Some Basic Tips for Analyzing Poetry

Most students are far more comfortable reading and discussing prose than poetry, though that's usually a product of their lack of familiarity with the latter. We'll be dealing exclusively with poetry for the next three weeks (between Mexico City Blues and the work of Allen Ginsberg), then return to it in the second-to-last week when we work with Gregory Corso, and this work can be challenging at times, so it's best to start developing your analytic abilities now.  Below, you'll find two different strategies for working your way through a poem, which should be particularly useful now, when your instincts and comfort level aren't fully established. 

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This is a quick and simple five-step plan that should be fairly helpful as you work your way through the readings. Though it's better suited to more traditional poetry, it will still offer some useful questions to ask when reading through a poem:

1. What is happening in the poem?

• Literally: What is the poem’s action?
• Figuratively: What metaphors drive the poem’s message?

2. Comment on the poem’s music: What do you hear in this poem?

• the poet’s voice, the language used
• use of rhyme and near rhyme
• the poem’s rhythms, its cadence, its momentum
• use of alliteration and assonance
• performative enjambments (line breaks)

(All of these elements add emphasis to certain words, images and ideas. Why?)


3. Are there any memorable images? What do you see in this poem?


4. What general themes does the poet touch upon?


5. Ultimately, what is the poet/poem trying to say?

Another method of working your way through a poem comes from an interview with Ann Lauterbach in Daniel Kane's What is Poetry: Conversations with the American Avant-Garde:

DK: Is there a method or series of steps that you might recommend teachers to take in presenting "On (Open)" [a poem of Lauterbach's they'd been discussing] to high school students not so familiar with poetry?

AL: A poem is not a puzzle to be solved. A poem is an experience, an event, in and of language. It should be approached as such:

• What kind of event happened to you when you read this poem?
• Did you get a feeling?
• Did you have an idea?
• Did you get reminded of something?
• Did you go elsewhere, away from the familiar world into another, stranger, one?
• Did you look up words and find out new meanings, as you would ask directions in a strange city?
• Why do you think the poet made this word choice, and not another?
• Why do you think the line is broken here, at this word, and not at another?
• How is a line break in a poem different from a comma or a period in a prose sentence?

If you're interested in a far more comprehensive introduction to poetry, definitely check out Edward Hirsch's multi-part essay "How to Read a Poem (and Fall in Love with Poetry)," available through the Poetry Foundation website.

Also, here's a link to a poetics glossary to help you sort out any unfamiliar terms you might come across (including, perhaps, some used above), and a primer on poetic forms and techniques.

Jack Kerouac, "Mexico City Blues (242 Choruses)"

Our final reading from Jack Kerouac will continue on themes and locations present in On the Road and The Subterraneans, and also serve as a transition from prose (albeit highly poetic prose) to poetry, setting us up nicely for two weeks exploring the work of Allen Ginsberg.

While Kerouac's long prose excursions were largely the products of time spent in recollection at the end of his journeys (after all, a typewriter and long rolls of teletype paper aren't that easy to drag along the road), his poetry was rooted in a spontaneous, portable materiality, crafted in the moment of inspiration, out in the world.  He explains his poetics thusly:

In my system, the form of blues choruses is limited by the small page of the breastpocket notebook in which they are written, like the form of a set number of bars in a jazz blues chorus, and so sometimes the word-meaning can carry harmonically from one chorus into another, or not, just like the phrase-meaning can carry harmonically from one chorus to the other, or not, in jazz, the form is determined by time, and by the musicians' spontaneous phrasing & harmonizing with the beat of the time as it waves & waves on by in measured choruses.

It's all gotta be non stop ad libbing within each chorus, or the gig is shot.

