Socioeconomic Class

ENGL 229: Diversity in US Literatures

Fall 2015
MWF 1000-1050

Dr. David Haeselin

E-mail: david.haeselin@und.edu
Office: Merrifield 301A
Office Hours: MWF 1:30-3 and by appt.

Course Description:
Occupy Wall Street commanded global attention with an unforgettable slogan: We are the 99%.
The power of this rallying cry notwithstanding, it does not seem to accurately reflect how we, as a
country, define ourselves. After all, the United States of America is often thought of as a resolutely
middle-class nation. But what does the term middle class even refer to today? In this course, we will
explore the meaning of socioeconomic class as well as the wide range of experience that
homogeneous descriptors such as middle or working class embody.
This course will require students to engage a variety of texts (novels, short stories, films, and creative
non-fiction) that all explore the discrepancy between notions of class as social existence and notions
of class as economic wealth.
This course fulfills the Essential Studies categories of Humanities and U.S. Diversity.

Texts:
Required Books (available in campus bookstore and online)
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed.
Lee, Chang-rae. On Such A Full Sea.
McCann, Colum. Let the Great World Spin.
Various selections available on the on courses Blackboard site. Marked in the syllabus as BB.

Films
The Virgin Suicides (dir. Sofia Coppola, 1999).
Precious (dir. Lee Daniels, 2009).
Winters Bone (dir. Debra Granik, 2010).

Course Objectives

Introduce students to theoretical and practical issues of diversity in the United States
through the lens of socioeconomic class.

Model a historically specific, contextual, and socially responsible model of interpretation of

novels, short stories, films, personal narratives and essays.

Explode the ambiguities of class distinctions through a variety of analytical frameworks.

Enrich our understanding of national, regional, and self-definitions of class from Americans
of all different backgrounds and places.

Familiarize students with multimodal methods for telling stories and presenting information
in accordance with new expectations of media and the workplace.

Foster proficiency in a variety of written genres, including personal reflection, sociological

survey, textual analysis, and oral history.

Requirements
I.

Short Essay on place, race & class in film

(15%)

3-4 page comparison of

Precious and Winters Bone.
II.

Midterm Questionnaire Project (w/partner)

(25%)

Design a twenty-question quiz on social class

and provide rationale for your choices

III.

Oral History Final Project

(35%)

Use Audio Editing Software to produce an

oral history narrative exploring subjective
understanding of place, class, and debt in
contemporary society.

IV.
V.

Homework and Short Writing assignments

Class Participation

(15%)
(10%)

Attendance, Class Participation & Lateness

I expect all students to be prepared for class everyday; being prepared means paying close attention
to scheduled assignments, doing the homework, and bringing relevant materials with you to class. You are
allowed four absences without penalty following your fourth absence, your grade in the class will
begin to drop by a half-a-letter grade per absence. Plan ahead if you think you might miss class
for religious holidays or for other scheduled events. Just because you inform me of an absence
beforehand does not mean that it does not count towards your total. I do not distinguish between
excused and unexcused absences you are allowed four absences be they excused or
unexcused before your grade begins to decrease, unless other special arrangements have
been made with me ahead of time. For every two days you are late to class, you will be marked
for one absence. If you are more than 15 minutes late to class, you will be marked absent for that
day. If you miss a class meeting, you are responsible to contact your peers or come to my office
hours for materials and information youve missed. Finally, you are responsible for keeping track of
your own absences. A sign-in sheet will be used daily and absences will be thus recorded. Please be
conscientious of your class participation make sure you get the sign-in sheet, and please dont
expect me to keep a running tally of your absences!

