English 1108 with Richard Jewell - Inver Hills Community College

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Tips--see below. ↓

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Tips: Choosing Your Readings This Term

(1) You get to choose - from a list - some of your readings this term.  Choose carefully, and you will be able to read books that are interesting to you and help you learn more.

(2) Please note that the textbook for this course is an online textbook - to save you money.  Simply go to www.CollegeWriting.info to find the chapters that you are assigned.

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Wiesel, Eli, Night a small paperback from the IHCC Bookstore.  If you'd like to see a brief description of it, go to "Booklist for 2nd Required Reading."  (If you've already read it and/or want to read something else, you may read Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, another small paperback that the bookstore also has in stock.  Again, to see a description of it, go to "Booklist for 2nd Required Reading.")  Both books also may be on view in the Library (some on 3-hr. check out, others longer).

Diane Hacker, Rules for Writers, a grammar handbook from the IHCC Bookstore, listed for this 1108 course.

You also will need to purchase a 2nd book of your choice for weekly readings later in the semester, but wait until the second or third week of class to make your choice.  They will not be available in the bookstore until after the first week.  For choices, see "Booklist for 2nd Required Reading."

See also "Course Packet for Eng 1108" below.  This must be printed out.  

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How To Use This Page

Please note: the textbook and a "Course Packet" for this course are online.  The textbook is at www.CollegeWriting.info.  And you'll need to go to, and then print out 3-4 copies of, the "Course Packet."

Also check this page for the following:

 -  required course readings

 - the links to online course readings

 - different options for the two required books

 - good links for your research & bibliographies

 - good extra-credit options (films, articles, etc.)

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"Course Packet"

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Contact Richard

"Course Packet for Eng 1108":  This is a required resource.  You'll need it right away.  It must be printed out.  Clicking on the link here will take you to a page that explains how to print it.  Do not use MS Works to print it out.  You must use MS Word.  If you do not have MS Word at home, then buy and install it, or use the school's computers.  All of the IHCC computer labs have MS Word.

Email: (1) Please activate your IHCC student account (if you haven't alredy done so) and check for email from the school weekly.  (2) For our own class email, you may--if you want--give me a personal email-account address (e.g., xxx@yahoo.com).  It's up to you.  If you do, be sure to check it and your IHCC student account at least once a week.  (3) Whichever email address you decide to give me, be sure to tell me about it (on the class email list or by a separate email from you to me).  (4) And if your email address does not identify who you are, then each time you email me, give me your first and last name and your class and section.  Again, check the email account you give me weekly for class mail. 

http://CollegeWriting.info, our main textbook:  It is a fully-online, complete composition textbook.  This is a textbook that I have written and placed on the Web.  One of the reasons I have placed it on the Web is so that you can save money.  Similar textbooks can cost $30-80, but this textbook is free.   

Online Bulletin Boards:  Click here or access them on the home page by clicking on the "Bulletin Boards" box.

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Please activate your free school email address by completing the four steps at 

http://www.inverhills.edu/accounts/. 
Then check the address  (___@metnet.edu) at least once per week for messages from school.

(1) An online grammar reference manual called The Online Grammar Handbook.   It lists links to grammar, spelling, and punctuation Web sites all over the nation.  You also can find a link to this grammar handbook in CollegeWriting.info.  (Other online grammar books with actual lessons in them that you may want to try include Elements of Style by Strunk, Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization by Mary McCaskill (NASA), and the Purdue University Writing Center grammar guides.)   

(2) An automated Web bibliography-entry maker called NoodleTools.  I have a subscription to use it in my classes.  It is free for you to use.  You simply type in the author's names, titles, publisher, etc., and it will create a perfect bibliography entry (in MLA or APA) for you.  Correct bibliography entries will be required in your Draft 3 papers.  Just click here on NoodleTools to start.

