Writing: Theory and Teaching, Spring 2012

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Links/ Readings
last update: January 10, 2012

 

This page contains links to good writing that is available on the web, arranged here under various headings.  Note that there is some overlap: that is, a given article may appear here under more than one heading.  Some--but not all--of these selections will be assigned during the semester.  Click on "Calendar," above, for specific assignments and due dates.

 

I. Narrative / Personal Experience

- "A Boulevard Called Chagrin."  By Joe Posnaski.  At Posnaski's Sports Illustrated Blog, July 29, 2010.  joeposnanski.si.com/2010/07/29/a-boulevard-called-chagrin/.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "The Healing Season."  By Selena Roberts.  Sports Illustrated , September 01, 2008.  sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1144559/index.htm

- "Girl Meets Bluegill: How I (Nearly) Taught My Daughter to Love Fishing."  Bill Heavey. Field and Stream, August 2005.  www.fieldandstream.com/articles/bill-heavey/2005/08/girl-meets-bluegill.  Accessed January 2012.  (Click here for a cached version.)

- "Journey Into Night: Business-class emotions [Reflections]."  By David Sedaris.  The New Yorker,  December 17, 2007.  www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/17/071217fa_fact_sedaris.  Click here for a cached version. 
- "The Physics of Speed."  By William Giraldi. The Antioch Review, October 1, 2011.  readperiodicals.com/201110/2496866601.html.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "The Pleasures of Eating."  By Wendell Berry.  From What Are People For?,  1990.  www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/pleasures-eating.  Accessed January 2012. 

-  "Top Ten State Fair Joys [Take in the State Fair]: Be hypnotized! Gawk at cows! Indulge in fried Coca-Cola!"  By Garrison Keillor.  National Geographic, July 2009.  ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/07/state-fairs/keillor-text.  Accessed January 2012.

 

II. Tech Writing ("How-to"-- Expository/ Explanatory)

- "36 Hours in Asheville, N. C."  By Shaila Dewan.  New York Times, Oct 21, 2010.  www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/travel/24hours.html
 "All You Can Eat: A Journey Through a Seafood Fantasy."  By Jim Carrier.  Orion Magazine, March/ April 2009.  www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4395/

- "The Bacon Explosion" ["Take Bacon. Add Sausage. Blog."]  Food article and recipe, NY Times online, January 27, 2009.  www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/dining/28bacon.html.  Accessed January 2012. 
- Excerpt from "City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan."
- "Death of a Mountain: Radical Strip Mining and the Leveling of Appalachia."  By Erik Reece.  Harper's Magazine, April 2005: 41-60.  Posted on a fan blog: www.wesjones.com/death.htm.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine."  Saul Hansell.  NY Times online, June 3, 2007.  www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html

- H. Melville, from Moby Dick, Chapter lxvii CUTTING IN; Chapter lxviii THE BLANKET

- "Learn More about Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining: Frequently Asked Questions."  ilovemountains.org, Appalachian Voices, Boone NC.  No date.  www.ilovemountains.org/resources

- "Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?"  By Susan Casey.  Originally from Best Life Magazine, Feb 20, 2007.  Posted at Men's Health magazine web site,  www.menshealth.com/best-life/water-pollution.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "Remember His Name [the Pat Tillman story]," by Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated, Sep 11 2006.  http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/magazine/09/05/tillman0911/index.html.  Accessed January 2012. 

 

III. Reviews and Criticism

    A. Writing about Texts

- "The Answer Man: An ancient poem was rediscovered—and the world swerved" [Department: "Annals of Culture"].  By Stephen Greenblatt. 

The New Yorker, August 8, 2011.  www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_greenblatt.  Click here for a cached ms-word version, 5,200 wds, 10pt type, 8 pages. 

- "Brain Candy:  Is Pop Culture Dumbing Us Down or Smartening Us Up? [The Critics: Books]", by Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker May 16, 2005 [1800 words].  www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_05_16_a_brain.html  Accessed January 2012.  (Click here for the cached version.)

- "The Charms of Wikipedia," by Nicholson Baker.  New York Review of Books 55, 4 (March 20, 2008).  www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/mar/20/the-charms-of-wikipedia/.  Accessed January 2010.  (Click here for a cached version.) 