Scholastic Dishonesty
At UND, we trust in the excellence of our students and in the integrity of our academic programs.
We also trust that your good ideas become better when you test them against the ideas of others. So
for this course, feel free to discuss your ideas about the major writing assignments with other
students. Collaborating on question/answer homework assignments or open-book quizzes,
however, is not acceptable; these types of assignments are designed for me, your instructor, to
monitor how you are handling specific parts of the course materials. Blatantly taking someone elses
words, ideas or concepts, and using them without citing your source is plagiarism. So is using
another students essay, or part of his or her essay, as your own. In the world of writing (academic
writing especially), this is a serious crime, and is treated as such. Anyone who uses non-documented
material from another source, including online sources, will receive a failing grade for the entire
course and will be referred to the Deans office for possible further disciplinary action.
Plagiarism, or any other form of scholastic dishonesty, is a serious offense and will be subject to
official university policy and punitive action as found in the "Code of Student Life" available
at http://sos.und.edu/csl/index.php?main=1&pg=s3&subpg=3-3.
If you have any questions, always feel free to ask me. Its been my experience that those writers who
plagiarize are those who feel overwhelmed by the assignment and out of desperation, use someone
elses work to stand in for their own. If you get so frustrated with an assignment that you feel like
your only option is to plagiarize, come see me. My role as a teacher is to help students, not to
punish them please use me as a resource to help you write, brainstorm or work out your essays.

Deadlines

All written assignments must be submitted on the due date, and missing the class when the
assignment is due doesnt mean your assignment isnt late. Turning in an assignment on time is part
of doing the assignment, and late work will be graded down, regardless of how well its executed.
Lateness penalties are as follows:
Final drafts. For every day that a final draft is late, you will lose five points on the final
grade.
Short assignments. All late assignments may receive a maximum of half-credit, regardless of
how late they are.

Using Recording Equipment in Class

If you need to tape or record classroom activities, you may do so for personal use or for all students
presently enrolled in the class. However, you may not further copy, distribute, publish or otherwise
use for any other purpose without my express written consent.

Technologies
I expect you to turn off your cell phone before coming to class. There is to be NO text messaging
or smartphone surfing during class. All laptops must remain closed unless I explicitly encourage
you to bring it for in-class writing or group assignments. You will receive exactly ONE warning.
After that, you will be marked as absent for the day.

Learning Disability
If you have a learning disability that could impair your progress in this course, please contact
Disability Services on campus (https://und.edu/disability-services/). We can arrange to
accommodate your learning style based on EOS recommendations. Please notify me at the
semesters beginning of your learning needs--do not wait until the semester becomes overwhelming
to acknowledge the problem.

General Guidelines For Submitting Assignments

Unless otherwise directed, please submit all major assignments in .doc or .docx format via
the SafeAssign feature on Blackboard. (If your word processing software does not seem
to save documents as .docx files, come see me and I will help you).
Name your files according to this protocol: Lastname_AssignmentDraft.docx (For
example: Jones_MidtermRoughDraft.docx)
All papers, including daily assignments, must be typed, double-spaced, with 1 margins.
(Note: The default spacing in MS Word is 1.25)
Include page numbers on all assignments longer than one page.
Staple all printed out assignments longer than one page.
Carefully edit and proofread all texts to eliminate problems in grammar, spelling, and
punctuation.
Spell-check your documents. A hint in this regard: typos typically occur in the last minutes
when you are making final revisions to a text. Be sure, therefore, to always do a final spell
check on at least the section of the document in which you have been making changes. Just
because there are no spelling errors found by the spell check does not mean that your paper
is error-free; often the spell check fixes errors by replacing a similar correctly spelled word.

Closely re-reading every word you submit to me is the only fail-proof way to spell-check
your papers.
Any time you cite an essay, film, or book in your main essays, you will need to include a
Works Cited section of your essay that provides complete and accurate bibliographic
information of the material mentioned in your essay. If youre not sure how to cite sources,
ask!

Documents that do not meet these and other assignment-specific requirements will not be graded. They will be
returned to you and when resubmitted will be treated as late submissions. Pay attention to these details for
handing in your final drafts. Superficial errors do not necessarily signify poor thinking, but they
do indicate a lack of precision and nonchalance toward the task. When you write papers for
your courses within your major, your professors will expect high quality, readable prose. Use
this class as a stepping stone toward that end. Youll have to plan your writing process to make
time for proofreadingprinting a just-written paper 10 minutes before class time will probably
not yield terrific results.

