ENGL C1010.

001 UNIVERSITY WRITING

M/W 11 AM to 12.15 PM Philosophy Hall 201b
Instructor: Esther Lin EL2340@columbia.edu

Collaborative Project Debate: Choosing the seed text

We will break into groups of three and each group will read one text. You will choose among the
following:

1. “The Loss of the Creature” by Walker Percy

2. “Citizens of the World” by Martha Nussbaum
3. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
4. “Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise” by David Foster Wallace

You will read over this text over the weekend, and as you do so, consider how would this text
make a good springboard for a research essay. That is,

A. Is the argument rich enough to generate responses and further arguments of your own?
B. Are there multiple ways of treating this text? Is the paper multifaceted enough to generate a variety of
levels in response? (For example, Pollan’s essay generally generated arguments regarding animal
rights; now we want to explore methodology, various exhibits, theory.)
C. Is there a variety of sources?

Write a short treatment responding to these queries in 1-2 pages. Your group will debate with the
other groups about which seed text our whole class will examine and ultimately use for the
collaborative research project. Once the debate ends, we will vote on a single text and abandon
the other three.

The structure of the debate will be as follows:

Group 1.: (10 mins total)
A. (5 mins) Present distillation of their text and persuasion as to why the class should choose it.
B. (5 mins) The other three groups will have an opportunity to question you.
Group 2: (15 mins total)
A.
B.
C. (5 mins) Groups 1 & 2 will debate as to why their own text would be more serviceable to the class.
Group 3: (15 mins total)
A.
B.
C. Groups 1, 2 & 3
Group 4: (20 mins total)
A.
B.
C. (10 mins) All groups

There will then be a vote as to which text we will use. This is a time not to choose the text you
debated for, but to honestly and practically consider which one will be most useful, richest and
interesting for you to work on till the end of the semester.
WHY THIS DEBATE? For you to hone your academic eye: practicing how to recognize a rich
text and uncovering various possible ways in which respond.