Though divided into 242 choruses, Mexico City Blues is, Kerouac tells us, essentially one long interrupted poem, and we'll keep that in mind as we work through it.  Also, as Kerouac notes above, while many of the poems can stand alone, there are many instances where several run together to form a longer train of thought.  One example is Choruses 239-241, which Kerouac performed under the title "Charlie Parker" on his 1959 album (with Steve Allen on piano), Poetry for the Beat Generation:




Here are a few other settings of Mexico City Blues poems from that album:



221st Chorus, "Deadbelly"




149th Chorus, "One Mother"




Choruses 80-83, "Goofing at the Table"




211th Chorus, "The Wheel of the Quivering Meat Conception"




104th Chorus, "I'd Rather Be Thin Than Famous"


One person on whom Kerouac's work, and Mexico City Blues in particular, made a great impression (along with the work of Ginsberg and Burroughs) is Bob Dylan, as evidenced by this passage from Sean Wilentz's Bob Dylan in America, published in The New Yorker:

Dylan knew the poems, Ginsberg later claimed. “Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul in 1959,” Dylan told him. “It blew my mind.” It was the first poetry he’d read that spoke his own American language, Dylan said — or so Ginsberg said he said. Maybe, maybe not. Without question, though, Dylan read Mexico City Blues and was deeply interested in Beat writing before he left Minneapolis for New York. (Like other Beats and hipsters, his friend Tony Glover ordered a paperback copy of William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch from France, where it had been published by Olympia Press in Paris in 1959 as The Naked Lunch — uncertain whether the book, deemed obscene by American authorities, would clear customs. The book indeed arrived, and Glover lent it to Dylan, who returned it after a couple of weeks.) And Dylan’s involvement with the writings of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and the rest of the Beat generation is nearly as essential to Dylan’s biography as his immersion in rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and then Woody Guthrie. “I came out of the wilderness and just naturally fell in with the Beat scene, the bohemian, Be Bop crowd, it was all pretty much connected,” Dylan said in 1985. “It was Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti … I got in at the tail end of that and it was magic … it had just as big an impact on me as Elvis Presley.”

[note: the entire piece merits reading]

We'll be covering Mexico City Blues in two classes, with several student presentations, each covering one chorus or group of choruses.  Put on some jazz, indulge in the intoxicant of your choice (nicotine, caffeine, etc.) and enjoy the unbridled flow of language.  Better yet, read them out loud and freak out your roommates — these are made to be heard, not just read!

Here's the breakdown:

• Tuesday, Feb. 1st: Choruses 1-148 // presentations by Taylor Panning & Sarah Gullion
• Thursday, Feb. 3rd: Choruses 149-242 [no presentations, but if someone who hasn't signed up for a presentation wants to present, that's great — e-mail me]

Here are a few additional links and videos for your perusal:

• Kenneth Rexroth's review of Mexico City Blues in The New York Times

Ginsberg and Dylan read from Mexico City Blues at Kerouac's grave (as mentioned in the Wilentz essay)




Johnny Depp performs the 113th Chorus (in a delightfully dated video)

Screenings Confirmed / Room Changed

I've just received confirmation that we're all set for this evening's screening of  Chuck Workman's The Source (1999).  While the room has changed (to 046 McMicken), the time is the same, and we'll discuss in class whether folks would prefer to start right at 5:00 or a little later so you'll have a chance to grab a bite to eat first.

We also have the same classroom booked for next Tuesday evening (2/1), when I'll be showing Richard Lerner & Lewis MacAdams' 1986 documentary, What Happened to Kerouac?  I hope to see many of you at both!

Jack Kerouac, "The Subterraneans"

Once I was young and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this; in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won't do—just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do—.  It began on a warm summernight—ah, she was sitting on the fender with Julien Alexander who is . . . let me begin with a history of the subterraneans of San Francisco . . .

Thus begins Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans, the next book we'll be reading this term.

After the sudden success of On the Road  Kerouac's publishers wanted to move quickly to capitalize on his notoriety, and The Subterraneans was the first of two books released in 1958 (the other being the classic The Dharma Bums), within one year of On The Road.   The Subterraneans was not only speedily published, but also speedily written — while On the Road's first draft came together in three weeks, Kerouac wrote this book during a three day binge of caffeine and benzadrine (a popular stimulant of the era). Not surprisingly, the novella is a fine example of the author's spontaneous prose style, riddled with long, poetically recursive run-on passages.

