English R1A

Book List

Cuadros, Gil: City of God; Hacker, Diana: A Writers Reference, 7th Edition; Islas, Arturo: The Rain God: A Desert Tale

Other Readings and Media

(All available on bCourses or as course reader):
 Short pieces by Robert B. Reich, Barbara Ehrenreich, Anne Lamott, Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, Jose Estéban Muñoz, Heather Love, Tomás Almaguer, Lee Edelman, Antonio Viego, Leo Bersani, Tomás Rivera, Richard Rodriguez, Sandra Soto, Mel Chen, Michael Hames-Garcia, Judith Butler, Ernesto Javier Martinez, David Halperin, and Richard T. Rodriguez.

Description

We’ve heard the slogan “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”  But what weight do “here” and “queer” hold when a person identifies as Chicana/o? Does this identity change what it might mean to “get used to it”? Is this a question of identity politics, a question of power, a question of class? How do Chicana/o writings approach queer sexualities? Who and what do we see in these writings? Who is “here,” where is “here,” and who is asked to “get used to it”? These are some of our questions as we develop skills for successful reading and writing at the college level and encounter a set of texts that form a triangle that encompasses the Texas Río Grande Valley, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

This is a writing and reading course that asks students to assist in creating a safe space in which we may read, discuss, and write about Chicana/o and queer cultural productions that speak to our present lives at Berkeley and in the United States.  The emphasis of the course is effective reading and writing strategies for university work. In this class, students will be asked to think about and discover more effective approaches to text that will assist in the development of life-long reading and writing skills. The University asks students to author at least 32 pages of writing during the semester.  In our approach to the writing, I ask students to consider writing as a process that includes the following steps: Understanding the assignment, Pre-Drafting, Planning, Drafting, Revising, Editing, Documentation, Last Glance, and the use of graded comments.  Students will author one diagnostic essay at the beginning of term, a diagnostic midterm, and a series of short essays of increasing length (for example one 3-page essay, one 5-page essay, and one seven-page essay).  These assignments will allow students ample time to consider the writing process and grow as readers and writers at Berkeley and beyond.