On-Campus Writing Resources

I enthusiastically encourage all students to take advantage of the Writing Center in the basement of
Merrifield Hall. All students are eligible for one-on-one tutoring, but you must make an
appointment. Remember, though, that tutors are not editors. It is not their job to correct your
work or simply edit it while you go on Facebook. Think of the writing tutors are supplementary
instructors for the class. They can address some issues (from the lowest-level to the highest) in much
greater detail than I can since are not responsible for teaching you academic argumentation. For
those of you who feel anxious about the requirements of this class, I recommend that you establish a
relationship with a tutor early in the semester and rely on their expertise regularly.
Writing Center, web address: http://und.edu/academics/writing-center/
ESL Resource Center, Merrifield Hall, Room 112. The ESL Resource Center arranges
tutoring and/or conversation partners for multilingual speakers seeking more practice with
the English language. Contact Mary Monette for more information:
mary.monette@UND.edu or 701-777-3624.
Student Success Center, Memorial Union, Second Floor. The Student Success Center
offers advising, learning services, and specific program to help students meet their
educational goals. Individualized assistance and assessments are available.
http://und.edu/student-affairs/studentservices/

Grading Policy And Scale

Exceptional. Assignment criteria met with creativity, rigor, and insight. Rich theoretical,
historical, and creative analysis of the objects grounded within the larger academic context.
Ideas articulated with convincing detail and display careful planning. Research and writing is
lucid. Errors in style in grammar are rare and never prevent easy comprehension.

Good work. Displays sustained analysis, concentration and effort, although mainly
recapitulated from class discussion and/or directly from class sources. Minor style problems
never completely obscure writers meaning.

Acceptable, but uninspired. There may be a glaring conceptual or execution problems.

Work mostly descriptive with little to no historical, critical, or theoretical analysis. Serious
issues with validity and/or depth of research. (Note: this is the median grade in the
university system)

Unsatisfactory work. Ideas never move beyond generalizations. No analysis of any kind.
Lacking research and focus. Work displays little to no grasp of the goals of the assignment.

Fail. Student does not submit complete work or shows no attempt to engage the concerns of
the assignment.

Assessing your class participation

ENGL229 is a discussion course; its absolutely necessary that you participate in class.
Participation which includes both classroom involvement and physically being in class
makes up roughly 10% of your total grade. Your in-class participation grade falls to my discretion
and can nudge a borderline grade higher or lower. When you contribute to class discussion, be sure
that your comments are helpful ones and not tangential to the current threads of conversation. You
should be ready to participate in general class discussion at least once a week, and you should always
be prepared to generate thoughtful input in small-group discussions and peer review work. Be sure
to be supportive of your peers ideas, even when you disagree with them. Disagreement can be
constructive - very constructive - but when you raise disagreement within class discussion, be sure
to do so respectfully by articulating your grounds for disagreeing with an idea rather than with
your peers. Of course, all discussion should refrain from language and tone that could be
considered inappropriate or offensive.
If you have questions about the policies of this class, review the syllabus first, and then contact me.
I reserve the right to make any alterations, additions, or subtractions I see fit.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Course Schedule
UNIT I: Class Matters
Core concepts: Socioeconomic Class, Income Inequality, Post-Race, Professional
Managerial Class (PMC), New Gilded Age, Debt Society
Week 1
Wednesday, August 26:
Friday, August 28:

Introduction and course preview. Class quiz.

Krugman, Why Were in a New Gilded Age (BB), Smeedling,
Income, Wealth, Debt in the Great Recession (BB).

Week 2
Monday, August 31:

Zweig, Americas Working Class Majority (BB), Fry, The

Changing Profile of Student Borrowers, pp. 1-10 (BB)
US Poverty Map. Happiness Rankings. Well-being.
DUE: Writing response to class quiz. 2 pages. Submit via
Blackboard.

Wednesday, September 2:

Ehrenreich, Introduction and 121-166.

Friday, September 4:

Ehrenreich, 166-193.

Week 3
Monday September 7:

No class; Labor Day!

Wednesday, September 9:

Ehrenreich, 193-241.

Friday, September 11:

Huge Survey Reveals Seven Social Classes in UK (BB),

Introduce guidelines to creating good surveys. Analysis starts with
asking interesting questions.