We had a few fruitful class discussions of the complicated nature of Kerouac's relation to other races and cultures, and once again, it's at the heart of this book, which focuses on a brief love affair Kerouac (here called Leo Percepied) had with an African-American woman, Alene Lee (called Mardou Fox in the book) in 1953.  Here's a photo by Allen Ginsberg of Lee (with William S. Burroughs) around the time of the books events:

The Subterraneans' depiction of an interracial love affair was so controversial by late-1950s standards that when a (quite awful) film adaptation of the novel was made in 1960, the female love interest was changed to a young French woman.

As in On The Road, many of Kerouac's friends and fellow Beat Generation writers appear under pseudonyms within the narrative.  Burroughs appears as Frank Carmody, while Ginsberg is Adam Moorad; Cassady is mentioned in passing as Leroy, and Gregory Corso (our last Beat author of the term) plays a major role in the novel under the name Yuri Gligoric.  Though the real-life  events took place in New York City, Kerouac chose to switch the location to San Francisco (a city he was well-acquainted with at this time).

Kerouac spent quite a bit of time and effort defending the ethos of the Beats once they came under the scrutiny of the general public, and I'm providing a PDF file of a few brief essays on this topic ("About the Beat Generation" [1957], "Lamb, No Lion" [1958] and "Beatific: The Origins of The Beat Generation" [1959]) here: [link].  This novel's title, however, says quite a bit about his intentions (or wishes) for the shared philosophies of the Beats — namely that it remain hidden underground, a secret underworld paradise — and if the name reminds you of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," you're on the mark:  Dylan's just one of many artists, writers and musicians who were inspired by Kerouac's prose and this book in particular.  Painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, for example, is shown at right photographed with his well-thumbed copy of the book (one of his favorites), and David Bowie used the title for one of the instrumental pieces on his 1977 album, Low, which serves as the soundtrack for the very strange YouTube video below (a mix of Bowie's music, Kerouac reading a passage from the novel and footage of artist Jackson Pollock):

Originally, we'd planned to discuss the book over two days, however due to our snow day, we'll try to restrict most of our discussion to next Thursday's class.  Since our reading was going to be split into two presentations over two days, Tuesday's presenter, Hannah Moore will talk about part 1 of the book, while Hannah Henschel (Thursday's presenter) will talk about part 2.

Snow Day / Schedule Shift

Well, it looks as if UC's administration came to its senses in regards to the weather, and though it's a hassle to have to shift our schedule a bit, it's likely for the best — no one needs to get hurt for the sake of a class!

So here's how we'll proceed: in terms of readings, we'll bump Neal Cassady's The First Third forward one class to Tuesday, then aim to cover most of Jack Kerouac's novella, The Subterraneans, next Thursday (you should read the entire book for Thursday, and we'll have both of our presentations on the same day).  We'll carry over that conversation into the start of the following week's first class on Kerouac's Mexico City Blues, along with two student presentations on poems from the latter, and we'll wrap Kerouac up at the end of the week.

In terms of the film screenings, I haven't received definitive word from the English Dept. yet, but I've tentatively scheduled The Source (the film the pedagogical/weather gods don't want you to see) for next Tuesday from 5-7 PM, and we'll aim to watch What Happened to Kerouac? the following Tuesday at the same time.  Looking ahead, we can watch The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg during our two weeks on the poet, and Howard Brookner's Burroughs the Movie during Week 8.  It's a longshot, but I might also try getting in touch with Gustave Reininger, director and producer of Corso: the Last Beat — a documentary that's shown at a few festivals and special events (including a Corso exhibition here at UC two years ago) that's yet to find a distributor — to see if he'd lend us a copy to view.

Here's the revamped schedule once more:

Week 4

• Tuesday, Jan.  25: Neal Cassady, The First Third // presentation by Jenna Chiavacci 
• Thursday, Jan. 27: Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans // presentations by Hannah Moore & Hannah Henschel

Week 5

• Tuesday, Feb. 1: Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans (carry over) / Mexico City Blues, day 1 // presentations by Taylor Panning & Sarah Gullion
• Thursday, Feb. 3: Mexico City Blues, day 2 // (no one signed up to present)

Kerouac on Steve Allen

Here's the video clip we ended our last class with — Jack Kerouac's appearance on The Steve Allen Show in 1959.  I misspoke, by the way, when I said that this was the historic precursor of what's now known as The Tonight Show.  Allen hosted Tonight Starring Steve Allen from 1954-1957, leaving late night to move to prime time for The Steve Allen Show.  He was replaced by Jack Paar, who left for primetime himself in 1962, opening the door for a little known comedian named Johnny Carson (and the rest, as they say, is history):

Screening Postponed, Class Still On

I hope your snowy morning is off to a good start, and I have to admit that I'm quite surprised that UC hasn't called a snow day yet, which means that we'll still meet for class as scheduled.  

