I live in Santa Cruz with my wife, Laurie. I have two grandchildren, Briton and Oona by Erika, my daughter-in-law, and Jason, my son. My career has focused on teaching writing at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I have also been involved in local politics, serving for eight years on the city council and on other boards as well as serving as Mayor of Santa Cruz from 2000 to 2001. Now I also teach creative writing once a week in a maximum security prison. Please send your comments to tim.fitzmaurice1@gmail.com.
A while ago I was teaching at UCSC
and a student came late to the class. It was a required class. She must have this class in her first year. Her name was Sonya. She came with her parents and her
brother. It was unusual to see such a crowd. They met with me after class.
Sonya was almost two weeks behind. She needed my permission to start the class
so late.
Sonya’s
parents and brother were very earnest—almost desperate. I told the parents I
would listen to their story, but I would not discuss their daughter’s work or her decisions with
them. They said she had been in the hospital and just got out. It was at
Stanford. It was special program addressing anorexia.
It was the late 1980’s. Eating
disorders were getting attention. This disease seemed especially complex and
political.It should be noted that at
the time I lost 60lbs because of physical problem. At the time did not know
why. I could not swallow and was stuck. For years eating in public became anathema for me. When I
ate I vomited. So I felt some oblique connection with this catastrophe. My family intervened much later and I got surgery at UCSF. But I felt what it was like to starve for about 12 years.
Sonya at this time was just out of
what they thought was successful treatment in a new therapeutic environment. A
few weeks later I saw her running and saw her losing weight. Her face was
drawn. She left school before the quarter ended. Her parents called me with the
sad news that she died suddenly not long after. I wrote these poems in one
sitting in a forest near by.
Poodle dressed in his tightest tee and his shortest shorts
& stood with cradled clipboard in front of Starbucks
mingling with the aging hogsters and other exhibivalents.
flashes a winning smile and he speaks: Have you got one minute
to save the whole flucking animal kingdom?
How could anyone say no to that?
They taught Poodle this pitch at the POODLEPEACE
marketing school for summer interns in Daly City,
where as they say: We can get you to yessiree!
Actually they did not use the word flucking
in the course on sidewalk counseling and outreach.
Poodle added the word himself as his personal attempt
at rhetorical intensification and just that dollop
of edgy intimidation.
Well plenty tumbled. It was worth the drive
from Daly City to the City that never said No.
Only the evil could say no to anything.
But if he got a squirmer, Poodle could be crazy cruel
and play them like a brook trout.
Do you have a minute for the beasts?
Do you have any friends who are beasts?
Can I be your friend?
You don’t have a minute to make a friend?
Or is it you don’t have a minute to make a poodle friend?
Have you done anything for anybody today other than yourself?
Oh you have?
Then I guess that poodles don’t qualify for your good heartedness.
Even the slightest hint that he had gotten into their heads and
into their nightmares could be as good as a sale.
People would cross the street and go to the Coffee Roasting Company
instead of Starbucks
and so Poodle had to mosey
down to the space in front of Urban Outfitters,
next to where the cinema line would queue up.
He always chose the coziest sidewalks
or the tight squeezes.
[Hand out the poem machines. For applauding.]
Poodle: an explanation
In the 1960’s I read Goethe’s Faust to my son, Jason, when he was two weeks old. It was edited by Stephen Spender and translated by Louis MacNiece. Wagner is talking to Faust. Faust sees something in the stubble and corn and Wagner says that it is just a poodle. But Faust says: But don’t you perceive how in wide spirals around us he is running, fire eddies behind him in his wakes? And Wagner replies: I can see nothing but a black poodle. So is he the devil or just a poodle? Well since then I have written many poems using Poodle as my eyes and ears and paws because he can go places that I cannot go.
A first poem
Defining Poodle (1969)
A poodle is not an act of god.
A poodle is a symptom
of advanced education,
a highly developed
artistic temperament,
an unusual interest
in the accidents of breeding,
and too much time on your hands.
4.
Poodle goes to the avenue each day
to see whose missing
Some are present:
Pinnochio the registered sex offender. & balloon man,
tarot man, empathy man, taco bell boy, saxety yak,
Long legged short shorts blonde man who keeps his head down at the margins,
The maestro who with his boom box tucked under his arm
plays tapes of his endless piano etudes to the unsuspecting and uncomprehending.
Our friend, the polite Vince, who loves to boogie
while standing in doorways. He listens to his walkman
in doorways wearing the new clothes that his parents give him
once a year when he goes to the east coast I think on vacation
from his schizophrenia. We trade ten dollars about once a month. He always pays me back
even when he doesn’t owe me anything.