Week 4
Monday, September 14:

Ehrenreich, The Death of the Yuppie Dream. (BB),

Homework DUE: Write-up TEN possible categories for social

class (some repetition from other sources is fine, but please
provide 2-3 sentences explanation of how each category you
provide interacts with the whole.

Unit II: The Working Class

Core concepts: work, labor, Populism, rural and urban poor, place
Wednesday, September 16:

Anzaldua To Live in the Borderlands Means You,(BB) and Rogin

North Dakota (BB)

Thursday, September 17:

Screening of Precious. TBA.

Friday, September 18:

Williams, Declining Significance of Race Revised (BB)

Week 5
Monday, September 21:

Place/Race Essay Assignment Sheet (BB).

Discuss Precious.
New York Times Quiz on Hardwork and Mobility. Mobility
measured?
Introduce first essay.

Wednesday, September 23:

Mask, The Precarious Politics of Precious. A Close Reading of a

Cinematic Text (BB)

Thursday, September 24:

Screening on Winters Bone; TBA.

Friday, September 25:

Discussion of Winters Bone.

Homework DUE: 1 page answer to prompt. What is a more
powerful factor in Preciouss life? Her race, her location, or her
class? Be sure to provide direct citations of dialogue. If you
need to, consult the screenplay posted on BB.

Week 6
Monday, September 28:

mclemens, On the Margins: Winters Bone, Independent Cinema,

and Rural America
How do we represent the spatial other?

Wednesday, September 30:

Campbell, The Solution to Brians Problem (BB) and Midterm

Assignment Sheet (BB).
Gallup-Healthways Index.
Introduce Midterm Project.

Friday, October 2:
Week 7

No class; DUE: Essay on Place/Race. Please submit essay via

assignment link on Blackboard.

Monday, October 5:

Daniels, Short Order Cook and Phillip Levine

What work is

Wednesday, October 7:

Feinberg, It was time to find a factory job(BB) and Gwendolyn

Brooks TBD.

Unit III: The Middle Class

Core concepts: Deindustrialization, the Suburbs, Domesticity, Work,
Student Debt, Oral history.
Friday, October 9:

Oresick After the Deindustrialization of America (BB).

Week 8
Monday, October 12:

Screen Virgin Suicides in class.

Wednesday, October 14:

Finish Virgin Suicides.

Friday, October 16:

Discuss Virgin Suicides.

Week 9
Monday, October 19:

DUE: Midterm Questionnaire Project

Spend class time filling out each others questionnaires and discussing
choices made.
Wednesday, October 21:

Terkel, (BB) and Audio Oral History Assignment Sheet (BB).

Introduce Audio Oral History Final Project.

Friday, October 23:

Yow, Interview Techniques, (BB)

Please bring laptops to class.
Introduce to Audacity and Soundcloud.

Unit IV: A Panorama of the 99%

Week 10
Monday, October 26:

McCann, 1- Miro, Miro on the Wall.

Wednesday, October 28:

McCann, Miro, Miro A Fear of Love

Friday, October 30:

McCann, A Fear of Love to Book 2.

Week 11
Monday, November 2:

McCann, 150-225.

Wednesday, November 4:

McCann, 225-275.

Friday, November 6:

Portelli, This Mill Wont Run No More (BB).

Technology workshop day.
Fiction versus Oral history.
Please bring your laptops to class.
N.B. Stay up your reading, we will discuss the final section of the
novel next class.

Week 12
Monday, November 9:

McCann, 275-end.

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Wednesday, November 11:

No class; Veterans day.

Unit V: Narrating The Future

Friday, November 13:

Lee, 1-50.
DUE: Oral History Draft. Please post working copy of your
sound file on SoundCloud.

Week 13
Monday, November 16:

Lee, 50-125.

Wednesday, November 18:

Lee, 125-175.

Thursday, November 19:

Conferences; sign-up on the class wiki.

Friday, November 20:

No class; workshops with Dr. Haeselin.

N.B. Keep up with Lee. We will continue discussing the novel
after the Thanksgiving break.

Week 14
Monday, November 23:

Oral histories, IRL.

Ira Glass on storytelling.

Wednesday, November 25: No class; Ill be in my office if youd like to discuss final
projects.
Friday, November 27:

No class; Black Friday.