For safety's sake, however, I think it's a good idea to postpone our screening of The Source for the time being, as the early evening hours are supposed to be the worst of the storm, and I don't want to keep anyone away from home unnecessarily.  I'm trying to rebook a room and will let you know the details when I get them, but I'm thinking we'll watch The Source next Tuesday and What Happened to Kerouac? the following Tuesday.  Keep an eye on the news (perhaps class will be canceled after all) and be safe getting to and from campus today!

Neal Cassady, "The First Third"

Before we continue our exploration of the work of Jack Kerouac, we're taking a brief detour to consider the work of On the Road's hero and inspiration, Neal Cassady.  Unlike his Beat Generation friends, Cassady didn't leave behind a prolific body of writings, but his literary legacy is preserved (in addition to a number of letters) in the form of an unfinished autobiography, The First Third.

Written between 1948 and 1954, much of The First Third was written contemporaneously with the events Kerouac describes in On the Road (which roughly covers the span of 1947-1950), however his focus isn't current events, but rather his youth, his nascent life of crime and adventures, poverty and social shame, that shapes the character that we see in Kerouac's work (and elsewhere, as we'll see).

As for the rest of Cassady's life, post-On the Road, there are two major events that shape his fate.  First, in 1958 he was arrested on drug charges (he offered undercover cops a few joints in return for a ride to his work), and served two years in San Quentin — and in later years, he'd blame this on the greater notoriety he received as the real-life hero of Kerouac's bestseller (he also resented the fact that Kerouac was relatively well-to-do from his fictionalizing of Cassady's life while he struggled to make ends meet).  While he'd stay in touch with his Beat confreres (particular Allen Ginsberg and the affiliated scene of San Francisco-based poets) he'd spend most of the remainder of his life (from 1964 to 1968) as part of psychedelic proselytizer Ken Kesey's group, the Merry Pranksters, as documented in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.

In terms of scheduling, we're going to spend just one day on The First Third, which is a bit of reading, but just about enough time for discussion.  As an unfinished book, and a non-fiction document, we'll read this a little differently than Kerouac, with our focus on a few key elements: 1) the form itself, and how this style relates to Kerouac's, and 2) the details of Neal's life, specifically how they shape him into the character that he becomes (literally and metaphorically) as well as how these self-determined descriptions differ from how Dean Moriarty's history is depicted in On the Road.  If Kerouac is seeking a modicum of self-actualization through his writing, how does Cassady do the same?

That having been said, you don't need to read everything presented here.  Read the Prologue and at least the first two chapters if you can't read all three, and you might want to check out the letters to Kerouac in the back (and take note that Luanne [Henderson] is OTR's Marylou).  And though this is a lot of reading for one class, our reading for next week (The Subterraneans) will be a lot lighter.

Here are a pair of rare videos of Ginsberg and Cassady together at Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore towards the end of his life:

"The Source" Screening, Thursday Jan. 20

I've managed to secure a classroom for us to watch The Source, Chuck Workman's critically-acclaimed documentary about the Beat Generation, which I originally intended to screen part of on our first day of class.  Because class space is hard to come by in McMicken, I wasn't able to get a room prior to class, but rather after our class this Thursday.

• Where: 250 McMicken

• When: I have the room booked from 5:00-7:00 and the film is 88 minutes, so I can start it at 5:00 on the dot, or if folks want a little extra time to run over to the TUC to grab dinner, I can start it at 5:15 (which will give you 30 min. to get something to eat).  We can discuss this in class on Tuesday.

• RSVP, please: I've made a post on our class Facebook group (be sure to join if you haven't already), and would appreciate it greatly if you can indicate whether you intend to come out for the screening or not.

