We will be working with the following texts this semester.

Baron, A Better Pencil (selected chapters)
Branch, “Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”
Bascom, “Picturing the Personal Essay”
Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
Edmundson, “Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?” (Best American Essays 2012)
Emerson, “American Scholar”
Gass, “Emerson and the Essay”
Kothari, “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” (Best American Essays 2000)
Lopate, “The Essay, An Exercise in Doubt”
Lunsford, St. Martin’s Handbook  (978-0-312-60292-5)
Macrorie, “The Poison Fish,” “Writing Freely,” “What is Good Writing?”
Montaigne, Essays (selections)
Sedaris, “SantaLand Diaries”
Selected NPR podcasts
Self, Kafka’s wound
Strayed, The Best American Essays 2013 (978054410388)
Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (selections)
Wilks, “Fitting the Pattern”

The texts identified above by ISBN number are all available in the College Store.  I ask that everyone purchase the same editions of the books required for class so that, during discussion, we can all turn quickly and easily to the same page.  So if you buy your books elsewhere, please check ISBNs to be sure you have the same edition as the ones ordered for us.   You should have a copy of The St. Martin’s Handbook from your FYS.  If not, copies are available in the bookstore.  (Please buy the 7th or a later edition.)  Access to other texts given above will be provided on Moodle.

A word of advice about reading

Leave yourself enough time to read and then re-read texts assigned (including writing by members of the class).  Whenever you’re assigned to read something, it also means that I expect you to annotate your text and to have a set of notes that allow you to find your way around the text and also find passages quickly for the purposes of class discussion.  You likely have had experience annotating print texts.   For annotating PDFs on my iPad I like GoodReader or  iAnnotate.  Try Diigo,  A.nnotate, or Kindle for PC for annotating digital texts on your PC .  (Read more about them here.)  And Evernote will let you clip things from the web and organize them.

On average, you should be spending about 6 hours /week preparing for this class.  (This is the usual ratio of in- to out-of-class time for all Lafayette courses.)  That time should include work on both the reading and the writing assignments.

Please bring all texts up for discussion on a given day (including any student writing) with you to class.  Should you forget (it happens), please sit next to someone who has the assigned reading.  And of course, if you notice that someone doesn’t have the reading, please offer to share.