timfitz

Last two weeks of Writing 2 2011

2011-05-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

Writing 2 Tim Fitzmaurice Spring 2011
Final weeks

Final Project Essay is Due June 8th
The project includes a presentation and an essay. What you say in the oral presentation does not have to be the content of your essay.

The essay should be between 5 and 7 pages long with six or more citations from articles, encyclopedia entries, books, and or other media. Beware of weak (wiki-type) supporting websites. We want to use scholarly supporting evidence. I also encourage you to seek out interviews with people who k now about the issue.

The essay is based on your survey of an issue of violence in the community. You need to decide the parameters of the research question as you develop it for the group project. The oral presentation should give you more ideas about what needs to be included. The final essay is due during finals week.

Due Wednesday May 25th
Write a two-page essay using the film (“Lock Up Lock Down”), the book Violence, and/or your visit to the jail, in which you take a position and support your view with material from the sources we have. Three or more citations.

The Calendar in brief:
Monday, May 23
Due a list of sources you have found for your essay.
Please give me a list of 5 articles, 1 book, and 1 encyclopedia entry and, if possible, a reference to CQ Researcher that relate to your presentation

Wednesday May 25
The final meeting before presentations.
Due a two-page essay on incarceration.

Friday May 27
Presentations

Monday May 30 HOLIDAY

Wednesday June 1
Presentations

Friday June 3 Last Day of Class
Presentations

Wednesday June 8
Final essay due
Final revision due

Essay 2

2011-04-13T13:27:00.001-07:00

Writing 2 Tim Fitzmaurice Essay 2 assignment Due April 25
Read the Chapters 7 & 9 in 75 Arguments that discuss issues of identity and marriage. You can include essays from other Chapters as well. No Web Sources please.
Write a four-page essay with references to at least three essays from our text. You have choices for this essay:

1. On Identity and Race: based on essays in Chapter 9.
You can discuss the situation of race and ethnicity in American culture at the present times, where “the existence of racially mixed persons challenges the long-held notions about biological, moral and social meaning of race” (428). Are we in a new phase of this discussion, beyond race? Maria Root says race and ethnicity has not disappeared:

At a personal level race is very much in the eye of the beholder; at a political level, race is in the service of economic and social privilege. Similarly, ethnic identity is relevant only in an ethnically heterogeneous environment…. Our confusion of race and ethnicity indicates that it will be difficult to abandon the smoke screen that hides our ‘caste system’ surrounding theory politics, health care, education, and other resources. (428)

The confusion does seem challenging. How has it been sorted out in your experience—or further confused. Don’t neglect the Staples’ essay and his comment about how these issues are expressed everyday in our lives.

2. On Marriage: Based on readings in Chapter 7.
Look at marriage as a feature that may shape your identity. Judy Brady says famously “who wouldn’t want a wife?” (320) Certainly people have been hobbled, exploited, by the demands of marriage. Have they been liberated by it in any way? Marriage is for some people an embattled arrangement and for some a meaningless tradition. This political tumult and cultural controversy seems relatively new, even though the problems of divorce, equality, perplexity about arranging marriages, and fidelity are very old. Maybe we are just getting to a point where we can talk about these matters with some openness.
Does the institution still have a part to play in the way we create our lives and identity? From the equal rights proposal of Stanton to Sullivan’s case for gay marriage, we can see that the institution has been used to keep people in social places. It is still a strong social force. But can the institution still function to bring fulfillment to people or is it too battered by politics and cultural forces? It is on the ballot for next fall—Should marriage be limited to man and woman? Does marriage require defining—for certain people? Should it never be “arranged” but always unfettered? Does the vow of commitment have meaning? Is divorce an “individual right” or does it have “stakeholders” (339)? What should marriage mean to us?

3. On Morality and Capitalism

Please read Milton Friedman’s essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits.” Please write a comment on the blog when you have read it. The address is timfitz.blogspot.com. Do Businesses have a duty to act morally and in fact do they have a duty to be socially responsible and invest in the community? Read our Chapter 8 and devise an essay that presents your view of capitalism and moral duty. This essay can take many directions depending on the essays that you decide to use. I want to see several quotes from different essays

Capitalism and Morality 1

2011-04-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
Milton Friedman
The New York Times Magazine
September 13, 1970
When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the "social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system," I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are--or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously--preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.
The discussions of the "social responsibilities of business" are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that "business" has responsibilities? Only people have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but "business" as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the doctrine of the social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it implies for whom.
Presumably, the individuals who are to be responsible are businessmen, which means individual proprietors or corporate executives. Most of the discussion of social responsibility is directed at corporations, so in what follows I shall mostly neglect the individual proprietors and speak of corporate executives.
In a free-enterprise, private-property system, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Of course, in some cases his employers may have a different objective. A group of persons might establish a corporation for an eleemosynary purpose--for example, a hospital or a school. The manager of such a corporation will not have money profit as his objectives but the rendering of certain services.
In either case, the key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them.
Needless to say, this does not mean that it is easy to judge how well he is performing his task. But at least the criterion of performance is straight-forward, and the persons among whom a voluntary contractual arrangement exists are clearly defined.
Of course, the corporate executive is also a person in his own right. As a person, he may have many other responsibilities that he recognizes or assumes voluntarily--to his family, his conscience, his feelings of charity, his church, his clubs, his city, his country. He may feel impelled by these responsibilities to devote part of his income to causes he regards as worthy, to refuse to work for particular corporations, even to leave his job, for example, to join his country's armed forces. If we wish, we may refer to some of these responsibilities as "social responsibilities." But in these respects he is acting as a principal, not an agent; he is spending his own money or time or energy, not the money of his employers or the time or energy he has contracted to devote to their purposes. If these are "social responsibilities," they are the social responsibilities of individuals, not business.
What does it mean to say that the corporate executive has a "social responsibility" in his capacity as businessman? If this statement is not pure rhetoric, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation, even though a price increase would be in the best interests of the corporation. Or that he is to make expenditures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best interests of the corporation or that is required by law in order to contribute to the social objective of improving the environment. Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire "hardcore" unemployed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty.
In each of these cases, the corporate executive would be spending someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his "social responsibility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.
The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so. The executive is exercising a distinct "social responsibility," rather than serving as an agent of the stockholders or the customers or the employees, only if he spends the money in a different way than they would have spent it.
But if he does this, he is in effect imposing taxes, on the one hand, and deciding how the tax proceeds shall be spent, on the other.
This process raises political questions on two levels: principle and consequences. On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental functions. We have established elaborate constitutional, parliamentary and judicial provisions to control these functions, to assure that taxes are imposed so far as possible in accordance with the preferences and desires of the public--after all, "taxation
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without representation" was one of the battle cries of the American Revolution. We have a system of checks and balances to separate the legislative function of imposing taxes and enacting expenditures from the executive function of collecting taxes and administering expenditure programs and from the judicial function of mediating disputes and interpreting the law.
Here the businessman--self-selected or appointed directly or indirectly by stockholders--is to be simultaneously legislator, executive and jurist. He is to decide whom to tax by how much and for what purpose, and he is to spend the proceeds--all this guided only by general exhortations from on high to restrain inflation, improve the environment, fight poverty and so on and on.
The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for "social" purposes. He becomes in effect a public employee, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employee of a private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil servants--insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just window-dressing--should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be elected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster "social" objectives, then political machinery must be set up to make the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served.
This is the basic reason why the doctrine of "social responsibility" involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.
On the grounds of consequences, can the corporate executive in fact discharge his alleged "social responsibilities"? On the one hand, suppose he could get away with spending the stockholders' or customers' or employees' money. How is he to know how to spend it? He is told that he must contribute to fighting inflation. How is he to know what action of his will contribute to that end? He is presumably an expert in running his company--in producing a product or selling it or financing it. But nothing about his selection makes him an expert on inflation. Will his holding down the price of his product reduce inflationary pressure? Or, by leaving more spending power in the hands of his customers, simply divert it elsewhere? Or, by forcing him to produce less because of the lower price, will it simply contribute to shortages? Even if he could answer these questions, how much cost is he justified in imposing on his stockholders, customers and employees for this social purpose? What is his appropriate share and what is the appropriate share of others?
And, whether he wants to or not, can he get away with spending his stockholders', customers' or employees money? Will not the stockholders fire him? (Either the present ones or those who take over when his actions in the name of social responsibility have reduced the corporation's profits and the price of its stock.) His customers and his employees can desert
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him for other producers and employers less scrupulous in exercising their social responsibilities.
This facet of "social responsibility" doctrine is brought into sharp relief when the doctrine is used to justify wage restraint by trade unions. The conflict of interest is naked and clear when union officials are asked to subordinate the interest of their members to some more general purpose. If the union officials try to enforce wage restraint, the consequence is likely to be wildcat strikes, rank-and-file revolts and the emergence of strong competitors for their jobs. We thus have the ironic phenomenon that union leaders--at least in the U.S.--have objected to Government interference with the market far more consistently and courageously than have business leaders.
The difficulty of exercising "social responsibility" illustrates, of course, the great virtue of private competitive enterprise--it forces people to be responsible for their own actions and makes it difficult for them to "exploit" other people for either selfish or unselfish purposes. They can do good--but only at their own expense.
Many a reader who has followed the argument this far may be tempted to remonstrate that it is all well and good to speak of Government's having the responsibility to impose taxes and determine expenditures for such "social" purposes as controlling pollution or training the hard-core unemployed, but that the problems are too urgent to wait on the slow course of political processes, that the exercise of social responsibility by businessmen is a quicker and surer way to solve pressing current problems.
Aside from the question of fact--I share Adam Smith's skepticism about the benefits that can be expected from "those who affected to trade for the public good"--this argument must be rejected on the grounds of principle. What it amounts to is an assertion that those who favor the taxes and expenditures in question have failed to persuade a majority of their fellow citizens to be of like mind and that they are seeking to attain by undemocratic procedures what they cannot attain by democratic procedures. In a free society, it is hard for "evil" people to do "evil," especially since one man's good is another's evil.
I have, for simplicity, concentrated on the special case of the corporate executive, except only for the brief digression on trade unions. But precisely the same argument applies to the newer phenomenon of calling upon stockholders to require corporations to exercise social responsibility (the recent G.M. crusade, for example). In most of these cases, what is in effect involved is some stockholders trying to get other stockholders (or customers or employees) to contribute against their will to "social" causes favored by activists. Insofar as they succeed, they are again imposing taxes and spending the proceeds.
The situation of the individual proprietor is somewhat different. If he acts to reduce the returns of his enterprise in order to exercise his "social responsibility," he is spending his own money, not someone else's. If he wishes to spend his money on such purposes, that is his right and I cannot see that there is any objection to his doing so. In the process, he, too, may impose
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costs on employees and customers. However, because he is far less likely than a large corporation or union to have monopolistic power, any such side effects will tend to be minor.
Of course, in practice the doctrine of social responsibility is frequently a cloak for actions that are justified on other grounds rather than a reason for those actions.
To illustrate, it may well be in the long-run interest of a corporation that is a major employer in a small community to devote resources to providing amenities to that community or to improving its government. That may make it easier to attract desirable employees, it may reduce the wage bill or lessen losses from pilferage and sabotage or have other worthwhile effects. Or it may be that, given the laws about the deductibility of corporate charitable contributions, the stockholders can contribute more to charities they favor by having the corporation make the gift than by doing it themselves, since they can in that way contribute an amount that would otherwise have been paid as corporate taxes.
In each of these--and many similar--cases, there is a strong temptation to rationalize these actions as an exercise of "social responsibility." In the present climate of opinion, with its widespread aversion to "capitalism," "profits," the "soulless corporation" and so on, this is one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a by-product of expenditures that are entirely justified on its own self-interest.
It would be inconsistent of me to call on corporate executives to refrain from this hypocritical window-dressing because it harms the foundation of a free society. That would be to call on them to exercise a "social responsibility"! If our institutions, and the attitudes of the public make it in their self-interest to cloak their actions in this way, I cannot summon much indignation to denounce them. At the same time, I can express admiration for those individual proprietors or owners of closely held corporations or stockholders of more broadly held corporations who disdain such tactics as approaching fraud.
Whether blameworthy or not, the use of the cloak of social responsibility, and the nonsense spoken in its name by influential and prestigious businessmen, does clearly harm the foundations of a free society. I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely far-sighted and clear- headed in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly short-sighted and muddle-headed in matters that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of business in general. This short-sightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wage and price guidelines or controls or income policies. There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally controlled system than effective governmental control of prices and wages.
The short-sightedness is also exemplified in speeches by businessmen on social responsibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be
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the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, businessmen seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.
The political principle that underlies the market mechanism is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate. There are not values, no "social" responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form.
The political principle that underlies the political mechanism is conformity. The individual must serve a more general social interest--whether that be determined by a church or a dictator or a majority. The individual may have a vote and say in what is to be done, but if he is overruled, he must conform. It is appropriate for some to require others to contribute to a general social purpose whether they wish to or not.
Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasible. There are some respects in which conformity appears unavoidable, so I do not see how one can avoid the use of the political mechanism altogether.
But the doctrine of "social responsibility" taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collective doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book Capitalism and Freedom, I have called it a "fundamentally subversive doctrine" in a free society, and have said that in such a society, "there is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
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PREA Comment Announcement

2011-03-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, January 24, 2011
Justice Department Releases Proposed Rule in Accordance with the
Prison Rape Elimination Act
Proposed Regulation Contains Four Sets of Standards Aimed at Combating Sexual
Abuse in Prisons
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department today released a proposed rule that aims to
prevent and respond to sexual abuse in incarceration settings, in accordance with the
Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). Based on recommendations of the National
Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC), the proposed rule contains four sets of
national standards aimed at combating sexual abuse in four types of confinement
facilities: adult prisons and jails, juvenile facilities, lockups and community confinement
facilities.

A 60-day public comment period will follow publication in the Federal Register, after
which the department will make revisions as warranted and the standards will be
published as a final rule. The department expects the final rule will be published by the
end of the year.

“Sexual abuse is a crime, not punishment for a crime,” said Attorney General Eric
Holder. “The Department of Justice’s goal is to eliminate these acts of violence by taking
deliberative and concrete steps to ensure the health and safety of prisoners. In crafting
our proposed rule, we have aimed to build a durable set of standards that are attainable,
effective and consistent with the Prison Rape Elimination Act’s requirements and goals.”

In developing the proposed rule, the department convened listening sessions with key
stakeholders, performed an extensive analysis of the anticipated costs and benefits of the
standards, and reviewed more than 650 comments that were submitted in response to an
Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The standards are based on
recommendations by the NPREC, which was created by PREA to study sexual abuse in
confinement settings and disbanded in 2009 after issuing its final report, which included
recommended standards. The department’s revisions aim to make the standards more
effective, clarify the responsibilities imposed on correctional agencies, and comply with
relevant law, including PREA’s requirement that the new standards not “impose
substantial additional costs compared to the costs presently expended by federal, state
and local prison authorities.” In addition, the department attempted to ensure that
correctional agencies will be able to implement these standards without jeopardizing
other programs vital to protecting inmates and ensuring their eventual reintegration into
society.

The standards seek to prevent sexual abuse and to reduce the harm that it causes when it
occurs. Each of the four sets of standards consists of 11 categories: prevention planning;
responsive planning; training and education; screening for risk of sexual victimization
and abusiveness; reporting; official response following an inmate report; investigations;
discipline; medical and mental care; data collection and review; and audits.

Among other things, the proposed standards would require correctional agencies to:
• Ban cross-gender strip searches, and for juveniles, cross-gender pat-down searches;
• Check the backgrounds of new hires and not hire past abusers;
• Establish an evidence protocol to preserve evidence following an incident and train
investigators to act promptly and diligently;
• Screen inmates through a process that takes into account their safety and assign them
to housing in a way that best protects them;
• Provide multiple methods to report sexual abuse;
• Provide inmates access to outside victim advocates for emotional support services
related to sexual abuse;
• Provide appropriate medical and mental health care to victims;
• Prepare a written policy mandating zero tolerance toward all forms of sexual abuse and
sexual harassment;
• Discipline staff and inmate assailants appropriately, with termination as the
presumptive disciplinary sanction for staff who have engaged in sexual touching;
• Train employees on their responsibilities in preventing, recognizing and responding to
sexual abuse;
• Allow inmates a reasonable amount of time to file grievances so as to preserve their
ability to seek legal redress after exhausting administrative remedies; and
• Conduct audits to assess compliance.
The Justice Department’s complete rule can be found online
at:www.ojp.usdoj.gov/programs/pdfs/prea_nprm.pdf . Following publication in the
Federal Register, the proposed rule will be available at www.regulations.gov , through
which comments on the proposed rule may be submitted.

Once published, the standards will be immediately binding on the federal Bureau of
Prisons. States that do not comply with the standards are subject to a five percent
reduction in funds they would otherwise receive for prison purposes from the
department unless the governor certifies that five percent of such funds will be used to
enable compliance in future years.

First short assignment on PREA

2011-03-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

Writing 2 Tim Fitzmaurice Due April 1, 2911
Comment on the enactment of PREA
all the information in this prompt is based on
The FEDERAL REGISTER Vol 76, No 23, 2/1/2011/proposed rules (50pp)
http://community.nicic.gov/blogs/prea/archive/2011/02/10/proposed-standards-comparison-charts-available.aspx

In 2003 Congress enacted the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). A report was written by a Commission to determine what to do next. That was finished in 2009. Now the Department of Justice is formulating the regulations. They want input from the community on whether or not the rules are good enough and should be enacted. The comments on these rules are due by April 4 at midnight.
Soon the government will make rules that every lock-up, prison, juvenile hall, and jail must spend money to eliminate rape in their facilities. If they do not, they could be fined 4% of the federal money they get. This unfunded mandate is often seen as objectionable. Locals want the feds to pay for what they require. Is this true in this case? Or should a prison be by definition safe from sexual abuse? The proposed rules state that some stakeholders may question whether economic analysis is even relevant to the implementation of a civil rights statute. (p.6267)
One study states that in 2008-9 200,000 adult prisoners suffered some sort of sexual abuse while incarcerated. There are 2.000.000 people in prison in the U.S. In juvenile halls 17.100 were abused or 12% of the total population. (p. 6249) In some facilities it was 36%. Should there be special concern/rules for juveniles in adult facilities? Should Juveniles, violent felons, ever be transferred into adult prisons or jails?
The new rules include: Not hiring people with sexual abuse histories; improving reporting and forensic exams to prosecute abuse; giving victims protective custody; educating inmates; training employees; screening inmates for their potential for victimization—e.g., mental disability, physical build, age, nonviolence; sexual orientation, the inmates self-identified risk, or inmates held for immigration charges alone. The rules on reporting were expanded to include the ability to speak to people not in the system. Someone has to be the reporting officer. There was disagreement about the coordinator position. Should they be only doing that one job? Or can they be part time? Or should the job be done by someone not in the chain of command?
Do you think that inmates and others should be protected from sexual abuse? Is this abuse to be expected in systems of punishment? Most people see it as almost a joke. How have you seen this described or explained? Were you aware that such abuse exists?

Please write a comment in less than one page, giving your reaction to the promulgation of these regulations.

