Colleagues who want to borrow or adapt any of the materials or ideas used here are welcome to do so. Comments and suggestions from students and browsers are also welcome. Just send me an email message.
English 102.B01
Effective Written Discourse
058 Library
July 16
Introductory Matters. Course content and expectations.
Style lesson: Strunk and White rules 1-3.
Exercise: describe a painting.
July 17
Discuss "Look at Your Fish"; problems of observation, point-of-view, bias.
Style lesson: Strunk and White rules 4-6.
Exercise: proof and edit description. Choose painting for term paper(s).
July 18
Discuss/compare sample student essays on Manet's The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian
Style lesson: Strunk and White rules 7-9.
Exercise: work on thick description.
July 19
Group work on thick descriptions. Check drafts for compliance with Strunk and White rules 1-12.
Style lesson: Strunk and White rules 10-12.
Exercise: continue drafting.
July 23
DUE: Essay paragraphs draft 1: thick description.
July 24
Guided Research Activity. Guest: Dunbar Library Humanities Librarian, Charlotte M. Droll.
Exercise: find 1 each print and electronic sources on
1. your painter
2. the painting's "school" or genre
3. history/ownership of the painting
4. other items from yesterday's brainstorm (Total 8 sources)
July 25
Style lesson: Strunk and White rules 16-18.
Documentation lesson: quotation and paraphrase.
Exercise: draft paragraphs on painter, history and contexts.
July 26
Documentation practice. Bring all secondary sources to class today!
July 30
Style lesson: Strunk and White 19-22.
DUE: paragraphs draft 2.
Group work: check drafts 1 and 2 for Strunk and White 1-18.
July 31
Discuss: Foucault, "Las Meninas" part 1.
Style lesson: Strunk and White, "A Few Matters of Form."
Revisit: Draft 1.
August 1
Exercise: draft paragraphs on painting, history and contexts.
Style lesson: Strunk and White, Chapter V, rules 1-4.
August 2
Style lesson: Strunk and White, Chapter V, rules 5-8.
DUE: paragraphs draft 3.
Group work: check drafts 1, 2, and 3 for Strunk and White 1-22, "Form" and V.1-8
4. Discuss: problems of interpretation
Exercise: rethink drafts, envision whole paper, begin drafting.
Conference sign-up.
August 6
Individual conferences 9:00-10:40
August 7
Individual conferences 9:00-10:40
August 8
Individual conferences 9:00-10:40
August 9
DUE: Preliminary draft of whole paper.
Exercise: continue drafting.
August 13
Group work: share and critique drafts. Bring extra copies for overnight exchange.
August 14
Group work: share and critique drafts.
Editing: check draft for elements of style.
August 15
Exercise: assemble portfolio, draft introduction and acknowledgements.
August 16
Portfolios due by 11:00am today!
One to three absences--No penalty
Four to six absences--Final grade drops one letter grade
Seven or more absences--F for course
Attendance means "attendance for the whole class." If you arrive or leave during class you disrupt it, and you will be marked absent.
Other policies: Academic honesty is likewise essential to the fair and successful conduct of class, and dishonesty will be punished. Dishonesty includes various kinds of cheating, "plagiarism" (defined as the use of the words or ideas of another as if they were your own), and copying the work of another student in a test. Penalties for academic dishonesty can be severe and I will impose them. Please refer to the on-line student handbook for full details
9 In-class Exercises=25%
3 Drafts=@10%
Final Essay=30%
Portfolio=15%
Complete portfolio includes all corrected drafts, final essay, introduction and acknowledgements.
Optional Neat Stuff for Reading 1:
Want to know more about the great (albeit somewhat cranky) glaciologist and ichthyologist Louis Agassiz? Click here.
So what does a haemulon, a.k.a. grunt, look like, anyway?
"The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian: Thick Description Inspired by Foucault," by Jaime Fearer
"The Man in the White Shirt and His Lone Killer," by Rob Boley
Manet's The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian
John Singer Sargent, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
Thomas Hart Benton, City Activities
Mabel Alvarez, The Italian Model
Tamara de Lempicka, Self-Portrait in the Green Bugatti
Eugene Delacroix, The Fanatics of Tangier
Thomas Eakins, William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuykill River
Pieter Breughel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Diego Rivera, The Arsenal--Frida Kahlo Distributes Arms
Isaac Soyer, The Laundress
Joseph Wright, Experiment with the Air-Pump
George Catlin, Battle Between Sioux and Sauk and Fox
Helen Lundeberg, Pioneers of the West
Helen Lundeberg, Double Portrait of the Artist in Time
George Peter Alexander Healy, Vinnie Ream
Stephen Dohanos, Legend of James Edward Hamilton--Barefoot Mailman
Mitchell Siporin, Back of the Yards
Paul Cadmus, Aspects of Suburban Life: Public Dock
Fearer, Jaime. "The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian: Thick Description Inspired by Foucault." The Fogdog Review. 2.1 (1998): 28-29.
Foucault, Michel. "Las Meninas." Trans. Robert Hurley. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends 2nd. ed. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford, 1998. 1222-1231.
Scudder, Samuel. "Look at Your Fish." Field Working: Reading and Writing Research. Ed. Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater and Bonnie Stone Sunstein. Boston: Bedford, 1997. 61-64.