Of course, this screening is optional and if you can't attend or simply aren't interested, you won't be penalized in any way, however The Source is a really fantastic introduction to the Beats, beautifully edited with a marvelous soundtrack (Sonic Youth, the Rolling Stones, Charlie Parker, etc.), and aside from providing the opportunity for you to get to know the authors we'll be reading a little more intimately (as I warned you, Allen Ginsberg gets naked!), Workman also does a wonderful job of rooting the Beats in their historical contexts (some of that Happy Days oppressiveness we've been discussing in class so far).

On the other hand, if we get a good turnout, and if enough of you are interested, I'd love to organize other screenings of Beat-related cinema throughout the remainder of the quarter (perhaps every other week).  We can discuss this possibility in class on Tuesday as well.

A Bop Sampler

As we discussed at the end of our last class, one of the main influences on Kerouac's prose style is bebop jazz — at the time a relatively new stylistic innovation.  To get you in the mood, here are a few selections from some of bop's finest practioners:


Charlie Parker & Miles Davis - Ko Ko



Charlie Parker & Miles Davis - Now's the Time



Charlie Parker & Miles Davis - Ornithology



Dizzy Gillespie - Salt Peanuts



Lester Young - Pennies From Heaven



Lester Young - Lester Leaps In



Slim Gaillard - Cement Mixer (Pu-ti Pu-ti)

Kerouac's Style

Click on the image above to read the opening lines of On the Road as originally written in Kerouac's first full draft — a massive, uncut scroll, 120 feet long, which he claimed was written over the course of three benezedrine and coffee-fuelled weeks. Here's another photo of Kerouac with the scroll, which was purchased by Jim Irsay (owner of the Indianapolis Colts) in the 1990s and has been going on the road itself in a number of exhibitions since then.

Kerouac's prose style, which he termed "spontaneous bop prosody" was inspired by the tremendous verve of bebop jazz, the westward momentum of a speeding automobile.  Two brief key texts, in which he spells out the methods and ideologies behind his writing are "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" [link] and "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose" [link]. 

Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"

Our investigation of the Beat Generation this term will begin with, perhaps, the movement's defining text — a novel that, more than a half-century after its initial publication continues to captivate and inspire new generations of readers — Jack Kerouac's On the Road. 

Kerouac's second novel, On the Road was released in 1957, capturing the dissatisfaction he and his friends felt towards society's prevailing norms (think Ozzie and Harriet, Pleasantville, suburban homes with a full regiment of state-of-the-art appliances surrounded by white picket fences), along with a desire for greater social, sexual and cultural freedom, a heady wanderlust, curiosity towards drugs, jazz, minority culture . . . it packs quite a bit of revolutionary fervor into 300 or so pages. 

Written through the perspective of Sal Paradise, the book traces four cross-country trips Kerouac took, alone and with friends, between 1947 and 1950, spending time in places including Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Mexico City, along with his homebase of New York City, and in it, you'll encounter many of the other writers we'll be reading this term, including Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty), Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx) and William S. Burroughs (Ol Bull Lee) (fear not, Gregory Corso is a central character in The Subterraneans).  As you perhaps can already tell, On the Road is highly autobiographical in nature — in essence, thinly-veiled nonfiction with some alterations (which we'll discuss in class) — and this open, honest style is a hallmark of the Beats and their literature.

Because we won't be having class on Thursday, I'm frontloading the reading so you can get a fair amount of it out of the way before our second and third classes on the book.  Here's our schedule:

• Tues., January 11th: Parts 1 and 2
• Thurs., January 13th: Part 3
• Tues., January 18th: Parts 4 and 5

On Tuesday, we'll also sign up presenters for the rest of the quarter, but our most important goal will be to have two presenters for the rest of On the Road, so if you enjoy the reading so far, consider signing up for one of those slots (or one covering the other two books by Kerouac we'll be reading).