Or Paul with his trout post cards,
who fell down last year and almost did not get up
High-five woman who works the crew. She gave me a book
that she wrote last week which said APPY BOOEK on every page.
& scarves lady who preaches to the unsaved and spanges the rest
and who is not cosmic lady or the lady with scarves
who danced outside while Warmth played in front
of the Cooperhouse. Then everything changed.
Tbat building refused to be demolished without a fight.
The youthful and enthusiastic soilies, is it? The new tribes who play gypsy music
and live in magic buses and who have pushed the less charming old men and women to the side streets and in the bushes next to the library. The brutal aisles of the downtown are thick with jealousies & rivalries & heartbreak. The old envelopes are no longer entertaining. These deead letters, their addresses have all been obliterated.
But I see some of the disappeared
Of course the obvious California Slim and sawplayer Tom. But
I would like to point out a special case
Ra, The Sun God, but how can you point to a negative.
He was absent when he was present. Then he was erased.
In a nutshell: he was thrown
from the Water Sreet Bridge and killed
maybe twenty-five years ago?
The person or persons were male or female and
between the ages of1 and 100. I believe
they are still at large. So if you see them,
please call the local authorities.
Ra was the one—do you remember?—
who stood on bridges or in streets with his head
tilted back and his face to the sun and he stared
with the beatific abandon of St Teresa of Avila
whilst she lingered in the vise-like grip of her spiritual wedding.
His skin become the color of a French roast
Tres Americas coffee bean but edged in gold
with patches of a permanent blush.
Then one day he was thrown away.
6. Poodle learns that Power corrupts
and obnoxious power corrupts
obnoxilutely
How many fat asses can you fit into a mediocre mind?
asked nostradamus.
So poodle could see that all hell could --
well you know the rest..
So Poodle tried to give advice
at a perfectly ordinary picnic table.
So yes he told Nostramemus the burgomeister:
Don’t do what you imagine and
don’t imagine what you do!
No one will even mention the quicksand
until you can taste the grit in your mouth.
They will gladly finish your sentences and deliver
whatever poison you wish for with ribbons and gladness.
If you fall down they will say you are leaping.
If you crawl in the mud they will say it is dancing.
The swankness you swank will be swanked upon you.
just like your nostramomma told you.
But he fell like adam upon eve and grew somber.
Fortunately he was saved by the inclemency of the arrow that flies by day
so he shouted like Houdini
drop the tray
and I will strop the stray
and the terror that flies by night and
the arrow that flies by day.
We shall tattoo this upon every mother’s heart in Live Oak
and it will announce my resurrection to terms everlasting.
for
What is a hero if it isn’t the me
who eats shit
and shits policy.
7.
Poodle Pissed upon Eleven palm trees
on Mission Hill
in order of height:
no easy feat!
Not including the baby palms just sprouting and too tender
for his unction or the palm tree locked behind the cloister wall
of the home for unwed mothers,
from where he has never heard singing,
but yes thoughtlessly upon the rectory
but not upon the church itself,
which would have been at least blasphemy and
probably a violation of the muni code.
& he passed the crumbling graves overlooking
the hardware store covered in quaking grass and thistles
He could not add even an exclamation point
to the desecration of it.
But you cannot hold it against a dog for not holding it
& pissing.
Pissing for dogs is conversation. My language.
It is a series of assertions
of a fact, agreement, contradiction,
ejaculation or condolence. Just as smelling listens.
Every thing speaks to them. Things shouting at them.
We cannot know what contrariness and annoyances
they deal with. Poodle can tell you:
When dogs are in government,
there’s a whole lot of sniffing and pissing going on.
Poodle Waiting for the truth of Mozart
K283 PC
For two years I’ve listened
and heard nothing,
like Frank Drake eavesdropping
on the death of god,
or the Grant’s patiently tagging finches
on Galapagos for twenty generations.
For two years I have just listened
and waited as if this thing
will walk through this door
if only I leave it open long enough.
I wonder if I am so
irresistible that such gifts must come.
But it is obvious
that most live behind doors
upon which no one
ever knocks.
Poodle & the Magician’s Last Trick
His darkening eyes hold
the distraction of it all
in their slim pools.
Loch Ness monsters could live
undiscovered
in the deep retinas
& sleep
& only wake to feed.
It’s possible there’s enough magic
left in this wand
to manage this last trick.
Where is the suit
with the pockets
in which the white birds live?
14
Now that they allowed our four-pawed pals
to trot downtown,
he could see the army of souls who have been
chosen to be there.
The diabetes man and his need-food sign, &
the man in the wheel chair
clutching a blanket between his teeth
and flying down the bike lane &
The Burrito man.
