College Composition I ~ ENG 101
(Updated for Spring 2011)
Dr. Jonathan Alexander
Office, Academic Center, 317 (Office
Hours TBA)
609-894-9311 or 856-222-9311 (x1123)
E-mail: jalexander@bcc.edu
Online syllabus http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/101syl--spring.htm
A. TEXTS TO BE PURCHASED:
—Wiesenthal, Simon. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of
Forgiveness.
(NOTE: Be certain, however you choose to acquire this text, that you get
the 1998 edition with the 53-reading Symposium)
—Flash Drive (portable storage device)
—Wysocki and Lynch. The DK Handbook.
(2011)
— Additional resources to be accessed on the Internet through the online
syllabus.
B. COURSE OVERVIEW: The purpose of English 101 is to increase the
student’s skills both as a writer and as a critical thinker. The course
combines several teaching techniques: lecture, seminar, verbal communication,
research, student collaboration, and testing. It will incorporate reading and
discussing texts and writing papers based on class discussions and exercises.
C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES ~ At the end of English 101, you should be able to:
Students will only reach these stated
objectives by fulfilling the scheduled assignments listed below.
Attendance: If the student is to profit from any course, he or
she must attend class on a consistent basis.
Students
must attend all classes for the full duration of each session. Should you need to miss a class for observance of
religious holidays, jury duty, military duty, bereavement, or illness, you must
notify the instructor by telephone or e-mail prior to or within 24 hours after
the class. Without such communication, students forfeit the right to make up
missed work. If such communication is made, students will be permitted to make
up missed work at the beginning of the following class meeting. It is, therefore,
the student’s responsibility to read the syllabus and be prepared for current
as well as missed assignments.
Entering
class late or leaving class early
(without prior authorization) is considered disrespectful and will not be
tolerated.
Academic Etiquette: Students will respect themselves, their peers and
their instructors by considering the following:
Cell
phones must be kept on silent. No
calls are to be made or received during class. If you are expecting an
important call during the class meeting time, notify me prior to class and
quietly excuse yourself if the call is received. No text-messaging or
game-playing will be tolerated.
While
in the computer lab, students are permitted to access personal
information only until the class session begins. No personal work (including
e-mail, surfing, or any class assignments) may be conducted on the computers
while our class is in session. Such behavior is disrespectful and such students
will be excused from the class meeting without exception.
Students
who wish to use the restrooms may do so by quietly leaving and
re-entering the room. If a student believes he or she will require an absence
of more than a few minutes, it is his responsibility to notify me accordingly.
Communication: Many means of communication are available to the
student including telephone, e-mail and mailbox.
If
you leave a message on my office voice-mail (x1123), please remember to
speak clearly and provide your name, course information, and phone number if
you request a return call.
If
you contact me via e-mail, always include your FULL NAME AND CLASS
SECTION in the subject line. Too often students forget to sign e-mail or have
e-mail addresses without obvious identifiers. If you do not include your name
and class in the subject line, I will not open the message.
Students
who send me e-mail and do not receive a reply of any kind within 48
hours should assume it was never received. Such e-mails should be resent. I do
not mind receiving redundant messages if you are unsure whether your message
was transmitted (though I may only reply to one). If your message doesn’t
present itself as urgent, I may reply quickly and briefly and ask to get back
to you before long.
Students
who send e-mails containing attachments must save these documents with
one of the following extensions: DOC, TXT, or RTF. Absolutely no WPS documents
are acceptable. If the previous extensions are not available to you, copy and
paste the text of your assignment into the e-mail message itself.
Class Assignments:
All
work written and submitted should utilize standard rules of grammar, sentence
organization, paragraph organization, and diction.
All
formal papers are to be typed, titled, double spaced, stapled, and carefully
proofread.
All
assignments are due on the date specified on the syllabus without exception.
Assignments which are not submitted during the class session they are due will
be penalized 15% for each subsequent day they are late.
If
a student presents reasonable justification for an absence, such an absence
does not allow for more time to complete assignments. When a student is absent
the day an assignment is due, he or she must submit the assignment as an
attachment via e-mail on or before the date it is due.
Since
students are provided with all assignments and deadlines on the first day of
the semester, excuses such as “crashed computers,” “misplaced data,” “misplaced
disks,” or “empty printer ink cartridges” will not be accepted. All computer
work should be saved twice (hard drive and floppy/flash).
Plagiarism will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Be
aware that plagiarism includes (but is not limited to) copying someone else’s
words without crediting the source; paraphrasing someone else’s words without
crediting the source; using someone else’s ideas without crediting the source
(even if rephrased in your own words); using facts not universally known which
are obtained from a source without crediting the source; asking someone else to
write your paper, either in whole or in part; or obtaining a paper or portion
thereof by any means and submitting it as an original document. The penalty
for plagiarism is failure of the assignment and potentially failure of the
course (at the instructor’s discretion), and it may result in suspension or
expulsion from the College (at the discretion of the Student Affairs
Committee). Please refer to the BCC Student Handbook for additional
information regarding College regulations and the handling of plagiarism.
|
Total
Course |
Final
Percentages |
Letter
Grade |
|
177-200 |
88.5
- 100 |
A |
|
175-176 |
87.5
- 88 |
B+ |
|
159-174 |
79.5
- 87 |
B |
|
155-158 |
77.5
- 79 |
C+ |
|
149-154 |
74.5
- 77 |
C |
|
139-148 |
69.5
- 74 |
D |
|
0-138 |
0
- 69 |
F |
IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING FINAL COURSE
GRADES: Since the research paper is a major part of Composition, a student who does
not receive a passing grade for the research document by the last day of class
(70% or 28 out of 40 points) will NOT receive a passing grade for English 101.
(see rubric
online for explanation of grading process) Any evidence of plagiarism on
the research paper (whether intentional or not) will result in course failure
and potentially additional College sanctions.
