ENGL 497-002: Writing History  Spring 2005  George Mason University
Scott W. Berg, Instructor

Office: Robinson Hall, A114 (the Writing Center)
Office Hours: Mondays noon-1:00.  Much better yet, make an appointment.
E-mail: sberg1@gmu.edu

Required Materials/Expenditures: 

Four books are required for this course:

Dava Sobel, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Les Standiford, Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

A required course packet is on sale in the bookstore (for $7.40) and contains single chapters from the following books:

James Gleick, Isaac Newton
Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Lucy Jago, The Northern Lights: The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis
Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

You'll also be responsible for making copies of your own work, sometimes enough for your workshop group and sometimes enough for the entire class.

Be sure you own a good dictionary and a good English handbook as well.  I recommend The American Heritage Dictionary (hardcover) and Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference, 5th edition.

This course focuses on nonfiction writing in the genre that is known variously as "narrative history," "popular history," or "crossover history." A more basic description, though, might be "Writing compelling true stories about dead people who aren't related to you."

The genre of popular history has been around for quite a while but came out from the shadow of "historical fiction" in 1994 with the publication of Dava Sobel's Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time, a very small and well-constructed book that sold oodles of copies and paved the way for other widely-known examples such as Simon Winchester's Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, among many others. Each of these books is reasonably brief, full of vivid detail, and combines historical narrative, biography, and a sophisticated but accessible understanding of art, science, sport, or some other field.

This is a workshop class in which we will also do a fair amount of reading, include the Sobel, Winchester, and Larson books above, along with Les Standiford's Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed the Ocean. The written work in the class will culminate in one substantial piece of popular history, either a self-contained narrative of a section of a longer work. Along the way, shorter pieces will explore the many ways a nonfiction writer can resurrect times, places, and characters.  It will be very important that your grammar and syntax be correct, but it will be more important that your writing be creative, clear, committed, cogent, complex, and complete.  I'll give each of you as much help as you'd like, tell you what works and what doesn't.  If you're willing to take advantage of such help, you'll see the results in your writing.  Be ready to do good work -- the class will (hopefully) be relaxed, but the standards will be high.

Historical research is of course a necessity for this genre and so will of course be part of the class. Students will learn how to use a variety of research resources, including the Library of Congress and Mason's own trove of databases, all in the service of richer and more authoritative narrative.

PREREQUISITES FOR ENGLISH 497

ENGL 309, 311, 399 and 489 all serve as acceptable possible prerequisites for this course. It is not necessary to have taken ENGL 396 before taking this course.  This course fulfills a requirement for students in the nonfiction and creative writing concentrations in English and is designed as part of that concentration, but students from all majors are welcome.

I am not the person who dispenses information and advice about course eligibility; if you have questions, contact Laura Scott, English department advisor, at 703/993-1179 or lscott@gmu.edu, and tell her I sent you. 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Each of you, as a student at George Mason, is entitled to a free e-mail account, and should have basic e-mail competency.  Though I will try not to assign anything exclusively via e-mail, I will send reminders, updates, and other course information electronically.

This is a cooperative discussion and workshop class, which relies on the attendance and active contribution of its members to succeed.  I will require that you let me know in advance of any absences.  An excused absence will be any legitimate absence which I know of ahead of time. These excused absences (as long as they are not frequent) will be treated differently than unexcused absences: there will be more opportunity to make up graded assignments, in-class writing, etc.

NOTE ON ATTENDANCE:  Missing class with regularity will damage your ability to do well in the course.  And there are limits to the kind of absenteeism I'll allow:  Anyone missing more than two weeks (two classes) consecutively or three weeks (three classes) overall will not be able to pass the course because of the missed in-class work and participation.  Approaching these limits will affect your final grade as well, though to what degree will depend on your contributions when you are in class.

Punctuality is important.  Please be on time for class.

You'll write three set pieces of around 500 words each exploring place, character, and the tenor of a time.  These will make use of the Library of Congress, historical databases, books, and other sources. There are only two possible grades on these exercises: "very good" and "please revise."  If you're in the "please revise" stage, there will be no grade recorded on the exercise other than a notation that you handed your first version on time and therefore are eligible, eventually, for full credit.  Once you've received your "very good," you're done with that exercise and will be given full credit for its completion, no matter how many drafts you wrote.  Know in advance that I'll be demanding of these as with all  your work--you may write something that has many positives and still be asked to do more with it.

