Email: jmcmahon@elcamino.edu
Office: PE4; extension 5673
Website: Breakthrough Writer: Easiest way to find blog is to go to Google and type “breakthrough writer.” My blog will be your first hit.
http://herculodge.typepad.com/breakthrough_writer/
Essay Assignments and Texts:
Night by Elie Wiesel.
Major Themes in Night
1. Denial and acclimation to evil
2. Danger of silence
3. Theodicy: The problem of reconciling evil to an all-powerful, all-loving God. There are many parallels to Job.
4. Remembering what happened and keeping vigilant; we must take responsibility for our apathy and indifference to what happened in the past.
5. Dehumanization and scapegoating throughout history.
6. Loss of innocence:
You lose your faith in the world as you once knew it. God will not or cannot protect you from evil. Nor can your parents. Before his experience in the concentration camp, Elie assumed these two propositions were true.
You lose your orientation to the world as you once knew it. The boundaries of common decency that keep evil in check do not exist.
You lose the image of yourself you once valued. You no longer believe in the common decency of humanity and recognizing the human capacity for evil you change so radically that you can not even recognize your old self.
You are overcome with the fear that God does not exist and fear that without a god anything--no matter how vile--is permissible. "If God doesn't exist, then everything is permitted," is taken from the Brothers Karmazov by Dostoyevsky.
7. Enduring suffering comparable to Job
Essay 1:
Essay Options for Night: You must have a Works Cited page with a minimum of 5 sources.
One. Open-ended: Take one of the above themes and develop a thesis for a 6-page research paper. You must use at least 5 sources, the book Night, my blog and at least 3 other sources.
Two. In a 5-page essay, compare Wiesel’s ordeal with that of Job’s, especially in the context of theodicy.
Three. In a 5-page essay, argue whether or not Wiesel has salvaged a moral code from his ordeal or has he succumbed to nihilism.
Four. In a 5-page essay, analyze the effects of Wiesel's loss of innocence and how he deals with those effects.
Essay 2
A Good Fall by Ha Jin: In a 6-page research paper, develop a thesis about freedom as this theme applies to no fewer than 3 stories in the collection.
Essay 3
Back in the World by Tobias Wolff: In a 6-page research paper, use no fewer than 3 stories from the book to write an extended definition of the word irony. You must chronicle an ironic experience you had in a personal narrative for the first 2 pages.
Essay 4
The Overcoat and Other Short Stories by Nikolai Gogol: In a 6-page research paper write an extended definition of the word chimera by comparing the "overcoat" to an “overcoat” from your personal life.
Research and Grammar Book: A Writer’s Resource El Camino College Handbook 3rd Edition
Grading
4 Research Papers: 6 pages with correct MLA format Works Cited page: 225 each for 900 points
2 Take-Home Quizzes (posted on blog a few days before due date) 50 points for 100 points.
Grant Total: 1,000 points. 900 is A. 800 is B. 700 is C. 600 is D.
Writing and Reading Schedule
June 18 Introduction
June 19 Night
June 20 Night
June 21 Night
June 25 Night; finish
June 26 Quiz 1 due in my office
June 27 Essay 1 due in my office
June 28 Essay 1 due in my office
July 2 A Good Fall: “The Beauty” and “Temporary Love”
July 3 “A Composer and His Parakeets” and “Choice”
July 4 Holiday
July 5 “The House Behind a Weeping Cherry” and “A Good Fall”
July 9 “In the Crossfire”
July 10 Quiz 2 due in my office
July 11 Essay 2 due in my office
July 12 Essay 2 due in my office
July 16 Back in the World: “The Missing Person” and “Say Yes”
July 17 “The Rich Brother”
July 18 Essay 3 due in my office
July 19 Essay 3 due in my office
July 23 “The Overcoat”
July 24 “The Overcoat”
July 25 Essay 4 due inside my office
July 26 Essay 4 due in my office
You Can Revise Your Worst Essay for Higher Grade of a Maximum 20 Points
Late Essays Are Deducted a Full Letter Grade
Things That Disqualify a Student from Receiving an A Grade
Misspelling author name, book title, my name.
Plagiarism: trying to deceive professor by representing other people’s work as your own. (automatic F on the essay, zero points)
Don't forget to use headers
Don't fail to use an MLA Works Cited page
Violations of Classroom Decorum Will Reduce Your Grade
No smart phones can be used in class. If you’re on your smart phone and I catch you, you get a warning the first time. Second time, you must leave the class and lose 25 points. Third time, you must leave the class and lose 50 points. Fourth time you will be dropped from the class.
The above also applies to talking and doing homework from other classes.
Common Student Writing Problems
You need to write your essays in the literary present tense (more clarification)
Verb tense shifts, verb endings, especially as they refer toparticiples, and subject-verb agreement
Comma splices and run-ons
Pronoun agreement with other pronouns and with nouns
Parallelism or parallel structure
You need paragraph transitions
You need paragraph topic sentences
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