Address it to Robert Hinchman, Senior Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Room 4252, Washington D.C., 20530
This letter must be postmarked by April 4th. So I want the letters to be completed by April 1st. I will provide the envelopes and stamps. Please do not write personal identifying information.

www.wcl.american.edu/nic/prea.cfm

an end to silence
Charts to compare the stats

http://community.nicic.gov/blogs/prea/default.aspx
PREA
Prison Rape, the PREA, and the PLRA
MARCH 7, 2011
tags: Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Just Detention International, PLRA, PREA, Prison Litigation Reform Act, Prison Rape Elimination Act, prisoner lawsuits
by SOLITARY WATCH GUEST AUTHOR
Guest Post by Jennifer Wedekind
Editor’s Note: Jennifer Wedekind is a journalist whose work has appeared in Mother Jones, In These Times, and the Multinational Monitor. She is a 2011 JD Candidate at Georgetown Law.
The public comment period for the PREA regulations extends through April 4, 2011. To submit a comment or read the full text of the proposed standards, go to this page on the website of Just Detention International, an organization devoted to exposing and eliminating the epidemic of prison rape.
_____
The Department of Justice in early February opened a comment period for proposed regulations under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). Passed in 2003, the Act requires the Attorney General to promulgate national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction and punishment of prison rape. While its ultimate aim is to stem the rampant sexual abuse that occurs in prisons and jails across the country, up until now PREA has largely been an aspirational and fact-gathering statute.
The proposed regulations are structured around recommended standards put forth by the Prison Rape Elimination Commission, established by PREA, in a comprehensive 2009 report on the “the penological, physical, mental, medical, social, and economic impacts of prison rape in the United States.” However, subsequent comments by interested parties citing concerns about prison security and inmate “gamesmanship” have resulted in some of the recommendations being largely neutered. Additionally, a statutory mandate that no regulation impose substantial additional costs on prison authorities may limit the types of programs the regulations can implement. However, the comment period will allow for criticism and revision of the proposed regulations and provides an open forum for prisoner-rights advocates to be heard.
The problem of prison rape that PREA is attempting to address is nothing short of staggering. An estimated 88,500 adult inmates — 4.4 percent of prison inmates and 3.1 percent of jail inmates — reported at least one instance of sexual victimization in the previous year, according to a 2010 Bureau of Justice Statistics report. At a Hughes Unit prison in Texas, the facility with the highest rates of reported victimization, 8.6 percent of inmates reported being sexually assaulted by another inmate. Sexual victimization by guards is equally as prevalent. In the Crossroads Correctional Facility in Missouri, the male facility with the highest rates of guard sexual misconduct, 8.2 percent of inmates reported being victimized. At the women’s Bayview Correctional Facility in New York, 11.5 percent of inmates reported sexual victimization by guards.
When a prisoner comes forward and reports a sexual assault, he or she is more likely to face retribution than redress. Complaining prisoners frequently face retaliatory harassment, discipline or further abuse. A full 25 percent of inmate victims are summarily sent to solitary confinement, according to the Department of Justice’s own numbers.
Additionally, an inmate complaint will rarely result in legal sanctions for the perpetrator or prison authorities, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has held that placing an inmate at risk of sexual assault with deliberate indifference can be a violation of the 8th Amendment. The main obstacle between inmates and a courtroom is the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Congress passed the PLRA in an effort to prevent “frivolous” inmate lawsuits and created considerable hurdles that an inmate must overcome to see his or her day in court. Significantly, any regulations passed under PREA will have to be in compliance with the PLRA, which may hamper its effectiveness in some areas.
In cases of sexual assault, inmates are most often stymied by two PLRA requirements — an exhaustion of all administrative remedies and a showing of physical harm. If a prisoner fails to comply with the technical and often arbitrary requirements of the administrative procedures, or if the inmate misses one of the filing deadlines — which may be as short as 48 hours — his or her right to sue is forever forfeited. Cases are frequently dismissed because of technical errors, because the wrong form was used or because the complaint was submitted to the wrong entity within the sprawling prison system.
In a notable 2003 case, Human Rights Watch reported that sixteen female inmates filed suit alleging systematic sexual abuse by prison staff, including forcible rape, coerced sexual activity, oral and anal sodomy, and forced pregnancies. The federal court hearing the case refused to address the merits, instead taking nearly five years to conclude that the women’s use of informal reporting procedures provided by the prison resulted in a failure to adequately exhaust all administrative remedies.
The PLRA also requires a showing of physical injury — and many jurisdictions do not consider a sexual assault to constitute a physical injury per se. This provision in particular is frequently relied upon to dismiss claims by victims of sexual assault, who frequently have no proof of physical injury due to delay in reporting, lack of additional violence during the assault, or inadequate prison medical providers, who often do not have the resources or willingness to administer a rape kit.
Advocates hope the final PREA regulations will provide more services for inmates and more accountability for prison administrators. However, while the regulations may be able to ease some of the administrative burdens currently on inmate victims, it will not provide a private cause of action and the PLRA will still dictate access to courts.
The proposed regulations would ban cross-gender strip searches, create minimum standards for investigations following a report, require correctional facilities to provide medical and mental health care, and institute a zero tolerance policy for sexual assault and harassment. The regulations also purport to make the prison grievance systems more accessible, however they don’t go as far as most advocates think necessary. It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the regulations will have.

Published in the blog Solitary Watch

http://www.cclp.org/prea.php Center for Children’s Law and policy

http://www.justdetention.org/en/factsheets/Prison_Rape_Elimination_Act.pdf
Fact sheet from Just Detention Blog

NYRB sept 2010

An End to Prison Rape
by Linda McFarlane · July 16, 2009
Change.org blog
When the government removes someone’s liberty, it takes on an absolute responsibility to keep that person safe, including from sexual abuse. This is a difficult task and, unfortunately, prison officials nationwide are failing at this responsibility all too often.
In inmate surveys conducted in 2007, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found that 4.5 percent (or 60,500) of the more than 1.3 million inmates held in federal and state prisons had been sexually abused in the previous year alone and that nearly 25,000 jail detainees had been sexually abused in the previous six months. These surveys were snapshots, reaching only inmates present on a particular day. As the annual number of admissions to county jails is 17 times higher than the jail population on any day, the BJS data represent just the tip of the iceberg.
There is hope, however. Last month, the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC) released its recommendations for the first-ever binding national standards addressing sexual abuse in U.S. prisons and jails. Mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, the standards address core prison management issues, such as staff training, inmate education, housing, investigations, and medical and mental health care in the aftermath of an assault. The U.S. Attorney General has until June 23, 2010 (one year from the release of the standards) to codify them into federal regulation.
Developed with input from corrections officials, prisoner rape survivors, and advocates, these standards are one of the best tools to date to help put an end to sexual abuse in the nation’s detention facilities. Many corrections agencies have already begun developing policies to improve inmate safety.
Just Detention International (JDI) is working with officials in Oregon and California to become ‘early adopters’ of these standards – by bringing the Oregon Department of Corrections and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation into compliance even before they are required to do so. In doing so, these state agencies are becoming models for corrections systems nationwide.
Both systems have already made tangible improvements. In California, JDI helped secure a community-based rape crisis counselor on the sexual assault response teams at 31 of the state’s 33 prisons and provided cross-training so that the counselors and prison officials understand each other’s respective jobs and are able to work together in a constructive way. In Oregon, the Department of Corrections established an inmate hotline, so that survivors can safely contact the Inspector General’s office when they are too afraid to report an assault to a prison official.
The effort to implement the standards is also helping to change the violent culture of corrections and to bring a human rights framework into these prisons and jails, often for the very first time. It’s a logical progression from the original reason for engaging in these partnerships: Sexual abuse in detention is wrong. It is an affront to our society’s basic values. It causes terrible harm to survivors and creates unsafe prisons for staff and inmates alike.
The problem of sexual abuse in detention is deeply rooted and will not go away without a fight. There undoubtedly will be setbacks, but it is a battle that we can win. That is what Congress acknowledged in 2003 when it unanimously passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act. That is what JDI has learned by working with corrections agencies to proactively tackle this issue. The new national standards recognize this truth, and are an invaluable tool for corrections agencies to use in this fight.
Now, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder must send an important signal about the urgency with which we need to address prisoner rape. He can do so by ensuring that the standards provide the tools and protections Congress intended.
No matter what crime someone has committed, rape must not be part of the penalty.

Writing 2 Syllabus and Calendar Spring 2011

2011-03-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

Writing 2 Comp & Rhet Spring 2011 Tim Fitzmaurice timfitz@ucsc.edu
MWF Sect 6 at 2pm & Section 7 at 3:30pm Stevenson 151 BLOG: timfitz.blogspot.com OFFICE: Crown 111, 459-2483 Office Hours: Wednesday 12:30-1:30 and by appt. TEXT ME at (831) 252-3197—no answering machine!
Required Texts: (All are at the Baytree Bookstore.)
1. Gilligan, Violence; 2. Ainsworth, 75 Arguments; 3. Khadra, The Attack; 4. Pape, Dying to Win
Required Work:
1. Write five formal essays, and revise two of them thoroughly.
2. Attend every class meeting and participate in discussion.
3. Meet with the Instructor twice.
4. Do the in-class assignments, including oral report, submit assignments on time.
5. Submit a portfolio of all of your work at the end of class. We have no final exam.
If you will be absent, please let me know as soon as possible. Call, text, or email.
Academic Honesty
It is important that you write your essays yourself without help from unknown sources. I need to know how you are doing your work. Be sure to give credit for every quote you use and every idea you borrow. Put quote marks around the words and use a parenthesis at the end to tell me where you found it. If you use other people’s ideas, you need to tell where you got those ideas. Good writers quote others. So this won’t make your writing weaker. It will make it stronger.
Essay Format
On essays for this class please use white paper and black ink. Do not give me cover sheet or title pages. Leave space in the margins for my marks, double space. Avoid unusual type fonts. Write your name, the class, and the date in the upper right corner of the page. Make sure the date is accurate. Write revision if it is a rewrite. Give every essay a title. Page number on each page, staple the essay in upper left corner. I need a hard copy to mark the essay.
Assignment for our next class.
Interview and write a profile, no more than two pages, of another student in our class. You will be asked to introduce this student to the rest of the class, giving us two truths and a lie on the first day.
Assignment for discussion on Wednesday and for submission on Friday.
Write a brief (1 page, no more) comment on the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) rules that are being decided right now. I know it is early to have an opinion and that this is a quick reaction. But you will have a sheet to guide you and you can look for the PREA discussion online. We need it Friday—two copies—to send to the commission by Monday. You can look up the fullreport. It is fifty pafges long. http://community.nicic.gov/blogs/prea/archive/2011/02/10/proposed-standards-comparison-charts-available.aspx Or you can look at the National Institute of Corrections site list of sources at http://community.nicic.gov/blogs/prea/default.aspx.
See the Department of Justice announcement: http://collaboration.asca.net/system/assets/attachments/2017/DOJ_Announcement_of_Proposed_PREA_Standards.pdf?1296010344

Calendar for Writing 2, Spring 2011 Tim Fitzmaurice Crown 111 UCSC
I may make changes to this arrangement. 459-2483 timfitz@ucsc.edu

Week 1 March 28/ 30/April 2 Introduction
Profile of another student due on Wednesday. Essay on Violence: Nature or Nurture? Due on Friday (2 pages+).

Read Ainsworth Chapter 5 over the weekend and write a response to the essays, as assigned (p. 196, p. 224, p. 240, p. 247, p 249). One page telling me what the thesis was and how successful the argument was for you. Choose at least two essays.

[Prepare for the future! Visit the jail assignment. You are required to visit the jail or to tell me why you cannot visit. You can make your appointment for any Sunday by going online at the County Sheriff site: http://www.scsheriff.com/ click on Corrections and then go to Public Jail Tours. You need to fill out a form and get permission to visit. So do it soon and go with a friend. A limited number can go on any one day. So book your tour right away. If you do not have California ID, I need to put your name on a list. Please talk to me.]

Week 2 April 4/6/8 Purpose and thesis.
Discuss this week the essays in Chapter 5 of Ainsworth.
Due: Friday an opening thesis and strategy for essay 1 on Security and Liberty.

Week 3 April 11/13/15 Organizing your essays: Strategies
Discuss this week the essays in Chapter 7 of Ainsworth.
Due a draft of essay1 on Monday.
Read Ainsworth Chapter 7 and 9.

Week 4 April 18/20/22 Structure of paragraphs: Coherence
Discuss this week the essay in Chapter 9 of Ainsworth.
Library Visit TBA Start reading Khadra and Pape this weekend

Week 5 April 25/27/29 Sentence grammar and subordination
Due: Due Essay 2 on either Chapter 7 or 9 of Ainsworth.
Monday film.
Read Khadra and Pape on suicide terrorism

Week 6 May 2/4/6 Style and logic
Discuss Khadra and Pape this week.
Due: a revision of Essay 1 or 2 by May 6th
We will arrange the groups for the oral presentations and essay 5.

Week 7 May 9/11/13 Research and citation
Due Essay 3 on Terrorism on Monday.
Monday film. “Lock Up/ Lock Down”
Discuss Gilligan and incarceration. It would be good to visit the jail before we get to this conversation. Read Gilligan, the first hundred pages.

Week 8 May 16/18/20 Writing assignments in different disciplines
Read Gilligan (the rest of it) to use in conjunction with the essay 4 on Violence.
Due Friday Essay 4 on Incarceration.

Week 9 May 23/25/27 (Monday is a holiday) Revision
Oral Presentations
Due: a revision of an essay.

Week 10 May 30/June 1/3 Instruction ends June 5; no final exam Holiday Monday.
Oral Presentations
Due essay 4 final draft and portfolio containing your work from this quarter. The portfolio contains all of your essays in the draft and final form. It should also contain the other writing we did in the class, daily writing, the profile, and other responses. You can rewrite everything if you wish to try to improve your grade.

Essay 1: On Security and Liberty
Write an essay about the problem of freedom and security after 9-11. In an era of terrorism and the limiting of civil freedoms, an era of surveillance, suicide bombings, torture and war, can we have security without sacrificing freedoms, like privacy rights and freedom of expression? What do we need to understand about this? I will give you a two-page handout for this essay. Use Essays from Ainsworth in Chapter 5 as the foundation for this essay.

Essay 2: On Violent prejudices
Read the Chapters 7 & 9 in 75 Arguments that discuss issues of identity and marriage. You can include essays from other Chapters as well. No Web Sources please. I will give you a longer version of this essay assignment. Write a four-page+ essay with references to at least three essays from our text. You have choices for this essay. For example,
1. On Identity and Race: based on essays in Chapter 9.
2. On Marriage: Based on readings in Chapter 7.

Essay 3: Why suicide Bombing?
Write an essay that discusses the nature of the suicide bombing and your best understanding of the theories of what drives the suicide bomber.
Please refer to the film “Paradise Now,” the book Dying to Win and the novel The Attack.

Essay 4: An essay on Violence, Rehab, Reconciliation, and Punishment.
Visit the county jail. Read and cite the book by Gilligan and the film, “Lock Up/Lock Down.” Then write an essay on what causes violence, in your opinion and what are the best ways to solve this problem. You willbegin working with your group in this period for essay 5.

Essay 5: A research essay on some topic concerning violence in the community, including gangs and youth, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, violence against women, international violence, media and sports violence. You are asked to do your own research into the topic and to present the information with your group. The essay does not have to be the same as the presentation.

Oral presentation due in Week 9 or 10. Your oral presentation topic will be the same as your fourth essay topic. You will get your topic assignment in class. You will work with four or five other students on this topic. Each writes their own essay.

Revisions will be periodically assigned, but you can revise at any time and rewrite until you are satisfied with result.

Formatting and citing.
All of our essays are four to six pages long in the final draft. I expect you to cite your sources and provide a list of sources at the end of the essay. I expect all essays to be typed, double spaced, on white paper and stapled, with page numbers on each page and the correct date. You may only use the sources that I suggest for your essays. I do not trust the web sources. So use any outside source, particularly those, with caution. You can use wither MLA or APA style. If you want an exception any of the “rules” I have just enumerated—like the limits on sources—then ask me.

I recommend that you think about doing the essays in the following way:
1. Begin with an example or story that shows the importance of the issue. This story can come from your own experience, a text, or observation. It can be a look at someone you know or it can be drawn from our reading. Analyze it briefly.
2. Write a thesis. The community needs to understand something about the issue and to act in some way. That’s the simplest version of an argumentative thesis.
3. Spend some time defining the topic and its main terms and ideas. Use quotes from our text or observations you have made about the topic. Support the thesis, your purposeful goals, with examples and with logic, with facts, and with quotation of sources.
4. Talk about the obstacles to accomplishing these purposes and why they exist
5. Talk about the best way to solve these problems, if there is a solution.
6, Good essays end by looking at why your point of view is crucial and why it will help us address the problem. If the problem is ignored, the society will be worse.

Writing Process
1. Assert your Purpose and thesis
2. Gather facts and arguments to develop the essay. (logic, examples, quotes, facts)
3. Determine who the Audience is and what they need. (tone of voice, diction)
4. Draft the essay.
5. Revise the larger structures and overall strategies, including paragraphs.
6. Revise the smaller sentence level style.
7. Edit and fix the grammar, usage, spelling and punctuation errors.

Purposes depend on what we know, what we believe, and what we want to do.
A famous Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, once said that in this world we can accomplish three purposes: (1) to be aware of the facts and of reality, (2) to understand what these facts mean, and (3) to act compassionately or to make the world better based on our knowledge. Some of our essays are just about the facts, most of them are about how to understand the facts, and the some about what we need to do.
So when you think about your topic try to describe the facts (1) what you and your audience need to know about it. Then talk about (2) how to understand it, the theory behind your point of view. In college we are mostly concerned with making sense of something, with understanding. The third goal is (3) to act to do something about it. In a way that goal is political. It means we have to make our world better.
Everyone is different. We all see the world in a unique way. Our understanding and our purposes are shaped by our values and by our ideology. In school we study different disciplines to discover what our unique point of view might be. Some of us are artists and some engineers and some economists and some psychologists and some sociologists. You cannot borrow your purpose from someone else.

What is violence? Are we experts on the topics we write about?
No. We are curious intellectuals. I am aware that we all have different backgrounds and knowledge of these topics and that the essays you write this quarter will be based on partial knowledge and first impressions of thinkers in the field. Your essays are judged on how well you use this foundation to write intellectually capable essays reflecting the insights of a reasonable person. We are not thoroughly versed in the theories about violence and what causes it. So the essay is based on your experience in the world and on your reading and observations in various media.

For your essay on community violence, for example, you will use the essay you write just before it, an attempt to define violence, based on Gilligan’s book. In class we will discuss theories of where violence comes from and begin to write our own perspectives on it.

Writing 2 Section 6 and 7 Spring 2011 Tim Fitzmaurice
ESSAY 1: On Security and Liberty Due Monday April 11th.
Write an essay about the problem of freedom and security after 9-11. In an era of terrorism and the limiting of civil freedoms, an era of surveillance, suicide bombings, torture and war, can we have security without sacrificing freedoms, like privacy rights and freedom of expression? What do we need to understand about this?
John Stuart Mill says in our reader that self-government “is not government of each by himself (sic), but of each by all the rest” (199). Mill says
…the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. (204)
In other words, individual freedom of action can only and should be limited if it is a threat to others. The rest of his essay is committed to asserting individual freedom, but this part asserts the necessity of limits. People can’t be permitted to hurt others. In fact, he later says that we are answerable for doing evil “not only by our actions but by our inactions” (206). So we must be not actively hurt anyone and not passively allow people to be hurt. He binds individual freedom and the safety of all very closely together.
Do we need armies, police, laws? To respond to terrorist threat can we limit people’s freedoms? Can we invade their privacy? Surveillance, torture, profiling, strip-searches, militarism, border control? Should we reduce freedom of action for safety?
Matthew Brzezinski asks in his essay how much should our security cost us: “How Far Should We Go?” (224) It has led to surveillance, torture, a denial of habeas corpus, a lack of judicial oversight on search warrants. Can we tolerate this loss of civil protection? And he says the cost will be even higher in the future
… domestic security will dwarf every other kind federal spending: education, roads, subsidized housing, environmental protection. More than that decisions we make about how to protect ourselves—the measures we demand, the ones we resist—will take over our political discourse and define our ideas about government in years to come. (239)
In effect, for Brzezinski, our way of thinking about democracy is and will be shaped by our history. What about the effects of people coming across the border? In Silko’s essay, the fear of intruders has changed the way we look at migrant workers and every dark skinned person. Security is racialized. She says, “’Immigration,’ like ‘street crime’ and ’welfare fraud,’ is a political euphemism that refers to people of color” (245). So our response to terror is a complex problem. We need to understand it. That is your assignment to tell me how we as a community should understand this problem and respond to it. Use the essays in Chapter 5. The chapter ends, incidentally, with Mona Charen, a conservative voice, saying “if we err on the side of civil liberties instead of security, hundred of thousands or millions of Americans could die” (251).
Hints about writing this essay.
What do you think and how do you support your argument, with these texts, with your observations, with logical argument? I want to suggest that at heart the question is simple. It is almost inevitably a kind of balancing act. The challenge in this assignment is to strike your balance and to put the arguments in order. So what is the structure of an essay like this? Bring a draft of your thesis and some supporting ideas & quotes on April 10th.
Opening: What example makes your argument significant and focuses on your eventual point. It could be a personal account of 9-11. It could be a paraphrase from the essay or an observation of someone else responding to an incident in the war on terror, a soldier, a bombing victim, someone whose rights were infringed because of the new emphasis on controlling people, searching or border protection or airport surveillance or interrogation. The essay starts with a strategy introducing the fundamental focus and topic.
Thesis: Then you need a thesis or purposeful way of asserting your controlling idea. This section is notable for breaking out of the opening narrative or statistics or cases or whatever strategy to become theoretical and analytical and large in scope—what does everyone need to know to understand or to do about this situation? A straightforward thesis could say something like -- We as a society need to understand this phenomenon and take certain actions.
Body: The next challenge is the way you might develop or support your argument. It depends on what strategies you think you need to use to persuade people or to explain the phenomenon. Define it. Quote the texts to tell me what the problem is and how some people see it.
I need to see where the issue is. In this instance, you can show this by looking at different points of view in the essays Charen’s perspective: Get real! We need safety first. Who cares about the “inconvenience” of surveillance or tough border controls? Or Emma Goldman’s notion that “War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battles; therefore they take boys from one village ... and let them loose like wild beasts against each other” (216). Or Silko’s notion that our homeland security rules are not just inconvenient, but are bound up with racism and a “police state” (244).
Remember that this where you assert what you need to say about the matter. It depends on how you read these people and other essays in our book. DO NOT USE ANY WEB SOURCES. But feel free to go to any other essay in our textbook. I like the essays on law and obedience and civil disobedience in Chapter 6. I welcome references to the essays in Chapters 1 and 11.
The essay needs to speak about those who disagree with you. Find the opposing views, quote fairly, analyze them, and respond to their arguments if possible.
Ending: Essays end with a sense of the lesson to be learned from the argument. If we agree about this then we can move forward in a positive direction. If we do not understand this properly we are going to hell in a hand basket. Close the circle by returning to your opening example in some way.

