Ana M. Acosta is Associate Professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Her book, Reading Genesis in the Long Eighteenth Century: From Milton to Mary Shelley, was published by Ashgate in 2006. She has published articles on religion, science and Enlightenment and is currently at work on a book-length project entitled “Theaters of Enlightenment: Imagined Encounters between Science and Religion in 18^th-century Culture.”  She has twice been the recipient of a Whiting Fellowship, has received two PSC-CUNY awards, and was chosen in 2008 by the students at Brooklyn College as a Role Model in the conference “Standing on the Shoulders of Others.”

1.      A World of Meaning: Reading and Thinking about Literature

Meaningless Words and the World of Meaning

      Literary Form and Assumptions about Meaning

      The Point of Literary Meaning

      Forming Literary Meaning

Making Sense

      Making Meaning out of Misunderstanding

                  Roberto Fernández,  Wrong Channel

      Deciphering Meaning: The Riddle Game

            The Riddle as a Literary Device

                 Sylvia Plath,  Metaphors 

      Making and Breaking the Rules

                  Carol Shields,  Absence

      Reading for What Does Not Make Sense

 Writer at Work: The Reading Process

                  Sharon Olds,  The Possessive

STUDENT WRITING: Justin Schiel reads and annotates  The Possessive  

      Clarity and Ambiguity of Language

            Working with Ambiguity in Literary Writing

            Reading versus Writing

            Working with Clarity in Nonliterary Writing: The Summary

                  STUDENT WRITING: Four Summaries of  The Possessive

            Clarity and Ambiguity in Storytelling

                  Franz Kafka,  Before the Law

                  STUDENT WRITING: Two Summaries of  Before the Law

                  Ursula K. Le Guin,  The Wife’s Story            

Clarity and Ambiguity of Argument: Summarizing an Essay

                  Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks,  I Hate Trees

STUDENT WRITING: Melissa Kim, A Summary of Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks’s  I Hate Trees

      Clarity and Ambiguity in Visual Culture

            Visual Assumptions

            Writing a Summary of an Image

                  Cornelis Gijsbrechts, Letter Rack with Christian V’s Proclamation

STUDENT WRITING: Alan Green, A Summary of Letter Rack with Christian V’s Proclamation

Looking Back: A World of Meaning

2.    Writing in the World: Argument, Critical Thinking, and the Process of Writing

      Crafting an Argument

                  May Sarton,  The Rewards of Living a Solitary Life

            Analyzing an Argumentative Essay

            Making Your Own Argument

            Argument versus Thesis

            From Idea to Thesis

                  Chinua Achebe,  Dead Men’s Path                         

      Critical Thinking: Reading, Questioning, Writing        

Writer at Work: Critical Thinking from First Impressions to Finished Paper

            Mary Oliver,  August

            Student Writer Katherine Randall, sample writing drafts

        to final paper.

      Reading

      Questioning

      Writing

      Critical Thinking in a Comparison Paper

                  Ellen Hunnicutt,  Blackberries

              Leslie Norris,  Blackberries                                        

                  STUDENT WRITING: Cynthia Wilson, Leave the Picking to the Boys

      Thinking Critically about Visual Culture

            Thinking Critically about Signs

Looking Back: Writing in the World   

3.    Investigating the World: Planning, Writing, and Revising a Research Paper

      Finding a Topic

      Finding, Evaluating, and Summarizing Your Sources in the Annotated Bibliography

            Primary Sources and Secondary Sources

            The MLA Works-Cited List

            Plagiarism and How to Avoid It

            The Annotated Bibliography

STUDENT WRITING: Lorraine Betesh, Annotated Bibliography–Source #1

      From the Annotated Bibliography to the First Draft

            Making an Outline

STUDENT WRITING: Lorraine Betesh, The Brooklyn Bridge in Illustrations and Photographs–An Outline

            Writing a First Draft

            MLA In-Text Citations

 Writer at Work: Revising                                                                                                      

            Revising the initial  draft                                                                                                      

      A STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER USING VISUAL MEDIA: Lorraine Betesh, The Brooklyn Bridge in Illustrations and Photographs       

A STUDENT RESEARCH LITERARY ANALYSIS PAPER: Rob Lanney, Hamlet’s Denmark

            Looking Back: Investigating the World

4.      Organizing the World of Literature: Genre

      Plot Conventions and Expectations                              

                  Margaret Atwood,  Happy Endings

Comparing Genres

                  N. Scott Momaday, from The Way to Rainy Mountain  

What Is Poetry?                                                                          

            Prosody: An Introduction

                   Samuel Taylor Coleridge,  Metrical Feet — Lesson for a Boy

            Poetic Diction

            Poetic Forms

      What Is Fiction?                                                                          

