ENG 208: Composing the Self
Professor
Richard Ruppel, Spring 2025
Office: 07 Smith Hall
Meetings: Tuesday & Thursday,
1-2:15pm 102 Doti Hall
Office Hours: 8:30-9:30 Monday & Tuesday
& by appointment.
Phone: (714) 997-6754 (office)
Updated February 10, 2025
Weekly Syllabus
Assignments
Units
Canvas
Useful Links
EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
I’ll
add events throughout the semester, but if you know of other announcements or
events that might appear here, send them along to me.
Course
Description & Objectives, from the Catalog: Students explore the relationship between identity and writing.
Students will study a variety of genres (personal essays, researched essays,
academic articles, news reports, case studies, and ethnographies) and
theoretical approaches to learn how and why writers create versions of
themselves for rhetorical effect. While investigating identity construction in
writing, students will hone their own rhetorical and stylistic skills. Students
will compose narratives, essays, reports, and multi-genre compositions, drawing
from personal experience, observation, and primary and secondary sources. The
course will also address the role of self in the research-writing process by
requiring students to conduct original academic research projects. This course
is appropriate for all majors, and no specialized writing experience is
assumed.
ENG 208 satisfies Chapman’s Written Inquiry
General Education requirement. Here is the description of the learning
outcome associated with that requirement:
Students establish active, genuine, and
responsible authorial engagement; communicate a purpose—an argument or other
intentional point/goal; invoke a specific audience, develop the
argument/content with an internal logic-organization; integrate references,
citations, and source materials logically and dialogically, indicating how
forms of evidence relate to each other and the author’s position; and compose
the text with: a style or styles appropriate to the purpose and intended
audience, a consistent use of the diction appropriate to the author’s topic and
purpose. Students develop the ability to establish and vary authorial voice(s)
and tone(s), to choose form(s) and genre(s) appropriate to their purpose and
audience (forms may be digital and/or multimodal), and to make rhetorically
effective use of language.
Specific
Course Description and Learning Outcomes:
Flannery O’Conner, E. M. Forster, and Joan Didion all wrote something to
the effect that “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” An equally valid corollary is “I don’t know what
I don’t know until I write it down.” Writing requires us to discover
what we know but also, even more importantly, what we don’t know.
Writing
also helps us discover who we are, as every diarist will confirm. But writing is more than “discovery.” Writing helps us create our identities. As
the title of this course suggests, writing helps us compose ourselves.
But
there’s a dark side to writing. In “The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a poem I teach nearly every year, the mariner
bites his arm and drinks his own blood so that he can speak – a macabre tribute
to the pain of tearing meaning out of the chaos of the universe. Red Smith, a brilliant sportswriter, wrote
“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a
vein.” Some golden people write and publish, publish and write, churning out
serviceable sentences, paragraphs, articles, and books effortlessly. For most
of us, writing is hard, painstaking, daunting, and humbling.
This
course will give us the space and time to discover what we know, what we don’t
know, and who we are through our writing.
We will read skilled authors who reveal themselves in their essays, and
we will do this ourselves, paying attention to the elements of rhetoric: tone,
audience, and purpose. We will begin writing brief autobiographies and move to
more public writing.
Texts
& Supplies:
All readings will be online or in the
“Modules” section of our Canvas pages.
Course Requirements:
Attendance: Please make every effort to attend each
class. Let me know if you are unable to attend. If you miss more than four classes, your
grade will suffer, and if you miss six or more, you will not pass.
Communication: Please
be courteous and constructive in our classes. I receive a large number of
emails, so when emailing, please identify the course (ENG 208), your last name,
and the subject in the subject line. I will respond promptly to your
emails; please respond promptly to mine.
Essays: Please email your essays
directly to my email: ruppel@chapman.edu. If possible, send them as MSWord
documents. If you send a pdf, I will
convert it to a Word document so I can mark it.
Please DO NOT send a link to a Google doc.
Late
essays will receive reduced grades, and I will not accept papers submitted more
than a week late unless you provide a convincing explanation. To pass this course, you
must complete all four essays. If you are
having difficulty completing an essay or a Canvas discussion post, let me
know.
I will accept a revision of one of your essays, but you must
schedule a conference with me to discuss that revision before you submit
it. I will average the grade of the original paper and the revision.