Essay on Tuesdays with Morrie

2011-02-17T15:04:00.000-08:00

Due Last Day of class

Choose one of the following topics and write five pages developed from the question. Please quote at least five times from our book, Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom.

a. On Death
“Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” (82)

The book, Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom is devoted to the last days of a college professor and one of his former students. It is mainly a meditation or discussion about death and gives several examples of how people experience death, including Morrie’s mother and father, Mitch’s uncle, and of course Morrie’s death. Compare what the various stories tell us about how people die in this culture. Look at your own experience of death, either people you have known, the images from the media and the news, your reading and tell me what your attitude is toward this difficult subject. Is it useful for us to have book on this subject?

b. Choose a theme.
“But there still seemed to be no clear answers. Do you take care of others or take care of the “inner child”? Return to traditional values or reject tradition as useless? Seek success or seek simplicity” Just say No or Just Do It? … All I knew was that my old professor wasn’t in the self-help business. He was standing on the tracks, Listening to death’s locomotive whistle, and he was very clear about the important things in life.” (65-66)

This book, Tuesdays with Morrie, has many themes in it, including marriage, aging, culture, parenting, forgiveness, family, love and friendship. Choose a theme and discuss it. How does Mitch and Morrie present this theme and how do you makes sense of it. Do you see it the same way that they do. Use your experience and observations to talk about why this theme is an important notion to understand for our happiness, our fulfillment, and for our success. Be sure to make it clear what Morrie and Mitch’s point of view on one of these matters might be.

c. On Education
“No books were required, yet many topics were covered … The last lecture was brief only a few words…. A Funeral in lieu of graduation.” (1)

The book, Tuesdays with Morrie, is a course that is taught in a new way. Is this a good model for education and why? What is education supposed to accomplish in our lives? Look at the experiences you have had in education and think about what has failed you and what has worked for you. What is the foundation for success in this course? Is it that the student seems to structure the education, that the themes are so crucial to Mitch and Morrie, that the source is so authoritative and that the lessons are based on true life experience? What makes this kind of education work, at least for Mitch, and why do so many other models of education fail? I think you will perhaps include some thoughts developed from an earlier essay on the purpose of education.

A New Essay Prompt for Essay 3

2011-02-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

Essay 3 Due 14th of February

People with the 2010 revised version of the book, fist stick knife gun by Geoffrey Canada, need a different way of looking at essay 3. It is not due Friday by the way. It is now due Monday February 14th.

Canada in his book shows how violence is established in a community—not by the evil or innate immorality of the young people in the community, but by various forces including drug laws and gun availability and certainly by the lack of economic opportunity, education, and jobs. Canada works to change this in his book. The final section suggests various solutions and speaks about the use of punishment, jail, juvenile hall, and probation, to stop violence. He speaks about the role of the police in the community to control violence. He does not think these are the proper approaches to solving the problem. Instead he speaks of peacemakers and other resources for community members to solve their own problems. He speaks of education and safety zones for the children to grow up with hope.
I want to know what you think the role of punishment is in solving the problems of violence in the neighborhoods. Do you have to jail young people with guns? Do you have to do this until you have created something like the Harlem Children’s zone? Does the safety of the community members require a police force? Then what do you need to do? Look at the way that Canada lays out the alternatives, but think also of your own observations of the communities you have seen and lived in.
Write a four-page essay quoting Canada (at least 4 times) and analyzing his arguments while you make your these/opinion clear.

Writing 20 Essay 2

2011-01-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Culture and individual identity Due Jan 31

Culture is a complex way that we construct community. It includes religion, art, ideology philosophy, our shared values and the rules that are imposed upon us. Sometimes, perhaps inevitably these shared values and expectations come into conflict with our individual identity, impulses, and choices. It is important for the conflict to exist because that’s the way cultural standards & norms change for the better.
In our reading we have tracked several points of conflict between group cultural norms and personal choices. They include gay marriage, arranged marriage, dating within your ethnicity, and women’s rights to self-determination. You may see some other areas of conflict as well. In these areas people do not have the full support of their culture and often experience internal discord. Andrew Sullivan, for example, in his essay “The Conservative case for Gay Marriage” described the deep psychic suffering of being permanently excluded from the family and he made a case that the culture would be more stable if it included gay people in the right to marry. But we know personally that the forces of culture have conditioned many people, perhaps most, to disagree.
Write an essay, four pages with at least four citations from our essays. Focus your essay on one area of conflict and describe for me the way we need to understand this conflict and how we can arrive perhaps at some harmonious agreement. What can we
do to sustain individual freedoms without damaging the cultural stability that we depend upon? Where do your sympathies lie? Should people sacrifice personal choices for the stability? Maybe people need to go slowly. Or maybe you think that, like Martin Luther King said, this “gradualism” is not tolerable and only means things will never change.
Use your observations of people who are in these situations and discuss the
cultural forces that are contending with and explain their most likely outcome.

Essay 1 Writing 20 2011

2011-01-10T12:16:00.000-08:00

ESSAY 1 On censorship Writing 20 Tim Fitzmaurice Due Friday 1/14
Write a four-page essay on whether and how we should control the expression of obscenity, sexuality, and violence or control the political content of the internet in media. Use at least three citations from our texts.
In China, the internet is severely politically restricted. Many hope that the internet might be a way to break down the repression of freedom and democracy. But it may be a false hope. As Stroehlein says on pages 110 and 111: “ The (political) opponents (online) can score a few victories in that virtual space, but meanwhile, back in reality, little changes for the people on the ground.” In other words, the elites who use the internet to communicate may gain freedom, but millions of ordinary people never benefit. Nevertheless, the Zenger case indicates that anti-government satire and political speech can be useful. As Olson says, (the Zenger case) “made possible the dynamic growth of political expression in the colonies by making it relatively safe for Americans writers to publish political humor … critical of men in office.” (75) Maybe this can eventually come true in China.
Aside from political speech, we also have to consider whether or not to limit sexual or violent speech. Should we censor the anti-police songs of Ice-T? Is he a revolutionary or just violent? Or, as Ehrenrich says, is he a “macho” blowhard whose “gestures are cheap” (113)? She says “revolutions are made by people who have learned to count very slowly to ten” (113). In other words, again it is not the educated elite who make change but ordinary people. But should his offensive language be censored?
Pornography may be the most chilling example for us. The idea that young people may be exposed to offensive web sites has made some people want to filter library and university networks. The opponents say that “the ready availability of sexually explicit material can create occasional but deeply disturbing encounters” (and) “is inherently demeaning to female faculty members, administrators and students” (O’Neil, 100). Should we “protect people from being gratuitously assaulted by digital material that may be deeply offensive” (103)?
Should our library internet, public and/or university, be filtered to protect people from offensive material? How is censorship abused? What kind of protections can we provide for children who may be exposed to degrading sexual or violent imagery on the internet? Can you provide a view of violent or sexually explicit material on TV or in videogames. Should they be censored in some way? How? and Why?
Hints on Writing:
1. Begin your essay with an example from your experience or observations or violent or sexual imagery in media, something you have seen or heard about.
2. Write a thesis. (We as a community need to understand that something is wrong and we need to do something about it. We should do this.)
3. Then define what the problem is. Quote from our texts, giving examples of political, pornographic, obscene, or violent image problems.
4. Talk about what other people have done to control these images, like China or Universities or media groups.
5. Explain what you would do.
6. Tell me what your opponents might say against your approach.
7. End by asserting your view again and return to the story or example you began the essay with.
To the students:
I will present a view of the opening of effective essays that emphasizes four elements:

Significance
Thesis
Focus
Direction

The opening example/story should help to establish the focus and the significance—what we are going to discuss and why we need to discuss it.

Then after brief analysis of the opening example the thesis should be presented. In this case it probably states that we have to make sense of how to address problems of offensive imagery without making our internet useless. You will read the paragraph 13 on 103 about how to balance the need to protect children from taking away rights from adults. So most thesis statements will speak about this balance of need for access and protection of the immature or sensitive observer. Most essays are about taking a stand but recognizing the ambivalence and ambiguity of the situation. I don’t want a kind of “both things are true” thesis but rather a “While of course we need to understand or do this, we must do this other thing above all else.”

The next step is defining some of the terms we are using. I want you to have a quote to use. I will choose several quotes about the possible focuses: e.g., Porn 103 para 13; Violence 141 para 20 & 113 para 8; Political speech 111 p33 & 89 para 39; profanity 55 para 11 54 para 7 [captive audiences] & 98 para 14.

So you have four things to think about:
1. Thesis
2. Quote and analysis.
3. Opening example.
4. Your opinion—for or against—censorship.

Writing 20 Syllabus 2011

2011-01-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

Instructor: Tim Fitzmaurice

Sections 2 & 6 MWF 2-3:10 & 3:30-4:40 in Crown Classroom 202, Merrill 132
timfitz@ucsc.edu, 459-2483 Office Hours: Wed 1 to 2 and by appointment in Crown 111

Required Texts:
Ainsworth, Alan, 75 Arguments: An Anthology.
Albom, M, Tuesdays with Morrie
Canada, fist stick knife gun (The texts for both sections are under Wr 20, section 6.)
Easy Writer, a grammar book purchased for your Core Course.

Required Work:
1. Write four formal essays, and revise two of them thoroughly.
2. Work with the Writing Assistant regularly.
3. Meet with the Instructor twice.
4. Do the in-class assignments & oral work, and submit all assignments on time.
5. Attend every class and participate in the discussion. If you will be absent, please let me know as soon as possible. Call or email.

Academic Honesty
It is important that you write your essays yourself without help from unknown sources outside of the class. I need to know how you are doing your work. Then I can help you to do it better. You will be assigned to a writing assistant for help in writing and revising your essays for the ELWR requirement. Please tell me if you need other help.
In addition, you need to be careful about quoting sources or using words from other writers. Be sure to give credit for every quote you use. Put quote marks around everything and use a parenthesis to tell me who said it first. If you use other people’s ideas, you need to tell where you got those ideas too, even if you do not quote the exact words. Good writers quote others. So citing sources won’t make your writing weaker. It will make it stronger. But you must give credit.

English Language Writing Requirement (ELWR)
Even if you do not need to satisfy the ELWR, the class still requires that you write four essays and two thorough revisions. If you have satisfied the ELWR already, then tell me what goals you have for this class when we meet. I will try to make sure the class is an effective experience for you. If you need to satisfy the ELWR Requirement, you have to do a few extra things. In this class we will write four essays and revise two of them. We will use those revisions for the ELWR Portfolio. To pass ELWR this quarter, you have to take an in-class exam for one hour, write a letter to the reader about your writing, and submit two essays (totaling 8 to 12 pages long). Each essay includes two drafts, an original draft with my marks on it and a final revision. The two essays will be from our class this quarter. So you should write every essay with a view to revising it to satisfy the ELWR requirement.

Essay Format
For essays for this class please use white paper and black ink, do not give me cover sheets or titles pages, leave space in the margins for my marks, double space, avoid unusual type fonts, write your name, the class, and the date in the upper right corner of the page, make sure the date is accurate, label it a revision if it is a rewrite, give every essay a title, put a page number on each page, and staple the essay in the upper left hand corner. I will comment on emailed essays, but I need a hard copy to mark the essay and I expect you to provide this. I do not accept essays by email unless we have some previous agreement. And even then, I expect a hard copy to follow.
Any essay in our texts can be used as source material for any essay you write. But no Web material is allowed. No Google. No Wiki quotes. If you have a question about this—or need an exception—talk to me. But I am pretty clear that you need to stay away from the web.
Essay Assignments: (You will receive a full page of description for each of the following assignments. But here is a brief description of what to expect. I may change the assignment significantly if events warrant.)

Essay 1 is on Censorship.
Using the essays provided in Ainsworth, 75 Arguments, especially Chapter 2, please write an analysis of the problem of freedom of expression and its limits. Quote the essays in our texts at least three times for all essays in this course, more if indicated.

Essay 2 is an essay on Identity and Culture.
For this essay we will reach into several chapters in Ainsworth, from Chapter 3, 4, 7 and 9. You will argue that cultural differences need to be understood and either used for happiness and success or modified. Note the essay by Maria Root, “Within, Between, and Beyond Race” or Patel’s “The Media and its representation of Islam and Muslim Women” or Edwards “… Bring me Home a Black Girl” or Sullivan’s “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.” You can look at culture is many different ways.

Essay 3 will be based on a reading of fist stick knife gun by Geoffrey Canada.
The essay will be supplemented with an oral report on a topic from Canada, wherein you will explain his position on some issue and your view of the same issue.

Essay 4 is on Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.
You have a wide variety of options, including
a. Death
Since it is the central theme of the book, it is a common choice of topic. It is challenging to say the least to write about this in an organized way. I recommend simpler concepts.
b. Education.
The book demonstrates a different attitude and approach to education. You could write about rethinking education like this.
c. Choose one of the book’s themes
In class we discussed many of the themes of the book. You could choose one of these themes as well and look at what the book said about it and what you thought about it. The themes include family and forgiveness and love and materialism.

Calendar for Writing 20 Winter 2010
Calendar of assignments for Writing 20 Sections 2 & 6.
Tim Fitzmaurice Winter 2011 2-3:10 & 3:30-4:40 Crown 202, Merrill 132
Texts: Ainsworth, Alan, 75 Arguments (2008); Canada, Geoffrey, fist stick knife gun (1995); Albom, Mitch, Tuesdays With Morrie (1997). Easy Writer, a grammar book.

Week 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE ACADEMIC ESSAY
1/5 Wed Introduction to the syllabus and to the ELWR requirements.
Assignments: Write a one-page profile of another student. Read for discussion the essays in Ainsworth 52-59& 138-141 & 114-117. Assignments: Write a brief note to tell me where the thesis is and whether the essay was persuasive. You will speak about this orally in class.
1/7 Fri Introduction of another student is due. Assignment: Read in Ainsworth, Chapter 2 on Censorship. I will assign specific essays. Write your opinion of censoring violence or obscenity.

Week 2 PURPOSE & THESIS: OPENING THE ESSAY
1/10 Mon Assignments: Write a thesis for essay 1. Write an analysis of a quote you intend to use in your essay.
1/12 Wed Assignment: Write a draft of Essay one. SEE YOUR TUTOR!
1/14 Fri Essay 1 is due. Assignments: Read Ainsworth essays pp. 157, 169, 172; Chapter 9 especially pp. 406, 419, 421, 425, 428. I will assign essays for you to focus on over the next week or two. Our next meeting is next Wednesday. Bring in a two-page response to an essay in this group. What is the author’s purpose? How does the writer make their point? What is your opinion? You have assignments for MLK Day.

Week 3 DEVELOPING ESSAYS: ESSAY STRUCTURE
1/17 Mon Holiday Assignments: Read on MLK (Ainsworth 279 & 414) Write a 2-page response to these essays or to the Convocation speaker. (The Convocation is 1/31)
1/19 Wed We will discuss Grammar
1/21 Fri. Assignments: Read Essays from Chapter 7 on Marriage and Divorce. I will assign specific essays. Write an approach or a thesis for Essay 2 on Identity and Culture.

Week 4 SUPPORTING ESSAY: ANALYZING & INTERPRETING TEXTS
1/24 Mon Assignments: Refine your thesis and choose quotable supporting material to analyze for Essay 2. Write the quotes (about three) and your analysis in a page or so.
1/26 Wed We will discuss Grammar
1/28 Fri Essay 2 is due. Assignments: Read Geoffrey Canada’s book, fist stick knife gun, Part 1. Write a response to one section. I will assign the section.

Week 5 REVISING: A WRITER’S GRAMMAR & RHETORIC
1/31 Mon Assignments: Read Canada Part 2. Write a response to one section. MLK Convocation with Terrence Roberts—Little Rock Nine. SC Civic Auditorium 7pm Free
2/2 Wed Assignments: Read essays from Ainsworth Chapter 1 and the Introduction.
2/4 Fri Assignments: Read Canada Part 3. Write a thesis for Essay 3. You can begin to write the rough draft.

Week 6 REVISING: SENTENCE STRUCTURE & STYLE
2/7 Mon Assignment: Write a Draft of Essay 3
2/9 Wed We will discuss revision.
2/11 Fri Essay 3 is due. Assignments: Read Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie to Page 100 and beyond. Write an example, a personal observation, of good education and/or bad education. Revise your essays 1 and 2.

Week 7 REVISING: STRUCTURE OF PARAGRAPHS—UNITY & COHERENCE
2/14 Mon
2/16 Wed We will discuss revision. Assignment: Revise your essays.
2/18 Fri A Revised Essay is due. Assignment: Read the last half of Albom.

Week 8 LOGIC, FACTS, TEXTS, AND EXAMPLES: TYPES OF DEVELOPMENT
2/21 Mon Holiday.
2/23 Wed
2/25 Fri Two Revised Essays are due. Assignment: Write your letter for the ELWR portfolio.

Week 9 IMMEDIATE WRITING
2/28 Mon We will discuss revision and in-class writing.
3/2 Wed In-Class essay for the ELWR. Don’t miss this class!
3/4 Fri All portfolios are due for ELWR. Assignment: Readings from Ainsworth on technology and writing, Chapter 11.

Week 10 WRITING FROM EXPERIENCE
3/7 Mon Assignment: Write your theme and thesis for essay 4.
3/9 Wed Assignment: Write a personal experience to use as an opening for essay 4.
3/11 Fri

Week 11
3/14 Mon Final day of class—No final exam; all revisions & Essay 4 are due.

This calendar is subject to change. But the due dates should be correct. The readings might be adjusted but they are about right. I will ask you to write in class often and the source for those writings will be these essays as well as material I find elsewhere.

2010-09-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

Crown Core Course 2009 Tim Fitzmaurice
Sections 1 12:30-1:40 Crown 201; Crown 111 459-2483
Section 2 11-12:10 Crown 201; Office Hours: Wednesday 1-2 & by appt
timfitz@ucsc.edu
blog: timfitz.blogspot.com. Please go to the site soon and write a comment.
Required Texts: Lanier, Jaron, You Are Not a Gadget & Crown Core Reader at Baytree.

How to do well in Core.
1. Never miss class or a group tutoring session. My boss told me to tell you that tutoring is just as important as section. But that’s not right it is more important. If you miss tutoring, the tutor does not get paid and I get upset. If you miss class, I still get paid. So it is not the same. Therefore always call me when you miss tutoring right away. (252-3197).
2. Participate in every section discussion. If you do not know how, then come and talk to me about it after class or in office hours.
3. Get your essays and other projects in on time, but never miss class because it isn’t ready. You can always tell me about your problems writing. That is the goal of the class: to solve your writing problems. So call me when you have problems.
4. Visit with me at least twice this quarter for conferences on your writing. I will make appointments for you and you can make appointments for yourself. Go to your tutoring sessions as well.
5. Read the material and go to the Core meetings. I will go. If I have to go, so do you, and please say hello to me to remind me that you were there.
6. Do not plagiarize or borrow other people’s words or ideas without giving them credit. We will discuss how to do this properly. But when in doubt just make a note at the end of your essay about any quote, source, or idea you are uncertain about.

Grades: You can take the course for a pass/no pass score instead of a letter grade. The essays will not be graded but the final holistic grade will be based on your participation and your revised writing

Required formal essays: (two must be revised thoroughly with my help)
Essay 1: The summer essay on Lanier.
Essay 2: On your ethical framework, on downloading music (Reader pp.1-50 on cell phones and ethics)
Essay 3: ?
Essay 4: The social justices/ injustices of genetics (cf, Stock, Fukuyama, Sandel etc)
Essay 4: Rejecting or accepting transhumanism/
Full assignments will be distributed in class, on the blog, and/or by email.
Go to timfitz.blogspot.com to get extra copies or early copies of assignments.

Signing up with the Writing Assistant:
The tutoring sessions will be held weekly in groups of three or four. You will sign up in class on the second or third day of class. The times are variable and should be chosen to meet your schedule for the rest of the quarter.