Scheduled
Quizzes (Various Sessions) ~ At the
beginning of class on certain assigned days, a short quiz will be given. The
quiz will constitute one of two types of material as indicated on the syllabus:
(1) it may evaluate material which was to be completed by that day (as
in the reading of short stories or essays), or (2) it may evaluate material
which was covered during the previous class session (as in research process
information). Read the syllabus carefully for details. Quizzes will contain a
combination of multiple choice, true and false, and short answer questions.
Quizzes will commence precisely five minutes into the class period and
will often be graded in class to provide immediate feedback. Anyone arriving
more than five minutes late for class for any reason may not be permitted to
take the quiz unless prior authorization has been granted. Due to
communicated, excused absences as listed under Course Expectations above,
quizzes may be made up during the following class meeting. Any quizzes not
“made-up” will count as a zero.
Speech
One (Session 3) ~ Twice during the
semester, you will be asked to present informal speeches on different topics.
The speeches will judge your ability to formulate thoughts coherently and
compose ideas for delivery with clarity and unity. One of the keys to success
in oral communication is preparation, which calls for organized thoughts,
well-developed ideas, and a workable plan. You will be responsible for an
effectively-presented set of thoughts on each topic. This will be the basis for
evaluation. The topic for Speech One will be a significant turning point in
your life. More information about this speech topic may be found online at http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/101spch.htm
Usage
Exam (Session 5) ~ Students will take
a multiple choice exam covering a selection of popularly misused and confused
words. The list of words to be included on the exam, along with their
explanations, can be found online at http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/101usage.htm
Sunflower
Assignments (Sessions 13-16) ~
Students will complete short responses to critical issues both in class and for
homework. Students will also read, review, and submit evaluations for a
selection of articles in the back of The Sunflower. Click here for more
information: http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/Sunflower_Commentaries.htm
Argumentative
Essay One (Session 15) ~ Students
will submit a 750-word, typed, titled, double-spaced, argumentative essay in
response to issues present in either E.B. White’s, George Orwell’s, or William Zinnser’s story. Topics and specifications for this essay
may be found online at http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/101ess1.htm
Midterm
Examination (Session 17) ~ This
examination will cover material discussed in the first half of the semester
regarding the research process. Regular attendance and attention will help
students prepare for the midterm.
Speech
Two (Session 19) ~ This speech will take
the form of a Research Proposal. Students will identify the following five
elements: 1) the narrowed focus of this paper (which must be reduced from a
broad field of interest), 2) the debatable issue being investigated, 3) the
argumentative thesis being proposed, 4) one credible counter-argument, and 5)
at least three secondary sources being used in the research.
Argumentative
Essay Two (Session 21) ~ Students
will submit a 750-word, typed, titled, double-spaced, argumentative essay in
response to Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower. Topics and specifications
for this essay may be found online at http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/101ess2.htm
Grammar
Examination (Session 25) ~ After
discussion and exercises are completed, some key problem areas of grammatical
structure and usage will be revisited. This exam will mirror the topics covered
in class. Students who ask questions when they arise and who perform well on
grammar exercises in class should be successful on the exam.
Argumentative
Research Paper (Session 25) ~ Students
will submit a scholarly argumentative research paper of at least 1250 words
(typed, double-spaced) with a minimum of five relevant secondary sources. Sample
topics and specifications may be found online at http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/101rsrch.htm
Formal
Letter (Session 28) ~ According to a
style provided in the handbook, students will write a formal letter to their
most influential teacher, coach, cleric, employer, relative or friend. Include
what the individual did for you, why you appreciate it, and in what ways it has
affected you. (Students are encouraged to send the letters, and I would
appreciate hearing from you later if you receive feedback.)
Final
Examination (Session TBA) ~ During
finals week, students will take one final in-class argumentative examination
covering issues present in Elizabeth Whelan’s story “Perils of Prohibition.”
|
Scheduled
Assignments |
Point
Value |
Learning
Objective |
Due
Dates |
|
25 |
3, 6 |
VARIOUS |
|
|
5 |
2 |
SESSION
3 |
|
|
10 |
1, 4 |
SESSION
5 |
|
|
20 |
1,
2, 3, 4 |
SESSION
15 |
|
|
10 |
1,
2, 3 |
SESSIONS
13-16 |
|
|
15 |
1,
2, 3 |
SESSION
17 |
|
|
5 |
2 |
SESSION
19 |
|
|
20 |
1,
2, 3, 4, 6 |
SESSION
21 |
|
|
20 |
1, 4 |
SESSION
25 |
|
|
40 |
1,
2, 5 |
SESSION
25 |
|
|
5 |
1,
2, 3, 4 |
SESSION
28 |
|
|
15 |
1,
2, 3, 7 |
Finals
Week TBA |
|
|
10 |
|
|
|
|
Total |
200 |
|
|
G. DAILY CLASS SCHEDULE: All readings, exercises, and assignments listed in a
particular session must be completed before coming to class for that
session. Chapter and page numbers refer to the DK Handbook. Boldface homework items are to be completed
before class. Note: This class meets in a classroom on Tuesdays and a
computer lab on Thursdays; be certain to bring some media device every Thursday
to save work done in class.
SESSION 1: Tues, Jan 25
Course Introduction—Distribution of syllabus and discussion of assignments and
expectations
SESSION 2: Thurs (LAB), Jan 27
(Send e-mail to instructor prior to this
meeting. Include your full name and ENG 101 in subject line.)