If you don't have an edition of On the Road that includes Ann Charters' introductory essay, here's a link to a copy of it in PDF format.  And here are some supplemental links if you're interested in more background information on Kerouac and On the Road:

• Gilbert Millstein's career-making review of On the Road from The New York Times' September 5, 1957 edition
• Luc Sante's New York Times feature on On the Road's 50th Anniversary, plus a slideshow of covers from foreign editions 
• Another gallery of On the Road covers from its 51 years in print
• A Kerouac character key, revealing the pseudonyms used to conceal the identities of his friends and peers in many of his books

Course Description

(left to right: Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs)

We'll narrow our focus this quarter to a short (but tremendously important) period in postwar American history where a burgeoning countercultural movement — know as The Beat Generation — radically changed the course of the 20th century, openly defying the conventions of society's aesthetics, morality and politics, and in the process, breathing joy and life into a stoic literature.

The Beat Generation first entered the public sphere with the publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems in 1956 (a book which would be tried for obscenity and ultimately vindicated).  Other germinal books followed, including Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959) by which point this core group of New York City writers had been joined by members of a lively San Francisco poetry scene (including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch).  This term, however, our focus will be on the group's first (and some would argue, purest) incarnation: the small New York cadre of Kerouac,  Ginsberg,  Burroughs, Neal Cassady and Gregory Corso.  While the Beats' heyday was relatively brief, their influence long outlived their era (and in some cases, the writers themselves), directly inspiring bohemian subcultures worldwide (including hippies, Yippies and much more) and opening up the possibilities of American literature to allow for more creative and frank expression.  The Free Speech, Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Queer Rights, Anti-war and Environmental movements can all trace their origins (in some part) to advances made within the literary sphere by the authors we'll be studying this quarter, and undoubtedly, we live in an era shaped by their ideas.

If the following topics (which we'll be discussing at some depth this quarter) offend you, it might be best to transfer to another Freshmen Seminar (occasionally, there's one offered on The Hobbit):

• hitchhiking
• drug use
• sex
• excessive consumption of fossil fuels
• bebop jazz
• Mexico
  
• infidelity
• insanity
• gay sex
• Walt Whitman
  
• junkyards
• drug smuggling
• insane mothers
• crows
  
• drug dealing
• aliens
• insects
• alien sex
• Tangiers
  
• the Titanic disaster
• mind control
• thievery
• marriage
  
• the atomic bomb
• religious visions
• the Vietnam War
• time travel
• Wichita
• Prague
• free speech
  
• abortion
• rock and roll
• and probably more drugs
• and definitely more sex

If, on the other hand, this is appealing to you, then you're in the right place (and probably just a little off in the head).  Welcome!

Course Requirements and Policies

Attendance/Lateness: Attendance and punctuality are mandatory. Since our work will largely consist of group discussion, missing (or arriving late for) a class can have serious and detrimental effects on your overall performance. You will automatically fail the class if you exceed four absences, though any missed classes will likely have adverse affects on your final grade. Please note that absences are absences—sick days (with or without a doctor’s note) are no different than days that you don’t feel like getting out of bed—and the only exception to this rule will be when classes are officially canceled due to inclement weather. The attendance policy for this class will be strictly enforced. Please show respect and courtesy to your peers by arriving to each class on time.


Participation: Because so much of our work this quarter will be collaborative, participation—both in the classroom and online through Facebook and the course blog—is vital and necessary. Freely and comfortably sharing your insights, opinions and perspectives (as well as your questions) will be an invaluable part of our fuller understanding of the texts we’ll examine. For this reason, class participation constitutes 10% of the final grade. Do not underestimate the importance of this percentage: a zero can have disastrous effects upon your performance.


Course Blog: In lieu of Blackboard, I’ll be using this blog to make announcements, distribute handouts as PDFs, and share supplementary materials — including useful links, podcasts and MP3 recordings, as well as YouTube videos—which will help to broaden your class experience this quarter. It’s in your best interest to check the blog on a daily basis, and to simplify that process, I’ve added links in the sidebar which will allow you subscribe to the blog’s xml feed through your preferred feed aggregator (iGoogle, Google Reader, etc.), or sign up to receive e-mail updates via FeedBurner when new posts are added.


I've also created a Facebook group for our class — there's a link to the right in the sidebar — which will serve as another venue for announcements, as well as a forum for discussion outside of class.  Please note: this group is private, so while your wall feed will show that you belong to the group and/or that you've posted to the group, the content of those posts will be shielded from your friends.






