I have organized the majority of our reading and writing for this workshop into five two-week units, based around the groupings in Cartographies. Over the course of each unit we will move from reading to short writings and then to longer pieces, and our discussions will follow that order. In each unit you will be responsible for the reading and the discussion of it, and for two writing assignments. The first will be 500-1000 words and the second 2500 words and up. The second may grow out of the first or it may be completely unrelated. Every other short piece and every other long piece you write will be discussed in the workshop; all pieces will receive comments from me and from other class members.

We'll do three of these five units before fall break and two after. That will allow time in the fnal weeks of the course for concentrated writing and workshopping of developing pieces. Good essays need time to ripen and deepen, and I want to leave you some room to expand, revise and refine your most promising materials.

The categories in our main text can roughly be characterized as 1) auto-biography; 2) writing about the body; 3) writing about nature; 4) travel pieces; and 5) cultural commentary. As you will see from the examples under each heading, these boundaries are more for convenience than to demarcate genres and subjects firmly; there is considerable latitude to each category and plenty of overlap among them.

In the first week of each unit, we'll do most of our reading, and we'll spend some time discussing our responses to it; I'll ask you to share responsibilities for initiating discussion on the reading assignments. The writing assignment for that week will accordingly be short and can also be sketchy, open-ended, a beginning. The second week will allow more time to write and develop a longer piece, and the workshops will center on these.

Writing assignments will normally be due on Monday, by 1 p.m. Leave 12 copies on the shelf marked with my name outside Rice 17. The secretary will organize these into packets and you can come by to pick up your packet by 5 p.m. With the packet will be a schedule, identifying the pieces to be discussed, their order, and the person responsible for initiating the discussion of each. Using this schedule, you can organize your reading of the packet, writing comments on each piece in preparation for the discussion, on Tuesday and Thursday. Pieces not scheduled for discussion should still be read and commented on, and the comments returned to me, either in the form of marked manuscripts or brief summaries, for the eventual use of the author.

Week One

Tues. Sept. 2: Master Class with Gary Snyder. Since we have an opportunity to talk to a working poet who is also an active prose writer, I have made this our first event. I've also asked each of you to write a short exericise, based on Snyder's visit. You can do a profile of him or an impression of this event or some other moment related to the visit. Take notes, write something up, and bring to class for Thursday. And try to have some good questions for Gary Snyder, especially about his experiences writing essays.

Thurs. Sept. 4: We'll use this meeting to get acquainted, talk about the syllabus, share the Snyder pieces, and lay down some principles and ground rules for our workshop.

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Weeks Two and Three

Reading: Cartographies, Section One, "Becoming," plus the following pieces from In Short: Dybek, Bryan, Paumier Jones, Harjo, Peterson, Duncan, Rodriguez, Kaysen, Gutkind, Bly, Simic, Dorris.

(Monday, Sept. 8: short autobiographical essay due by 1 p.m.)

Tues. Sept. 9: Discussion of the readings.

Thurs. Sept. 11: Discussion of six of the short essays by workshop members.

(Monday, Sept. 15: longer autobiographical essay due by 1 p.m.)

Tues. Sept. 16: Discussion of three essays by workshop members.

Thurs. Sept. 18: Discussion of three essays by workshop members.

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Weeks Four and Five

Reading: Cartographies, Section Two, "Embodying Identities," plus the following pieces from In Short: Ortiz Cofer, Williams, Kapil, Shihab Nye, Kooser, Matthews, DeCamp, Campbell, Shay, Lee, Cooper.

(Monday, Sept. 22: short essay due)

Tues. Sept. 23: Discussion of the readings.

Thurs. Sept. 25: Discussion of six short essays by workshop members

(Monday, Sept. 29: longer essay due)

Tues, Sept. 30 and Thurs. Oct. 2: Discussion of six essays by workshop members.

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Weeks Six and Seven

Reading: Cartographies, Section Three, "Constructing Nature," plus the following pieces from In Short: Holman, Sharp, Saner, Stafford, Ehrlich, Norris, Lindner, Jordan, Hogan, Ellis, Still, Hall, Brox, Bell, Homer, Lopez, Ackerman, Schuster, Sanders.

Assignments and discussions in this unit follow the above pattern, running from Monday, Oct. 6, through Tuesday and Thursday, the 7th and 8th, and through the 13th, 14th and 16th.

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FALL BREAK

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Weeks Eight and Nine

Reading: Section Four of Cartographies, "Travelling," and the following pieces from In Short: Kitchen, Hiestand, Ozick, Ondaatje, Calderazzo, Harvey, Tall, Wisner, Lane.

Assignments and discussions follow the same pattern as previous units, running from October 27 through November 6.

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Weeks Ten and Eleven

Reading: Section Five of Cartographies, "Reading Cultures," and the following pieces from In Short: Rodriguez, Washington, Setterberg, Gates, Wilkinson, Dunn, Alexie, Codrescu.

Assignments and discussions follow the patter of previous units, running from November 10 through 20.

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Week Twelve

This is Thanksgiving week. We'll use class on Tuesday to catch up, review, consolidate, and plan the final workshop sessions of the semester, which will be devoted to revised and enlarged essays by class members, three per session. - - - -

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Weeks Thirteen and Fourteen

Discussion of essays by workshop members as indicated above. Everyone will be responsible for two revised essays by the end of term, plus a portfolio of the work handed in for class. No final exam, but I want to have a final conference with each of you during reading/exam period.