QUIZ
on E.B. White, “Once More to the
Discussion of topics for Essay One:
Returning to a place (Good/Bad/Past/Future)
SESSION 3: Tues, Feb 1
SPEECH ONE—a
turning point in your life (2-3 minutes)
SESSION 4: Thurs (LAB), Feb 3
QUIZ
on George Orwell, “A Hanging” (Attached to syllabus)
Discussion of topics for Essay One:
Group dynamics (Good/Bad/Conformity/Rebellion)
SESSION 5: Tues, Feb 8
USAGE
EXAM—covering a selection of troublesome words
from Handbook: Chapter One, “Composing” and Chapter Two, “Finding Ideas”
SESSION 6: Thurs (LAB), Feb 10
from Handbook: Chapter Three, “Analyzing Arguments and Evaluating
Sources”
SESSION 7: Tues, Feb 15
from Handbook: Chapter Four, “Organizing and Shaping Texts”
SESSION 8: Thurs (LAB), Feb 17
QUIZ
on William Zinsser, “College Pressures” (Attached to syllabus)
Discussion of topics for Essay One:
Pressures (All, Some, One, None)
SESSION 9: Tues, Feb 22
from Handbook: Chapter Five, “Drafting a Paper, Connecting With
Audiences” and Chapter Six, “Revising With Style”
SESSION 10: Thurs (LAB), Feb 24
from Handbook: Chapter Eight, “Documenting” and Part Eight “MLA
Documentation”
SESSION 11: Tues, Mar 1
Discussion of Essay Revision Process
Essay Titling Exercise (handout)
SESSION 12: Thurs (LAB), Mar 3
Essay One drafting
workshop—review of essay assignment structure, submission and revision
guidelines (folders, drafts, log sheets)
SESSION 13: Tues, Mar 8
Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower (NOTE: Because of scheduled group
exercises, anyone not having read the entire story AND completed typed article
reviews as assigned by this date will not be permitted to participate in this
class exercise.) Click
here to see important information about The Sunflower assignment.
SESSION 14: Thurs (LAB), Mar 10
Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower
SESSION 15: Tues, Mar 15
ESSAY ONE
DUE—Click on link for important assignment details
Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower
SESSION 16: Thurs (LAB), Mar 17
Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower
(VIDEO EXCERPT)
SPRING BREAK, March 21-25, 2011
SESSION 17: Tues, Mar 29
MIDTERM
EXAMINATION—covering the research process
SESSION 18: Thurs (LAB), Mar 31
from Handbook: Subordinate conjunctions (163); Coordination /
Subordination (165-166); Conjunctive adverbs (205); Prepositions (205); Pronoun
case (207); Irregular verbs (213-215)
SESSION 19: Tues, Apr 5
SPEECH TWO—Five-point
proposal of Argumentative Research Topic
SESSION 20: Thurs (LAB), Apr 7
from Handbook: “Agreement” Module 9
Also, click on and complete Grammar Exercise
#1 and Grammar
Exercise #2 for today’s class.
SESSION 21: Tues, Apr 12
ESSAY TWO
DUE—Click on link for important assignment details
from Handbook: “Sentence Fragments” Module 11
Also, click on and complete Grammar
Exercise #3 for today’s class.
SESSION 22: Thurs (LAB), Apr 14
from Handbook: “Comma Use” Module 22
Also, click on and complete Grammar
Exercise #4 for today’s class.
SESSION 23: Tues, Apr 19
from Handbook: “Comma Splices and Run-On Sentences” Module 12
Also, click on and complete Grammar
Exercise #5 for today’s class.
SESSION 24: Thurs (LAB), Apr 21
from Handbook: “Semi-colon, Colon, Apostrophe, and Quotation Marks”
Modules 23-26
Also, click on and complete Grammar
Exercise #6 for today’s class.
SESSION 25: Tues, Apr 26
GRAMMAR
EXAMINATION—covering elements of grammar discussed in class
RESEARCH
PAPER DUE
SESSION 26: Thurs (LAB), Apr 28
from Handbook: Writing a Formal Letter
Grammar Exam Review
SESSION 27: Tues, May 3
Discussion of Elizabeth M. Whelan, “Perils of Prohibition” (Attached to
syllabus)
SESSION 28: Thurs (LAB), May 5
Formal
Letter Due
Student conferences as needed
FINAL EXAM WEEK: TBA
FINAL
EXAMINATION—covering issues present in Whelan’s essay
______________________________________________________________________________
Usage Examination (http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/101usage.htm)
Students will take an objective exam covering a selection of popularly misused and confused words. The words to be included on the exam are listed below and students can find assistance with the usage rules by clicking on the word-group. The information is provided on the website of Professor Paul Brians of Washington State University (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors). The few words in boldface are completely incorrect structures and should never be used.
1.
accept / except
2. adapt / adopt
3. advice / advise
4. affect / effect
5. already / all ready
6. allude / elude
7. allusion / illusion
8. alright / all right
9. ambiguous /
ambivalent
10. assure / ensure / insure
11. beside / besides
12. breath / breathe
13. capital / capitol
14. cite / site / sight
15. close / clothes
16. coarse / course
17. complement /
compliment
18. continual /
continuous
19. could of / could have
20. council / counsel
21. desert / dessert
22. device / devise
23. drank / drunk
24. dyeing / dying
25. elicit / illicit
26. emigrate / immigrate
27. eminent / imminent
28. empathy / sympathy
29. envious / jealous
30. epigram / epigraph /
epitaph / epithet
31. faze / phase
32. good / well
33. hanged / hung
34. hear / here
35. imply / infer
36. interment /
internment
37. lay / lie
38. lead / led
39. lose / loose
40. passed / past
41. personal
/ personnel
42. precede /
proceed
43. principal
/ principle
44. stationary
/ stationery
45. they’re /
their / there
46. though /
thought / through
47. to / too / two
48. use to / used to
49. weather /
whether
50. were /
where
______________________________________________________________________________
The Sunflower: Assigned Author
Commentaries
Each student is responsible for reading and evaluating FIVE authors’ commentaries included in the back of The Sunflower. Students must begin with the one assigned to them below (according to their playing card), then they may select any other four authors in the book. The five assigned commentaries, as well as the entire novel, are to be read completely by the first date assigned on the syllabus (Session 13). Note: It is strongly suggested that you read The Sunflower first before any of the commentaries to ensure that your initial opinions of Simon’s experiences are your own. The views of the other authors may influence your thoughts, so it is necessary that you draw your own conclusions before considering others’ ideas.
Along with the reading of the five commentaries, students are expected to read the brief biographical information for their authors found at the very back of the book. Students are then asked to type up and submit all of the following information for each of their five authors:
· Identify any relevant information pertaining to each author’s religion, gender, age, nationality, and/or race (based on what is explicitly stated or what you can infer).
· Identify any relevant information regarding each author’s career or life’s work.