Week 15
Monday, November 30:

Lee, 175-300.

Wednesday, December 2:

Technology workshop.

Friday, December 4:

Lee, 300-375.

Week 16
Monday, December 7:

Lee, 375- end.

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Wednesday, December 9:

Course Evaluations. Course wrap-up.

Wednesday, December 16: Final Oral Histories Due by Noon. Post final sound file on
Sound Cloud and submit transcript and explanation via
assignment link on Blackboard.

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Socioeconomic Class
ENGL 229
Diversity in America
Fall 2015

First Essay: Place, Race, and Class in Film

Precious and Winters Bone are both alike and completely different. The films appeared
within a year of one another eight months apart, to be exact- to wide critical
acclaim. Each film features an adolescent female working class protagonist.
However, Precious Jones is a black teenager living in New York City and Ree is a
white teenager in Missouri. Precious is set in the 1980s, while Winters Bone seems more
contemporary. In this essay, Id like you to think about how the depictions of class in
these two films compare.

Expectations
This essay revolves around interpretation. In order to succeed, you need to develop and
articulate an understanding of how race and space relate to the concerns of socioeconomic
class in each film and then make an argument about how they compare. Keep in mind, it is
not enough to observe, you need to construct an argument based off evidence you find from
each film. Use the critical essays by Mask and mclemens as models. You can cite readings
from class, if youd like, but you should focus on deriving evidence from your own
interpretations of the films.

3-4 pages.
MLA citations of each film, including a Works Cited Page and In-Text
Papers should also adhere the expectations explained in the syllabus.

Some Questions you should ask yourself, and possibly answer while writing this
essay.
Do you consider each character as coming from the same socioeconomic class? Why?
How is Precious Jones race depicted in the film? How is Rees?
How do NYC and Missouri impact the class conditions of each character?
How does family represent the major struggle of each narrative?
How is femininity represented in the protagonists and supporting characters of each
film?
What kinds of barriers do the racial and spatial elements of class present to each
character?
How are drugs depicted in each separate film? How does addiction compare between
these two different environments?

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Why does each character succeed? Do they succeed for similar reasons? Do they succeed
at all?
How do these films, set at separate times, each comment on contemporary issues of
class in America?
In all, do you consider these films more alike or different? Why?

NOTE: You cannot answer all of these questions in one essay. In fact, you probably cannot even
answer more than a couple. Be sure to focus on a limited set of questions (including your own) so
that you can streamline your argument in your paper.

Final Draft due 10AM, Friday, October 2 via submission link on

Blackboard.

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Socioeconomic Class
ENGL 229
Diversity in America
Fall 2015
MWF 1000-1050
Midterm Project: A Multiple Choice Quiz on Class
By this point in the semester weve taken multiple choices attempting to ascertain our
class status and seen a variety of different rubrics for the amount of differentiation
between the multiple levels. Now it is your turn to experiment with this problem by
drafting twenty multiple choice questions that attempt to do a better job pinpointing
where a person falls in hierarchy.

Expectations
I expect you, along with a randomly chosen partner, to create the quiz along with the
rationale for each question and each of the multiple available answers. We are now
aware that the vast majority of Americans think of themselves as middle-class, so it is
your job to enrich that answer. To do this you will need to produce crafty questions
that encourage more complicated results, rather than results that directly match how
your subject self-identifies. Our goal is not to trick anyone. Rather, we hope to elicit
answers that match the theoretical understanding of class that weve developed over
the course of the class and explained in the introduction to the questionnaire.

Breakdown
You and your partner will each submit a separate document via the
assignment link on Blackboard.
Text that should be shared:
15 questions, each with 4 possible answers, and (at least) a paragraph
explanation of each question and its answers (Please include citations where
necessary).
5 discarded questions, each with 4 possible answers and a paragraph
explaining why they failed to fit into your framework.
A list of the possible categories where each interview subject can be placed.
1-2 page explanation of rationale behind your categories.
Text that will differ:

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1 page reflection explaining the process of working together in your partner

in this way. If you had any disagreements, or if you felt your partner did not
pull his or her own weight, please describe that difficulty here.