Essay Format
All formal essays should be about 1200 words long (over four typed pages). They should be on white paper, stapled in the upper left hand corner, without cover sheets or plastic covers, in normal typeface, double-spaced, with one inch margins on both sides and two inches at the top and bottom, with page numbers on each page. Please type your name, the date, class and the section number, in the upper right hand corner. If it is a revision, please indicate that. I expect every essay to have a title centered above the text on the first page. You can cite your sources by putting the page numbers in parenthesis in the text after the quote or idea and making a bibliography, an alphabetical list of the authors of the books or articles at the end of the essay.

Assignments for our next class meeting:
1. Write a profile of another student and introduce them in the next class.
Please write a two-page profile of a fellow student. Look at their past and tell me why they decided to go to UCSC and what they hope to be doing in the future. We will discuss useful questions for this assignment in class.
2. Read your assigned section from Hinman, “A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory”(page 25ff) and write a brief explanation of what he is saying in your section and what you think it means.
3. Read pp 36-40. McGinn’s essay “ Introduction to Moral Literacy.” This essay. with Hinman, will be the foundation for essay one.

In-Class Writing for Wednesday
We will read the McGinn essay. I will ask you to write in class on these ideas:

1. Tell what McGinn means by taboo and rationalism“ on Page 11ff. And what Hinman means by “Moral Absolutism,” relativism, rights, virtue, and utilitarianism?

2. What did McGinn say about moral relativism. What is relativism and what does it mean? Is the opposite of moral relativism absolutes, like the Ten Commandments or some other form of moral rules? What is the basis of your moral thinking so far. Maybe there are other alternatives or mixes of morality. (Hint: Rational morality and others are yet to be discussed). Do you follow authority (parents, the law) or commandments (religion) or relativism, rationality, utilitarianism, or virtue ethics or other?

Purposes in Writing: Awareness, Understanding, and Action
Good writing begins with a solid purpose. In high school, they stressed a simple awareness of facts—tell me what you read. In college, our purposes revolve around making sense of facts and theories as we see them, our understanding. In other words, I need your opinion and your comprehension and criticism of other people’s ideas and of events and facts. So write with purpose. The third purpose is to take action based on your opinions and understanding of the facts. That is what we do in our work and daily lives.

Core 2010 Essay 2

2010-09-26T22:43:00.001-07:00

Crown Core course Essay 2 An ethical question Due 10/8 Tim Fitzmaurice

For next Friday (10/8) write a four-page essay on the ethical dilemmas of downloading. I expect four quotes from our Reader. The goal of ethical living is important to our personal & social lives. As Hinman said,

Our search is a personal one, a search for wisdom. But it is also a social approach, one that seeks to discern how to live a good life with other people, how to live well together in a community.

In other words, we cannot stop with ourselves when imagining an ethical life. We must develop something that makes sense for everyone and that serves everyone equally.
We have an absolute rule against stealing, but is that the last word in deciding whether something like downloading is wrong? Hinman also said, ‘Absolutists are unable to make sense out of the fact that sometimes we have genuine moral disagreements among well-informed and good intentioned people …”(Reader) The moral /ethical principles must be carefully described to make this essay work. Is it a question of virtue or utilitarianism rights, or human flourishing, an absolute or relative notion?
Is downloading just plain wrong or is there a space for disagreement between people? What ethical systems in our reader explain the point of view of those opposed to downloading illegally and those who defend it. Our essays offer reasons for the unethical or the ethical use of downloading of music? You have to use your imagination to apply them. But just to show you the value of looking at the other sources I have provided here’s a quote on the positive view of downloading by an artist. Janis Ian writes:

The NARAS (National Association of Recording Arts And Sciences) people were a bit more pushy. They told me downloads were "destroying sales", "ruining the music industry", and "costing you money". Costing me money? I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their agenda because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my wallet...and check it after they leave, just to make sure nothing's missing.
Am I suspicious of all this hysteria? You bet. Do I think the issue has been badly
handled? Absolutely. Am I concerned about losing friends, opportunities, the possibility
of gaining my 10th Grammy nomination by publishing this article? Yeah. I am. But
sometimes things are just wrong, and when they're that wrong, they have to be addressed.
The premise of all this ballyhoo is that the industry (and its artists) are being
harmed by free downloading.
Nonsense. Let's take it from my personal experience. My site www.janisian.com
gets an average of 75, 000 hits a year. Not bad for someone whose last hit record was in
1975. When the original Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a
month from people who'd downloaded Society's Child or At Seventeen for free, then
decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones
who let us know how they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs. Not huge sales, right? No
record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But... that translates into $2,700,
which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn't include the ones who bought the
CDs in stores, or who came to my shows.
Or take author Mercedes Lackey, who occupies entire shelves in my local
bookstore and library. As she says herself: "For the past ten years, my three ‘Arrows’
books, which were published by DAW about 15 years ago, have been generating a nice,
steady royalty check per pay-period each. A reasonable amount, for fifteen-year-old
books. However... I just got the first half of my DAW royalties... and suddenly, out of
nowhere, each Arrows book has paid me three times the normal amount!.... And because
those books have never been out of print, and have always been promoted along with the
rest of the backlist, the only significant change during that pay-period was something that
happened over at Baen, one of my other publishers. That was when I had my co-author
Eric Flint put the first of my Baen books on the Baen Free Library site. Because I have
significantly more books with DAW than with Baen, the increases showed up at DAW
first. There's an increase in all of the books on that statement, actually, and what it looks
like is what I'd expect to happen if a steady line of people who'd never read my stuff
encountered it on the Free Library - a certain percentage of them liked it, and started to
work through my backlist, beginning with the earliest books published. The really
interesting thing is, of course, that these aren't Baen books, they're DAW---another
publisher---so it's 'name loyalty' rather than 'brand loyalty.' I'll tell you what, I'm sold.
Free works." (sic)
I've found that to be true myself; every time we make a few songs available for
free download on my website, sales of all the CDs go up. A lot.
And I don't know about you, but as an artist with an in-print record catalogue that
dates back to 1965, I'd be thrilled to see sales on my old catalogue rise! (“The Internet Debacle”)
In other words, Ian says that many artists have seen the value of the downloading movement and that they can profit from it. She sees the recording companies as the major opponents of P2P sharing. You decide where we should begin to sort out the truth of it in an ethical way.
We should note that Jaron Lanier, our summer reading, has concluded that downloads are destroying culture is some way along with artists record sales. He writes that the notion of open culrture as and downloads is factitious and that the artists will not find other ways of profiting from their work (see Chapter 5, pp. 87-93). Quote it!

Suggested shape of the essay
Choose sides. You can be ambivalent but you have to say that even though every point of view has merit, in the long run your opinion is preferable.

1. You can start the essay with the example you already wrote about. Or find another example from your observations or the sources and use that.
2. Then quickly analyze and give me quick thesis in the second paragraph or so. A thesis sounds something like this when understanding or interpreting is your goal.
Our community world needs to understand something because it has some impact.
3. Then you need to define what ethics are. Quote our essays to support your definition. As so-and-so said,… and follow every quote with an explanation of some sort in your own words—In other words,…
4. Speak about what the opposing side thinks and use our Reader to support their argument.
5. React to their argument. Tell me why you disagree with in part or in whole.
6. Now assert your viewpoint. Use the ethics essay to tell me the foundation for your perspective. Then use your experience to make it persuasive and to arouse sympathy with your point. Use quotes from our text.
7. End by telling me the consequences of agreeing or disagreeing with you.

Let’s begin with looking at a real case. You even use it in your essay if you choose. Please write a response for Monday--about two pages will do. Is Downloading Music immoral?
Write a response to this ethical question. Here’s a news account from Bloomberg News. Vivendi, Music Industry Win First Downloading Trial (Update2)
By Susan Decker and Tom Wilkowske:
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and other record companies won the first trial over music downloading in their case against a Minnesota mother of two accused of sharing songs over the Internet without permission.
A jury in Duluth, Minnesota, said today that Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old environmental coordinator with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians, improperly distributed songs over the Internet. She was told to pay $9, 250 for each of 24 songs downloaded, for a total of $222, 000.
The copyright-infringement case was the first against an individual to go before a jury since members of the Recording Industry Association of America began filing lawsuits four years ago against people they claimed were improperly swapping music files. Thomas denied downloading the songs and said the record companies couldn't prove that she did.
``The law here is clear, as are the consequences for breaking it,'' the RIAA said in a statement. ``When the evidence is clear, we will continue to bring legal actions against those individuals who have broken the law. This program is important to securing a level playing field for legal online music services.''
Thomas's lawyer, Brian Toder, of the Minneapolis law firm Chestnut & Cambronne, had no comment on the verdict. In closing arguments, Toder said Thomas, who lives in Brainerd, Minnesota, copied some songs onto her computer from CDs she owned, and she didn't know how unauthorized copies may have gotten there.
``We don't know what happened,'' Toder told the jury. ``All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn't do this.''

Welcome to the Jungle.
The record companies claimed that Thomas downloaded 1, 702 songs to her computer from the music site Kazaa. The trial centered on just 24 of those songs, including ``Iris'' by the Goo Goo Dolls and ``Welcome to the Jungle'' by Guns 'n Roses.
A computer security firm hired by the industry detected the songs remotely in a shared folder on Thomas' hard drive, a folder Thomas said wasn't hers. Music industry lawyer Richard Gabriel said the jurors, speaking to him after the verdict was announced, told him that Thomas was tech-savvy enough to know what was happening on her computer.
``It seems that the jury was sending a message,'' said Gabriel, of Holme Roberts & Owen in Denver. The jurors declined to speak directly to the media.
Ray Beckerman, a lawyer with Vandenberg & Feliu in New York who represents other people who've been sued and set up a blog on the industry policy, said the verdict should be overturned on appeal. He said the decision will just embolden the music companies to file more lawsuits.
``They'll feel, `Oh we got this great thing that we can go around and brag about it and scare people,''' Beckerman said. ``That's what they live for, scaring people. It's all based on extortion.''

26, 000 Suits
More than 26, 000 lawsuits have been filed by record companies, and about 8, 000 have been settled, usually with the individual paying about $3, 000. Some cases have been dismissed because the individuals were dead, children or people who didn't own computers, or because of other hardship reasons.
While the recording industry has been criticized for suing its own customers, music companies say the suits have been effective in raising public awareness and cutting down on illegal downloading.
The RIAA, citing its own polling, said the percentage of people who said downloading for free is illegal jumped to 73 percent in 2007 from 37 percent in 2003. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that piracy costs labels $4.5 billion a year worldwide in lost sales.
The record companies sought from $750 to $30, 000 for each of the 24 songs, and as much as $150, 000 per song if the infringement was found to be willful, or intentional.
The association's members include the labels owned by the four major record companies: Universal Music Group, Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG's Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd.'s EMI Group Plc, and Warner Music Group Corp. All the companies had songs that were part of the suit against Thomas.
The case is Capitol Records Inc. v. Jammie Thomas, 06-1497, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota (Duluth).
To contact the reporters on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net ; Tom Wilkowske in U.S. District Court in Duluth, Minnesota, at wilko@clearwire.net .

Homework for Monday
A woman was charged with illegally downloading about two dozen songs and lost in court. She is being fined $222, 000.00 dollars. She was originally offered a settlement of a few thousand dollars. As you can see, she simply denied doing it.
What do you think of this case? Is it a moral question at all—or just some question of disputed rights and ownership? Is it immoral, unethical or illegal to download music or all three? Is it unethical to choose to prosecute one person and not the other millions who commit the same crime? Is it unethical to fine one person thousands and another a quarter million?
Should music companies create a system for downloading that serves its customers? Should all web material be without copyright? or—Should we respect the rights of artists and music companies to own and profit by their products-without downloading?
Give me your opinion. Combine with your personal experience and observations of others. And quote the passage in two places at least.

Essay beginnings
What happens at the start of an essay? I have four qualities that I look for in a sturdy academic essay:

1. Establishing the significance of the essay- why it had to be written and /or why it should be read (You can do this with a story or with cases that illustrate the problem or with a statistic or a very strong quote and many other ways. Do you know someone who downloads?);
2. Asserting the purpose/thesis of the essay—what does the writer want us to know or to understand;
3. Finding the focus or the scope of the essay—what are limits in this essay, in the ideas, the objects under consideration; and
4. Suggesting the thrust of the essay—where is it going, what is the map of this essay (You could say in this essay I will…. But is that too overt?)
I will be looking at the essay to see how it begins. All of this should somehow happen in the opening paragraphs of your essay. You decide how to make it happen.
Remember that persuasion includes–as Aristotle said—ethos, pathos and logos, or (1) our trust in the writer or other authorities, (2) our reaction to the powerful emotions in a story, and most of all (3) our faith in irrefutable logic. Good writers use all three in some way.

Commencement Address 2010: It's all good!

2010-06-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

Okay so I have taught the Crown Core course 27 times in 27 years, courses on AIDS, on Columbus, on Gallileo and Newton, on Jane Goodall and the chimps, on Darwin and on native americans, so the last few years on genetics and cloning and genetically modified chickens … Did you read Oryx and Crake or Frankenstein? … on robots and trans-humanism, I consider it part of my continuing education. And the class was about ethics too. As the students would say "It’s all good!" of course they say it when they really mean "No worries!" which actually means "You are so not Fresh; and I haven’t got time to make the deeply disturbed nature of your misunderstanding clear to you. So it's all good."

In our core class I guess we learned the laws for robots and some fundamentals of genetic counseling, all of which will come in handy for you, I promise. I have the core reader right here somewhere and I do plan on reading it again someday.

But I also taught writing. And in writing we try to get people to have purposes in their speeches and essays purposes that are connected with the purposes in their lives, so I need to get to the thesis as soon as possible.

As I recall I gave a brief speech in your course lecture while you were pretending to listen in which I said that the UC was a public research the institution and that the larger purpose, beyond getting you a job, was to serve the people of the state of California by educating you to invent new knowledge and new things and to be a resource for the community. I told you that the people who worked in the dining hall and did the other jobs to make you safe and healthy were also paying something for your education. They deserved that you would take the responsibility to be a resource for our state and community. They deserve also that you will help to sustain this university by voting for education and supporting your university.

So the thesis is that we need to understand that it is our purpose to invent knowledge and use knowledge to be happy and to make a respectful and successful and happy community. Now you just have to figure out what makes you and your community happy.

I was also the Mayor and I discovered two things about that: (1) the best thing about it was giving your business card to sixth graders and (2), when you are mayor you have to give a lot of speeches for all kinds of events and in those speeches you have to thank people. So let’s say thanks right now in fact I want the students to say thanks right now to staff, faculty and their parents; you can wave to them. I will say thanks to you for giving me the greatest job a person can have.

I‘m supposed to give you the advice which I never gave myself, like don’t Text WD and floss and wear long sleeves to your job interviews. I have nothing against tattoos; my father had them and my son and everyone I know and love has them. But I don’t know how people choose which to get ... and it’s because I am not fresh. I’m not even cool about my slang terms.

I don’t get it and that is integral to what I have to say to you. You do get it. You will get work. You will find happiness in your personal lives. You will be successful. and I know you’re saying how can you say that? Well why would I say anything else? I know that you will have plenty of jobs that do not seem to fit your skills. I have had every job imaginable from sales to janitoring to hospitaling. My father told me that every job had dignity and that every skill was an art and could be done in a way that was artful from digging a hole to washing dishes. Of course I had an advantage that most of you do not. My wife Ginny and I had a child when I was your age. So work seemed like a pretty useful thing. My advice about work is simple: You’re smart enough; now be pleasant and respectful and build that community and you will never be sorry about any job; any moral job can be done with dignity. I didn’t get this job until I was almost thirty years old. So make many copies of your resume and let them say no. Eventually they will say yes. I have seen a statistic that the unemployment rate for people 22-24 is thirty percent down in the last two years. Thanks Obama. Why? well you're smart and you're cheap. But it will take time to invent and shape your job. So don’t get panicky.

But I was going to say something about tattoos or what we call body art. First as I said I don’t really get it. I saw a young woman student last month with a tattoo on her leg that said I heart weekends. So this is a generational thing. I mean I get putting your mother's name on your skin or even your favorite symbol like a skull with fire in its eyes or some very nice Japanese Koi but I heart weekends was more than I could process And it is exactly why this woman will be a success in life.

It is a post modern dilemma so let me tell you a post modern joke: It’s from the Marx Brothers and may be apocryphal which only makes it more valid as a source for postmodern thought.

Chico says, There’s a million dollars buried in the basement of the house next door.
And Groucho looks out the window and says, But there is no house next door.
So Chico says, Well then we better build one.

I only have 8 minutes so I can’t explain it to you but to quote the movie “The Song of Bernadette” for the believer no explanation is necessary, for the unbeliever no explanation is possible. Like I said I don’t get it. I can only make it into a modernist realistic parable. So if we build schools, then they will be full of geniuses or if we build prisons, they will be full of somebody that we call criminal. But that makes what is essentially irrational into something safe and rational.

In reality the world is full of nonsense and requires the kind of creative and at times magical thinking that builds houses with basements expecting a fortune and it might pull us out of this morass and only you can do it. Because you get the joke and you know why that woman tattooed I heart weekends on her leg. You might think you don't get it, but that’s only the red bull talking. You get it. You are fresh.

So we have to love the irrational if we are going to live in irrational times. What’s irrational? Well we love oil and it is killing us; we love speculation on wall street and it's killing us. We want to stop drug dealers and so we are busting people’s grandmothers and children without papers in Arizona and here. We love family but we do not extend that to gay people. We just invented ebooks that pretend they are turning the pages and everybody is really happy about this. I mean that's irrational.

What else is irrational? A writer in Germany who was persecuted by the Nazis was asked why he did it and he said when events are at their cruelest and most brutal, then it is even more important “to penetrate the world with love.” Yesterday was Anne Frank's birthday and she said that in spite of everything she still thought people were good. My own father who was interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo forgave his enemies and was himself an enemy of war all his life. It is not always the rational thing that makes change. In fact, loving your enemy is a miracle of irrationality.

Of course we have a model at Crown, Terry Freitas the student whose name is on our community service award. He was a friend of mine and if I could rename the college for him, I would . He visited with me every few weeks for a few years, and we would talk about the college or the world and it was a blessing to have that opportunity. He was murdered in the jungle of Colombia. But he would have called it a cloud forest. or a rain forest.

There’s a quote from Terry in one of websites devoted to him and to his companions where he says “We are doing this work so that people can listen to singing.” I would carve that into the crossbeam over the college office.

I have to add that he did not go into this forest as an avatar. More’s the pity. He went in the flesh. I am not sure what you will be asked to do: go to war as a drone warrior or to live in the world as sims or enhanced creature or to stuff golf balls in oil wells with a remote operated Vehicle. But we all have our jungles or cloud forests: maybe in medicine or engineering new things for people the corporate jungle or the oceans even a neighborhood can be a jungle and all of these places have to be penetrated with love and we have to work so that people can hear the singing.

I had my moments in various jungles some of them quite dark but I want to tell you about one of them. The earthquake in 1989. Maybe you were a year old. The town fell down and like those people in the gulf, I hated the government. I could either get pretty angry and cynical or try to change it, So I became a commissioner and then I was invited to run for council and I became a councilmember in 1998 and the Mayor in 2000-01. Even a small coastal city can be a dangerous jungle or a miraculous cloud forest. It is a human endeavor and we need to go about this work in the same spirit I spoke of: we need to penetrate these jungles with love. and we have to work so that people can listen to singing.

I want to remind you that I was invited to run for office. Someone said you should do this. And that was the moment when I thought that I could do this. It is important to invite people to ask them to do something and to tell them that you believe that they can do it. In a dark time we get cynical and we become certain of defeat but that is the time when we should be penetrating the world with love and that means we should be inviting people to take action and to live creatively. We should be inviting the children out there to come to the university we want you to be here. We invite you to be a dedicated scientist and to go to med school and to start a business and to create your family. To save the planet and to bring justice to someone even if it is in the smallest circumstance: Justice needs to be everywhere and the health of the planet is everywhere.

We don't forget you when you leave. You can write to me at timfitz@ucsc.edu or look at the blog: timfitz.blogspot .com. i will put my notes for this speech on the site. This year two students from twenty or so years ago wrote to me and said that I probably did not remember them. That was not true. I don't always get the names right but a little coaching and it comes back. Even if you were not in my class or in core at all I would like to hear from you. Something about making the world into a caring and respectful place. Remember there is no job that lacks dignity if it is a moral job.

But that is twenty years from now. Right now, go build that house, the one with the million dollars in basement.

Assignments for this week 5/10ff

2010-05-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

We will meet on Wednesday at the McHenry library in a classroom behind the reference desk--just ask--at the class time--2pm or 3:30pm as the case may be. We will begin to do research for our final project.