· Identify other information provided that may connect each author in some way to the issues of the novel (i.e., genocide, prejudice, sociology, psychology, education, theology, etc.)
· If any or all of the above information is not available in the back of the book, go online and “Google” each author by full name (in quotation marks) to see what similar information is available.
· Return to each of the authors’ commentaries and underline the complete thesis statement of each essay. It may be a single sentence or many. It may comprise the first few sentences of the commentary, may be found at the end of an introductory paragraph, or may not occur until the very end of the entire commentary.
· Identify and number all major points of support used by each author throughout their commentaries. These points must be clearly identified and distinct from all others. Do not renumber points which are repetitions of previously mentioned information. All distinct evidence or reasons should receive a separate number.
· Finally, for each author’s commentary, write a 75-word evaluation in which you claim its effectiveness or ineffectiveness as an argumentative essay. You must justify your evaluation based on similar criteria of effective writing used to prepare your own essays (as in the first three sections of the essay feedback sheet online).
After you have completed the tasks below, feel free to supplement your viewpoint by reading as many of the authors as you’d like, though the assignment only calls for the reading of five. The more you read, the greater perspective you will gain in preparation for questions on the midterm and Essay Two.
Assigned Author Commentaries for The
Sunflower: (read the one assigned below and any four others of your
choosing) MU
|
A♥ |
|
||
|
2♥ |
|
||
|
3♥ |
|
||
|
4♥ |
|
||
|
5♥ |
|
||
|
6♥ |
|
||
|
7♥ |
|
||
|
8♥ |
|
||
|
9♥ |
|
||
|
10♥ |
|
||
|
J♥ |
|
||
|
Q♥ |
|
||
|
K♥ |
|
||
|
A♦ |
|
||
|
2♦ |
|
||
|
3♦ |
|
||
|
4♦ |
|
||
|
5♦ |
|
||
|
6♦ |
|
||
|
7♦ |
|
||
|
8♦ |
|
||
|
9♦ |
|
||
|
10♦ |
|
||
|
J♦ |
|
||
|
Q♦ |
|
||
|
K♦ |
|
||
|
A♠ |
|
||
|
2♠ |
|
||
|
3♠ |
|
||
|
4♠ |
|
||
|
5♠ |
Martin Marty |
||
|
6♠ |
John Pawlikowski |
||
|
7♠ |
Dennis Prager |
______________________________________________________________________________
Argumentative
Research Paper
Students will produce a scholarly research paper of at least 1250 words with a minimum of five relevant secondary sources. These sources must be documented according to the Modern Language Association style for citing information. Sample argumentative research topics are available by clicking here. Topics must be restricted enough to be accomplished in five to six pages. Be sure to check out the following helpful sites:
"The
Research Room" from Empire State University
Common
Pitfalls of the Research Process
Purdue’s
Online Writing Lab
Independent research schedules for students who need/want more formal deadlines
The submitted research paper should be organized as follows:
Appendix: Students must submit photocopies of all pages of secondary sources from which citations were taken. Students are NOT to include all pages from all sources; rather, they must photocopy/print only the pages from which information was borrowed directly or indirectly and highlight the borrowed information on the photocopy. If the name of the source and original page number are not present on the photocopied page, these must be written into the margin where appropriate. The Appendix may be submitted as a separate packet (stapled and identified by name) since it may prove too thick to staple with the research paper.
Essay Formatting:
REDUNDANT ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION: You are also to submit your paper electronically, either via e-mail (as a Microsoft Word attachment) or on a flash drive. Electronic files must be submitted in class the same day as the paper version is submitted (see syllabus for date). E-mail submissions must be received no later than 8:00pm the evening before the paper is due. If you do not receive a reply to your e-mailed submission, it was never received and must be submitted in class as described above.
Research Paper Evaluation Procedures: See the online rubric for more information.
______________________________________________________________________________
E.B. White
Once More to the
One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in
I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows. On the journey over to the lake I began to wonder what it would be like. I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot--the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps and the paths behind the camps. I was sure that the tarred road would have found it out and I wondered in what other ways it would be desolated. It is strange how much you can remember about places like that once you allow your mind to return into the grooves which lead back. You remember one thing, and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen. The partitions in the camp were thin and did not extend clear to the top of the rooms, and as I was always the first up I would dress softly so as not to wake the others, and sneak out into the sweet outdoors and start out in the canoe, keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines. I remembered being very careful never to rub my paddle against the gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral.
The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There were cottages
sprinkled around the shores, and it was in farming although the shores of the
lake were quite heavily wooded. Some of the cottages were owned by nearby
farmers, and you would live at the shore and eat your meals at the farmhouse.
That’s what our family did. But although it wasn’t wild, it was a fairly large
and undisturbed lake and there were places in it which, to a child at least,
seemed infinitely remote and primeval.
I was right about the tar: it led to within half a mile of the shore. But when I got back there, with my boy, and we settled into a camp near a farmhouse and into the kind of summertime I had known, I could tell that it was going to be pretty much the same as it had been before--I knew it, lying in bed the first morning, smelling the bedroom, and hearing the boy sneak quietly out and go off along the shore in a boat. I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father. This sensation persisted, kept cropping up all the time we were there. It was not an entirely new feeling, but in this setting it grew much stronger. I seemed to be living a dual existence. I would be in the middle of some simple act, I would be picking up a bait box or laying down a table fork, or I would be saying something, and suddenly it would be not I but my father who was saying the words or making the gesture. It gave me a creepy sensation.
We went fishing the first morning. I felt the same damp moss covering the
worms in the bait can, and saw the dragonfly alight on the tip of my rod as it
hovered a few inches from the surface of the water. It was the arrival of this
fly that convinced me beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had
been that the years were a mirage and there had been no years. The small waves
were the same, chucking the rowboat under the chin as we fished at anchor, and
the boat was the same boat, the same color green and the ribs broken in the
same places, and under the floor-boards the same freshwater leavings and
debris--the dead hellgrammite, the wisps of moss, the rusty discarded fishhook,
the dried blood from yesterday’s catch. We stared silently at the tips of our
rods, at the dragonflies that came and wells. I lowered the tip of mine into
the water, tentatively, pensively dislodging the fly, which darted two feet
away, poised, darted two feet back, and came to rest again a little farther up
the rod. There had been no years between the ducking of this dragonfly and the
other one--the one that was part of memory. I looked at the boy, who was
silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes
watching. I felt dizzy and didn’t know which rod I was at the end of.