You know the bass-singing, one-note-playing,
guitar-plucking, cowboy-hatted blues man
who sings only one song:
AHHHHHHHHHHHH! I aint got no doughghghgh
to get a burritoooooooo! AHHHHHHHHHHH!
Have you noticed?
No “Homeless & Pregnant” signs this year!
And then there’s David
who once slept under parked cars
until they took his leg away.
Then they moved him to Pleasantville somewhere in Live Oak,
which might as well be Sweden.
but David still gets on the bus,
comes downtown, never speaks, no schtick at all,
only sitting in his wheel chair to cadge dollars
with a hand-lettered cardboard sign.
Poodle had to hate a world where
losing a leg was the best financial move
he had made
in his whole life.
12.
Poodle and the twilight of the gods
for Nobby
So to visit the gods
Poodle always trotted over to Sunshine Villa
in the Psycho house on Beach hill
where Dionysus was locked up
inside of a room which was locked up
inside of a room which was buried
under the ground
with windows that only looked out
upon the dirt.
He was the professor of Love and Shit,
so he was much admired in the poodle community.
Many watched the Gotterdammerung as he plummeted
into history.
So many thought that the fall of Bockus was unspeakable.
They could not stand to watch
as he happily plummeted into soft food and silences.
It was not the silence but the smacking of his lips
that embarrassed them.
We are all happy to feel our friend’s requisite shame
After all genius consists of more than a tweed suit.
No surprise that very few could watch this fall from
gracefulness.
Poodle likewise never wanted to see his father’s
nakedness. But he endeavored to break the lock
and to enter in.
Poodle brought some gooey meta s’mores
by Ovid from S’Logos &
the professor of wine and exposes was
unspeakably hungry.
So here Poodle sat &
thought something about happiness
but what?
All the previous tenses are swept away &
here it is: the lovely body:
Nothing more than
little boy
on a dolphin.
PASSPORT
Swimming in your eyes I
am in two worlds.
Outside your eyes,
my hands are orphans.
My every smile
a supplication,
wishing for 20 dollars
from estranged American parents
on their mastercard.
Do you see the deer children
coming down thoughtlessly
attracted to the green?
What can I say?
Your soul
is my last country,
and I have burned my passport.
Dances
Tango: Keep your eyes
a poem of erotic love and frustration
Keep your eyes! I can’t use them
anymore. Everything in this world
is finally visible to me. No secrets.
No drums at a distance.
No having seen.
Mein gott ich liebe dich zo
Her ring and some lips.
The nesting of oranges in morning
sunlight:
So are they strangers, strange
as frozen pebbles of rain.
They hit my window.
They hope to become invisible
in the warm room. Her lips
and eyes and some rings.
Mein gott ich liebe dich zo
You are the always other one of my dreams
the woman who walks past me in the street
\a pickpocket and perfect explainer.
I am sick of your explanations and
smirkings.
I want you
to not be walking past me when I am
walking.
Mein gott ich liebe dich zo
Have you seen the streets flooded with mystics
with exaltation, with grief?
They are holding hands with so many
dead. They take air like a narcotic.
They are waiting to see oif the experiment
failed
or whether—
I’m squawking about it because
it is your problem!
Mein gott ich liebe dich zo
A Dialogue (1985)
on a woman who died of anorexia
When will the sleeping margarets wake
and walk among us once again?
When we have made a gentle place
where women walk with loving men.
But the world I see is green with joy,
and if you try you can be free.
I know there are not margarets there.
I cannot see what you can see.
This is the garden my fatrher grew.
I’ve donme my best to make it flower.
If no Margaret lives beyond an hour,
then I guess this place will not do.
Well, what can we do to make it new,
to makle the sleeping margarets wake?
We’ll have to tear it up again
for every single margarets sake.
MAMBO: Hija del Volcan (after Neruda)
written on the occasion of the death
of a Merrill student & activist, Sandra Frausto
“estando ya mi casa sosegada” (Juan de la Cruz)
“En la perdida misma los olivios encuentro” (Sor Juana)
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 core course while you were pretending to listen in which I said that UC was a public research 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 your pledge: 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 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 fourth 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. Be grateful and show it. 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 While Driving and be sure to floss and wear long sleeves to your job interviews. I have nothing against tattoos; my father had them and my son. In fact most 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. 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. 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. It seems to say that 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. So build schools.
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. 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. 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. He was an advocate for the indigenous people who were being exploited by oil producers and he was murdered by revolutionary group called the FARC. And he was once a Resident Assistant here at Crown, who worked to make the Core Course more relevant for you.
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 or 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 need to tell them 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.
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.
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.
