ENGL 220/220H — Appalachian
Culture
Spring 2004, Tuesdays 6:00 to 8:40
p.m.
Prof. Rachael Meads,
101 College Center (Student Affairs), x. 5113, rmeads@shepherd.edu
Course Website: http://webpages.shepherd.edu/rmeads/appculture.htm
Festival Website: http://www.shepherd.edu/passweb/festival.htm
Awiakta, Marilou. Selu: Seeking the Corn Mother's
Wisdom.
Arnow, Harriette Simpson. The Dollmaker.
Chappell, Fred. I Am One of You Forever. (Available through Amazon.com or Four
Seasons Bookstore)
Gates, Henry Louis.
Colored People.
Giardina, Denise. Storming Heaven.
Giardina, Denise. The Unquiet Earth.
Smith, Lee. Oral History.
Miles Horton excerpts/handouts.
Listening CDs from Professor Meads ($5)
Money to cover the cost of
the field trip in April:
I hope
to keep the cost down to about $150 per person (including meals and lodging). If
you wish to have a private room (less than 4 people per room), you need to let
me know that AS SOON AS POSSIBLE so that I may make reservations now. The cost
of the field trip will go up depending on the degree of privacy you desire.
Money for the field trip will be due by the first week of March.
Access to the
Internet.
Objectives/Learning Goals:
Appalachian Culture will introduce
students to a wide variety of creative expression from those states which
constitute southern Appalachia, particularly West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee,
North Carolina, and Kentucky. Students will study cultural stereotypes about
Appalachia, unique historical and cultural forces at work in Appalachia, and the
rich expression of creativity in Appalachia (including oral and written
literatures, visual arts and crafts, and singing and songwriting). We will also
focus particularly on the roles of women and minorities in the region and
address the struggles for social and environmental justice in Appalachia. During the mandatory four-day field trip
in April, students will explore some of West Virginia’s most important
historical, cultural, and environmental sites.
Expectations/Course Requirements:
Read, listen to, and view all
assigned materials; participate in the April field trip; actively participate in
class; prepare two discussion questions each week; participate in web-based
discussion group; a 3 page music essay; 3-4 page essay on a novel of the
student’s choice; one major research project of the student’s choosing (essay,
interview, transcription, video, exhibit, etc.); and five short in-class
presentations (one on music, one on literature, one on Goldenseal
magazine, one on the Foxfire series, and one on the student’s major
project).
Note about the Major Project: The major
project must pertain to either the people who will be involved in the 2004 Fall
Appalachian Festival (musician, writer-in-residence, singer, dancer) OR an
article or exhibit on some subject related to the festival. For either type of
project, students will need to conduct both primary and secondary research, and
the goal will be to have finished products that would be suitable for
publication in The Front Porch News
(the festival magazine) or for a magazine such as Goldenseal; a project for radio or
television broadcast; or an exhibit or other community outreach
item.
Participation/Citizenship:
This is very much a
student-centered course, and as much as possible, students will share the joy
and responsibility of building knowledge together. Student contributions will be
reflected often in the class—through the web-based discussion group, student
presentations, class discussion, and more generally through acknowledgment that
each student is developing expertise in some area of Appalachian culture.
Therefore, citizenship—through participation and regular attendance—will be
essential to the success of the course.
You will be allowed no more than
one-and-one-half absences for any reason. Missing more than one-and-one-half
classes makes you ineligible to receive any points for participation. Please plan to arrive to class on
time.
Grades:
Final course grade will be
determined as follows:
Music essay 10%
Oral report accompanying the music
essay
5%
Novel/literary essay 10%
Oral report on the novel
5%
Weekly discussion questions 10%
Contribution to web-based
discussion 10%
Report on Foxfire
5%
Report on Goldenseal
5%
Major project
(prospectus/query letter, project, and class presentation)
30%
Citizenship (class
participation, attendance, completion of
assignments, involvement in
field trip, etc.)
10%
A Word about the Writing Center:
I strongly encourage you to visit
the Writing Center as you develop your essays for this course. Working with a
tutor in the Writing Center is most helpful when you develop an ongoing
relationship with one tutor, when you schedule your appointments in advance, and
when you meet two to three times as you develop a particular essay.
Finally, please note that all work
in the course should be your own fresh work for this course. Plagiarism or academic dishonesty of any
kind will result in automatic failure of the course. In no case should you
borrow work from another student or from a published source.