We caught two bass, hauling them in briskly as though they were mackerel,
pulling them over the side of the boat in a businesslike manner without any
landing net, and stunning them with a blow on the back of the head. When we got
back for a swim before lunch, the lake was exactly where we had left it, the
same number of inches from the dock, and there was only the merest suggestion
of a breeze. This seemed an utterly enchanted sea, this lake you could leave to
its own devices for a few hours and come back to, and find that it had not
stirred, this constant and trustworthy body of water. In the shallows, the
dark, water-soaked sticks and twigs smooth and old, were undulating in clusters
on the bottom against the clean ribbed sand, and the track of the mussel was
plain. A school of minnows swam by, each minnow with its small, individual
shadow, doubling the attendance, so clear and sharp in the sunlight. Some of
the other campers were in swimming, along the shore, one of them with a cake of
soap, and the water felt thin and clear and insubstantial. Over the years there
had been this person with the cake of soap, this cultist, and here he was.
There had been no years.
Up to the farmhouse to dinner through the teeming, dusty field, the road under our sneakers was only a two-track road. The middle track was missing, the one with the marks of the hooves and the splotches of dried, flaky manure. There had always been three tracks to choose from in choosing which track to walk in; now the choice was narrowed down to two. For a moment I missed terribly the middle alternative. But the way led past the tennis court, and something about the way it lay there in the sun reassured me; the tape had loosened along the backline, the alleys were green with plantains and other weeds, and the net (installed in June and removed in September) sagged in the dry noon, and the whole place steamed with midday heat and hunger and emptiness. There was a choice of pie for dessert, and one was blueberry and one was apple, and the waitresses were the same country girls, there having been no passage of time, only the illusion of it as in a dropped curtain--the waitresses were still fifteen; their hair had been washed, that was the only difference--they had been to the movies and seen the pretty girls with the clean hair.
Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end; this was the background, and the life along the shore was the design, the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp and the paths leading back to the outhouses and the can of lime for sprinkling, and at the souvenir counters at the store the miniature birch-bark canoes and the post cards that showed things looking a little better than they looked. This was the American family at play, escaping the city heat, wondering whether the newcomers at the camp at the head of the cove were “common” or “nice,” wondering whether it was true that the people who drove up for Sunday dinner at the farmhouse were turned away because there wasn’t enough chicken.
It seemed to me, as I kept remembering all this, that those times and those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. There had been jollity and peace and goodness. The arriving (at the beginning of August) had been so big a business in itself, at the railway station the farm wagon drawn up, the first smell of the pine-laden air, the first glimpse of the smiling farmer, and the great importance of the trunks and your father’s enormous authority in such matters, and the feel of the wagon under you for the long ten-mile haul, and at the top of the last long hill catching the first view of the lake after eleven months of not seeing this cherished body of water. The shouts and cries of the other campers when they saw you, and the trunks to be unpacked, to give up their rich burden. (Arriving was less exciting nowadays, when you sneaked up in your car and parked it under a tree near the camp and took out the bags and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks.)
Peace and goodness and jollity. The only thing that was wrong now, really, was the sound of the place, an unfamiliar nervous sound of the outboard motors. This was the note that jarred, the one thing that would sometimes break the illusion and set the years moving. In those other summertimes, all motors were inboard; and when they were at a little distance, the noise they made was a sedative, an ingredient of summer sleep. They were one-cylinder and two-cylinder engines, and some were make-and-break and some were jump-spark, but they all made a sleepy sound across the lake. The one-lungers throbbed and fluttered, and the twin-cylinder ones purred and purred and that was a quiet sound too. But now the campers all had outboards. In the daytime, in the hot mornings, these motors made a petulant, irritable sound; at night, in the still evening when the afterglow lit the water, they whined about one’s ears like mosquitoes. My boy loved our rented outboard, and his great desire was to achieve single-handed mastery over it, and authority, and he soon learned the trick of choking it a little (but not too much), and the adjustment of the needle valve. Watching him I would remember the things you could do with the old one-cylinder engine with the heavy flywheel, how you could have it eating out of your hand if you got really close to it spiritually. Motor boats in those days didn’t have clutches, and you would make a landing by shutting off the motor at the proper time and coasting in with a dead rudder. But there was a way of reversing them, if you learned the trick, by cutting the switch and putting it on again exactly on the final dying revolution of the flywheel, so that it would kick back against compression and begin reversing. Approaching a dock in a strong following breeze, it was difficult to slow up sufficiently by the ordinary coasting method, and if a boy felt he had complete mastery over his motor, he was tempted to keep it running beyond its time and then reverse it a few feet from the dock. It took a cool nerve, because if you threw the switch a twentieth of a second too soon you would catch the flywheel when it still had speed enough to go up past center, and the boat would leap ahead, charging bull-fashion at the dock.
We had a good week at the camp. The bass were biting well and the sun shone endlessly, day after day. We would be tired at night and lie down in the accumulated heat of the little bedrooms after the long hot day and the breeze would stir almost imperceptibly outside and the smell of the swamp drift in through the rusty screens. Sleep would come easily and in the morning the red squirrel would be on the roof, tapping out his gay routine. I kept remembering everything, lying in bed in the mornings--the small steamboat that had a long rounded stern like the lip of a Ubangi, and how quietly she ran on the moonlight sails, when the older boys played their mandolins and the girls sang and we ate doughnuts dipped in sugar, and how sweet the music was on the water in the shining night, and what it had felt like to think about girls then. After breakfast we would go up to the store and the things were in the same place--the minnows in a bottle, the plugs and spinners disarranged and pawed over by the youngsters from the boys’ camp, the fig newtons and the Beeman’s gum. Outside, the road was tarred and cars stood in front of the store. Inside, all was just as it had always been, except there was more Coca Cola and not so much Moxie and root beer and birch beer and sarsaparilla. We would walk out with a bottle of pop apiece and sometimes the pop would backfire up our noses and hurt. We explored the streams, quietly, where the turtles slid off the sunny logs and dug their way into the soft bottom; and we lay on the town wharf and fed worms to the tame bass. Everywhere we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, the one walking in my pants.