            Fiction and History

            Types of Fiction

            The Craft of Fiction

                        Padgett Powell,  A Gentleman’s C 

            The Materials of Fiction

            The Tools of Fiction

      What Is a Play?                                                                          

                        Susan Glaspell, Trifles             

 Dramatic Structure

            Characters

            Staging    

            Form and Genre

            Tragedy

            Comedy

            What Is Nonfiction?                                                                                                  

                  The Essay 

      Virginia Woolf,  The Death of the Moth

                                Annie Dillard, The Death of a Moth

                  Analyzing an Essays

Writer at Work: Reading and Writing Essays

STUDENT WRITING: Scott Nathanson,  The Meaning of Death

Types of Essays

What Are Visual Media?

            Still Images

            Sequential Images

            Moving Images

            Interactive Images

Looking Back: Organizing the World of Literature

Part II.  The Writer’s World:  Genres and the Craft of Literature 

5.    Imaging the World: Exploring the Forms of Literature

Imagining the World: Working with Poetry

            Writer at Work: Three Poems about Social Relations

                                William Blake,  London 

                        Robert Frost,  Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 

                        Mary Oliver,  Singapore 

      STUDENT WRITING: Summaries of  London,   Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,  and  Singapore

      STUDENT WRITING: A Comparison of  London,   Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,  and  Singapore

Describing the World: Working with Stories

       Writer at Work: The Power of Description

                                Julia Alvarez,  Snow 

   STUDENT WRITING: A Descriptive Essay

      Staging the World: Working with Plays

       Writer at Work: Viewing and Writing about a Performance of Krapp’s Last Tape

                                Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape 

      Notes on Krapp’s Last Tape, directed by Atom Egoyan, by Joshua Cohen

     Response Paper on Krapp’s Last Tape, directed by Atom Egoyan, by

      Joshua Cohen

      Explaining the World: Working with Essays

       Writer at Work:  Arguing with an Essay                                                                                                                 

George Packer,  How Susie Bayer’s T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back                                        

STUDENT WRITING: An Argumentative Essay on  How Susie Bayer’s T- Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back                                       

       Writer at Work: Topics for essays

6.      Writing the World: Working with Literary Devices

Literary Devices

            Patterns of Repetition

            Patterns of Inversion

            Patterns of Contradiction

            Ambiguity and Double Meaning

            Imagery

            Referring to Other Texts

            Word Pictures

                        John Keats, Drawing of the Sosibios Vase                        

                        John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

                  Elizabeth Barrett Browning, On Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave

                  Peter Brueghel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

                  William Carlos Williams, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

                  W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts

                  Michael Hamburger, Lines on Brueghel’s Icarus”