We will have at least two editorial workshops toward the end of the semester, when you will meet in groups of three or four classmates to discuss your work.  You will also be responsible for a series of one-page editorial responses to the writing of your workshop members.  These days are very important to this class, and as such, workshop participation is a required assignment, which cannot be made up.

NOTE ON FORMAT and MECHANICS: All out-of-class writing must be typed, double-spaced, normal margins, Times New Roman font or something equally readable.  No colored fonts, no fancy fonts, no cover pages, no plastic binders for your writing.  Pages should be numbered and stapled; the first page should include, in the upper left corner, your name, the name of this class (ENGL497-002), the designated assignment name ("Exercise #1." "Draft #2 of Popular History," etc.), and the date.   At the end of each piece, please provide a word count.  All writing should be free, or nearly free, of mechanical errors -- the focus in this class is on style, form, and content, not grammar and punctuation. The ability to competently manipulate the fundamental units of English composition--the word, the sentence and the paragraph--is a prerequisite and not a goal for this course. 

Each of you will meet with me for at least one twenty or so minute conference.  Class may be canceled or reduced to afford time for these individual meetings.  A scheduled conference is a required assignment, and must be made up if missed.

REVISIONS

Revision is an important part of this class.  Each of the major creative assignments will go through several steps.  These drafts are required assignments, and count towards your overall grade.

GRADING

You must do everything assigned--reading, rough and final drafts of assignments, workshops, conferences, and shorter writings--to receive a passing grade in the class.

Your grade will be determined according the following mix:

Final piece of popular/narrative history:  40%
"Notes" and bibliography: 10%
Research/description exercises: 20% total
Progress reports/presentation summaries/discussion responses/editorial responses/group presentations: 20% total, proportionately weighted
Class participation: 10%

Your grade is not based solely on an editorial assessment of your writing, nor is based solely on whether you accomplished every item on my checklist.  A student who receives an A or A- in this class must show herself or himself to be a very good writer and a very good student.  The writing of an A student does not aim to entirely duplicate the quality of the examples in class, but does aim for the same types of strengths. Being a good student means being in class and entering into the spirit as well as the letter of the work.  Participation is important, as is a sense that you're engaged.  Being late with assignments, nodding off in class, failing to absorb discussions or lectures through disinterest or lack of concentration, showing disrespect to your peers; these aren't the marks of a good student.

A NOTE ABOUT SAVING YOUR WRITING

There can be no excuse in the year 2005 for losing one's only copy of a piece of writing.  If you aren't yet familiar with the many methods available to you to decrease the likelihood that you will lose your writing, educate yourself now.  Never carry around a piece of writing on a floppy or ZIP disk without making sure that you've also saved that piece of writing to 1) a hard drive somewhere 2) a server somewhere (by e-mailing it to yourself) 3) a second storage medium, or 4) a paper copy.  Preferably, you'll use several of these methods at once.  Also keep in mind that MS Word can be set to automatically save your work every X number of minutes; may I suggest you set this feature to 5 minutes or less.

I have given you this advice and warning.  Please don't come to me and say and say "I only had one copy."

PLAGIARISM AND LATE ASSIGNMENTS

Here is the definition of plagiarism, according to the English Department:

Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another person without giving that person credit.  Writers give credit through accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or end notes; a simple listing of books and articles is not sufficient.  Plagiarism is the equivalent of intellectual robbery and cannot be tolerated in the academic setting.

Egregious plagiarism will result in an F for the assignment and a report of an Honor Code violation.

Late papers and assignments will be penalized.  This penalty will depend on the nature of the offense;  for example, an assignment one day late will suffer less than an assignment five days late.  (The minimum penalty, though, is a half-grade reduction: B to B-, for example.)  No paper a week late or more will receive a passing grade.  I will consider, though not automatically grant, extension requests made at least one class period in advance--but only if they are infrequent.

THE UNIVERSITY WRITING CENTER

The University Writing Center is a free one-on-one tutorial service, available to all GMU students who want to work on writing skills.  Stop by Robinson Hall, room A114, or call 993-1200 for information and appointments.