At first glance, Edouard Manet's painting appears to be, if possible, a simple execution scene. Three men are being shot, execution style, while a group of commoners gathers at the head of the wall, inspecting the whole scene. The background seems innocent enough with its sparse cluster of trees. Looking more closely, I wish the copy before me were in color, as the text below it suggests vibrant contrasts. Perhaps the black and white copy helps, however, in bringing out other contrasts, most noticeably a definite social hierarchy and power struggle.
The foreground grasps the viewer's immediate attention. The executioner to the right appears to be inspecting his gun, oblivious to the action going on at his side. The angle of his stance, suggestive of the power he knows is entrusted to him, is in drastic opposition to the rest of the men in the foreground, especially the position of the man wearing the sombrero. The group of six executioners is, at this instant in time, shooting the man surrounded in smoke. In the middle stands a primarily featureless man wearing a sombrero. Two other men stand by his side, holding hands, complementing the angle the group of executioners creates. The man on the end of their small line is quite similar in appearance to the slain man. The question arises: Who is the emperor? Is he the man taking the bullets at the moment this painting suggests, or could he be the man in the middle, dressed in regal fashion and flanked by his two assistants?
The middleground creates the barrier in the social hierarchy; the commoners gather in pyramid form at the top of the wall. Their faces are simply suggestive brushstrokes; any interpretation of their expressions is left to the viewer. I see expressions of shock as well as of boredom. Although nondescript, these men and women are probably more colorful than the men in the foreground, suggesting both their commonality and their diversity.
At first glance, the background appears to encompass the essence of the countryside. To the left lies a cluster of pines sinking somewhat into a valley. Two other groupings of trees or brush are at the crest of the hill, or are they mobs of people? A comparison of the featureless crowd gathered at the wall with these masses is certainly feasible.
Thus, with this very brief, and thick, description of this painting by Manet, one can see the power struggle embodied within this snapshot of time. The balance of power is immediately thrown off by the head executioner's stance and by his nonchalant expression; nothing out of the ordinary seems to be happening in his perception of the moment. He is ultimately, in his interpretation of the scene, in charge of those who once ruled him.
Somewhere, a painter attempts to paint all that is seen where a river carves a valley. The overall scene is chosen. Not just a specific point in time, where all waves are in equal succession and the shadows match the clouds. To do this would require the speed of an imagined god, the memory of a camera or the simplification of a quick jagged line. I daresay Manet was not superhuman. Obviously, he did not use one quick stroke to paint Execution of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. I'm fairly certain that there was not a Kodak Fling being used as the guns opened fire. Yet, Manet still attempts to capture a moment in time. It would seem the man was a delusional liar who molded history to his whim.
The painting seems to be a nice, white lie. It is filled with the contrast of white smoke and dark uniforms combined with deep clarity and dense blurriness. At first glance within the confines of the frame, one's eyes are pulled towards their respective ears. They are locked in a brief tug of war over focus. Eventually, one side wins out and a side is chosen.
On one side, the left, a man stands boldly in the foreground. His pants are black and his shirt is white. There is a look of fear and fierceness on his face, the first of the only two clear expressions in the painting. One may first assume that this is a look of pain, as smoking guns mean painful projectiles. However, if the man in the white shirt had already been shot, he would have been flung back, not standing forward. The bullets, therefore, must be in midair, maybe just barely denting the white cotton shirt. The bullets are eclipsed by smoke, which also covers up the two guys who are to be shot next. The three victims all stand side by side. The man next to the man in the white shirt has a blurry face, a small sombrero, and all black clothes. The man next to the man with the blurry face is the man with the mustache. They both seem fairly calm, but there is little detail to back that up. To continue tracing the bullets backwards, one comes to the guns of origins. These are all held by six men in uniform.
The officers are in formation similar to the victims, but with their backs to the viewer. They are wearing funny black hats to match their black outfits. It is difficult to tell, but they all seem to have similar styles of hair and skin tone. This suggests they are not important. Yet, to continue tracing back the bullets, one jumps from the physical realm to the mental realm. The bullet originated with an order, for it is doubtful these soldiers all pointed their rifles at this one poor man in the white shirt by sheer coincidence.
Thus we get to the other side of the painting, the other point of focus. Here again, we have a man standing in perfect clarity. He is dressed the same as his soldiers, except for a different colored hat and a lack of whiteness to his socks. His face seems devoid of any emotion. He is holding his gun, the tip of which goes off the right side of the canvas. At this point of finity, the painting attains a sense of being a continuous cycle in time in space. If one wrapped the painting behind itself, the action could go one forever. The symbolic bullet could be shot from this man's gun, fly across the void outside the picture and strike the man in the white shirt in the back.
In the midground, this backwards connection is enforced by a solid brick wall of varying levels of grey. On the wall, a bunch of people that do not matter are watching. They are just as irrelevant and faceless as the soldiers and the other two victims. They only serve to come between the killer and the victim. They are the general public, just as faceless and numberless as in real life. Behind them, nature sits in all of its glory, slowly getting smaller and more out of focus.
Carol Loranger
Office: 437C Fawcett
Summer Office Hours: MTW 1pm-3pm, and by appointment.
Phone: 937-775-2961
Email: carol.loranger@wright.edu
Go to top of page
Updated 6/25/01