On Wednesday your homework. Please bring a paragraph or two answering the question: Why did Sihem blow herself up?

We also have an essay due Friday. Here is the assignment:

Writing 2 Spring 2010 Tim Fitzmaurice Essay on Suicide Terrorism: Logical or Irrational? Due Friday May 14th Four or five pages with citations from the film, the novel and the Pape book—at least one reference to each.

Write a four- to five-page essay on the causes of suicide terrorism and the possible responses to it, according to what we have read. I want your opinion to guide the discussion, but I expect to see five or more quotes from the novel, The Attack, the non-fiction book, Dying to Win, and the film, “Paradise Now.”
Shaul Shay in The Shahids (Transaction Publishers, 2004), a book presenting an Israeli point of view that we did not read, says that

despite several “rays of light” in the dark terrain of suicide attacks … it would appear that in the foreseeable future suicide attacks will continue to constitute the central threat posed by radical Islam against its adversaries in the Muslim world, the West, and at any other confrontation points of Islam against other cultures …. The combination of suicide attacks along with non-conventional means … may become the gravest threat to public security throughout the free world. (The Shahids at the library, page 221)

Some of Shay’s assertions, in his book, are in stark disagreement with Pape’s notion, in Dying To Win. Similarly, in an interview the director of a new film, “Suicide Killers,” makes a similar point that suicide bombing is an attack by a fringe element of Islamic fundamentalists against anything that contradicts their world view—not merely occupation, and the majority of their own community does not support them, and that the only strategy is a harsh response against that minority of “Nazis.” Pape says that suicide attack is not about Islam and is not going to be directed willy-nilly at any other point of confrontation, but in fact is restricted to arenas where occupation is central. What do you think is the case? What is the motive for these attacks, the strategic, the social, and the individual motives that drive people to these murderous extremes and how should we address the problem? Are the attackers supported by the community? Are they focused on democratic states like Pape says and at war against occupying forces or are they just madmen and women, driven by distorted religious ideas, who hate certain people, ideas and states that they disagree with?
Please use quotes from the film, the novel, and the book to make your argument, to show the problem, the people involved, and the ways that it fits into the communities where it occurs and why it seems to happen. Then talk about solutions to it. You cannot start this essay with a story from your personal history or observations, unless you have been involved somehow, but you can use the readings or the film for an example to kick off the essay—a great source for this I think. Just narrate a piece from the film or novel and then start theorizing.
Remember that a thesis says something like “We as a community need to understand this thing for what it is and to take the right action to respond to it in some productive way. If we don’t we can expect some very real consequences.” So if you can fill in the blanks about what the idea is that we need to understand and how we need to understand it, then you can begin to write this essay from your perspective.

See you, Tim

Writing 2 Syllabus Spring 2010

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Writing 2 Comp & Rhet Spring 2009 Tim Fitzmaurice timfitz@ucsc.edu
MWF Sect 14 at 2pm & Section 15 at 3:30pm Kresge 325 BLOG: timfitz.blogspot.com OFFICE: Crown 111, 459-2483 Office Hours: Wednesday 12:30-1:30 and by appt.
Required Texts: (All are at the Baytree Bookstore.)
1. Gilligan, Violence; 2. Ainsworth, 75 Arguments; 3. Khadra, The Attack; 4. Pape, Dying to Win
Required Work:
1. Write five formal essays, and revise two of them thoroughly.
2. Attend every class meeting and participate in discussion.
3. Meet with the Instructor twice.
4. Do the in-class assignments, including oral report, and submit all assignments on time.
5. Submit a portfolio of all of your work at the end of class. We have no final exam.
If you will be absent, please let me know as soon as possible. Call or email.
Academic Honesty
It is important that you write your essays yourself without help from unknown sources. I need to know how you are doing your work. Be sure to give credit for every quote you use and every idea you borrow. Put quote marks around the words and use a parenthesis at the end to tell me where you found it. If you use other people’s ideas, you need to tell where you got those ideas. Good writers quote others. So this won’t make your writing weaker. It will make it stronger.
Essay Format
On essays for this class please use white paper and black ink. Do not give me cover sheet or title pages. Leave space in the margins for my marks, double space. Avoid unusual type fonts. Write your name, the class, and the date in the upper right corner of the page. Make sure the date is accurate. Write revision if it is a rewrite. Give every essay a title. Put a page number on each page, and staple the essay in the upper left hand corner. I can comment on emailed essays, but I need a hard copy to mark the essay. I expect you to provide this.
Assignment for our next class.
Interview and write a profile, no more than two pages, of another student in our class. You will be asked to introduce this student to the rest of the class, giving us two truths and a lie on the first day.
Assignment for discussion on Wednesday and for submission on Friday.
Write a brief (3 pages) response to the question: What is violence? Use a story from your experience to start the essay, something you have seen either in your life or in your reading or on the media. It could be school violence or sports violence, any incident that can help you to explain to me what violence is. Then tell me if violence is a natural thing or a social thing. Nature or nurture: Do we learn it or do we just express our biological aggression? I will give you an article from the famous and controversial socio-biologist Edward O. Wilson to help you begin this discussion. I expect you to quote him three times at least in the course of this essay.

Calendar for Writing 2, Spring 2009 Tim Fitzmaurice Crown 111 UCSC
I may make changes to this arrangement. 459-2483 timfitz@ucsc.edu

Week 1 March 29/ 31/April 3 Introduction
Profile of another student due on Wednesday. Essay on Violence: Nature or Nurture? Due on Friday (2 pages+).

Read Ainsworth Chapter 5 over the weekend and write a response to the essays, as assigned (p. 196, p. 224, p. 240, p. 247, p 249). One page telling me what the thesis was and how successful the argument was for you. Choose at least two essays.

[Prepare for the future! Visit the jail assignment. You are required to visit the jail or to tell me why you cannot visit. You can make your appointment for any Sunday by going online at the County Sheriff site: http://www.scsheriff.com/ click on Corrections and then go to Public Jail Tours. You need to fill out a form and get permission to visit. So do it soon and go with a friend. A limited number can go on any one day. So book your tour right away. If you do not have California ID, I need to put your name on a list. Please talk to me.]

Week 2 April 5/7/9 Purpose and thesis.
Discuss this week the essays in Chapter 5 of Ainsworth.
Due: Friday an opening thesis and strategy for essay 1 on Security and Liberty.

Week 3 April 12/14/16 Organizing your essays: Strategies
Discuss this week the essays in Chapter 7 of Ainsworth.
Due a draft of essay1 on Monday.
Read Ainsworth Chapter 7 and 9.

Week 4 April 19/21/23 Structure of paragraphs: Coherence
Discuss this week the essay in Chapter 9 of Ainsworth.
Library Visit TBA Start reading Khadra and Pape this weekend

Week 5 April 26/28/30 Sentence grammar and subordination
Due: Due Essay 2 on either Chapter 7 or 9 of Ainsworth.
Monday film.
Read Khadra and Pape on suicide terrorism

Week 6 May 3/5/7 Style and logic
Discuss Khadra and Pape this week.
Due: a revision of Essay 1 or 2 by May 6th
We will arrange the groups for the oral presentations and essay 5.

Week 7 May 10/12/14 Research and citation
Due Essay 3 on Terrorism on Monday.
Monday film. “Lock Up/ Lock Down”
Discuss Gilligan and incarceration. It would be good to visit the jail before we get to this conversation. Read Gilligan, the first hundred pages.

Week 8 May 17/19/21 Writing assignments in different disciplines
Read Gilligan (the rest of it) to use in conjunction with the essay 4 on Incarceration.
Due Friday Essay 4 on Incarceration.

Week 9 May 24/26/28 (Monday is a holiday) Revision
Oral Presentations
Due: a revision of an essay.

Week 10 May 31/June 2/4 Instruction ends June 5; no final exam Holiday Monday.
Oral Presentations
Due essay 4 final draft and portfolio containing your work from this quarter. The portfolio contains all of your essays in the draft and final form. It should also contain the other writing we did in the class, daily writing, the profile, and other responses. You can rewrite everything if you wish to try to improve your grade.

Essay 1: On Security and Liberty
Write an essay about the problem of freedom and security after 9-11. In an era of terrorism and the limiting of civil freedoms, an era of surveillance, suicide bombings, torture and war, can we have security without sacrificing freedoms, like privacy rights and freedom of expression? What do we need to understand about this? I will give you a two-page handout for this essay. Use Essays from Ainsworth in Chapter 5 as the foundation for this essay.

Essay 2: On Violent prejudices
Read the Chapters 7 & 9 in 75 Arguments that discuss issues of identity and marriage. You can include essays from other Chapters as well. No Web Sources please. I will give you a longer version of this essay assignment. Write a four-page+ essay with references to at least three essays from our text. You have choices for this essay:

1. On Identity and Race: based on essays in Chapter 9.
2. On Marriage: Based on readings in Chapter 7.

Essay 3: Why suicide Bombing?
Write an essay that discusses the nature of the suicide bombing and your best understanding of the theories of what drives the suicide bomber.
Please refer to the film “Paradise Now,” the book Dying to Win and the novel The Attack.

Essay 4: An essay on Crime and Punishment.
Visit the county jail. Read and cite the book by Gilligan and the film, “Lock Up/Lock Down.” Then discuss the effects of jail and punishment on offenders. And how we might improve our approach to solving problems of violence.

Essay 5: A research essay on some topic concerning the community, including gangs and youth, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, Violence against women, international violence, media and sports violence. You are asked to do your own research into the topic and to present the information with your group. The essay does not have to be the same as the presentation.

Oral presentation due in Week 9 or 10. Your oral presentation topic will be the same as your fourth essay topic. You will get your topic assignment in class. You will work with four or five other students on this topic. Each writes their own essay.

Revisions will be periodically assigned, but you can revise at any time and rewrite until you are satisfied with result.

Formatting and citing.
All of our essays are four to six pages long in the final draft. I expect you to cite your sources and provide a list of sources at the end of the essay. I expect all essays to be typed, double spaced, on white paper and stapled, with page numbers on each page and the correct date. You may only use the sources that I suggest for your essays. I do not trust the web sources. So use any outside source, particularly those, with caution. You can use wither MLA or APA style. If you want an exception any of the “rules” I have just enumerated—like the limits on sources—then ask me.

I recommend that you think about doing the essays in the following way:
1. Begin with an example or story that shows the importance of the issue. This story can come from your own experience or observation. It can be a look at someone you know or it can be drawn from our reading. Analyze it briefly.
2. Write a thesis. The community needs to understand something about the issue and to act in some way. That’s the simplest version of an argumentative thesis.
3. Spend some time defining the topic and its main terms and ideas. Use quotes from our text or observations you have made about the topic. Support the thesis, your purposeful goals, with examples and with logic, with facts, and with quotation of sources.
4. Talk about the obstacles to accomplishing these purposes and why they exist
5. Talk about the best way to solve these problems, if there is a solution.
6, Good essays end by looking at why your point of view is crucial and why it will help us address the problem. If the problem is ignored, the society will be worse.

Writing Process
1. Assert your Purpose and thesis
2. Gather facts and arguments to develop the essay. (logic, examples, quotes, facts)
3. Determine who the Audience is and what they need. (tone of voice, diction)
4. Draft the essay.
5. Revise the larger structures and overall strategies, including paragraphs.
6. Revise the smaller sentence level style.
7. Edit and fix the grammar, usage, spelling and punctuation errors.

Purposes depend on what we know, what we believe, and what we want to do.
A famous Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, once said that in this world we can accomplish three purposes: (1) to be aware of the facts and of reality, (2) to understand what these facts mean, and (3) to act compassionately or to make the world better based on our knowledge. Some of our essays are just about the facts and most of them are about how to understand the facts and the some about what we need to do.
So when you think about your topic try to describe the facts (1) what you and your audience need to know about it. Then talk about (2) how to understand it, the theory behind your point of view. In college we are mostly concerned with making sense of something, with understanding. The third goal is (3) to act to do something about it. In a way that goal is political. It means we have to make our world better.
Everyone is different. We all see the world in a unique way. Our understanding and out purposes are shaped by our values and by our ideology. In school we study different disciplines to discover what our unique point of view might be. Some of us are artists and some engineers and some economists and some psychologists and some sociologists. You cannot borrow your purpose from someone else.

What is violence? Are we experts on the topics we write about?
No. We are curious intellectuals. I am aware that we all have different backgrounds and knowledge of these topics and that the essays you write this quarter will be based on partial knowledge and first impressions of thinkers in the field. Your essays are judged on how well you use this foundation to write intellectually capable essays reflecting the insights of a reasonable person. We are not thoroughly versed in the theories about violence and what causes it. So the essay is based on your experience in the world and on your reading and observations in various media.
For your essay on incarceration, for example, you can use the essay you wrote in the first week of this quarter. You wrote a short piece based on reading a short essay on the biology & violence by Edward O. Wilson, a highly controversial socio-biologist. You can look at Gilligan’s theories in his book. In class we will discuss theories of where violence comes from and begin to write our own perspectives on it.

Writing 2 Section 13 and 14 Spring 2010 Tim Fitzmaurice
ESSAY 1: On Security and Liberty Due Monday April 12th.
Write an essay about the problem of freedom and security after 9-11. In an era of terrorism and the limiting of civil freedoms, an era of surveillance, suicide bombings, torture and war, can we have security without sacrificing freedoms, like privacy rights and freedom of expression? What do we need to understand about this?
John Stuart Mill says in our reader that self-government “is not government of each by himself (sic), but of each by all the rest” (199). Mill says

…the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. (204)

In other words, individual freedom of action can only and should be limited if it is a threat to others. The rest of his essay is committed to asserting individual freedom, but this part asserts the necessity of limits. People can’t be permitted to hurt others. In fact, he later says that we are answerable for doing evil “not only by our actions but by our inactions” (206). So we must be not actively hurt anyone and not passively allow people to be hurt. He binds individual freedom and the safety of all very closely together.
Do we need armies, police, laws? To respond to terrorist threat can we limit people’s freedoms? Can we invade their privacy? Surveillance, torture, profiling, strip-searches, militarism, border control? Should we reduce freedom of action for safety?
Matthew Brzezinski asks in his essay how much should our security cost us: “How Far Should We Go?” (224) It has led to surveillance, torture, a denial of habeas corpus, a lack of judicial oversight on search warrants. Can we tolerate this loss of civil protection? And he says the cost will be even higher in the future

… domestic security will dwarf every other kind federal spending: education, roads, subsidized housing, environmental protection. More than that decisions we make about how to protect ourselves—the measures we demand, the ones we resist—will take over our political discourse and define our ideas about government in years to come. (239)

In effect, for Brzezinski, our way of thinking about democracy is and will be shaped by our history. What about the effects of people coming across the border? In Silko’s essay, the fear of intruders has changed the way we look at migrant workers and every dark skinned person. Security is racialized. She says, “’Immigration,’ like ‘street crime’ and ’welfare fraud,’ is a political euphemism that refers to people of color” (245). So our response to terror is a complex problem. We need to understand it. That is your assignment to tell me how we as a community should understand this problem and respond to it. Use the essays in Chapter 5. The chapter ends, incidentally, with Mona Charen, a conservative voice, saying “if we err on the side of civil liberties instead of security, hundred of thousands or millions of Americans could die” (251).
Hints about writing this essay.
What do you think and how do you support your argument, with these texts, with your observations, with logical argument? I want to suggest that at heart the question is simple. It is almost inevitably a kind of balancing act. The challenge in this assignment is to strike your balance and to put the arguments in order. So what is the structure of an essay like this? Bring a draft of your thesis and some supporting ideas & quotes on April 10th.
Opening: What example makes your argument significant and focuses on your eventual point. It could be a personal account of 9-11. It could be a paraphrase from the essay or an observation of someone else responding to an incident in the war on terror, a soldier, a bombing victim, someone whose rights were infringed because of the new emphasis on controlling people, searching or border protection or airport surveillance or interrogation. The essay starts with a strategy introducing the fundamental focus and topic.
Thesis: Then you need a thesis or purposeful way of asserting your controlling idea. This section is notable for breaking out of the opening narrative or statistics or cases or whatever strategy to become theoretical and analytical and large in scope—what does everyone need to know to understand or to do about this situation? A straightforward thesis could say something like -- We as a society need to understand this phenomenon and take certain actions.
Body: The next challenge is the way you might develop or support your argument. It depends on what strategies you think you need to use to persuade people or to explain the phenomenon. Define it. Quote the texts to tell me what the problem is and how some people see it.
I need to see where the issue is. In this instance, you can show this by looking at different points of view in the essays Charen’s perspective: Get real! We need safety first. Who cares about the “inconvenience” of surveillance or tough border controls? Or Emma Goldman’s notion that “War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battles; therefore they take boys from one village ... and let them loose like wild beasts against each other” (216). Or Silko’s notion that our homeland security rules are not just inconvenient, but are bound up with racism and a “police state” (244).
Remember that this where you assert what you need to say about the matter. It depends on how you read these people and other essays in our book. DO NOT USE ANY WEB SOURCES. But feel free to go to any other essay in our textbook. I like the essays on law and obedience and civil disobedience in Chapter 6. I welcome references to the essays in Chapters 1 and 11.
The essay needs to speak about those who disagree with you. Find the opposing views, quote fairly, analyze them, and respond to their arguments if possible.
Ending: Essays end with a sense of the lesson to be learned from the argument. If we agree about this then we can move forward in a positive direction. If we do not understand this properly we are going to hell in a hand basket—whatever that is. And you can close the circle by returning to your opening example or strategy in some way.

Essay 2 Assignment

2010-04-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

ESSAY 2 WRITING 2 Spring 2010 Tim Fitzmaurice DUE Friday April 30th

You have many choices for this assignment. The essays in Chapters 7 & 9 of Ainsworth’s 75 Arguments provide us with discussions of many challenging topics.
In Chapter 7 we read about gay and straight marriages and divorce and about arranging the marriage of our children or suggesting they marry in their ethnic group. We also get some direct comments on sexism and the role of women and power in relationships.
In Chapter 9 we read about how we shape race and ethnicity and how it shapes us. We read about stereotyping and discrimination.
It is your challenge to take two or more of these essays—or any other relevant essays in our text—and shape a thesis that discusses the issues and helps the reader to understand your position on the matter and he position of the sources you are referring to.
On Friday April 26th we will look at the thesis you have chosen to write about. We will discuss Chapter 7 essays on Friday the 16th of this week and on Monday the 19th. We will discuss essays in Chapter 9 on the 21st and 23rd. I want you to write a response to two essays from these chapters and submit them during or discussion times. I recommend that you also look at the essay by Staples on Black men (421) and Takaki on Asian stereotypes (419). For your consideration, I want to add an essay from Chapter 3 by Sairra Patel on how the media represents Muslim women (157).
The essay should make references to at least two of our essays and avoid web or other references unless you ask me about it in advance. It should aspire to be four pages long.
The question for this open-ended essay can be understood as what is the nature of this so-called problem? Why does it occur? And how do we address it in a free society?
The essay should be four pages long and make references (quotes) to two of our essays using as many quotes as you find useful to be persuasive.
Preliminary Assignment: Write a response to the essays you chose or were assigned in two pages discussing how they made their case and whether or not they were persuasive. Experiment in Memory (extra credit)
Memorize these pegs
1. Gun
2. shoe
3. flea
4. door
5. hive
6. tricks
7. heaven
8. gate
9. mine
10. pen
Now make an absurd imaginative connection with the following and memorize them in order : 1.Clash of the Titans, 2.Date Night, 3.How to Train Your Dragon, 4.Why Did I get married Too, 5.The Last Song, 6. Hot Tub Time Machine, 7. Alice in Wonderland, 8.The Bounty Hunter, 9.Diary of Wimpy Kid, &10. Letters to God

MLK Weekend assignments

2010-02-17T13:17:00.001-08:00

Writing 20 Assignment for this weekend February 11-17

1. February 11th Thursday night at 7pm
Go to the Martin Luther King Convocation at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Church Street near the City Hall and the downtown library
The event will feature a talk by TV Actor (West Wing, The Practice, Nurse Jackie) and Poet/Playwright (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992) Anna Devere Smith. It’s free.Please check with your activities office for free shuttles. They usually leave the bookstore about 6. But check. Please write a page or so about what Smith says and what the event is like for you.

2. If you cannot attend the convocation then please write a two-page reflection on King based on his writings in our textbook—the “I Have a Dream” speech and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Is King’s m,essage still important, the messages of “not waiting” and “non-violence” for example.
Everyone should read these pieces. Only write if you do not go to the convocation.
We will talk about them on Wednesday next week.

3.February 12th Friday No class. Essay is due by five-o’clock. Please put it under my door at Crown College room 111. It is on the floor below our classroom.

4. February 15th Monday President’s Day Holiday No class.

5. Read Tuesdays with Morrie this weekend—to page 100. And write a personal story or observation of education when it works and educations when it doesn’t work and why—no more than two pages.