SYLLABUS SCHEDULE OF CLASSES
(subject to change as needed)
Introduction of class
participants
Review syllabus and expectations
for the course
Muriel Miller Dressler's
"Appalachia"
Assign music reports and
essays
January 20
Discuss images/stereotypes of
Appalachia
Screen Strangers and Kin
Hand out Goldenseal magazines for Jan. 27th
reports
Before class, read Lee Smith’s Oral History
Student reports and essays due on
Oral History
Student reports on
Goldenseal
Student presentations and essays on The Hammons Family, Melvin Wine, Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson, and Mike Seeger.
Before class, listen to CD #2
(early commercial music and bluegrass)
Student reports and essays on The
Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, John Cephas,
and Hazel Dickens due.
Before class, read Denise
Giardina’s Storming Heaven
Student presentations/essays on Storming Heaven
Assign Foxfire reports for
Feb. 24 and March 2
February 24
Before class, read excerpts from
Myles Horton, "Building Democracy in the Mountains" and excerpt from Myles
Horton and Paulo Freire, We Make the Road
by Walking: Education and Social Change
Before class, explore the
Appalshop website
Screen Adventures of a Radical Hillbilly in class
Student Foxfire reports
Before class, read Denise
Giardina, The Unquiet
Earth
Student reports and essays due on
The Unquiet Earth
Student Foxfire
reports
Screen The Buffalo Creek Flood
FIELD TRIP MONEY DUE
Environmental Issues in
Appalachia
Query letter outlining major project due
NO CLASS MEETING/SPRING
BREAK--ENJOY!
Before class, read Harriette
Arnow, The Dollmaker
Student reports and essays due on
The Dollmaker
Screen Dreadful Memories
TBA
April 6
Before class, read Fred Chappell’s
I Am One of You Forever
Student reports and essays on I
Am One of You Forever due
April 13
Current Issues in Appalachia discussion
April 20
Field trip preparation
The field trip will take us into the heart of West
Virginia, where we will spend four days, three nights exploring the music,
literature, and culture of West Virginia. We'll be visiting old-time musicians
in their homes, having a pizza-and-poetry night, and exploring the natural
environment of the region.
Process field trip
Before class, read Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Colored People
Student reports and essays due on Colored People
May 4
Muriel Dressler's "Sing Appalachia" (105)
Before class, read Marilou Awiakta, Selu
Student reports and essays due on Selu
Project presentations
May 11
Project presentions
Course evaluation
Each week when you come to class,
you will be expected to bring at least two discussion points or questions along
with you. These will then be
addressed by the group in the weekly class discussion. Your discussion point or questions must
focus on the assigned reading/listening for that week’s class and should clearly
demonstrate your engagement with the assigned texts. For example, you may refer to a
particular passage in a novel and share an observation or insight. You may also ask questions about things
that were unclear to you as you read or listened. These discussion points will be turned
in each week and will constitute 5% of your final course grade.
You are required to log on to our
discussion group a minimum of two times per week. You must log on with a
response to the current week's assigned reading and/or listening no later than
Monday at 9 p.m. You must log on at least one other time throughout the week,
posting a response to any course-related issue you wish. Your entries do not
need to be formal and do not need to be carefully edited or structured. They
will not be evaluated on mechanics. Though they can be free thought in structure
and approach, they should engage thoughtfully and substantially with the issues
at hand. Your postings should make clear that you have completed the assigned
reading and/or listening and considered it carefully.
There is no specific length
requirement for these postings. I
will let you know individually if there are any problems with the length,
frequency, or content of your postings. Otherwise, if you post two times a week,
you can assume that you are earning an "A" for this portion of the course. You
are certainly welcome to post more frequently, but you will not earn extra
credit for doing so.
I will read the postings at least
once a day and will also join in the discussion frequently.
Each student will complete a major
project, determined in consultation with the professor. The project must link to
the 2004 Appalachian Heritage Festival in some way. It may focus on one of the
artists to be featured at the festival, on one of the art forms to be featured,
or provide some kind of background information to one of these artists or art
forms. The final project may be an audio interview and interview transcript; a
broadcast-quality video or radio clip (suitable for a five-minute broadcast); a
feature article; a photography or art exhibit; a website; lesson for public
school; or a creative nonfiction essay. Your project should have a clear focus
and a unifying idea, but the goal is not a traditional academic research
paper. Your project should involve
primary research. You will be
generating new knowledge as well as grounding yourself ahead of time through
research.