I will both
grade and mark essays earning a grade of C- or higher. I will not put
a grade on an essay that earns a grade lower than C-. If I return an
essay to you that does not include a grade, you will need to schedule a meeting
with me so we can go over the essay together and work out a revision strategy.
I may ask you to schedule a consultation with the Writing
Center before our meeting.
Canvas Discussion Posts: I will
assign Canvas Discussion responses for many of the assigned readings. These
responses will be due before we discuss the readings.
Grades:
Autobiographical
Essay: 15% Due February 25—1500-2000 words.
“The Political is Personal”
essay: 20% March 20—1600-2400 words.
Essay concerned with
health: 25% Due April 24—1600-2400 words.
Final essay: 25% Due May 15—2800-3500 words.
Participation*: 15%
*This is primarily your grade on the Canvas Discussion Board posts
and workshop participation. Here are my criteria for evaluating your
posts:
I will post
grades in Canvas, which will calculate your overall grade for the class. The
official grades are those I calculate myself, and these are nearly always the
same as those Canvas creates. If there
is a discrepancy between the grade you see in Canvas and the grade I have in my
gradebook, however, the gradebook grade is the one that’s correct. I am always
happy to discuss assignment grades.
Chapman
University Academic Integrity Policy:
Chapman University is a community of scholars that emphasizes the
mutual responsibility of all members to seek knowledge honestly and in good
faith. Students are responsible for doing their own work, and academic
dishonesty of any kind will be subject to sanction by the instructor and
referral to the university's Academic Integrity Committee, which may impose
additional sanctions up to and including dismissal. (See the
"Undergraduate Catalog" for the full policy.) Though I am not requiring you to submit your
papers via Turnitin, I am an expert at finding sources, online and otherwise,
so I will notice if you make unacknowledged use of someone else’s work. And if I have doubts, I will submit your work
to Turnitin or to an LLM detector myself.
So please save both of us from trauma and write your Canvas
Discussion posts and essays yourself.
ChatGPT and other Large Language Model (LLM) chatbots:
1.
Typing a prompt into an
LLM chatbot, copying the response, and then submitting that response for an
assignment is an obvious form of academic misconduct. Don’t do it.
2.
Chatbots are sometimes
inaccurate. When I asked for a biography
of Richard Ruppel, a Chapman English professor, I found that I was born in
Fairview (false), had been an expert on the Holocaust (mostly false), had graduated
from Yale and Harvard (false), and was now dead (demonstrably, I hope,
false). People in the field describe
these errors as “hallucinations,” but they are presented with supreme
self-confidence. Hallucinations are not uncommon.
3.
If I suspect that you
have pasted in a response produced by an LLM, I will check the various services
that can detect this. If those services
confirm my suspicion, I will call you in for a conference.
4.
Chatbots can be
inaccurate, but they do offer clear, useful information which users should
check. These are early times, but
through this semester (and through your academic career) we will all discover
ways to help you use them to enhance your learning.
The following discussion of the use of LLMs in
academic settings was developed by Dr. Nora Rivera, a professor in Chapman’s
English department:
Acceptable
Uses of LLMs |
Not
Acceptable Uses of LLMs |
·
To improve your work ·
To brainstorm ·
To explore potential counterarguments ·
To fine-tune research questions ·
To draft an outline to organize your
thoughts ·
To check grammar and style ·
To check format · To
translate words and phrases |
·
To replace your work ·
To cheat on the writing & research
process ·
To obtain answers to assessments ·
To generate a full draft of your work · To
generate large chunks of text with little or no input from you as an author |
·
Students must cite AI
technologies when appropriate (e.g., when using images generated by AI
technologies, when referencing an answer provided by AI technologies, et
cetera)
·
Copying works entirely
generated by AI technologies and submitting them as original content is
considered an academic integrity
violation
·
Always revise your work
before submitting it. You are responsible for any inaccurate, biased,
offensive, or otherwise unethical content you submit regardless of whether it
originally comes from you or an AI model.
In-Class
use of laptops, tablets, and phones:
You
may use a laptop only when it’s appropriate for that day’s class. Otherwise, laptops and tablets must remain
closed, and you may not consult your phone during class. If you have a reason to use one of these
devices during class, you must receive my permission to do so beforehand. If I see you consulting your phone during
class, I will mark you absent. However,
I do know how difficult it can be to remain phone-free through a class, so I
will provide a five-minute break for you to tune in (or use the restroom).