One afternoon while we were there at that lake a thunderstorm came up. It
was like the revival of an old melodrama that I had seen long ago with childish
awe. The second-act climax of the drama of the electrical disturbance over a
lake in
When the others went swimming my son said he was going in too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.
George
Orwell
A Hanging (1931)
It was in
One prisoner had been
brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven
head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too
big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six
tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows.
Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others
handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their
belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him,
with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the
while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish
which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite
unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed
what was happening.
Francis, the head jailer, a
fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand.
‘Yes sir, yes sir,’ he bubbled. ‘All iss
satisfactorily prepared. The hangman iss waiting. We
shall proceed.’
‘Well, quick march, then.
The prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over.’
We set out for the gallows.
Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the
slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder,
as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and
the like, followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the procession
stopped short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened – a
dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came bounding
among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole
body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large
woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and
then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and
jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even
to grab at the dog.
‘Who let that bloody brute
in here?’ said the superintendent angrily. ‘Catch it, someone!’
A warder, detached from the
escort, charged clumsily after the dog, but it danced and gambolled
just out of his reach, taking everything as part of the game. A young Eurasian
jailer picked up a handful of gravel and tried to stone the dog away, but it
dodged the stones and came after us again. Its yaps echoed from the jail wails.
The prisoner, in the grasp of the two warders, looked on incuriously, as though
this was another formality of the hanging. It was several minutes before
someone managed to catch the dog. Then we put my handkerchief through its
collar and moved off once more, with the dog still straining and whimpering.
It was about forty yards to
the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of
me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that
bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his
muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and
down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the
men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a
puddle on the path.
It is curious, but till
that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious
man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery,
the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.
This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of
his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails
growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would
still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air
with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey
walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about
puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing,
feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap,
one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.
The gallows stood in a
small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison, and overgrown with
tall prickly weeds. It was a brick erection like three sides of a shed, with
planking on top, and above that two beams and a crossbar with the rope
dangling. The hangman, a grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the
prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as
we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more
closely than ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him
clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope round
the prisoner’s neck.
We stood waiting, five
yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the gallows. And
then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It
was a high, reiterated cry of ‘Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!’, not urgent and fearful
like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the
tolling of a bell. The dog answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still
standing on the gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour bag and drew
it down over the prisoner’s face. But the sound, muffled by the cloth, still
persisted, over and over again: ‘Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!’
The hangman climbed down
and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled
crying from the prisoner went on and on, ‘Ram! Ram! Ram!’ never faltering for
an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the
ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner
a fixed number – fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one
or two of the bayonets were wavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man on
the drop, and listened to his cries – each cry another second of life; the same
thought was in all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that
abominable noise!
Suddenly the superintendent
made up his mind. Throwing up his .head he made a swift motion with his stick.
‘Chalo!’ he shouted almost fiercely.
There was a clanking noise,
and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on
itself. I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the
gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated
into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out
at us. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner’s body. He was
dangling with his toes pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as
dead as a stone.
The superintendent reached
out with his stick and poked the bare body; it oscillated, slightly. ‘He’s
all right,’ said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and
blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly.
He glanced at his wrist-watch. ‘Eight minutes past eight. Well, that’s all for
this morning, thank God.’
The warders unfixed
bayonets and marched away. The dog, sobered and conscious of having misbehaved
itself, slipped after them. We walked out of the gallows yard, past the
condemned cells with their waiting prisoners, into the big central yard of the
prison. The convicts, under the command of warders armed with lathis, were already receiving their breakfast. They
squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin,
while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite
a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us
now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to
snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.
The Eurasian boy walking
beside me nodded towards the way we had come, with a knowing smile: ‘Do you
know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his appeal had
been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. – Kindly take
one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? From the boxwallah, two rupees eight annas.
Classy European style.’
Several people laughed – at
what, nobody seemed certain.
Francis was walking by the
superintendent, talking garrulously. ‘Well, sir, all hass
passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It wass
all finished – flick! like that. It iss not always so
– oah, no! I have known cases where the doctor wass obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the
prisoner’s legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable!’
‘Wriggling about, eh?
That’s bad,’ said the superintendent.
‘Ach, sir, it iss worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall,
clung to the bars of hiss cage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely
credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three pulling at each
leg. We reasoned with him. “My dear fellow,” we said, “think of all the pain
and trouble you are causing to us!” But no, he would not listen! Ach, he wass very troublesome!’
I found that I was laughing
quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the superintendent grinned in a
tolerant way. ‘You’d better all come out and have a drink,’ he said quite
genially. ‘I’ve got a bottle of whisky in the car. We could do with it.’
We went through the big
double gates of the prison, into the road. ‘Pulling at his legs!’ exclaimed a
Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began
laughing again. At that moment Francis’s anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny.
We all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The
dead man was a hundred yards away.
Dear Carlos: I desperately need a dean’s
excuse for my chem. midterm, which will begin in about one hour. All I can say
is that I totally blew it this week. I’ve fallen incredibly, inconceivably
behind.
Carlos: Help! I am anxious to hear from you.
I’ll be in my room and won’t leave it until I hear from you. Tomorrow is the
last day for…
Carlos: I left town because I started bugging
out again. I stayed up all night to finish a take-home make-up exam and am
typing it to hand in on the tenth. It was due on the fifth. PS: I’m going to
the dentist. Pain is pretty bad.
Carlos: Probably by Friday I’ll be able to
get back to my studies. Right now, I’m going to take a long walk. This whole
thing has taken a lot out of me.
Carlos: I’m really up the proverbial creek.