(3) "Find in a Library": You can go to Google or Yahoo to find your choice of books in a library.  Follow these simple steps:

1. Go to www.Google.com.

2. Use its search engine as normal, except start with "find in a library."  For example, if you were trying to find Shakepeare's Hamlet this way, you would type into the search engine box
            
                                           find in a library hamlet shakespeare
   

3. Then when the book name comes up, click on "Find a Library."

4. And then, in the new window, add your zip code.  You'll get a list of libraries having your book (including the Inver Hills Community College Library).  More details are available at http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/about.htm. 

(4) The IHCC English Dept. Web Site, http://depts.inverhills.edu/English.  This Web site not only tells you a lot about the English Department, its courses, and its teachers, but also helps you find a number of other English and writing resources.

(5) CollegeWriting.info's Argumentative Readings on the Web.  Looking for short, argumentative, online readings?  Find them here.

(6) Online Libraries:  

www.inverhills.mnscu.edu/Library (IHCC) 
http://composition.cla.umn.edu/student_web/libraries_research.htm

(7) Online Tutorial in Researching Using Libraries: http://www.inverhills.edu/library/searchPathClassic/index.html

(8) Online Reference Books and Other Research Links:

http://www.inverhills.mnscu.edu/Library/resource.htm 
http://composition.cla.umn.edu/student_web/libraries_research.htm 

(9) Online Help with Bibliographies & Quotations Using MLA, APA, and Other Styles:

http://www.inverhills.mnscu.edu/Library/MLA%20handout.htm 
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html 
Online Guide to Writing and Research 
Online Grammar Handbook 
Purdue University Writing Center research guides 

(10) Web Links: 

(a) http://www.yale.edu/gsp/: Yale University Genocide Studies Web site.

(b) www.ushmm.org: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum online.

(c) http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/: "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" [Macromedia Flash Player].  "Over its twelve-year history, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has certainly never avoided tackling immensely controversial and important subjects, and this latest online feature is certainly no exception to this trend. Designed to complement a current exhibition at the Museum, this site looks at the ways in which the Nazi regime attempted to transform the genetic makeup of the population through the use of eugenics. Legitimized by numerous trained scientists, these ideas surrounding “racial hygiene” were tested through experiments on “imperfect” human beings who were perceived as biological threats. Within the site, visitors can view a video introduction by the Museum’s curator, Dr. Susan Bachrach, and a number of rather interesting video testimonies on the subjects of genetics and eugenics by various experts. Additionally, visitors can also view profiles of the physicians and scientists involved in these activities. It should be noted that there is a remark on the site’s homepage that states that the exhibition is “…recommended for visitors of 11 years and older.”

(11) Online Visual History of Holocaust (accessible only through UM-TC terminals):

"University of Minnesota Holocaust Visual History Archive" (from http://www.lib.umn.edu/vha/about.html):

        "With a collection of nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages and from 56 countries, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s archive is the largest visual history archive in the world. The Institute interviewed Jewish survivors, homosexual survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors, liberators and liberation witnesses, political prisoners, rescuers and aid providers, Roma and Sinti survivors (Gypsy), survivors of Eugenics policies, and war crimes trials participants.

          "Through a new licensing agreement between the University of Minnesota and the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, all students, faculty, and staff of the University of Minnesota now have web-based access to the Visual History Archive (VHA). The general public can also access the archive using computer workstations on the University of Minnesota campus.

          "The University of Minnesota’s license agreement for the VHA is sponsored by a partnership between the University of Minnesota Libraries and the Office of Information Technology.

         "Search the Visual History Archive     (Recommended Web browsers Windows: Internet Explorer; Mac: Safari)  (Accessible only from workstations on the University of Minnesota — Twin Cities campus).

         "Questions about this site? E-mail us at vhahelp@umn.edu."

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        You must write something about each film you see.  Some of the ways you can write are as follows (choose method or several):

1. Summarize the film.

2. Write a review of it (using, for example, the "Paper E - Critical Review" methods; see Section C, Chapter 6 of www.CollegeWriting.info). 

3. Write an evaluation of it (using, for example, the "Paper D - Evaluation" methods; see Section C, Chapter 5 of www.CollegeWriting.info). 

4. Answer any or all of the following general questions:

   • What was the basic story line, plot, or narrative line of the film (in a sentence or a paragraph)?

   • Who were the main people?