6. Read the first chapter of Ainsworth 75 Arguments. Pay special attention to Anzaldua, Tannen and Nilsen’s essays. Choose an essay and tell me what the theme/purpose of the essay is and how it works. Write a paragraph.

7. And it’s time to start revising your second essay. It’s due Friday the 17th.

It is a lot to do, but it is almost a week. So don’t save all the work for next Tuesday. Good Luck.

Writing 20 Weekend assignments

2010-02-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

Please write a brief opening narrative--a story or an example from your experience or observations of the world around you or from some other source like TV or film or news reports--of gun violence.

Then write a thesis statement for your next essay about gun control. Should guns be banned with some exceptions--like military or police or hunting or target shooting-- or should guns be freely owned with some exceptions--like age restrictions or mental health or felony record restrictions. Perhaps certain guns should be illegal or certain new rules should be made about owning a gun--licenses, insurance, training sessions like driver's ed.

We will use these assignments as a starting point for next week's essay assignment. The essay three assignment is already posted.

Thank you. Tim

Wr 20 Essay 3

2010-01-29T15:13:00.000-08:00

Essay 3 is on guns and violence & fist Stick knife gun by Geoff Canada.
Writing 20 Tim Fitzmaurice Essay Draft Due February 12.

Geoffrey Canada in his book Fist Stick Knife Gun describes the impact of a violent neighborhood on children. He suggests many solutions for these problems. One of his primary focuses is on handguns. He discusses this issue at length, for example in chapters 17 & 22, and he suggests on page 164 that we reduce and regulate handguns. He says

I believe all handgun sales should be banned in this country. The argument made by some that second amendment was passed so Americans could own weapons is a specious one. The Second Amendment reads a “Well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The militia, not individual citizens, is the subject of the Second Amendment. We as citizens in this country should have aright not to be killed by other citizens who own guns. (165)

On the other hand, many believe the constitution guarantees our right to own guns of any kind, for self-defense or any other purpose. Roger Koopman, in “Second Defense,” says

If we are going to start winning these battles (for gun ownership) and regaining ground already lost, we must start framing the so-called “gun issues” in constitutional terms and show how every citizen has a stake in the outcome.
[This handout will be given to you next week in class. ]

How do we solve this problem? Should any person have the right to own any gun? Should we control the possession and sale of handguns and other weapons? Maybe we should just control larger assault and automatic weapons. Or maybe you think the second Amendment gives everyone the right to own any gun they want. Since we have to be realistic, Canada does make suggestions about steps that fall short of a complete ban. In his book, Canada suggests several approaches like licensing guns, requiring insurance, marking ammo with an i.d. and buying back old guns (cf. 164-166). Should we have age limits, limits based on criminal record or mental health? Can we create a solution that works and do you see the need for this? As Koopman says, everyone “has a stake in the outcome.” In your essay be sure to use Canada and your own experience and observations to describe what the problem is. You can also use essays from our other text. But absolutely no web sources.

For Wednesday February 3rd Read Canada’s book
Assigned: two-page response to Canada’s Chapter 4. We will look very closely at the rhetorical strategies in Canada’s book, his use of fact, of logic, and of narrative to make arguments, how it shifts from part to part of the book, taking on a decidedly more political intention in the last section. The sections of the book seem to grow up rhetorically, the early portions—about his early childhood experiences are less logically arranged than the middle or later sections. More theoretical as he grows older.
If you missed class Friday please write a response to both Chapter 4 and to chapter 3. Thank you.

Assignments for Martin Luther King weekend

2010-01-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Assignments for the long weekend January 16, 17, 18, 19 Writing 20 2010

I found the assignments confusing, and so I thought I would sort them out one more time.

1. Read Chapter 9 in Ainsworth and focus on the essays on pages 406, 419, 421, 425, 428.
2. Choose one of these essays and write a response to it—What is the author’s point? Do you agree? Pull out a good quote something like that no more than two pages.
3. Write a page on Maria Root’s essay on page 428. It speaks of multiple identities and we need to think about what makes up an identity.
4. Skip the question on the handout that says you should find a quote in Takaki and write about myths. Just skip it--#2 I think.
5. Read Saleem and write to me about what you think of her argument for arranged marriage. Is she for it? No more than a page.
6. Martin Luther King Day is Monday. No essay is due on MLK this week. Our convocation is at eth Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on February 11, 2010, 7pm, admission free. Anna Devere Smith, poet, movie star, and TV actor, will speak.
So our essay on MLK is not due until February—after the convocation.
Maybe I will write you again over the weekend. You can find the assignments repeated at timfitz.blogspot.com.

The assignment sheet I gave out in class with part crossed out.
Writing 20 Tim Fitzmaurice Essay 2 On Culture & Identity
“… an individual can have simultaneous membership and multiple, fluid identities with different groups.” (Maria Root, 431)

Culture is not simply the ethnic group we were born into. It is a complex and often changing membership in traditions, religions, sexual identities, vocational (job) identities, that shape us and that we share with others.
How does culture and identity contribute to our personal happiness and success? Can we look at the elements of our own culture and identity and see how these factors make us more likely to succeed?

For Wednesday
1. Write a page based on reading Maria Root’s essay on multiple identities (428) What are the fundamental elements of your identity?
2. Skip this!
3. Look at the Sabaa Saleem essay on 323.
What do we owe to our family? Loyalty to tradition or independence or a balance of the two?

Have a good weekend! Tim

Essay 1 Wr20 w10

2010-01-08T17:09:00.000-08:00

ESSAY 1 On censorship Writing 20 Tim Fitzmaurice Due Friday 1/15
Write a four-page essay on whether and how we should control the expression of obscenity, sexuality, and violence or control the political content of the internet in media. Use at least three citations from our texts.
In China, the internet is severely politically restricted. Many hope that the internet might be a way to break down the repression of freedom and democracy. But it may be a false hope. As Stroehlein says on pages 110 and 111: “ The (political) opponents (online) can score a few victories in that virtual space, but meanwhile, back in reality, little changes for the people on the ground.” In other words, the elites who use the internet to communicate may gain freedom, but millions of ordinary people never benefit. Nevertheless, the Zenger case indicates that anti-government satire and political speech can be useful. As Olson says, (the Zenger case) “made possible the dynamic growth of political expression in the colonies by making it relatively safe for Americans writers to publish political humor … critical of men in office.” (75) Maybe this can eventually come true in China.
Aside from political speech, we also have to consider whether or not to limit sexual or violent speech. Should we censor the anti-police songs of Ice-T? Is he a revolutionary or just violent? Or, as Ehrenrich says, is he a “macho” blowhard whose “gestures are cheap” (113)? She says “revolutions are made by people who have learned to count very slowly to ten” (113). In other words, again it is not the educated elite who make change but ordinary people. But should his offensive language be censored?
Pornography may be the most chilling example for us. The idea that young people may be exposed to offensive web sites has made some people want to filter library and university networks. The opponents say that “the ready availability of sexually explicit material can create occasional but deeply disturbing encounters” (and) “is inherently demeaning to female faculty members, administrators and students” (O’Neil, 100). Should we “protect people from being gratuitously assaulted by digital material that may be deeply offensive” (103)?
Should our library internet, public and/or university, be filtered to protect people from offensive material? How is censorship abused? What kind of protections can we provide for children who may be exposed to degrading sexual or violent imagery on the internet? Can you provide a view of violent or sexually explicit material on TV or in videogames. Should they be censored in some way? How? and Why?
Hints on Writing:
1. Begin your essay with an example from your experience or observations or violent or sexual imagery in media, something you have seen or heard about.
2. Write a thesis. (We as a community need to understand that something is wrong and we need to do something about it. We should do this.)
3. Then define what the problem is. Quote from our texts, giving examples of political, pornographic, obscene, or violent image problems.
4. Talk about what other people have done to control these images, like China or Universities or media groups.
5. Explain what you would do.
6. Tell me what your opponents might say against your approach.
7. End by asserting your view again and return to the story or example you began the essay with.
To the students:
I will present a view of the opening of effective essays that emphasizes four elements:

Significance
Thesis
Focus
Direction

The opening example/story should help to establish the focus and the significance—what we are going to discuss and why we need to discuss it.

Then after brief analysis of the opening example the thesis should be presented. In this case it probably states that we have to make sense of how to address problems of offensive imagery without making our internet useless. You will read the paragraph 13 on 103 about how to balance the need to protect children from taking away rights from adults. So most thesis statements will speak about this balance of need for access and protection of the immature or sensitive observer. Most essays are about taking a stand but recognizing the ambivalence and ambiguity of the situation. I don’t want a kind of “both things are true” thesis but rather a “While of course we need to understand or do this, we must do this other thing above all else.”

The next step is defining some of the terms we are using. I want you to have a quote to use. I will choose several quotes for tomorrow about the possible focuses: e.g., Porn 103 para 13; Violence 141 para 20 & 113 para 8; Political speech 111 p33 & 89 para 39; profanity 55 para 11 54 para 7 [captive audiences] & 98 para 14.

So you have four things to think about this weekend:
1. Thesis
2. Quote and analysis.
3. Opening example.
4. Your opinion—for or against—censorship.

Please type them up. I only want the thesis and quote assignments for Monday and the opening example assignment for Wednesday. For Monday you are also going to write your general opinion (for it or against it) about censoring violence or sexuality in media. That could be a paragraph long. It is on the syllabus.

Writing 20 Winter 2010 Syllabus

2010-01-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

Writing 20 Written Discourse Winter 2010 Tim Fitzmaurice

Sections 6 & 7 MWF 2-3:10 & 3:30-4:40 in Crown Classroom 202
timfitz@ucsc.edu, 459-2483
Office Hours: Wed 1 to 2 and by appointment in Crown 111

Required Texts:
Ainsworth, Alan, 75 Arguments: An Anthology.
Albom, M, Tuesdays with Morrie
Canada, fist stick knife gun (You should begin to read these books now.)

Required Work:
1. Write four formal essays, and revise two of them thoroughly.
2. Work with the Writing Assistant regularly.
3. Meet with the Instructor twice.
4. Do the in-class assignments & oral work, and submit all assignments on time.
5. Attend every class and participate in the discussion. If you will be absent, please let me know as soon as possible. Call or email.

Academic Honesty
It is important that you write your essays yourself without help from unknown sources outside of the class. I need to know how you are doing your work. Then I can help you to do it better. You will be assigned to a writing assistant for help in writing and revising your essays for the ELWR requirement. Please tell me if you need other help.
In addition, you need to be careful about quoting sources or using words from other writers. Be sure to give credit for every quote you use. Put quote marks around everything and use a parenthesis to tell me who said it first. If you use other people’s ideas, you need to tell where you got those ideas too, even if you do not quote the exact words. Good writers quote others. So citing sources won’t make your writing weaker. It will make it stronger. But you must give credit.

English Language Writing Requirement (ELWR)
Even if you do not need to satisfy the ELWR, the class still requires that you write four essays and two thorough revisions. If you have satisfied the ELWR already, then tell me what goals you have for this class when we meet. I will try to make sure the class is an effective experience for you.
If you need to satisfy the ELWR Requirement, you have to do a few extra things. In this class we will write four essays and revise two of them. We will use those revisions for the ELWR Portfolio. To pass ELWR this quarter, you have to take an in-class exam for one hour, write a letter to the reader about your writing, and submit two essays (totaling 8 to 12 pages long). Each essay includes two drafts, an original draft with my marks on it and a final revision. The two essays will be from our class this quarter. So you should write every essay with a view to revising it to satisfy the ELWR requirement.

Essay Format
On essays for this class please use white paper and black ink, do not give me cover sheet or titles pages, leave space in the margins for my marks, double space, avoid unusual type fonts, write your name, the class, and the date in the upper right corner of the page, make sure the date is accurate, write revision if it is a rewrite, give every essay a title, put a page number on each page, and staple the essay in the upper left hand corner. I will comment on emailed essays, but I need a hard copy to mark the essay and I expect you to provide this. I do not accept essays by email unless we have some previous agreement. And even then, I expect a hard copy to follow.
Any essay in our texts can be used as source material for any essay you write. But no Web material is allowed. No Google. No Wiki. If you have a question about this—or need an exception—talk to me. But I am pretty clear that you need to stay away from the web.
Essay Assignments: (You will receive a full page of description for each of the following assignments. But here is a brief description of what to expect. I may change the assignment significantly if events warrant.)

Essay 1 is on Censorship.
Using the essays provided in Ainsworth, 75 Arguments, especially Chapter 2, please write an analysis of the problem of freedom of expression and its limits. Quote the essays in our texts at least three times for all essays in this course, more if indicated.

Essay 2 is an essay on Identity and Culture.
For this essay we will reach into several chapters in Ainsworth, from Chapter 3, 4, 7 and 9. You will argue that cultural differences need to be understood and either used for happiness and success or modified. Note the essay by Maria Root, “Within, Between, and Beyond Race” or Patel’s “The Media and its representation of Islam and Muslim Women” or Edwards “… Bring me Home a Black Girl” or Sullivan’s “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.” You can look at culture is many different ways.

Essay 3 will be based on a reading of fist stick knife gun by Geoffrey Canada.
The essay will be supplemented with an oral report on a topic from Canada, wherein you will explain his position on some issue and your view of the same issue.

Essay 4 is on Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.
You have a wide variety of options, including
a. Death
Since it is the central theme of the book, it is a common choice of topic. It is challenging to say the least to write about this in an organized way. I recommend simpler concepts.
b. Education.
The book demonstrates a different attitude and approach to education. You could write about rethinking education like this.
c. Choose one of the book’s themes
In class we discussed many of the themes of the book. You could choose one of these themes as well and look at what the book said about it and what you thought about it. The themes include family and forgiveness and love and materialism.

Calendar for Writing 20 W10

2010-01-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

Calendar of assignments for Writing 20 Sections 6 and 7.
Tim Fitzmaurice Winter 2010 2-3:10 & 3:30-4:40 Crown 202
Texts: Ainsworth, Alan, 75 Arguments (2008); Canada, Geoffrey, fist stick knife gun (1995); Albom, Mitch, Tuesdays With Morrie (1997).

Week 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE ACADEMIC ESSAY
1/7 Wed Introduction to the syllabus and to the ELWR requirements.
Assignments: Write a one-page response to handout. Write a one-page profile of another student. Read for discussion the essays in Ainsworth 52-59& 138-141 & 114-117. Assignments: Write a brief note to tell me where the thesis is and whether the essay worked. You will speak about this orally in class.
1/9 Fri Introduction of another student is due. Assignment: Read in Ainsworth, Chapter 2 on Censorship. I will assign specific essays. Write your opinion of censoring violence or obscenity. Extra Credit: See Ainsworth, 353, Bertrand Russell “In Praise of Idleness,” a terrific essay on work. Write a response about it to me on email. (timfitz@ucsc.edu)

Week 2 PURPOSE & THESIS: OPENING THE ESSAY
1/11 Mon Assignments: Write a thesis for essay 1. Write an analysis of a quote you intend to use in your essay.
1/13 Wed Assignment: Write a draft of Essay one. SEE YOUR TUTOR!
1/15 Fri Essay 1 is due. Assignments: Read Ainsworth essays pp. 157, 169, 172; Chapter 9 especially pp. 406, 419, 421, 425, 428. I will assign essays for you to focus on over the next week or two. Our next meeting is next Wednesday. Bring in a two-page response to an essay in this group. What is the author’s purpose? How do they make their point? What is your opinion? You have assignments for MLK Day.

Week 3 DEVELOPING ESSAYS: ESSAY STRUCTURE
1/18 Mon Holiday Assignments: Read on MLK (Ainsworth 279 & 414) Write a 2-page response to these essays or to the Convocation speaker. (After the Convocation of course)
1/20 Wed Assignment:
1/22 Fri. Assignments: Read Essays from Chapter 7 on Marriage and Divorce. I will assign specific essays. Write an approach or a thesis for Essay 2 on Identity and Culture.

Week 4 SUPPORTING ESSAY: ANALYZING & INTERPRETING TEXTS
1/25 Mon Assignments: Refine your thesis and choose quotable supporting material to analyze for Essay 2. Write the quotes (about three) and your analysis in a page or so.
1/27 Wed
1/29 Fri Essay 2 is due. Assignments: Read Geoffrey Canada’s book, fist stick knife gun, Part 1. Write a response to one section. I will assign the section.

Week 5 REVISING: A WRITER’S GRAMMAR & RHETORIC
2/1 Mon Assignments: Read Canada Part 2. Write a response to one section.
2/3 Wed Assignments: Read essays from Ainsworth Chapter 1 and the Introduction.
2/5 Fri Assignments: Read Canada Part 3. Write a thesis for Essay 3. You can begin to write the rough draft.

Week 6 REVISING: SENTENCE STRUCTURE & STYLE
2/8 Mon Assignment: Write a Draft of Essay 3
2/10 Wed We will discuss revision.
2/12 Fri Essay 3 is due. Assignments: Read Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie to Page 100 and beyond. Write an example, a personal observation, of good education and bad education. Revise your essays 1 and 2.

Week 7 REVISING: STRUCTURE OF PARAGRAPHS—UNITY & COHERENCE
2/15 Mon Holiday
2/17 Wed We will discuss revision. Assignment: Revise your essays.
2/19 Fri A Revised Essay is due. Assignment: Read the last half of Albom.

Week 8 LOGIC, FACTS, TEXTS, AND EXAMPLES: TYPES OF DEVELOPMENT
2/22 Mon We will discuss revision.
2/24 Wed
2/26 Fri Two Revised Essays are due. Assignment: Write your letter for the ELWR portfolio.

Week 9 IMMEDIATE WRITING
3/1 Mon We will discuss revision and in-class writing.
3/3 Wed In-Class essay for the ELWR. Don’t miss this class!
3/5 Fri All portfolios are due for ELWR. Assignment: Readings from Ainsworth on technology and writing, Chapter 11.

Week 10 WRITING FROM EXPERIENCE
3/8 Mon Assignment: Write your theme and thesis for essay 4.
3/10 Wed Assignment: Write a personal experience to use as an opening for essay 4.
3/12 Fri

Week 11
3/15 Mon Final day of class—No final exam; all revisions & Essay 4 are due.

This calendar is subject to change. But the due dates should be correct. The readings might be adjusted but they are about right. I will ask you to write in class often and the source for those writings will be these essays as well as material I find elsewhere.

Our Writing Assistants for Writing 20 Winter 2010

2010-01-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

Please write to them on class business matters only.

Amy Tom (atom@ucsc.edu)
Stephanie Yee (sxyee@ucsc.edu)
Mallory Caplan (mcaplan@ucsc.edu)
Sarah Welsh (saewelsh@ucsc.edu)
Marek Jones (mjjones@ucsc.edu)
Kelly Koval (kelly.koval@gmail.com)

Incidentally my email for the class is timfitz@ucsc.edu

Core Essay 3

2009-10-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

Essay 3 on Genomic Privacy and Due October 24th
Core Sections 1, 2 & 3 Tim Fitzmaurice

In her essay on Proposition 69, Simoncelli says,

While law enforcement authorities would like us to believe that the samples will never be used for anything besides catching criminals, an unlimited span of improper uses remain plausible so long as those samples are retained. Compounding this problem is that few laws prohibit genetic discrimination by employers, insurers, or medical care providers. As more DNA is collected, and as advances in genetic research “up the ante” on its informational value, instances of discrimination and misuse will grow as well. (70)

Simoncelli’s purposes are obvious: to limit the exploitation of the collections of DNA from people in the criminal justice system, whether they are innocent or guilty. But privacy and the sharing of information about genetic information are problems with complex impacts. Should a family member know that the child they are carrying has a very high risk of Muscular Dystrophy, as in Tony Hope’s chapter on page 62 and 63 of our reader? Is the genome privileged individual knowledge or joint knowledge that family members or employers or society has a right to?
In your essay provide a description of what this kind of genomic testing and fingerprinting is. Tell me what the current laws and thoughts are about these issues and assert what you think of the right that individuals have to privacy and when they surrender those rights. Look at the Public Health Code of Ethics and decide if we need even greater clarity about the rules. Use at least three quotes from three different sources in our Reader.

The essay is due Friday.

For Monday please write an analysis of a quote from Simoncelli, a general statement about her concerns about racism or discrimination against the poor, the black, and the immigrant in her essay. Find a quote that fits this issue, please. Write it out and talk about it. You can tell me if you think this concern is justified or if such lawbreakers merit this invasion of their privacy.

I also would like a thesis statement you might use in your essay.