                  Akira Kurosawa, movie still from The Seven Samurai

                  Robert Hass, Heroic Simile

Writing the World: Topics for Essays

7.      Translating the World: Reading and Writing between Languages

I Hate and Love: A Casebook on Translation 

Catullus: Poem 85 with interlinear and literal translation

Richard Lovelace,  I hate and love

Walter Landor,  I love and hate

Ezra Pound,  I hate and love

Peter Whigham,  I hate and I love

Charles Martin,  I hate & love

Frank Bidart,  Catullus: Odi et Amo,   Catullus: Excrucior

Miriam Sagan,  Translating Catullus

Translation and Bilingualism

      Translating the World: Topics for Essays

PART III.  The Reader’s World: Exploring the Themes of Literature

8.  The World Closest to Us: Me and You                                        

Families

                        Fiction                                            

Julio Cortázar, Unusual Occupations                  

Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find 

James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues 

Jonathan Safran Foer, Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease 

Alice Walker, Everyday Use                         

                  Poetry                                

Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays  

Lucille Clifton, wishes for sons  

Kitty Tsui, A Chinese Banquet

                        PLAY

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

                        Nonfiction                                    

Scott Russell Sanders, Buckeye

Families: Topics for essays

Children and Adolescents           

                  Fiction

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl                     

Lorrie Moore, The Kid’s Guide to Divorce 

James Joyce, Araby 

John Updike, A&P                   

                  Poetry

Elizabeth Bishop, In the Waiting Room 

Anne Sexton, Little Red Riding Hood

Agha Shahid Ali, The Wolf’s Postscript to Little Red Riding Hood

Gary Soto, Behind Grandma’s House 

                  NonFiction

Langston Hughes, Salvation

Children and Adolescents: Topics for essays

Lovers

                        Fiction

Dorothy Parker, The Waltz 

John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums

Amanda Holzer,  ove and Other Catastrophes: A Mix Tape

                        Poetry

                        Nonfiction

      Sei Shonagon, from The Pillow Book

Lovers: Topics for essays

Working further with the World Closest to Us

Reading Globally, Writing Locally I: Orhan Pamuk and the Literature of Europe

            Nonfiction

Orhan Pamuk, My Father’s Suitcase

                   Fiction

Orhan Pamuk, To Look Out The Window                           

Julio Cortázar, Axolotl                                                    

                        Poetry

Eleni Fourtouni, Child’s Memory 

CzesBaw MiBosz, My Faithful Mother Tongue 

Working further with the literature of Europe

9.  The Worlds around Us: Beliefs and Ethics                                 

Beliefs: Creation and Beginnings

                        Sacred Text

Genesis, chapters 1-3

                  Secular Texts

Voltaire, Plato’s Dream                                     

Salman Rushdie, Imagine There’s No Heaven

K. C. Cole, Murmurs                      

Creation and Beginnings: Topics for essays

Ethics: Destruction and Endings

                              Fiction                                            

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour

Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants

Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

                  Poetry

William Carlos Williams, Complete Destruction

Robert Frost, Fire and Ice

John Donne, Death, Be Not Proud 

Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Emily Dickinson, I like a look of Agony

      Because I could not stop for Death ;

      I felt a Funeral, in my Brain ;

      I heard a Fly buzz–when I died–

      It was not Death, for I stood up

      A toad can die of light! 

      Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

WisBawa Szymborska, Lot’s Wife 

Carolyn Forché, The Colonel

                  PLAY

Destruction and Endings: Topics for essays

Working further with the Worlds around Us

Reading Globally, Writing Locally II: Naguib Mahfouz and the Literature of Africa

                              Fiction

 Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day ( translated by Davies Denys Johnson )

 Naguib Mahfouz, Zaabalawi ( translated by Davies Denys Johnson )

                                    Nonfiction

     Binyavanga Wainaina, How to Write about Africa 

                             Poetry

     Jeremy Cronin, To learn how to speak … 

     Chenjerai Hove, You Will Forget 

Working further with the literature of Africa

10.        The World We Live in: Spaces and Places

In-Between Spaces

            Fiction

Eudora Welty, A Worn Path

Raymond Carver, Cathedral

Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona    

                Poetry

Robert Frost, Mending Wall

James Wright, Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

Henry Taylor, Landscape with Tractor

Louise Erdrich, Dear John Wayne 

Yusuf Komunyakaa, Facing It

            Nonfiction

Rachel Carson, The Marginal World  

In-between spaces: Topics for essays                                                                                             

Confined Spaces

                        Fiction

Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado

William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper 

                        Poetry

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sympathy

Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning 

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

                        Play

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House

                        Nonfiction

Mikhael Metzel, The accused awaiting trial in the Butyrskaya prison in Moscow

Malcolm X, from The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Confined Spaces: Topics for essays

Working further with the World We Live In

Reading Globally, Writing Locally III: Jhumpa Lahiri and The Literature of Asia

                        Nonfiction

Jhumpa Lahiri, My Two Lives

              Fiction

Jhumpa Lahiri, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

Kazuo Ishiguro, A Family Supper 

              Poetry                    

Garrett Hongo, Who among You Knows the Essence of Garlic? 

Xu Gang, Red Azalea on the Cliff                                  

Working further with the literature of Asia

11.        The World We Share: Nature, Cities, and the Environment

Living in the City

            Fiction

Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson

Poetry

Allen Ginsberg, Supermarket in California

Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro

Sharon Olds, On the Subway 

Langston Hughes, Theme for English B

            Nonfiction

Bill Buford, Lions and Tigers and Bears

      Living in the City: Topics for essays

Living in Nature

Fiction

Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron

T. C. Boyle, Greasy Lake

            Poetry

Haiku by Basho and Richard Wright

H. D., The Sea Rose

William Carlos Williams, So Much Depends                                 

Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish

Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learned Astronomer 

Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Inversnaid 

Wendell Berry, Stay Home 

Robert Frost, A Brook in the City 

W. S. Merwin, Rain at Night

            Nonfiction

Louis D. Owens, The American Indian Wilderness 

Donella Meadows,  Living Lightly and Inconsistently on the Land

      Living in Nature: Topics for Essays                                                                    

Working further with the World Around Us

Reading Globally, Writing Locally IV:

Gabriel García Márquez and the Literature of the Americas

              Fiction

Gabriel García Márquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

     Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

              Poetry

     Pablo Neruda,  The Word 

     Jimmy Santiago Baca, So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans 

     Tino Villanueva, Variation on a Theme by William Carlos Williams 

Working further with the literature of the Americas

Appendix A: The World of Literary Criticism

Appendix B: MLA Documentation Guidelines

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