- "The Clear Blue Sky" [comments on D. Delillo's 9-11 novel, Falling Man], by Frank Rich.  New York Times, Sunday Book Review, May 27, 2007.  www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/books/review/Rich-t.html

- "The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism" [Department: "Politics and Prose"].  By Malcolm Gladwell. The New Yorker, August 10, 2009.  www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/10/090810fa_fact_gladwell

- "The Expanding Range of Mountaintop Removal Literature:  Two New Books," by Kevin E. O'Donnell.  Journal of Appalachian Studies 15, 1&2 (Spring & Fall 2009): p213-18.  Uncorrected manuscript posted at faculty.etsu.edu/odonnell/pubs/antiMTR_reviewessay_byKOD.htm.  Accessed January 2012. 
- "Going Deep: How Gary Smith became America's best sportswriter," by Ben Yagoda, slate.com, Monday, June 30, 2003.  http://www.slate.com/id/2085059/.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "Home Alone: It's all too easy to deride Martha Stewart, but the attacks on her often point up how much there is to admire" [book review].  Caitlin Flanagan.  The Atlantic Monthly, September 2002.  www.theatlantic.com/doc/200209/flanagan.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "Hosed: Is there a quick fix for the climate? [review of Levitt and Dubner's SuperFreakonomics and Al Gore's Our Choice]."  By Elizabeth Kolbert.  The New Yorker, November 16, 2009.  www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert

- "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read: How American High School Students Learn to Loathe Literature."  By Francine Prose.  Harper's Magazine, September 1999.  www.heritagecollegeready.org/ourpages/auto/2010/9/27/63079238/CagedBirdCannotRead.pdf

- "Like Boiling a Frog" [review of The Wikipedia Revolution, by Andrew Lih]."  By David Runciman.  London Review of Books, May 28, 2009 (Vol. 31 No. 10), pages 14-16.  5011 words.  www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/david-runciman/like-boiling-a-frog.  (Click here for a cached, ms word version.) 
- "The Neverending Campaign to Ban 'Slaughterhouse Five'."  By Betsy Morais.  The Atlantic Magazine, August 12, 2011.  www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/the-neverending-campaign-to-ban-slaughterhouse-five/243525/

- "A New Page: Can the Kindle really improve on the book? [Annals of Reading]."  By Nicholson Baker.  The New Yorker, August 3 2009.  www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker

 

    B. Other Review Topics

- "One Stop a 'Super' Chicken Choice," by Fred Sauceman.  Kingsport Times-News, January 29, 2004. 

 

IV. Academic Writing/ Writing from Sources

- Blogs:

     - climatedepot.com - A blog that "aims to redefine global warming reporting." 

     - climateprogress.org - "A liberal blog on the science, solutions, and politics of climate change." 

     - ihr.org - The Institute for Historical Review, "an independent educational research and publishing center that works to promote peace, understanding and justice." 

 

- "Brain Candy:  Is Pop Culture Dumbing Us Down or Smartening Us Up? [The Critics: Books]", by Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker May 16, 2005 [1800 words].  www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_05_16_a_brain.html  Accessed January 2012. 

- "The Day They Hanged an Elephant in East Tennessee," by Joan Vannorsdall Schroeder, Blue Ridge Country magazine. Saturday, May 1, 1993.  blueridgecountry.com/archive/mary-the-elephant.html

- "Down with Research Papers!"  By Thomas Bertonneau.  August 10, 2011.  The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, Raleigh NC.  www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2561

- "Myths or Facts in Feminist Scholarship? An exchange between Nancy K.D. Lemon and Christina Hoff Sommers."  The Chronicle of Higher Education online, August 10, 2009.  chronicle.com/article/Domestic-Violence-a/47940/.  (Click here for a cached version.) 

- ''Rachel Carson, Mass Murderer?: The creation of an anti-environmental myth.'' Aaron Swartz, ''Extra!'' [F.A.I.R.--Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; a New York-based, non-profit, media watch group], September/October, 2007.  www.fair.org/index.php?page=3186.  Accessed January, 2012. 

- "Usury Country: Welcome to the Birthplace of Payday Lending,"  by Daniel Brook.  Harper's Magazine, April 2009.  harpers.org/archive/2009/04/0082451.  Accessed January 2012.  (Clicked here for a cached version in ms word format.)