Essay 2 Core 2009

2009-10-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

Crown Core course Essay 2 An ethical question Due 10/9 Tim Fitzmaurice

For next Friday write a four-page essay on the ethical dilemmas of downloading. I expect four quotes from our Reader. The goal of ethical living is important to our personal & social lives. As Hinman said,

our search is a personal one, a search for wisdom. But it is also a social approach, one that seeks to discern how to live a good life with other people, how to live well together in a community. (Reader 16)

In other words, we cannot stop with ourselves when imagining an ethical life. We must develop something that makes sense for everyone and that serves everyone equally.
We have an absolute rule against stealing, but is that the last word in deciding whether something like downloading is wrong? Hinman also said, ‘Absolutists are unable to make sense out of the fact that sometimes we have genuine moral disagreements among well-informed and good intentioned people …”(Reader 7)
Is downloading just plain wrong or is there a space for disagreement between people? Read the essays I have provided by email and on timfitz.blogspot.com, including
“The Internet Debacle” by Janis Ian, “Internet Piracy” from enotes.com, plus links to “Use Illegal Downloading to teach Kids Ethics” from The Tampa Tribune, and other sources I may send to you. Please do not go searching for other sources on the web. The most important sources are the essays in our Reader, Section 1.
What ethical systems in our reader explain the point of view of those opposed to downloading illegally and those who defend it. Our essays offer reasons for the unethical or the ethical use of downloading of music? You have to use your imagination to apply them.
But just to show you the value of looking at the other sources I have provided here’s a quote on the positive view of downloading by an artist, Janis Ian:

The NARAS people were a bit more pushy. They told me downloads were
"destroying sales", "ruining the music industry", and "costing you money".
Costing me money? I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law,
but I do know one thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their
agenda because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my wallet...and check it
after they leave, just to make sure nothing's missing.
Am I suspicious of all this hysteria? You bet. Do I think the issue has been badly
handled? Absolutely. Am I concerned about losing friends, opportunities, the possibility
of gaining my 10th Grammy nomination by publishing this article? Yeah. I am. But
sometimes things are just wrong, and when they're that wrong, they have to be addressed.
The premise of all this ballyhoo is that the industry (and its artists) are being
harmed by free downloading.
Nonsense. Let's take it from my personal experience. My site www.janisian.com
gets an average of 75,000 hits a year. Not bad for someone whose last hit record was in
1975. When the original Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a
month from people who'd downloaded Society's Child or At Seventeen for free, then
decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones
who let us know how they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs. Not huge sales, right? No
record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But... that translates into $2,700,
which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn't include the ones who bought the
CDs in stores, or who came to my shows.
Or take author Mercedes Lackey, who occupies entire shelves in my local
bookstore and library. As she says herself: "For the past ten years, my three ‘Arrows’
books, which were published by DAW about 15 years ago, have been generating a nice,
steady royalty check per pay-period each. A reasonable amount, for fifteen-year-old
books. However... I just got the first half of my DAW royalties... and suddenly, out of
nowhere, each Arrows book has paid me three times the normal amount!.... And because
those books have never been out of print, and have always been promoted along with the
rest of the backlist, the only significant change during that pay-period was something that
happened over at Baen, one of my other publishers. That was when I had my co-author
Eric Flint put the first of my Baen books on the Baen Free Library site. Because I have
significantly more books with DAW than with Baen, the increases showed up at DAW
first. There's an increase in all of the books on that statement, actually, and what it looks
like is what I'd expect to happen if a steady line of people who'd never read my stuff
encountered it on the Free Library - a certain percentage of them liked it, and started to
work through my backlist, beginning with the earliest books published. The really
interesting thing is, of course, that these aren't Baen books, they're DAW---another
publisher---so it's 'name loyalty' rather than 'brand loyalty.' I'll tell you what, I'm sold.
Free works." (sic)
I've found that to be true myself; every time we make a few songs available for
free download on my website, sales of all the CDs go up. A lot.
And I don't know about you, but as an artist with an in-print record catalogue that
dates back to 1965, I'd be thrilled to see sales on my old catalogue rise! (“The Internet Debacle”)

In other words, Ian says that many artists have seen the value of the downloading movement and that they can profit from it and that she sees the recording companies as the major opponents of P2P sharing. You decide where we should begin to sort out the truth of it in an ethical way.

Suggested shape of the essay
Choose sides. You can be ambivalent but you have to say that even though every point of view has merit, in the long run your opinion is preferable.

1. You can start the essay with the example you already wrote about. Or find another example from your observations or the sources and use that.
2. Then quickly analyze and give me quick thesis in the second paragraph or so. A thesis sounds something like this when understanding or interpreting is your goal.
Our community world needs to understand something because it has some impact.
3. Then you need to define what ethics are. Quote our essays to support your definition. As so-and-so said,… and follow every quote with an explanation of some sort in your own words—In other words,…
4. Speak about what the opposing side thinks and use our Reader to support their argument.
5. React to their argument. Tell me why you disagree with in part or in whole.
6. Now assert your viewpoint. Use the ethics essay to tell me the foundation for your perspective. Then use your experience to make it persuasive and to arouse sympathy with your point. Use quotes from our text.
7. End by telling me the consequences of agreeing or disagreeing with you.

Let’s begin with looking at areal case. You even use it in your essay if you choose. Pleasewrite a respoinse for Monday, about twop p[ages will do. Is Downloading Music immoral?
Write a response to this ethical question. Here’s a news account from Bloomberg News.
Vivendi, Music Industry Win First Downloading Trial (Update2)
By Susan Decker and Tom Wilkowske
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and other record companies won the first trial over music downloading in their case against a Minnesota mother of two accused of sharing songs over the Internet without permission.
A jury in Duluth, Minnesota, said today that Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old environmental coordinator with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians, improperly distributed songs over the Internet. She was told to pay $9, 250 for each of 24 songs downloaded, for a total of $222, 000.
The copyright-infringement case was the first against an individual to go before a jury since members of the Recording Industry Association of America began filing lawsuits four years ago against people they claimed were improperly swapping music files. Thomas denied downloading the songs and said the record companies couldn't prove that she did.
``The law here is clear, as are the consequences for breaking it,'' the RIAA said in a statement. ``When the evidence is clear, we will continue to bring legal actions against those individuals who have broken the law. This program is important to securing a level playing field for legal online music services.''
Thomas's lawyer, Brian Toder, of the Minneapolis law firm Chestnut & Cambronne, had no comment on the verdict. In closing arguments, Toder said Thomas, who lives in Brainerd, Minnesota, copied some songs onto her computer from CDs she owned, and she didn't know how unauthorized copies may have gotten there.
``We don't know what happened,'' Toder told the jury. ``All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn't do this.''
Welcome to the Jungle
The record companies claimed that Thomas downloaded 1, 702 songs to her computer from the music site Kazaa. The trial centered on just 24 of those songs, including ``Iris'' by the Goo Goo Dolls and ``Welcome to the Jungle'' by Guns 'n Roses.
A computer security firm hired by the industry detected the songs remotely in a shared folder on Thomas' hard drive, a folder Thomas said wasn't hers. Music industry lawyer Richard Gabriel said the jurors, speaking to him after the verdict was announced, told him that Thomas was tech-savvy enough to know what was happening on her computer.
``It seems that the jury was sending a message,'' said Gabriel, of Holme Roberts & Owen in Denver. The jurors declined to speak directly to the media.
Ray Beckerman, a lawyer with Vandenberg & Feliu in New York who represents other people who've been sued and set up a blog on the industry policy, said the verdict should be overturned on appeal. He said the decision will just embolden the music companies to file more lawsuits.
``They'll feel, `Oh we got this great thing that we can go around and brag about it and scare people,''' Beckerman said. ``That's what they live for, scaring people. It's all based on extortion.''
26, 000 Suits
More than 26, 000 lawsuits have been filed by record companies, and about 8, 000 have been settled, usually with the individual paying about $3, 000. Some cases have been dismissed because the individuals were dead, children or people who didn't own computers, or because of other hardship reasons.
While the recording industry has been criticized for suing its own customers, music companies say the suits have been effective in raising public awareness and cutting down on illegal downloading.
The RIAA, citing its own polling, said the percentage of people who said downloading for free is illegal jumped to 73 percent in 2007 from 37 percent in 2003. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that piracy costs labels $4.5 billion a year worldwide in lost sales.
The record companies sought from $750 to $30, 000 for each of the 24 songs, and as much as $150, 000 per song if the infringement was found to be willful, or intentional.
The association's members include the labels owned by the four major record companies: Universal Music Group, Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG's Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd.'s EMI Group Plc, and Warner Music Group Corp. All the companies had songs that were part of the suit against Thomas.
The case is Capitol Records Inc. v. Jammie Thomas, 06-1497, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota (Duluth).

To contact the reporters on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net ; Tom Wilkowske in U.S. District Court in Duluth, Minnesota, at wilko@clearwire.net .

Homework for Monday
Last week a woman was charged with illegally downloading about two dozen songs and lost in court. She is being fined $222, 000.00 dollars. She was originally offered a settlement of a few thousand dollars. As you can see, she simply denied doing it.
What do you think of this case? Is it a moral question at all—or just some question of disputed rights and ownership? Is it immoral, unethical or illegal to download music or all three? Is it unethical to choose to prosecute one person and not the other millions who commit the same crime? Is it unethical to fine one person thousands and another a quarter million?
Should music companies create a system for downloading that serves its customers? Should all web material be without copyright? or—Should we respect the rights of artists and music companies to own and profit by their products-without downloading?

Give me your opinion. Combine with your personal experience and observations of others. And quote the passage in two places at least.

Essay beginnings
What happens at the start of an essay? I have four qualities that I look for in a sturdy academic essay:

1. Establishing the significance of the essay- why it had to be written and /or why it should be read (You can do this with a story or with cases that illustrate the problem or with a statistic or a very strong quote and many other ways);
2. Asserting the purpose/thesis of the essay—what does the writer want us to know or to understand;
3. Finding the focus or the scope of the essay—what are limits in this essay, in the ideas, the objects under consideration; and
4. Suggesting the thrust of the essay—where is it going, what is the map of this essay (You could say in this essay I will…. But is that too overt?)

I will be looking at the essay to see how it begins. All of this should somehow happen in the opening paragraphs of your essay. You decide how to make it happen.

Remember that persuasion includes–as Aristotle said—ethos, pathos and logos, or (1) our trust in the writer or other authorities, (2) our reaction to the powerful emotions in a story, and most of all (3)our faith in irrefutable logic. Good writers use all three in some way.

Crown Core Introduction 2009

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Crown Core Course 2009 Tim Fitzmaurice
Sections 1 12:30-1:40 Crown 201; Crown 111 459-2483
Section 2 11-12:10 Crown 201; Office Hours: Wednesday 2-3 & by appt
Section 3 9:30-1040 Social Sciences 2-171 timfitz@ucsc.edu
blog: timfitz.blogspot.com. Please go to the site soon and write a comment.
Required Texts: Giep, Anne Frank Remembered & Crown Core Reader at Baytree.

How to do well in Core.
1. Never miss class or a group tutoring session. My boss told me to tell you that tutoring is just as important as section. But that’s not right it is more important. If you miss tutoring, the tutor does not get paid and I get upset. If you miss class, I still get paid. So it is not the same. Therefore always call me when you miss tutoring right away. (252-3197).
2. Participate in every section discussion. If you do not know how, then come and talk to me about it after class or in office hours.
3. Get your essays and other projects in on time, but never miss class because it isn’t ready. You can always tell me about your problems writing. That is the goal of the class: to solve your writing problems. So call me when you have problems.
4. Visit with me at least twice this quarter for conferences on your writing. I will make appointments for you and you can make appointments for yourself. Go to your tutoring sessions as well.
5. Read the material and go to the Core meetings for the science part of the course (BME83). I will go. If I have to go, so do you and please say hello to me to remind me that you were there.
6. Do not plagiarize or borrow other people’s words or ideas without giving them credit. We will discuss how to do this properly. But when in doubt just make a note at the end of your essay about any quote, source, or idea you are uncertain about.

Grades: You can take the course for a pass/no pass score instead of a letter grade.

Required formal essays: (two must be revised thoroughly with my help)
Essay 1: The summer essay on Ann Frank (cf, Miep Gies)
Essay 2: On your ethical framework (cf, McGinn & Treder)
Essay 3: The invasions of privacy (cf, Science Daily, Thomas, & Hope)
Essay 4: The social justices and injustices of genetics (cf, Stock, Fukuyama, etc)
Essay 4: Rejecting or accepting the powers of genetic technology: Therapy versus enhancement. (Stephens)
Full assignments will be distributed in class, on the blog, and/or by email.
Go to timfitz.blogspot.com to get extra copies or early copies of assignments.

Signing up with the Writing Assistant:
The tutoring sessions will be held weekly in groups of three or four. You will sign up in class on the second or third day of class. The times are variable and should be chosen to meet your schedule for the rest of the quarter.

Essay Format
All formal essays should be about 1200 words long (over four typed pages). They should be on white paper, stapled in the upper left hand corner, without cover sheets or plastic covers, in normal typeface, double-spaced, with one inch margins on both sides and two inches at the top and bottom, with page numbers on each page. Please type your name, the date, class and the section number, in the upper right hand corner. If it is a revision, please indicate that. I expect every essay to have a title centered above the text on the first page. You can cite your sources by putting the page numbers in parenthesis in the text after the quote or idea and making a bibliography, an alphabetical list of the authors of the books or articles at the end of the essay.

Assignments for our next class meeting:
1. Write a profile of another student and introduce them in the next class.
Please write a two-page profile of a fellow student. Look at their past and tell me why they decided to go to UCSC and what they hope to be doing in the future. We will discuss useful questions for this assignment in class.
2. Read your assigned section from Hinman, “A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory”(page 6ff) and write a brief explanation of what he is saying in your section and what you think it means.
3. Read pp 17-23. McGinn’s essay “ Introduction to Moral Literacy and Mike Treder’s essay “The Ethics of Valuing Human Life.” These essays will be the foundation for essay one.

In-Class Writing for Monday
I asked you to read a couple of paragraphs in the McGinn essays and I will ask you to write in class on these quotes.

1. Tell what McGinn means by “Taboo morality” versus “Rational morality” in the last paragraph on page 18 of the Reader.

2. What did McGinn say in paragraphs 11 and 12 on page 19 of the essay about moral relativism. What is relativism and what does it mean? Is the opposite of moral relativism absolutes, like the Ten Commandments or some other form of moral rules? What is the basis of your moral thinking so far. Maybe there are other alternatives or mixes of morality. (Hint: Rational morality and others yet to be discussed).

Purposes in Writing: Awareness, Understanding, and Action
Good writing begins with a solid purpose. In high school, they stressed a simple awareness of facts—tell me what you read. In college, our purposes revolve around making sense of facts and theories as we see them, our understanding. In other words, I need your opinion and your comprehension and criticism of other people’s ideas and of events and facts. So write with purpose. The third purpose is to take action based on your opinions and understanding of the facts. That is what we do in our work and daily lives.

Citation style

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Please look at this advice about citation. But pay closest attention to the recommendation to go to the UC library website for MLA or APA citation advice. They have the complete info.

Citation in MLA and in APA Writing Tim Fitzmaurice
Use the resources in the library to be sure you are correct. Find it by going to the university library website. http://library.ucsc.edu/ Click on Research.

MLA (Modern Language Association) is for Humanities writing. This system values first names or authors, and puts the date at the end because it doesn’t matter who had the latest idea only who had the best idea. Is the last history book or literary critique the best? Not necessarily.

http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/mla_citations.html
Here’s some examples of the MLA citation. When you quote or refer to a text, you include the title and author and put the page number in parenthesis in the essay. Then you put the citation at the end in the Works Cited.

Book by one author 
Rattenbury, Ken. Duke Ellington, Jazz Composer. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.

Book by two or more authors 
Jakobson, Roman, and Linda R. Waugh. The Sound Shape of Language.  Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1975.

An anthology or compilation  
Frye, Northrop, ed. Sound and Poetry. New York: Columbia UP, 1957.

Work in an anthology 
Allende, Isabel. "Toad's Mouth." Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. A Hammock  beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America. Ed. Thomas   Colchie. New York: Plume, 1992. 83-88.

Article from a magazine 
Bazell, Robert. "Science and Society: Growth Industry." New Republic 15   Mar. 1993: 13-14.

Article from a scholarly journal 
Scotto, Peter. "Censorship, Reading, and Interpretation: A Case Study  from the Soviet Union." PMLA 109 (1994): 61-70.

Article from a newspaper 
Feder, Barnaby J. "For Job Seekers, a Toll-Free Gift of Expert Advice."   New York Times 30 Dec. 1993, late ed.: D1+.

Government Publication  
United States. Congress. Senate. Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments.   Hearings on the "Equal Rights Amendment". 91st Cong., 2nd sess.  S. Res. 61. Washington: GPO, 1970.

Scholarly journals available online independently or as part of an archival database of journals (e.g. JSTOR) provide date of access and
Maynard, W. Barksdale. "Thoreau's House at Walden." Art Bulletin 81.2   (1999): 303-25. JSTOR. 19 Nov. 2002 < http://www.JSTOR.org>.

If the article was accessed through a library or institutional subscription service (e.g. Infotrac Expanded Academic, PsycInfo, Lexis-Nexis) provide the name of database publisher; subscription service; name and location of library or library system providing access; date of access and URL of subscription service's home page, if known
Bueno, Eva Paulino. "Carolina Maria De Jesus in the Context of  Testimonios: Race, Sexuality, and Exclusion." Criticism 41. 2 (1999): 257. Infotrac Expanded Academic ASAP, Gale. 22 Sept. 2000 .

APA( American Psychological Association) is for social sciences and general sciences. Look at it. It puts the date early and ignores the first names of the authors. So they value recentness. The last idea in science should be the best. And the APA system devalues whatever you can learn from first names like maybe gender or ethnicity. It is scientific.
http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/apa_citations.html

Book by one author
 Takaki, R. T. (1979). Iron cages : Race and culture in nineteenth-century America.  New York, NY: Knopf.

An edited book
 Jelin, E. (Ed.). (1991). Family, household, and gender relations in Latin America.   New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall.

Article or chapter in edited book  
Ruiz, V. L. (1992). Star struck: Acculturation, adolescence, and Mexican American  women, 1920-1950. In E. West & P. Petrik (Eds.), Small worlds: Children and  adolescents in Lawrence, America, 1850-1950 (pp.118-224). Plains, KS: University  Press of Kansas.

Article from a scholarly journal
 Martinez, E. & Palmer, S. (1993). Beyond black/white: The racisms of our time.  Social Justice, 20, 22-35.

Article from a newspaper
 For job seekers, a toll-free gift of expert advice. (1993, December 12) New York Times, p. D1.

Article from a magazine  
Corliss, R. (1993, September 13). Pacific overtures. Time, 142, 68-70.

Government document Commision on Special Education. (1993) Our future, our children: planning   for the next generation (93-094-P). Washington, DC:
Government   Printing Office.

General Form for Online periodical: 
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (2000).   Title of article. Title of Periodical, xx, xxxxxx.  Retrieved month day, year, from source.  

General Form for Online document: 
Author, A. A. (2000). Title of work.   Retrieved month day, year, from source.

Internet articles based on an exact duplicate of a print source: 
VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the  selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version].   Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.

Internet articles changed from the print source: 
VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the  selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version].  Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123. Retrieved October 13, 2001,  from http://jbr.org/articles.html

Article in an Internet-only journal:
Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize   health and well-being. Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved  November 20, 2000, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/ pre0030001a.html

Electronic copy of a journal article retrieved from database :
Borman, W. C., Hanson, M. A., Oppler, S. H., Pulakos, E. D., &  White, L. A. (1993). Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 443-449. Retrieved   October 23, 2000, from PsycARTICLES database.

The Criteria for Sources.
Remember that sources are most effective if they are
1. Recent: The timeliness of the research is important especially in social science and science.
2. Relevant: your choices have to be focused on the topic and your argument.
3. Reliable: Good sources are valid because they are done carefully, in a scholarly way. The best way to check on this is to look for peer reviewed articles, work that has been checked by other researchers, the peers of the author.

Essay on Suicide Terror

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Writing 2 Spring 2009 Tim Fitzmaurice Essay on Suicide Terrorism: Logical or Irrational? Due Monday May 11th Four or five pages with citations from the film, the novel and the Pape book—at least one reference to each.