The problem is I really bombed the history final. Since I need that course for
my major I…
Carlos: Here follows a tale of woe. I went
home this weekend, had to help my Mom, and caught a fever so didn’t have much
time to study. My professor…
Carlos: Aargh!
Trouble. Nothing original but everything’s piling up at once. To be brief, my
job interview….
Hey Carlos, good news! I’ve got
mononucleosis!
Who are these wretched supplicants,
scribbling notes so laden with anxiety, seeking such miracles of postponement
and balm? They are men and women who belong to Branford College, one of the
twelve residential colleges at Yale University, and the messages are just a few
of the hundreds they left for their dean, Carlos Hortas
- often slipped under his door at 4 a.m. - last year.
But students like the ones who wrote those
notes can also be found on campuses from coast to coast - especially in
My own connection with the message writers is
that I am master of
Mainly I try to remind them that the road
ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns that they
think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change
whole attitudes and approaches. They do not want to hear such liberating news.
They want a map - right now - that they can follow unswerving to career
security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave.
What I wish for all students is some release
from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment
of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for
the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn
that defeat is as instructive as victory.
We are witnessing in
Today it is not unusual for a student, even
if he worked part-time at college and full-time during the summer, to accrue
$20,000 in loans after four years - loans that he must start to repay within
one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world,
he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure
throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used ‘he,’
incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to
justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. In
fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college
superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society
has not yet caught up with this fact.
Along with economic pressure goes parental
pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.
I see many students taking pre-medical
courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going
to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their
life as cheerful people.
“Do you want to go to medical school?” I ask
them.
“I guess so,” they say, without conviction,
or “Not really.”
“Then why are you going?”
“Well, my parents want me to be a doctor.
They’re paying all this money and...”
Poor students, poor parents. They are caught
in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well;
they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But,
the sons and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy -
subjects with no ‘practical’ value. Where is the payoff on the humanities? It
is not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do, indeed, pay
off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects such as history
and classics - and ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh the cause and
effect, to see events in perspective - are just the faculties that make
creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many parents
would rather put their money on courses that point toward a specific profession
- courses that are pre-law, pre-med., pre-business, or as I sometimes heard it
put, ‘pre-rich’.
But, the pressure on students is severe. They
are truly torn. One part of them feels obligated to fulfill their parents’
expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another
part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not
right for them.
I know a student who wants to be an artist.
She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one - she has already had
several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-rounded person
and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of
which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an
artist is a ‘dumb’ thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please
everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the
‘dumb’ courses her father wants her to take - at least that are dumb courses
for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students - no small
achievement in itself - and she deserves to follow her muse.
Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are
also intertwined, and they start almost at the beginning of freshman year.
“I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,”
one dean told me. “Who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because
her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn’t
tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about
Linda.”
The story is almost funny - except that it is
not. It is symptomatic of all the pressures put together. When every student
thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only
solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library
every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at
Probably they will not. They will get sick.
They will get ‘blocked’. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They still bug
out. Hey Carlos, HELP!
Part of the problem is that they do more than
they are expected to. A professor will assign a five-page paper. Several
students will start writing ten page papers to impress him. Then more students
will write ten page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the
poor student who is still just doing the assignment.
“Once you have twenty of thirty percent of
the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “It’s
bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the
student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic
works, psychologically.”
Why can’t the professor just cut back and not
accept longer paper? He can, and he probably will. But by then term will be
half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily
reversed. Besides, the professor’s main concern is with his course. He knows
his students only in relation to the course and does not know that they are
also overexerting in their other courses. Not that it is really his business.
He did not sign up for dealing with the students as a whole person and with all
the emotional baggage the student brought along from home. That is what deans,
masters chaplains, and psychiatrists are for.
To some extent this is nothing new: a certain
number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and
shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism
has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend
time with students do not have as much time to spend. They are also
overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not
to perish, hanging by their fingernails onto a shrinking profession. If they
are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering
departments - as departmental chairmen or members of committees - which have
been thinned out by the budgetary ax.
Ultimately, it will be the students’ own
business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to
be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be
jolted into believing in themselves as unique men and women who have the power
to shape their own future.
“Violence is being done to the undergraduate
experience,” says Carlos Horta. “College should be
open-ended; at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are
choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along.”
It is almost as if they think that the
country has been codified in the types of jobs that exist - that they have got
to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best paying slots.
“They ought to take chances. Not taking
chances will lead to a life of colorless mediocrity. They’ll be comfortable.
But something in the spirit will be missing.”
I have painted too drab a portrait of today’s
students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story: If
they were so dreary, I would not so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other
half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and offer
friendship. They are not introverts. They are usually kind and are more
considerate of one another that any student generation I have known. Nor are
they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extra-curricular
activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a
variety of teams, perform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for
campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are
too many choices. Academically, they have 1300 courses to select from: outside
class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend
it.
This means that they engage in fewer
extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on
the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one, in the ‘60s they
would have done both. They are tending to choose activities that are
self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale’s
residential colleges, as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into
these productions - as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians - with a
dedication to create the best possible play, knowing the day will come when the
run will end and they can get back to their studies.
They also cannot afford to be the willing
slaves of organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring the one hundredth
anniversary banquet of that paper, whose past chairs include such once and
future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr.
much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally
committed and that ‘newsies’ routinely worked fifty
hours a week. In effect, they belonged to a club; Newsies
is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today’s students will write one or two
articles a week, when he or she can, and is defined as a student. I have never
heard the word newsie except at the banquet.
If I have described the modern undergraduate
primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside
who keeps trying to come out and play, it is because that is where the crunch
is, not only at Yale, but throughout American education. It is why I think we
should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so
fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age. I tell students that
there is no one ‘right’ way to get ahead - that each of them is a different
person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination.
I tell them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor
the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women
who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk
informally with my students during the year. They are the heads of companies or
ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television
magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway producers, artists,
writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians - a mixed bag of
achievers.
I ask them to say a few words about how they
got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession
and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of
them got into their field by a circuitous route, to their surprise, after many
detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that
was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance
to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.
Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc. D.
