Snyder Essays

You have access via the links section to a bio and some poems by Gary Snyder. This online essay will give you a sense of his voice and his point of view, literally, about Nature from his remote home in the Sierras. The one I've given you in class as hard copy will give you an introduction to Kitkitdizze, the place itself. The latter is taken from Snyder's A Place in Space, New and Collected Prose. I hope you enjoy both, and that through them you get an impression of the man. He is a national treasure.

In-Class Writing

As another aspect of sharing and learning with and from one another, I would like you to post to the Blog the short description you wrote in class today. I would expect 50 or so words, minimum, and maybe not more than 150 max. If you have a longer paragraph-or two-than that, feel free to use an excerpt.

If for some reason you don't feel comfortable sharing this time, please email me at jbaldwin@ma.org and let me know why.

The Compact Reader 31-54

As noted in the syllabus, this is a required posting, asking for your thoughts about what in particular seems new and valuable in these pages. Much of this advice you've heard before, in other words, and much of it hasn't made a successful difference before, or it has and therefore you no longer need to hear it. But the question is, what DOES strike you as new or useful now that for whatever reason hadn't seemed so important, useful or relevant to you as a writer before?

Be sure to take a look at other folks' postings too, just to see the range of responses.

Class Schedule/Conference Preparation: This Week

You heard in class today (1/17/12) that our next class meeting and some surrounding time will be devoted to individual conferences with me. You probably understand already that you are only obliged to meet with me for ten minutes each, and that we will not have a class as a group on Thursday. (The timing is to allow College Night to happen either before or after this class without taking away preparation time or overloading your life.)

Your preparation for this conference is minimal therefore. The homework on the blog here (reading and blog posting) is due NEXT week, so you can do that whenever it fits in your life. For the conference, take five or ten minutes and do this:


Write a comment to or about yourself from a composite of your past teachers. In the format of an MA quarter comment (here’s your opportunity to get back at us) do what those short essays do: describe the work done and prescribe the necessary next steps. The topic of course is YOU and your writing. Think about what you’ve heard through the years about your strengths and your “growing edges” as a writer. See what you could name.
Bring this comment with you to the conference so you can read it to me. Share your feelings about it. Identify what’s true and what you disagree with for some reason. We’ll use the rest of the conference as a springboard to goal-setting for you for this class.

Course Text

Hey Pers/Expos folks,

At this writing, 10 of you have posted a comment for the required first posting. Looking for the other 6 of you in the next 16 hours or so.

Otherwise, something that has come up twice so far concerns the course text, The Compact Reader. I'm assuming that the vast majority of you have it, and the 8th (or 9th?) edition at that. If so, you are having no trouble doing the reading for next class. If NOT, then you are going to need to buy the book from one source or another, and quickly, too. Let me know if you are in that category.

If you need it, there is an online copy of The Chase, by Annie Dillard easily searchable and downloadable. I'll try now to post it as a link on the website, too. Please be sure to read it, by whatever means.

What is Good Writing?

In a course that purports to teach you how to become a better writer, it would seem to be a really good idea to establish right away what constitutes "good writing". So that's the question I want to pose here for your thoughtful responses. What do YOU think is good writing? If you had to generalize beyond genre (that is, beyond saying, "I think fiction is good writing.") what characterizes writing that, whatever the style or purpose, strikes you as "good"? This is a REQUIRED posting.

Welcome!

This is home base for the class. Here you can find assignments, essential documents, links and blog postings. Some postings will require responses from each of you, some will merely be invitations. I'll be as clear as I can be about which is which. You, in turn, should make sure that you can access the blog and enter a post. This requires that you have an account, maybe a Google account but others will work, and that you can be identified as yourself when posting. I know in the real world of blogging anonymity is sometimes the rule. This practice does not always lead to kindness or honesty in posting. So here you will be yourself when you post so that your opinions, whatever they are, are clearly yours and you can take responsibility for them. Look for the first required posting this weekend.

And welcome again, to Personal and Expository Writing, Spring 2012!!