DRAFT syllabus: final to be distributed 1st day of class
DPI-811M A: Advanced Intensive Writing for Policy and Politics
module 4, spring semester 2016
MW 1:15-2:45, T275
Greg Harris
Office Hours: after class and by appointment
Office Phone: 617-495-8906
Office: Belfer 202
Email: [email protected]
This six-week course, which can be taken alone or in sequence with DPI-810M, gives you the tools to write and
publish pieces in policy and academic journals, newspapers, magazines, and popular blogs, in such genres as the
feature story, personal essay, academic essay, op-ed, and book proposal. It achieves this degree of breadth by
focusing intensively on awareness of design in writing: how to shape a piece to a specific publishing venue, matching
purpose, audience, and material. Through workshops and intensive one-on-one editing, students will focus on
advanced techniques in style, rhetoric, structure, argument, explanation, and storytelling. The goal is a confident,
efficient, and vital writing and revision process.
This class is intended for committed writers capable of self-direction, whose goals include journalism, professional
writing, grant and proposal writing, creative writing, or advanced academic writing. DPI-811M is suitable for
students whose first language is not English, but is not designed to help with basic issues of grammar or usage.
The class is grounded in:
1.
Support for your writing priorities. The class helps you define your immediate and long-term goals as a
writer—what genres are meaningful to you, and what projects most deserve your attention. Then the
class supports those goals, by helping you craft assignments honed to achieve them.
2.
Focused reading. DPI-811M challenges you with some of the best writing from a focused set of contexts
and genres. You will discuss, analyze, evaluate, and occasionally edit what you read.
3.
Expert feedback. You will receive individual editorial attention on your drafts as you develop and polish
them.
4.
Peer feedback. As part of a writing group, you will read, discuss, and edit the work of your colleagues,
and they yours. Together, you will build the habits necessary to sustain your writing goals.
5.
Publishing strategy. DPI-811M will give you the tools you need to connect with editors of both online
and print publications, and coach you through the necessary steps of submitting your work.
Assignments and Grading: Basic expectations are that you will write in a focused way on a subject of your choice:
1) A publication-ready piece of approximately 2000 words, with associated cover or query letter. A full draft is
due at midterm; a polished revision at final. (40% of grade).
2) Two op-ed length pieces (approximately 700 words). (20% of grade).
3) Full participation in class, including commitment to once-weekly editing meetings with a writing group of
fellow students. (20% of grade).
At an initial conference, we will discuss your goals in the class, and the best use of the sequence of assignments
to achieve them. Students in the past have focused on producing sequences of op-eds and short essays to
establish themselves as public intellectuals in a field; feature-length journalism; nonfiction book proposals;
personal narrative essays; book reviews; and articles for policy and scholarly journals. Hybrid, multimedia and
digital projects with visual components are permissible so long as writing is at the core.
DRAFT syllabus: final to be distributed 1st day of class
Texts:
Required: Joseph Williams, Style: Basics of Clarity and Grace (ISBN 0205830765)
Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato, Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious
Nonfiction—and Get It Published (ISBN 0393324617)
Arthur Plotnik, Spunk & Bite (0375722271)
Recommended: Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style. (ISBN 0670025855)
Wendy Belcher, Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks (1412957014)
Adam Garfinkle, Political Writing
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES
MONDAY
March 21
The Query, the Proposal, the
Prospectus: anticipating an
audience, an editor, an impact
March 28
PROSPECTUS due;
Editing workshop 1
Readings:
Lamott, “Shitty First Drafts”
Joseph Williams, chs. 3-6
Plotnik, Spunk and Bite, chs 2, 8
April 2
Parts of the Essay.
Developing an idea: Horizontal
and Vertical Development
Readings:
Atul Gawande, “The Case of the
Red Leg” from Complications
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner,
“Schoolteachers and Sumo
Wrestlers” from Freakonomics
April 11
Creating Presence, with and
without the Personal
Readings:
Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue”
Diane Ackerman, “The Truth About
Truffles”
Jeremy Miller, “Tyranny of the
Test”
WEDNESDAYS
March 23
Readings:
Thinking Like Your Editor, Ch. 1
Selections from “Writing True” and
“Writing Your Journal Article in 12
Weeks”
Workshop: Finding your subject
and audience
March 30
THE ESSAY and the OP-ED
Readings:
Madigan, et al., “APA Style as
Epistemology”
Marianna Torgovnik, “Experimental
Critical Writing”
Garfinkle, Political Writing, ch. 4, 6
(due dates & meetings)
April 4
DRAFT DUE, 1st SHORT ESSAY
Editing workshop 2
Revise 1st short essay for editorial
meetings April 11-15
Revise Prospectus for editorial
meetings March 29-April 2
Readings:
Pinker, Sense of Style chs. 2-3
Spunk and Bite, chs. 17-18, 26-27
April 13
COVER LETTER DRAFT DUE ,
LONG PIECE
Editing workshop 4
Readings:
Thinking Like Your Editor, chapters 5,
6, optionally 7.
Work on 2nd short essay
DRAFT syllabus: final to be distributed 1st day of class
“Query Letter Clinic,” from Writer’s
Market
April 18
DRAFT DUE, 2nd SHORT ESSAY
Editorial meetings April 18-22
Readings:
Virginia Tufte, Artful Sentences, ch.
14
April 25
Persuasion: Changing Minds,
down to the Cellular Level
W.S. Merwin, “Unchopping a Tree”
Joseph Stiglitz, “The Economic
Consequences of Mr. Bush”
Lakoff, Metaphors We Live By, chs 16, 25
Week of May 2
DRAFTs OF LONG PIECES with
cover letters DUE
for editorial group meetings
Week of May 9
FINAL LONG PIECES with cover
letters DUE for editorial meetings
April 20
Handling Complicated Subjects
Readings:
Matt Taibbi, “The Great American
Bubble Machine”
Michael Lewis, “The End of Wall
Street”
Revise short pieces; final versions
of all short pieces due April 24
April 27
Editing Workshop: Long Pieces in
Process; Cover Letters
Work on Long Pieces
Work on Long Pieces