Chapman's
Students with Disabilities Policy:
In
compliance with ADA guidelines, students who have any condition, either
permanent or temporary, that might affect their ability to perform in this
class are encouraged to inform the instructor at the beginning of the term. The
University, through the Disability
Services Office, will work with the appropriate faculty member who is asked to
provide the accommodations for a student in determining what accommodations are
suitable based on the documentation and the individual student needs. The
granting of any accommodation will not be retroactive and cannot jeopardize the
academic standards or integrity of the course.
Please contact me if you have ANY concerns about completing any of the
requirements of this course. I want you to feel challenged, not
overwhelmed.
Chapman
University is committed to ensuring equality and valuing
diversity. Students and professors are reminded to show respect at
all times as outlined in Chapman’s Harassment and Discrimination Policy. Any violations
of this policy should be discussed with the professor, the Dean of Students
and/or otherwise reported in accordance with this policy.
Week 1 – February 4-6:
Introductions and conversations about composing the self.
Week 2 – February 11-13: Discussion of essays on writing.
Week 3 – February 18-20: Richard
Bausch visit Tuesday. Draft workshop Thursday.
Week 4 –
February 25-27: Autobiographical essay due February 25.
Week 5 –
March 4-6: The political is personal – discussions of essays devoted to
how authors developed, maintained, and/or changed their political
positions.
Week 6 – March 11-13: Jean Ho visit, discussion
of essay, draft workshop.
Week 7 –
March 18-20: “The Political is Personal” essay due March 20.
Spring Break!
Week 8 –
April 1-3: Discussion of health-related
essays.
Week 9 – April 8-10: Discussion of
health-related essays.
Week 10 – April 15-17: Discussion of
health-related essays, writing workshop.
Week 11 –
April 22-24: Essay concerned with health, due
April 24.
Week 12 – April 29-May 1:
Week 13 – May 6-8:
Week 14 – May 13-15: Final essay due May 15.
Week 15 – Final: TBA
*This syllabus may change, but I will give you plenty of notice,
and I will keep the syllabus updated on the Web.
For Tuesday,
February 4: Course
introduction. We’ll introduce ourselves
and go over this Web page and our Canvas pages.
For Thursday,
February 6: Read
through our syllabus and bring questions, comments, and suggestions to
class.
For Tuesday,
February 11:
Read “Why I Write” by George Orwell and “Why I
Write” by Joan Didion and respond to the discussion
question in Canvas by 10am February 11. These are in the Modules section of
Canvas.
For Thursday,
February 13: Read “Shitty First Drafts,”
by Anne Lamott, and “Mother Tongue,” by Amy Tan.
Bring ideas for your first essay.
For Tuesday,
February 18:
Read the Richard Bausch materials you can find in the Modules section of
Canvas: “Map Reading,” “What Feels Like the World,” and “The Composition of
‘What Feels Like the World.’” Prepare
one or two questions or observations for Professor Bausch to ask him during
class.
For Thursday,
February 20:
Bring a hard copy of a draft of your first, autobiographical essay to class for
a workshop.
George
Orwell (1903-1950)
·
Brief
video
biography of Orwell from “School of Life,” 2016.
·
“Shooting
an Elephant,” 1936.
Joan Didion (1934-2021)
·
PBS tribute to Didion
after her death in 2021, at the age of 87, from Parkinson’s.
Anne Lamott (1954)
·
A Ted talk by Anne
Lamott.
·
A recent interview.
Amy Tan (1952)
·
Writing from personal
experience.
·
A quick PBS piece on Amy
Tan’s mother and her effect on Tan’s writing.
Eugene V.
Debs (1855-1926)
·
Brief video about the
Eugene V. Debs museum on the campus of Indiana State University.
Justin
Naylor
·
Braver
Angels Website.
Richard
Branson
·
Blog
post on the death penalty.
Beth Macy
·
NYT op/ed on J. D. Vance and how each Macy and Vance characterize
the problems of their rural Ohio origins.
Carol
Hanisch
·
The
original “The
Political is Personal” essay, from 1969, with a 2006 update.
Dennis Fox
·
Border Lines and Border Regions
Tonya Allen
·
LA
Times interview.
Oliver Sacks
·
Video about Clive
Wearing.
·
Sacks
discussing
his schizophrenic brother.
Chang-rae Lee
·
A
charming interview by
Ann Patchett.