Readings

Amazon logo When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more.

Required Materials

One book is required for this class. It is:

Amazon logo Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2002. ISBN: 9780060938451.

I also recommend:

Amazon logo Hacker, Diana, ed. A Pocket Style Manual. Boston, MA: Bedford Books, 1999. ISBN: 9780312406844.
It is concise and contains most of the important elements of several citation styles.

I also strongly urge you to purchase a good college dictionary if you do not already own one. By that I mean, not a pocket dictionary. Do not imagine that access to on-line dictionaries is an adequate substitute: it's not! If English is not your first language, you will need at least two good dictionaries.

Readings by Session


SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introductions

Course Overview
Amazon logo Didion, Joan. "Why I Write." In Joan Didion: Essays and Conversations. Edited by Ellen G. Friedman. New York, NY: Distributed by Persea Books, 1984, pp. 5-10. ISBN: 9780865380356. (Note: This essay is also frequently anthologized.)

Holt, "The Nature and Purpose of Education."
2 Voice and Sensibility

Audience

Analogy and Argument
Amazon logo Lee, Chang-Rae. "Coming Home Again." In The Norton Reader. 11th ed. Edited by Linda Petersen, and John Brereton. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003. ISBN: 9780393978872.

Baitz, Jon Robin. "Eat, Memory; American Dreams." New York Times Magazine, May 29, 2005, section 6, 55-56.

Amazon logo Kothari, Geeta. "If You Are What You Eat, The What Am I?" In Best American Essays of 2000. Edited by Alan Lightman. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, pp. 91-100. ISBN: 9780618035809.
3 Food and Memory, Family and Culture

What Makes Good Writing?
Gray, Francine Du Plessix. "Starving Children." The New Yorker, October 16, 1995, 51.

Kummer. "Good-bye Cryovac." The Atlantic Monthly 294, no. 3 (October 2004): 197 (6 pages).
4 Share Journals

"Starving Children": The Meaning and Value of Shared Meals

Elements of the Essay
Amazon logo Fisher, M. F. K. "Garum," "A Pigges Pettie Toes," and "Fifty Million Snails." In Serve It Forth. New York, NY: North Point Press/Farrar, Straus, 1954, 1989, and 2002, pp. 33-39, 72-75, and 40-46. ISBN: 9780865473690.

Amazon logo Dillard, Annie. "The Deer at Providencia." In An Annie Dillard Reader. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1995, pp. 115-19. ISBN: 9780060926601.
5 Discuss Fisher and Dillard

What is an Essay?

Ideas for Essay 1?
6 Workshop Essay 1
7 Writing Clinic re: Essay 1

Bourdain and Bilger: Cooking As a Profession
Amazon logo Bourdain, Anthony. "A Day in the Life." In Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. New York, NY: Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2001, pp. 181-203. ISBN: 9780060934910.

Bilger, Burkhard. "The Egg Men." The New Yorker, September 5, 2005, 111-119.
8 Introduce Research Project

Watch Julia Child Episode and Discuss
Gopnik, Adam. "What's Cooking?" The New Yorker, September 4, 2000, 82-86.

Acocella, Joan. "Food Processor." The New Yorker, August 19, and 26, 2002, 162-168.
9 The Book Review As an Essay

Gopnik and Acocella: Food and History
Amazon logo Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2002, pp. 1-131, part 1: Introduction-chapter 5. ISBN: 9780060938451.
10 Discuss Fast Food Nation, Part 1 Amazon logo ———. Fast Food Nation. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2002, pp. 134-288, part 2: chapter 6-Afterword. ISBN: 9780060938451.
11 Discuss Fast Food Nation, Part 2 Gladwell, Malcolm. "Java Man." The New Yorker, July 30, 2001, 76-80.
12 Share Proposals and Refine Them

"Java Man": Food As Science and Symbol
Amazon logo Berry, Wendell. "The Pleasures of Eating." In What Are People For? New York, NY: North Point Press/Farrar Strauss, 1990, pp. 145-152. ISBN: 9780865474376.

Amazon logo Pollan, Michael. "Cruising on the Ark of Taste." In Best American Science Writing 2004. New York, NY: Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2004, pp. 201-206. ISBN: 9780060726409.

Amazon logo Berry, Wendell. "A Good Farmer of the Old School." In Home Economics. New York, NY: North Point Press/Farrar Strauss, 1987. ISBN: 9780865472754.

Bowe, John. "Nobodies." In The New Yorker, April 21, and 28, 2003, 106-133.
13 Discuss Readings: Solutions To the Fast Food Culture?

The Economics of Our Food Supply
14 Work on Ideas for Essay 2
15 Workshop Essay 2 in Small Groups
16 Writing Clinic: Issues from Essay 2
17 Library Visit
18 Meetings re: Essay 3
19 Workshop Essay 3 in Small Groups
20 Writing Clinic: Issues from Essay 3

Alice's Restaurant
21 Meetings re: Essay 3 As needed
22 Writing Clinic As Needed
23 Edit and Polish Essay 2 Re-revisions
24 Oral Presentations
25 Oral Presentations (cont.)
26 Evaluations