportunities to practice the techniques of good writing being taught in class. Students will always receive points for their rough draft, emphasizing the importance of writing in stages and the necessity of editing.

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