We will explore possible project
topics together at our March 2 class meeting. That evening, you will look at the
previous edition of The Front Porch
News, the festival magazine written by last year's Appalachian Culture
students; examine interviews and articles published in Goldenseal magazine; and hear radio
pieces about the festival that have been prepared by West Virginia Public
Radio's Cecelia Mason in past years. Throughout the semester, you will see a
variety of documentary videos produced by Appalshop. These materials will give
you helpful models in developing your own projects.
As you begin to develop your
proposal and later your project, you will meet individually on a regular basis
with me to make sure that you are on the right track.
On March 9, you will submit a
"query letter" that makes a case for the project you wish to undertake. You
should make clear how your project will relate to the 2004 festival, how your
project might be utilized in the festival, how you plan to execute the project,
and how you envision the final product, and if you hope to continue with a
practicum next fall, how the project might be expanded for use in the festival.
I will consider the query letters carefully and will work with you individually
until we have arrived at a mutually satisfactory plan. Your query letter (with
revisions if necessary) will serve as our contract of what each student is to
accomplish for his/her project.
2004 FESTIVAL: Fred Chappell (Writer-in-Residence,
novelist/poet), John Lilly (MC, musician, folklorist, editor of Goldenseal
magazine), Bobby Taylor and Kanawha Tradition (fiddler and WV string band),
the Reed Island Rounders (Betty and Billy Vornbrock with Diane Jones), other
artists will be announced later in the semester.
You will work with one other
student to prepare an oral report on one of the following: The Hammons Family,
Melvin Wine, John Cephas, The Carter Family, Jean Ritchie, Jimmie Rodgers, Bill
Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Doc Watson, Hazel Dickens, Mike Seeger. Reports
will be made on January 27 and February 3 as scheduled on the syllabus. Each
pair will have 10 to 15 minutes to make the presentation. In addition, each
student will write a 3 page MLA-documented essay about the assigned musician.
This means that each pair will be submitting two independently-written essays
(one by each student) but will make a joint presentation. You may work together
to find research materials, to listen to music, to explore this particular
topic, but each of you should write your own essay. Unlike the major project,
the music essay should be in the format of a traditional academic essay, and
therefore it should have a thesis statement as well as a carefully organized
structure.
Your oral report and essay should
do the following:
--introduce your reader and
listener to the particular artist;
--briefly survey the history of
the artist's music, including recording history if applicable;
--describe the "genre" and time
period the artist's music reflects;
--discuss the importance and
significance of the artist.
In addition, your oral report
should include at least one song by the artist that is NOT included on the class
listening tapes.
You may borrow from me a number of
resource books, tapes, and CDs that can make your search easier. You are also
encouraged to consult with me for help on this project if you have questions or
are unsure of the format desired.
Each student will work with
another student or two to research one of the books being studied in class. On
the night that the student's assigned novel is to be discussed in class, the
student--and his partner(s)--will provide a 10- to 15-minute oral presentation
about the novel. Each student will also submit that night a 3-4 page literary
essay focusing on some aspect of the novel. While the oral report should be
coordinated together with your partner, the literary essays should reflect the
individual work of each student and be completed independently. Please note
that the requirements for the essay and the oral report are different.
Your oral report should do
the following:
--introduce your reader and
listener to the particular writer;
--briefly survey the history of
the writer's work;
--discuss the importance and
significance of the writer.
--explore a major theme in the
work assigned
Since everyone will have already read the book, you should NOT present a plot summary or book report.
About the literary
essay:
Unlike your music essay and your
oral report about the novelist, your literature essay will NOT be a research
paper or a book report. Instead, your essay should provide your
thoughtful analysis of the book or its themes and should be presented in the
form of a traditional academic essay (with introduction, thesis, body paragraphs
supporting the thesis, and a conclusion). You may include secondary sources if
you wish, but you are not required to do so. Primarily, this essay should be
YOUR analysis and consideration of this book.
You are free to develop your own focus and thesis for the essay, but it should be suitable for an essay of this length. It should be specific and narrow in its focus, substantive and interesting, and it should teach the reader something new and fresh about the book in question. You are encouraged to consult with me as you develop your essay, and you may also find it helpful to chat on-line with each other about possible topics and approaches.
A Helpful Hint for Oral Reports with Partners:
You will need to give some
in-class presentations with partners.
This means you need to communicate and PLAN AHEAD OF TIME what each of
you will cover. Divide the
reporting responsibilities. The
more coordinated you are, the better you will score. Be sure that you cover information that
the rest of the class will not know about already. In other words, don’t present plot
summaries (since the class will have already read the book) or play songs that
are already on their listening CDs.