Perils of Prohibition
My colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health, where I studied preventive medicine, deserve high praise for their recent study on teenage drinking. What they found in their survey of college students was that they drink “early and...often,” frequently to the point of getting ill.
As a public-health scientist with a daughter, Christine, heading to college this fall, I have professional and personal concerns about teen binge drinking. It is imperative that we explore why so many young people abuse alcohol. From my own study of the effects of alcohol restrictions and my observations of Christine and her friends’ predicament about drinking, I believe that today’s laws are unrealistic. Prohibiting the sale of liquor to responsible young adults creates an atmosphere where binge drinking and alcohol abuse have become a problem. American teens, unlike their European peers, don’t learn how to drink gradually, safely and in moderation.
Alcohol is widely accepted and enjoyed in our culture. Studies show that
moderate drinking can be good for you. But we legally proscribe alcohol until
the age of 21 (why not 30 or 45?). Christine and her classmates can drive cars,
fly planes, marry, vote, pay taxes, take out loans and risk their lives as
members of the
In parts of the Western world, moderate drinking by teenagers and even
children under their parents’ supervision is a given. Though the per capita
consumption of alcohol in
Christine and her teenage friends like to go out with a group to a club, comedy show or sports bar to watch the game. But teens today have to go on the sly with fake IDs and the fear of getting caught. Otherwise, they’re denied admittance to most places and left to hang out on the street. That’s hardly a safer alternative. Christine and her classmates now find themselves in a legal no man’s land. At 18, they’re considered adults. Yet when they want to enjoy a drink like other adults, they are, as they put it, “disenfranchised.”
Comparing my daughter’s dilemma with my own as an “underage” college student, I see a difference--and one that I think has exacerbated the current dilemma. Today’s teens are far more sophisticated than we were. They’re treated less like children and have more responsibilities than we did. This makes the 21 restriction seem anachronistic.
We should make access to alcohol legal at 18. At the same time, we should come down much harder on alcohol abusers and drunk drivers of all ages. We should intensify our efforts at alcohol education for adolescents. We want them to understand that it is perfectly OK not to drink. But if they do, alcohol should be consumed in moderation.
After all, we choose to teach our children about safe sex, including the benefits of teen abstinence. Why, then, can’t we--schools and parents alike--teach them about safe drinking?
Essay One Topic Workshop (ZINNSER) NAME__________________________________
Directions:
Fill in the spaces with information for each potential essay topic. Use actual
experiences whenever possible. Remember that the key to a strong argumentative essay
is to propose a specific topic (A) and provide support that is sufficient,
adequate, representative and relevant. Try to develop three different “reasons”
(B-D) to support each argumentative statement. The more blanks you can
complete, the better the chance that your eventual essay will be strong and
well-written.
EXAMPLE
1. My high school (A)
did not adequately prepare me for college because (B) I
became accustomed to others reminding me about assignments, (C) I never appreciated how important extra
curricular activities would be, and (D)
I was not given the opportunity to take college-prep courses which would’ve
given me a jump on my first semester courses.
PREPARATION:
(consider high school, home school, prep school, other college experience, etc.)
1. I believe _________________ has prepared me for college because __________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
2. I believe _________________ has not prepared me for college because ______________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
PRESSURES: (for
either option below, try to focus on three pressures to allow for a 3-part
essay)
3. I do suffer from peer / parental / economic / self-induced pressure because ____________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
4. I do not suffer from peer / parental / economic / self-induced pressure because _________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Essay One Topic Workshop (ORWELL) NAME__________________________________
Directions:
As with the previous exercise, fill in the spaces with information for each potential
essay topic. Use actual experiences whenever possible. Remember that the key to
a strong argumentative essay is to propose a specific topic (A) and provide
support that is sufficient, adequate, representative and relevant. Try to
develop three different “reasons” (B-D) to support each argumentative
statement. The more blanks you can complete, the better the chance that your
eventual essay will be strong and well-written.
EXAMPLE
1. I’m glad I chose to go along
with (A) my cousins on their last-minute road trip to the shore
because (B) it gave me one more chance to relax before the new semester, (C) I was able to rekindle a relationship with
an old girlfriend, and (D) I proved
to my friends that I was dependable when it came to making plans for the group.
CONFORMITY: Past and
Present
1. I’m glad I chose to go along with ________________ because ______________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
2. I wish hadn’t gone along with _________________ because ________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
3. I think I will go along with ________________ because ___________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
4. I probably will not go along with ________________ because ______________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
REBELLION: Past and
Present
5. I’m glad I went against ________________ because ______________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
6. I wish hadn’t gone against _________________ because __________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
7. I think I will go against________________ because ______________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
8. I probably will not go against ________________ because _________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Essay One Topic Workshop (WHITE) NAME__________________________________
Directions:
Fill in the spaces with information for each potential essay topic. Use actual experiences
whenever possible. Remember that the key to a strong argumentative essay is to
propose a specific topic (A) and provide support that is sufficient, adequate,
representative and relevant. Try to develop three different “reasons” (B-D) to
support each argumentative statement. The more blanks you can complete, the
better the chance that your eventual essay will be strong and well-written.
EXAMPLE
1. I’m glad I returned to (A)
visit my high school teachers because (B) I was able to tell them of
my recent
academic achievements, (C) I was
fortunate to run into other old friends who were happy to see me, and
(D) I was
asked by the Principal to speak briefly to incoming freshmen about my first
year at college.
PLACE: Past and
Present
1. I’m glad I returned to ________________ because _______________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
2. I wish hadn’t returned to _________________ because ____________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
3. I think I will return to ________________ because _______________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
4. I probably will not return to ________________ because __________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
PERSON: Past and
Present
5. I’m glad I contacted ________________ because ________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
6. I wish hadn’t contacted _________________ because _____________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
7. I think I will contact ________________ because ________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
8. I probably will not contact ________________ because ___________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
EVENT or ACTIVITY:
Past and Present
9. I’m glad I decided to ________________ because _______________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
10. I wish hadn’t decided to _________________ because ___________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
11. I think I’ve decided to ________________ because ______________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
12. I’ve decided not to ________________ because ________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________