Procedure
Draft your text in a normal Word document and submit it to Dr. Haeselin via the
submission link on Blackboard.
Publish your quiz online at OnlineQuizCreator.com.

A rough draft will be due via Blackboard by 9AM on Monday,

October 12. Please sign-up for a conference via the class wiki.
Final draft due Monday, October 19 via BB.

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Socioeconomic Class
ENGL 229:Diversity in US Literatures
Fall 2015

Final Project: Audio Oral History

Throughout the semester weve discussed how socioeconomic class contains social,
psychological, and spatial elements. For the final assignment, you will use your questions
you generated in your midterm project in order to hear how real people you know
engage the difficulties of socioeconomic class in their own life. In particular, Id like you
to focus on peoples conception of place informs their understanding of their class
status.

Hardware

A computer (your own or a public UND computer)

A Microphone (built into your computer/phone or free-standing)
A 16GB USB flash drive to back up your work and transfer to multiple computers. (You can
find them for under $10 online and at big box stores)

Software

Audacity Sound Editing Software (Freely available for any OS from

http://web.audacityteam.org/ (Do not Google, use this link!)
LAME MP3 Encoder (available at Audacity Website)
Normal Word Processing Software
A SoundCloud Account, Available for free at (https://soundcloud.com/),

Expectations
I expect your final draft to be a well-edited, 6-8 minute audio essay that makes an
argument based on your synthesis of your rationale for your questions and your
interpretation of the answers you receive. Your essay should combine clips of
interviews from three subjects, and citations from at least three outside sources.
By combining narrative and analysis, this assignment intends to bring class matters to
the foreground and thus help isolate the points of conflict and cultural components
that make this social category so difficult to define, and so difficult to discuss.

Procedure
Submit a draft e-mail requesting to meet with your subject to Dr. Haeselin. Schedule
a time that works for both of you. Ask your subject the question and ask them to
explain each of their answers. Encourage your subjects to provide examples and
short anecdotes. These will be helpful for your final composition. After the subject
finishes, explain what class category theyve been placed in and why, based off your
rationale. Record their response with your microphone and import into Audacity
software.

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Record the entire interview. You can use Skype or similar videoconferencing
software if your subject is distant.
Draft a written introduction (1-2 pages) and submit to Dr. Haeselin for feedback.
Identify an overarching element youve found from the process of explaining your
rationale during the midterm assignment and from interviewing your subjects.
Listen to your interviews. Take notes. Transcribe relevant quotations from interview.
After revising your introduction based on Dr. Haeselins comments, start selecting
snippets of interviews and incorporate them into the larger composition. Now you
should find outside research that speaks to the issues brought up by your rationale
and the answers provided by your subject.
Think of this as a chance to write an argument in a new way with a new audience in
mind.

Subjects
1 peer
1 family member (most likely a parent or guardian, but grandparent or Aunt/Uncle/
Cousin might be even more interesting)
1 person older than you
Please interview at least three different people and include members of both
sexes.
Your subjects are not obliged to express any details that would identify them. You may
also offer to filter their voices if they are concerned about their anonymity.
You are welcome to include extra subjects, but please do not include more than five.

Research
Because this is an English class, we have focused mainly on narrative interpretations of class.
Id like your method in this project to reflect that disciplinary imperative. That said, because
we are dealing with such a complex issue, you can feel free to bring statistics about wages,
education level, debt, mobility, or any other relevant issue into your essay if you see fit. Try
to focus on the narrative elements of your interviews and use statistics to support or
complicate the self-reported data that you gather from your subjects.

Expectations

A 6-8 minute audio file including edited pieces from interviews.

This file should include an introduction and conclusion that provides an interpretative frame
the narratives youve collected.

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Because this project includes working with software you are likely unfamiliar with, I have
scheduled multiple workshop days in which we will spend class time tinkering together. Please
bring your laptops on October 23rd, November 6th, and December 2nd.
Class will also be cancelled on November 20 for conferences. Please sign-up via class wiki.

Rough drafts due Friday, November 13 by 5pm. Please submit to

Soundcloud and send Dr. Haeselin a link.
Final drafts due Wednesday, December 16 by noon. By please to
Soundcloud and send Dr. Haeselin a link.

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