   • When and where did it happen?  Are the times and places significant?

   • How or why did the main event the film discusses happen?  What are some causes and effects?

   • What was the high point of the film for you?  Why/how?

   • What was the low point of it for you?  Why/how?

   • Who would be the best audience for this film (and/or the worst audience)?

   • What do you think is the "moral of the story" of this film - what should people get out of it or take home from it?  Why?

Most of these films have 3- to 4-star ratings (out of 4).  To see a review of each, simply go to www.google.com and type in the name of the movie.  (My descriptions below might have a few inaccuracies, as I haven't looked up every film on the Web.)

INTELLIGENT FILMS ABOUT CONCENTRATION CAMPS and VICTIMS OF WAR:

        Most of the films below have 3- to 4-star ratings (out of a possible 4 stars).  To see a review of each, simply go to www.google.com and type in the name of the movie.  (My descriptions below may have a few minor inaccuracies, as I haven't looked up each of these films individually on the Web.)  I'm missing some details on some of these: if any of you would like to supply them, just send notes to me (e.g., length of the film, year it came out, etc.).

If you have already seen a film--either in class or in another semester--simply watch it again.  (Please don't use the film for extra credit if you have watched it in the current semester for another class in school--unless you watch it an additional time for this class.)  If, for example, you saw The Memory of the Camps during class time, then you may watch it again on your own and write about it for extra credit for both the writing time and the time you spent on your own to watch it.

Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. **½.-***.  300 min.  2005.   This PBS documentary goes inside one of the very largest and worst holocaust concentration camps to examine its day to day workings.  It is an excellent introduction to the subject, though it is perhaps not as compelling or original as Memory of the Camps and Night and Fog.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  ***½.  About 1½ hrs.  2008.  I just got home from seeing this powerful drama with a tragic ending.  An 8-year old boy moves with his family to a house near a concentration camp in WW II Germany because his father becomes the new officer in charge of the camp.  The film is seen from the boy's point of view as he secretly befriends another boy the same age in the camp, with the two of them meeting each day at the barbed wire fence between them.  The film is excellent in reflecting the times and cultures of German middle-class officialdom and the camp itself.  Be ready for a shock at the end. 

Fog of War.  ***½.  About 1½ hrs.  2003.  This award-winning documentary is an interview of Robert McNamara, chief architect of the Vietnam War for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, interspersed with authentic battle scenes.  Both intellectual and dramatic, this "ten lessons about war" is a good overall view of how--and how not--to wage war, physically and politically.  (See also Why We Fight below.) 

Life Is Beautiful.  ***½.  2 hrs., 1998.  Stars Roberto Benigni.  This is a tale of a man who keeps his young son miraculously alive in a concentration camp through the father's heroic efforts and his ability to turn hiding into a game.  While the setting and the supposition that a child could be hidden for years seem at first fanciful, the acting more than makes up for it.  Benigni won an Academy Award for this.  

The Memory of the Camps.  ****.  60 min., 1945.  Documentary.  Alfred Hitchcock, treatment advisor. This short, British, film is a must-see experience for anyone who wants to know the true horrors of concentration camps.  It shows real scenes from the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II.  Gruesome, journalistically accurate, and shocking views of corpses and of people whose bodies are so ravaged that they look like they should be dead.  (Do not watch with young children.)

Night and Fog, ***½, 31 min., 1955.  Documentary.  Alain Resnais, Director.  This multiple award-winning film, with stark realism and contrasts, was made of a combination of archival footage of two concentration camps, Auschwitz and Majdanek, and a later return to them.  (Do not watch with young children.)

The Pianist.  ***½.  Stars Adrienne Brody.  This story about a top European classical pianist hiding for years from the Nazis in increasingly terrible conditions won Brody an Academy Award.  

Prisoner of Paradise, 90 min., 2002. ***.  This well received movie is a dramatic fictional recreation of how World War II Nazis forced real-life actor and filmmaker Kurt Gerron, incarcerated in a concentration camp, to make a propaganda movie portraying concentration camp life in positive images. 