Both our Facebook group and our blog will also be used for an number of online response assignments throughout the course of the term.  These assignments — which will be graded on a check/check-plus/check-minus scale — will count for 10% of your final grade.


 
Presentations: In lieu of a midterm paper or bluebook exam, each student will be required to sign up for one day on which you'll iniatiate our class discussion, giving a relatively brief presentation (5 minutes or a little longer), in which you will analyze several key points in the day's reading (i.e. the continuation of plotlines, introduction of characters, readings of the narrative through the frame of race, gender, sexuality, etc.).  On days when we're reading poetry, your presentations will take the form of a close reading of one particular poem.  In both cases, I'm likely to provide a leading question or two to assist you.  In conjunction with your presentation, you'll write up a short (3-5 page) response paper, which will be due on the same day.   The paper should essentially be a model for the presentation, and in addition to analyzing the readings themselves, any connections you can make to other works that we've read (either by that author or others)  or the general themes we'll be investigating will be greatly appreciated.

Students will sign up for their slots on the second day of class and each presentation/paper will count for 25% of your final grade.  Some modicum of merciful consideration will be shown to those presenting during the first two weeks of class.  Students who are not prepared to go on the day of their scheduled presentation will be skipped and their grade for the assignment will be docked accordingly.


Quizzes: Over the course of the quarter, you can expect a number of short, unannounced quizzes, which will serve as a measure of your reading comprehension and retention. Missed quizzes cannot be made up, and will adversely affect your final grade. The aggregate score of your quizzes will count for 15% of your final grade, and ideally, there will be at least five quizzes, all of which will have opportunities for bonus points.  A hint: we’re far less likely to have a quiz if the class is having a lively and engaged conversation about the day’s readings.


Technology: In theory, technology is a wonderful thing, but in the classroom, it can be a distraction. Please make sure that your cell phone is turned off (or at the very least in silent mode) before class begins, and keep it in your bag throughout. Texting during class will not be tolerated.  Laptops may only be used by students with appropriate paperwork from Disability Services explaining its necessity—otherwise, a notebook or binder will have to suffice (even if it's terribly old-world).


Communication: Please make use of my posted office hours, the time before and after class,  Facebook and/or e-mail to discuss your performance in the course, pose questions you might have, etc. If you're having trouble, doing poorly on quizzes or just not getting the readings, it's better to ask for help sooner rather than later. Unofficially, you should meet with me at least once during the quarter.


Plagiarism: You are probably well-acquainted with UC’s Academic Honesty Policy and Student Code of Conduct, however it might be advantageous to re-orient yourself with those policies now, as classes begin again this quarter.

Plagiarism, defined as “the appropriation of information, ideas, or the language of other persons or writers and the submission of them as one's own to satisfy the requirements of a course,” can take many guises, including cheating on a quiz, cutting-and-pasting information found on the web, failing to properly cite sources or fabricating them entirely. Any student found guilty of plagiarism, in any form, will automatically fail this course. Disciplinary action will also result, including an official record of this offense, potentially affecting your academic future.


The Writing Center: The Writing Center is a valuable and free resource available to all UC students. Writing Fellows are available to help students at all stages of the writing process from brainstorming to drafting, as well as with editing essays. I strongly encourage you to have a tutor review all the writing you do for this course. Please visit their website for hours of operation, writing resources and more information.


Special Needs Statement: If you have any special needs related to your participation and performance in this course, please speak to me as soon as possible. In consultation with Disability Services, we can make reasonable provisions to ensure your ability to succeed in this class and meet its goals.


Final Grade: Your final grade will be calculated according to the following rough percentages:

• Presentation / Response Essay: 25%
• Quizzes: 15%
• Online Responses: 10%
  
• Class Participation: 10%
• Final Essay: 40%

Paper Format: All worked handed in for this class must be typed, double-spaced, and MUST be stapled. Use 12-point, Times New Roman font for each assignment, and be sure to use the MLA header. Late work will be penalized, losing a full letter grade for each class missed. 


Any divergence from these policies will be done solely at my discretion.