Write a four- to five-page essay on the causes of suicide terrorism and the possible responses to it, according to what we have read. I want your opinion to guide the discussion, but I expect to see five or more quotes from the novel, The Attack, the non-fiction book, Dying to Win, and the film, “Paradise Now.”
Shaul Shay in The Shahids (Transaction Publishers, 2004), a book we did not read, says that

despite several “rays of light” in the dark terrain of suicide attacks … it would appear that in the foreseeable future suicide attacks will continue to constitute the central threat posed by radical Islam against its adversaries in the Muslim world, the West, and at any other confrontation points of Islam against other cultures …. The combination of suicide attacks along with non-conventional means … may become the gravest threat to public security throughout the free world. (221)

Some of Shay’s assertions, in his book, are in stark disagreement with Pape’s notion, in Dying To Win. Similarly, in an interview the director of a new film, “Suicide Killers,” makes a similar point that suicide bombing is an attack by a fringe element of Islamic fundamentalists against anything that contradicts their world view—not merely occupation, and the majority of their own community does not support them, and that the only strategy is a harsh response against that minority of “Nazis.” Pape says that suicide attack is not about Islam and is not going to be directed willy-nilly at any other point of confrontation, but in fact is restricted to arenas where occupation is central. What do you think is the case? What is the motive for these attacks, the strategic, the social, and the individual motives that drive people to these murderous extremes and how should we address the problem? Are the attackers supported by the community? Are they focused on democratic states like Pape says and at war against occupying forces or are they just madmen and women, driven by distorted religious ideas, who hate certain people, ideas and states that they disagree with?
Please use quotes from the film, the novel, and the book to make your argument, to show the problem, the people involved, and the ways that it fits into the communities where it occurs and why it seems to happen. Then talk about solutions to it. You cannot start this essay with a story from your personal history or observations, unless you have been involved somehow, but you can use the readings or the film for an example to kick off the essay—a great source for this I think. Just narrate a piece from the film or novel and then start theorizing.
Remember that a thesis says something like “We as a community need to understand this thing for what it is and to take the right action to respond to it in some productive way. If we don’t we can expect some very real consequences.” So if you can fill in the blanks about what the idea is that we need to understand and how we need to understand it, then you can begin to write this essay from your perspective.

Study Questions for Pape

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The essay question asks you to use Robert Pape's Book Dying to Win as a source for facts and as an argument you should respond to. Here are some study questions I have scribbled for the book. They are not meant to be essay questions only something to think about as you read:

Writing 2 Fitzmaurice Dying To Win, by Robert Pape
study questions Not all of these questions have answers. They’re just useful for keeping the various ideas and dilemmas in mind.

Why do we need to understand the true nature of suicide terrorism? Why does Pape think so? Find a quote that says this. And why do you think we do or do not need to study the real forces and motives behind this activity?

Why do these terrorists target democracies? What is an occupation?
What is Al Qaeda? Hezbollah? Hamas? LTTE? Zealots? Sicarii? Kamikazes?
What is Sunni, Shia, Salafi, Wahhabi, Sinhahese, Tamil, Sikh?
What conditions do you think created the surge in suicide bombings in various countries, including Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Iraq? What is the effect of the Marine Barracks 1983?
What is nationalism? What is martyrdom? If the religion and culture forbid suicide, how can these acts be acceptable to the community?

How can Pape say that the motive of the terrorist is not religious but is shaped by religious differences? See especially his discussion of Al Qaeda and Bin Laden’s comments on religion on Page 120. And his use of the Crusader analogy seems to be significant as well.

Bin Laden believes America is materialistic and not a religious threat at all. And he sees us as cowards (123) do you think Bin Laden is helped or hurt by his use of insults?

Bin Laden notes the weakness of U.S. power is in public opinion. Can the U.S. remove troops without being seen as dishonorable by the rest of the world? Is our personal reputation at risk? Is the danger of withdrawal really a question of protecting people and our interests in the region? Can we leave Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states and expect to see a change in suicide terrorism against the U.S.? Or is Pape suggesting simple defeat?

What are the demographic characteristics of suicide bombers as studied by Pape?

What are the motives for suicide bombers—do they choose or are they forced? What is the value or the rationale of the martyr testimonials?

We will discuss Part 3 on “Individual Logic …” In the film “Paradise Now” do you see agreement with Pape or elements that contradict his explanation? How about in The Attack by Jasmina Khadra?

In Pape, “12: A New Strategy for Victory” (237-250) he makes suggestions about what we can do to change the war “on terror” to a war “on the campaigns against the U.S.” –To quit fighting a vague notion and to fight what threatens us. What does he suggest?

Obama administration has decided not to use the term war on Terror anymore. Can you see why this is a positive move? Is it for the same reasons necessarily that Pape suggests?

Writing 2 Syllabus 09

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Writing 2 Section 14 and 15 Spring 2009 Tim Fitzmaurice
ESSAY 1: On Security and Liberty Due Monday April 13th.

Write an essay about the problem of freedom and security after 9-11. In an era of terrorism and the limiting of civil freedoms, an era of surveillance, suicide bombings, torture and war, can we have security without sacrificing freedoms, like privacy rights and freedom of expression? What do we need to understand about this?
John Stuart Mill says in our reader that self-government “is not government of each by himself (sic), but of each by all the rest” (199). Mill says

…the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. (204)

In other words, individual freedom of action can only and should be limited if it is a threat to others. The rest of his essay is committed to asserting individual freedom, but this part asserts the necessity of limits. People can’t be permitted to hurt others. In fact, he later says that we are answerable for doing evil “not only by our actions but by our inactions” (206). So we must be not actively hurt anyone and not passively allow people to be hurt. He binds individual freedom and the safety of all very closely together.
Do we need armies, police, laws? To respond to terrorist threat can we limit people’s freedoms? Can we invade their privacy? Surveillance, torture, profiling, strip-searches, militarism, border control? Should we reduce freedom of action for safety?
Matthew Brzezinski asks in his essay how much should our security cost us: “How Far Should We Go?” (224) It has led to surveillance, torture, a denial of habeas corpus, a lack of judicial oversight on search warrants. Can we tolerate this loss of civil protection? And he says the cost will be even higher in the future

… domestic security will dwarf every other kind federal spending: education, roads, subsidized housing, environmental protection. More than that decisions we make about how to protect ourselves—the measures we demand, the ones we resist—will take over our political discourse and define our ideas about government in years to come. (239)

In effect, for Brzezinski, our way of thinking about democracy is and will be shaped by our history. What about the effects of people coming across the border? In Silko’s essay, the fear of intruders has changed the way we look at migrant workers and every dark skinned person. Security is racialized. She says, “’Immigration,’ like ‘street crime’ and ’welfare fraud,’ is a political euphemism that refers to people of color” (245). So our response to terror is a complex problem. We need to understand it. That is your assignment to tell me how we as a community should understand this problem and respond to it. Use the essays in Chapter 5. The chapter ends, incidentally, with Mona Charen, a conservative voice, saying “if we err on the side of civil liberties instead of security, hundred of thousands or millions of Americans could die” (251).

Hints about writing this essay.
What do you think and how do you support your argument, with these texts, with your observations, with logical argument? I want to suggest that at heart the question is simple. It is almost inevitably a kind of balancing act. The challenge in this assignment is to strike your balance and to put the arguments in order. So what is the structure of an essay like this? Bring a draft of your thesis and some supporting ideas & quotes on April 10th.

Opening: What example makes your argument significant and focuses on your eventual point. It could be a personal account of 9-11. It could be a paraphrase from the essay or an observation of someone else responding to an incident in the war on terror, a soldier, a bombing victim, someone whose rights were infringed because of the new emphasis on controlling people, searching or border protection or airport surveillance or interrogation. The essay starts with a strategy introducing the fundamental focus and topic.

Thesis: Then you need a thesis or purposeful way of asserting your controlling idea. This section is notable for breaking out of the opening narrative or statistics or cases or whatever strategy to become theoretical and analytical and large in scope—what does everyone need to know to understand or to do about this situation? A straightforward thesis could say something like -- We as a society need to understand this phenomenon and take certain actions.

Body: The next challenge is the way you might develop or support your argument. It depends on what strategies you think you need to use to persuade people or to explain the phenomenon. Define it. Quote the texts to tell me what the problem is and how some people see it.
I need to see where the issue is. In this instance, you can show this by looking at different points of view in the essays Charen’s perspective: Get real! We need safety first. Who cares about the “inconvenience” of surveillance or tough border controls? Or Emma Goldman’s notion that “War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battles; therefore they take boys from one village ... and let them loose like wild beasts against each other” (216). Or Silko’s notion that our homeland security rules are not just inconvenient, but are bound up with racism and a “police state” (244).
Remember that this where you assert what you need to say about the matter. It depends on how you read these people and other essays in our book. DO NOT USE ANY WEB SOURCES. But feel free to go to any other essay in our textbook. I like the essays on law and obedience and civil disobedience in Chapter 6. I welcome references to the essays in Chapters 1 and 11.
The essay needs to speak about those who disagree with you. Find the opposing views, quote fairly, analyze them, and respond to their arguments if possible.

Ending: Essays end with a sense of the lesson to be learned from the argument. If we agree about this then we can move forward in a positive direction. If we do not understand this properly we are going to hell in a hand basket—whatever that is. And you can close the circle by returning to your opening example or strategy in some way.

Writing 2 Essay 1

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Writing 20 Overview Winter 09

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Writing 20 Written Discourse Winter 2009 Tim Fitzmaurice

MWF 12:30-1:40 & 2-3:10 in Crown Classroom 203
timfitz@ucsc.edu, 459-2483
Office Hours: Wed 11 to 12 and by appointment in Crown 111

Required Texts:
Ainsworth, Alan, 75 Arguments: An Anthology.
Albom, M, Tuesdays with Morrie
Canada, fist stick knife gun (You should begin to read these books now.)

Required Work:
1. Write four formal essays, and revise two of them thoroughly.
2. Work with the Writing Assistant regularly.
3. Meet with the Instructor twice.
4. Do the in-class assignments & oral work, and submit all assignments on time.
5. Attend every class and participate in the discussion. If you will be absent, please let me know as soon as possible. Call or email.

Academic Honesty
It is important that you write your essays yourself without help from unknown sources outside of the class. I need to know how you are doing your work. Then I can help you to do it better. You will be assigned to a writing assistant for help in writing and revising your essays for the ELWR requirement. Please tell me if you need other help.
In addition, you need to be careful about quoting sources or using words from other writers. Be sure to give credit for every quote you use. Put quote marks around everything and use a parenthesis to tell me who said it first. If you use other people’s ideas, you need to tell where you got those ideas too, even if you do not quote the exact words. Good writers quote others. So citing sources won’t make your writing weaker. It will make it stronger. But you must give credit.

English Language Writing Requirement (ELWR)
Even if you do not need to satisfy the ELWR, the class still requires that you write four essays and two thorough revisions. If you have satisfied the ELWR already, then tell me what goals you have for this class when we meet. I will try to make sure the class is an effective experience for you.
If you need to satisfy the ELWR Requirement, you have to do a few extra things. In this class we will write four essays and revise two of them. We will use those revisions for the ELWR Portfolio. To pass ELWR this quarter, you have to take an in-class exam for one hour, write a letter to the reader about your writing, and submit two essays (totaling 8 to 12 pages long). Each essay includes two drafts, an original draft with my marks on it and a final revision. The two essays will be from our class this quarter. So you should write every essay with a view to revising it to satisfy the ELWR requirement.

Essay Format
On essays for this class please use white paper and black ink, do not give me cover sheet or titles pages, leave space in the margins for my marks, double space, avoid unusual type fonts, write your name, the class, and the date in the upper right corner of the page, make sure the date is accurate, write revision if it is a rewrite, give every essay a title, put a page number on each page, and staple the essay in the upper left hand corner. I will comment on emailed essays, but I need a hard copy to mark the essay and I expect you to provide this. I do not accept essays by email unless we have some previous agreement. And even then, I expect a hard copy to follow.
Any essay in our texts can be used as source material for any essay you write. But no Web material is allowed. No Google. No Wiki. If you have a question about this—or need an exception—talk to me. But I am pretty clear that you need to stay away from the web.
Essay Assignments: (You will receive a full page of description for each of the following assignments. But here is a brief description of what to expect.)

Essay 1 is on Censorship.
Using the essays provided in Ainsworth, 75 Arguments, especially Chapter 2, please write an analysis of the problem of freedom of expression and its limits. Quote the essays in our texts at least three times for all essays in this course, more if indicated.

Essay 2 is an essay on Identity and Culture.
For this essay we will reach into several chapters in Ainsworth, from Chapter 3, 4, 7 and 9. You will argue that cultural differences need to be understood and either used for happiness and success or modified. Note the essay by Maria Root, “Within, Between, and Beyond Race” or Patel’s “The Media and its representation of Islam and Muslim Women” or Edwards “… Bring me Home a Black Girl” or Sullivan’s “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.” You can look at culture is many different ways.

Essay 3 will be based on a reading of fist stick knife gun by Geoffrey Canada.
The essay will be supplemented with an oral report on a topic from Canada, wherein you will explain his position on some issue and your view of the same issue.

Essay 4 is on Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.
You have a wide variety of options, including
a. Death
Since it is the central theme of the book, it is a common choice of topic. It is challenging to say the least to write about this in an organized way. I recommend simpler concepts.
b. Education.
The book demonstrates a different attitude and approach to education. You could write about rethinking education like this.
c. Choose one of the book’s themes
In class we discussed many of the themes of the book. You could choose one of these themes as well and look at what the book said about it and what you thought about it. The themes include family and forgiveness and love and materialism.

Calendar for Writing 20 Winter 2009

2009-01-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

Calendar of assignments for Writing 20 Sections 3 and 4.
Tim Fitzmaurice Winter 2009
Texts: Ainsworth, Alan, 75 Arguments (2008); Canada, Geoffrey, fist stick knife gun (1995); Albom, Mitch, Tuesdays With Morrie (1997).

Week 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE ACADEMIC ESSAY
1/7 Wed Introductions to the syllabus and to the ELWR requirements.
Assignments: Write a one-page response to “A Theory of Idleness” handout. Write a one-page profile of another student. Read for discussion the essays in Ainsworth 52-59& 138-141 & 114-117. Assignments: Write a brief note to tell me where the thesis is and whether the essay worked. You will speak about this orally in class.
1/9 Fri Introduction of another student is due. Assignment: Read in Ainsworth, Chapter 2 on Censorship. I will assign specific essays. Write your opinion of censoring violence or obscenity. Extra Credit: See Ainsworth, 353, Bertrand Russell “In Praise of Idleness,” a terrific essay on work. Write a response about it to me on email. (timfitz@ucsc.edu)

Week 2 PURPOSE & THESIS: OPENING THE ESSAY
1/12 Mon Assignments: Write a thesis for essay 1. Write an analysis of a quote you intend to use in your essay.
1/14 Wed Assignment: Write a draft of Essay one. SEE YOUR TUTOR!
1/16 Fri Essay 1 is due. Assignments: Read Ainsworth essays pp. 157, 169, 172; Chapter 9 especially pp. 406, 419, 421, 425, 428. I will assign essays for you to focus on over the next week or two. Our next meeting is next Wednesday. Bring in a two-page response to an essay in this group. What is the author’s purpose? How do they make their point? What is your opinion? You have assignments for MLK Day & the Inauguration too.

Week 3 DEVELOPING ESSAYS: ESSAY STRUCTURE
1/19 Mon Holiday Assignments: Read on MLK (Ainsworth 279 & 414) Write a 2-page response to these essays or to the Convocation speaker. Take notes on the Inauguration.
1/21 Wed Assignment: Write a reaction to the Inauguration.
1/23 Fri. Assignments: Read Essays from Chapter 7 on Marriage and Divorce. I will assign specific essays. Write an approach or a thesis for Essay 2 on Identity and Culture.

Week 4 SUPPORTING ESSAY: ANALYZING & INTERPRETING TEXTS
1/26 Mon Assignments: Refine your thesis and choose quotable supporting material to analyze for Essay 2. Write the quotes (about three) and your analysis in a page or so.
1/28 Wed
1/30 Fri Essay 2 is due. Assignments: Read Geoffrey Canada’s book, fist stick knife gun, Part 1. Write a response to one section. I will assign the section.

Week 5 REVISING: A WRITER’S GRAMMAR & RHETORIC
2/2 Mon Assignments: Read Canada Part 2. Write a response to one section.
2/4 Wed Assignments: Read essays from Ainsworth Chapter 1 and the Introduction.
2/6 Fri Assignments: Read Canada Part 3. Write a thesis for Essay 3. You can begin to write the rough draft.

Week 6 REVISING: SENTENCE STRUCTURE & STYLE
2/9 Mon Assignment: Write a Draft of Essay 3
2/11 Wed We will discuss revision.
2/13 Fri Essay 3 is due. Assignments: Read Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie to Page 100 and beyond. Write an example, a personal observation, of good education and bad education. Revise your essays 1 and 2.

Week 7 REVISING: STRUCTURE OF PARAGRAPHS—UNITY & COHERENCE
2/16 Mon Holiday
2/18 Wed We will discuss revision. Assignment: Revise your essays.
2/20 Fri A Revised Essay is due. Assignment: Read the last half of Albom.

Week 8 LOGIC, FACTS, TEXTS, AND EXAMPLES: TYPES OF DEVELOPMENT
2/23 Mon We will discuss revision.
2/25 Wed
2/27 Fri Two Revised Essays are due. Assignment: Write your letter for the ELWR portfolio.

Week 9 IMMEDIATE WRITING
3/2 Mon We will discuss revision and in-class writing.
3/4 Wed In-Class essay for the ELWR. Don’t miss this class!
3/6 Fri All portfolios are due for ELWR. Assignment: Readings from Ainsworth on Technology and writing, Chapter 11.

Week 10 WRITING FROM EXPERIENCE
3/9 Mon Assignment: Write your theme and thesis for essay 4.
3/11 Wed Assignment: Write a personal experience to use as an opening for essay 4.
3/13 Fri

Week 11
3/16 Mon Final day of class—No final exam; all revisions & Essay 4 are due.

This calendar is subject to change. But the due dates should be correct and the readings might be adjusted but they are about right. I will ask you to write in class often and the source for those writings will include these essays as well as material I find elsewhere.

WRITING ASSISTANTS (tutors) for Sections 3 and 4
Amy Tom (atom@ucsc.edu)
Shannon Benson (shmbenso@ucsc.edu)
Roxanna Edica (redica@ucsc.edu)
Jake Pierce (jppierce@ucsc.edu)
Annika Namkung (anamkung@ucsc.edu)
Stephanie Yee (sxyee@ucsc.edu)

Promise, a poem

2008-04-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

PROMISE

Ceasar Chavez / so and how does this mean that there
is an end or that anything is different? We still
have a promise to keep. We still have work to
do. Our father who art finally away from disaster,
out of the grip of that hand that wants to shape
everything, to twist everything, that hand
that crushes the flowers into a lingering
fragrance, and that thinks to make
men into mud again. I
would like to tell you
that the
children will live. I would like to tell you
that the children will be happy and in love
with life again and in love with themselves.

It is the last promise
I will make.
They will live.
On my blood.

And no hand
will cover their mouths again,
and the air will be clean,
and their eyes will be open,

and their mouths
will be unstuck,
and their ears
unstopped.

I think I can make this promise.
What life would be worth living
unless we make this promise?

You can sleep now.
You can dream now.
But dreaming, you still have work to do:
Will you dream us?

And we will leave the door open
on those hot evenings in the Valley,
and while we sleep, you can always
walk in again. Tim Fitzmaurice 4/27/93
(Cesar Chavez 31 March 1927-23 April 1993)

Owl, a poem

2008-03-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

Owl

Screeches in the wood,
but stays near the road
and the street lamps.
Calling me.

It sits unhidden
in the most unprotected places.
It’s a child about these things,
inhabiting the body of an adult.

Its mother is a stranger.
If she hears, she doesn’t listen.
She won’t come back anymore.
It can screech all night long & it does.

So I went to talk to it.
I followed the voice.
I wanted to tell it.
No more handouts.

Brown light brown
with stark white under the wing
and eyes burning like 100 watt bulbs
with crying.

Learn.Learn. Learn.
You are alone. But god made this road
to be your dinner table.
Learn.Learn.

You aren’t the first one
to see the end of a mother
in a thousand years,
and you won’t, I bet, be the last.

It screeched again
unutterably sad
but I did not understand
the word.

The tree was older
than the owl and I
and the road
put together.

It was gray and brittle.
And the branch broke
and the owl fell helplessly
toward my waiting arms.

After tumbling twenty feet
through leaves and branches
from the tree, it caught itself
miraculously

And slowly flapped
an ascension, slowly
taking life
above the cold road.

Its mother must’ve taught it
something about safety
but left out the part
about dead trees.

And pardon me.
I have a son whom I love.
I hope he is listening:
Beware the gray branches.

And if you fall,
flap your lovely wings,
and never fear:
Those are my lonely arms.

Tim Fitzmaurice 1988

Opening

2008-03-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

In this space, I am going to publish the materials for my Writing classes at UCSC, mainly Core, Writing 20 and Writing 2. I will also publish poems at times or other pieces but try to keep them separately labeled. This is not a university publication. I will mix the official material for my classes and other functions for the benefit of people who need to have access to them. But I am going to include other writing as well for friends that I want to keep connected with.