Schindler's List, 195 min., 1993. Stephen Spielberg, Director.  ****.  Drama.  A dramatic and compelling fictional recreation of the real story of a German industrialist  who uses his hiring of prisoners from a concentration camp as a way of saving the prisoners.  It has some painfully real scenes about Nazi concentration camps and provides a good understanding of the camps from survivors' viewpoints. 

Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. ***½.-****.  563 min.  1985.   While slow moving at times and showing only interviews of holocaust survivors,  some people have called this the greatest documentary film ever made.  This is because the film is "a carefully constructed collection of memories that are as moving, as vivid, and as meaningful as any other work of art dealing with the Holocaust" (www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/shoah.php).

Turtles Can Fly, 2005. 97 min.  ***.  English subtitles.  Turtles is "the first film shot in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein" (DVD cover).  It is a culturally and psychologically fascinating and ultimately heart-breaking story of a band of Kurdish youths orphaned by the many military skirmishes between the northern-Iraq ethnic Kurds and the southern-Iraq Sunnis under Hussein.  They make do by working hard under the leadership of an older boy known as "Satellite" because he knows how to install TV dishes.  Though fiction, it accurately reflects what many orphans throughout second- and third-world countries suffer.  TV Guide calls the movie a "timely masterpiece." 

Triumph of the Spirit, 1989.  116 min.  ***.  Drama.  Stars Willem Dafoe and Edward James Olmos.  "Nazis force Greek boxer Salamo Arouch into fight-to-the-death bouts in the extermination camps at Auschwitz in Poland" (Warner Time Cable).  In the cut version, you don't actually see boxers dying, but the film--which apparently is based on a true story--has a good portrayal of what it was like for both men and women to live day to day in Auschwitz, one of the most infamous of the Nazi concentration camps.

A Very Long Engagement, 2004, French (English subtitles).  ***.  Action/romance/drama.  Stars Emilie Tatou.  The World War I battlefield "No-Man's Land" scenes are interspersed with a young woman's attempt to find her missing soldier fiancé.  Starts slowly and gently, builds to painful intensity, has heart-aching ending.

Why We Fight, Dir. Eugene Jarecki, 2006, ***½, PG-13.  This is styled in many ways like Fog of War, above, but is especially more relevant to those too young to remember the Vietnam War.  It interviews both high decision makers and individuals involved in making war, provides a background of General and President Dwight Eisenhower's concerns about the military-industrial complex, and uses this concern--and the 1990s-2009 neo-conservative movement to wage offensive war--as themes.  It is the kind of film probably considered one-sided by some people now but is likely, given all the documentation, to be thought of as a factually accurate and moving documentary ten years from now. Action/romance/drama. 

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Here is a list of books and/or pamphlets by Greenhaven Press on subjects related to this course.  Each book or pamphlet contains dozens of short essays by experts arguing aspects of the subjects.  These books/pamphlets are available in most larger libraries, including our Inver Hills College Librariy.

Opposing Viewpoints Books/Pamphlets

Euthenasia

Extremist Groups

(Genetic Engineering)

Hate Groups

Human Rights

War

"At Issue in History" Books/Pamphlets.

Nuremberg Trials

Rise and Fall of Hitler

"At Issue" Series, Books/Pamphlets

Anti-Semitism

What Is a Hate Crime?

- End of "Readings & Resources" Page -

You may always return to the home page by clicking on "Home Page" on the left-hand side of the bar at the top.  You also may click on the picture to the right.  You also may Google "richard.jewell" or "richardjewell" to find a link to this site.
Contents and page design: Copyright (©) 2005-2008 by Richard Jewell 

Images courtesy of IHCC, Barry's Clip Art, Clip Art Warehouse, Clip Art Universe, Clipart Collection, MS Clip Art Gallery and Design Gallery Live, School Discovery, and Web Clip Art

First date of publication: January 1, 2005.  Graphics redesigned June 3, 2007 & Aug. 1, 2008.
Home-page server URL:  www.umn.edu/home/jewel001/composition/1108/home.htm    
Questions, suggestions, comments, or other contact: See http://www.Richard.Jewell.net

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