Book List

• Jack Kerouac, On the Road (ISBN: 0142437255)
• Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans (ISBN: 0802131867)
• Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues (ISBN: 0802130607)
• Neal Cassady, The First Third (ISBN: 0872860051)
• Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems (ISBN: 0061139750)
• William S. Burroughs, Word Virus: the William S. Burroughs Reader (ISBN: 080213694X)
• Gregory Corso, Mindfield: New and Selected Poems (ISBN: 1560252014) 
• Joyce Johnson, Minor Characters (ISBN: 0140283579)

Books have been ordered at both the UC and DuBois Bookstores. You can also find used copies from sites including Powell's, Alibris, ABE Books and Half.com, as well as sellers on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Class Schedule (Subject to Change)

Week 1

• Tuesday, Jan. 4: introductions, syllabus, etc. plus The Source (dir. Chuck Workman, 1999)
• Thursday, Jan.6: No Class — Professor Conference

Week 2

• Tuesday, Jan. 11: Jack Kerouac, On the Road, day 1
• Thursday, Jan. 13: Jack Kerouac, On the Road, day 2

Week 3

• Tuesday, Jan.  18: Jack Kerouac, On the Road, day 2
• Thursday, Jan. 20: Neal Cassady, The First Third

Week 4

• Tuesday, Jan.  25: Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans, day 1
• Thursday, Jan. 27: Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans, day 2

Week 5

• Tuesday, Feb. 1: Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues, day 1
• Thursday, Feb. 3: Mexico City Blues, day 2

Week 6

• Tuesday, Feb. 8: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 1
• Thursday, Feb. 10: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 2

Week 7

• Tuesday, Feb. 15: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 3
• Thursday, Feb. 17: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 4

Week 8

• Tuesday, Feb. 22: William S. Burroughs, Word Virus, day 1
• Thursday, Feb. 24: William S. Burroughs, Word Virus, day 2

Week 9

• Tuesday, Mar. 1: Gregory Corso, Mindfield, day 1
• Thursday, Mar. 3: Gregory Corso, Mindfield, day 2

Week 10

• Tuesday, Mar. 8: Joyce Johnson, Minor Characters, day 1
  
• Thursday, Mar. 10: Joyce Johnson, Minor Characters, day 2

 Final Essay: Date TBD

Presentation Schedule

Week 1

• Tuesday, Jan. 4: introductions, syllabus, etc. plus The Source (dir. Chuck Workman, 1999)
• Thursday, Jan.6: No Class — Professor Conference

Week 2

• Tuesday, Jan. 11: Jack Kerouac, On the Road, day 1
• Thursday, Jan. 13: Jack Kerouac, On the Road, day 2 // Mary Gorsek

Week 3

• Tuesday, Jan.  18: Jack Kerouac, On the Road, day 3 // Cameron Tolliver
• Thursday, Jan. 20: Neal Cassady, The First Third // Jenna Chiavacci

Week 4

• Tuesday, Jan.  25: Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans, day 1 // Hannah Moore
• Thursday, Jan. 27: Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans, day 2// Hannah Henschel

Week 5

• Tuesday, Feb. 1: Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues, day 1 // Taylor Panning, Sarah Gullion
• Thursday, Feb. 3: Mexico City Blues, day 2// Alice Flanders

Week 6

• Tuesday, Feb. 8: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 1 // Kelly Clatterbuck
• Thursday, Feb. 10: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 2 // Alayna Buescher

Week 7

• Tuesday, Feb. 15: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 3 // Danielle Sprovieri
• Thursday, Feb. 17: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, day 4 // Caitlin Denney

Week 8

• Tuesday, Feb. 22: William S. Burroughs, Word Virus, day 1 // Dylan McCartney
• Thursday, Feb. 24: William S. Burroughs, Word Virus, day 2// Sandrina Newkirk-Martin

Week 9

• Tuesday, Mar. 1: Gregory Corso, Mindfield, day 1 // Brandt Lambert
• Thursday, Mar. 3: Gregory Corso, Mindfield, day 2 // Sunshine Bowman-Gibson

Week 10

• Tuesday, Mar. 8: Joyce Johnson, Minor Characters, day 1 // Erica Anderson, Sophie Roos
  
• Thursday, Mar. 10: Joyce Johnson, Minor Characters, day 2 // Hilary Wagonhurst