 

V. Reportage

- "Blowing away King Coal: Can a scrawny young wind-power activist topple the biggest, dirtiest industry in West Virginia?"  Salon dot com, Thurs Jan 29, 2009.  www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/01/29/mountaintop_removal/

- "A Boy's Life."  By Hanna Rosin.  The Atlantic Magazine.  November, 2008.  www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boy-apos-s-life/7059/

- "The Falling Man," by Tom Junod.  Esquire Magazine, September 2003 [with 2011 epilogue].  www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN.  Accessed January 2012. 
- "Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?"  By Susan Casey.  Originally from Best Life Magazine, Feb 20, 2007.  Online at Men's Health magazine web site,  www.menshealth.com/best-life/water-pollution

- "The Rape of Appalachia [Department: Politics and Power]," by Michael Shnayerson.  Vanity Fair, May 2006.  www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/05/appalachia200605.  Accessed January 2012. 
- "Remember His Name [the Pat Tillman story]," by Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated, Sep 11 2006.  http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/magazine/09/05/tillman0911/index.html.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "Usury Country: Welcome to the Birthplace of Payday Lending,"  by Daniel Brook.  Harper's Magazine, April 2009.  harpers.org/archive/2009/04/0082451.  Retrieved January 2012.  (Clicked here for a cached version in ms word format.)

- What Love's Got to Do with It: Joba Chamberlain has taken New York in a blaze of glory, his success traced to a nurturing father who used his own tortured youth, Native American roots and some lessons in humility to fan the flame inside his son, by Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated online, Oct 7, 2007, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/10/03/joba1008/index.html

 

VI. On Various Topics Related to Composition

    A. On Borrowing and Plagiarism
- "Larry Lessig Defends Copyright, Loves Charlie Rose Remixes."  November 21, 2008.  Video link to Charlie Rose website, plus commentary by Matt Rutherford, posted at TechCrunch, a weblog about new internet developments.  www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/21/larry-lessig-defends-copyright-loves-charlie-rose-remixes/.  Accessed January 2012. 

- Letter to Helen Keller from Mark Twain, St. Patrick's Day, 1903, on plagiarism.  Posted at an American Foundation for the Blind website: www.afb.org/braillebug/hktwain.asp.  Accessed January 2012. 

- "Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age."  By Trip Gabriel.  New York Times online, Sunday, August 1, 2010.  www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html
- "Something Borrowed: Should a Charge of Plagiarism Ruin Your Life?" by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Nov 22, 2004: 40-49.  www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_11_25_a_borrowed.html.  Accessed January 2012. 
- "What Helen Keller Saw: The Making of a Writer [Department: Critic at Large]", by Cynthia Ozick, The New Yorker June 16/23 2003. (Click here for cached version.)

 

    B.  On Writing--Miscellaneous
- "Beyond Cute Babies: How to Make Money on Youtube."  By Tamara Keith.  All Tech Considered Blog.  April 11, 2011.  National Public Radio.  www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2011/04/11/135316299/beyond-cute-babies-how-to-make-money-on-youtube

- "Down with Research Papers!"  By Thomas Bertonneau.  August 10, 2011.  The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, Raleigh NC.  www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2561

- Excerpt from The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You, by Eli Pariser, 2011.  Posted on Rolling Stone Magazine politics blog by Julian Brookes, May 23, 2011.  www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/book-excerpt-eli-pariser-on-the-filter-bubble-20110523

- "How News Happens--A Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City: Where does the news come from in today’s changing media?"  Journalism.org: Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, January 11, 2010.  www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens

- "Plain English Is the Best Policy" [Op-Ed Contributor].  John Aloysius Cogan, Jr.  NY Times online, August 19, 2009.  www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/opinion/20cogan.html

 

- "Handouts and Demos" page related to Writing Groups, posted by the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill: writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/writing-the-paper/writing-groups-1/writing-groups

- On Outlines and Headings:

            "APA Headings and Seriation."  At Purdue University online writing lab: owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/16/.  Accessed January 2012.

            "Outline."  Wikipedia article.  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_(summary).  Accessed January 2012. 

"Headings: Six Levels Deep."  From Writing HTML: A Tutorial for Learning and Instruction.  Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction-- Maricopa Community College.  www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/tut3.html.  Accessed January 2012.

- "Wikipedia: Manual of Style/Words to Watch": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch.  Accessed January 2012. 
- "Wikipedia: Manual of Style/Captions":  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Captions.  Accessed January 2012.