This document provides information for a college English course. It outlines class policies such as attendance, assignments, grading, and academic honesty. It introduces the theme of "passing" and discusses how people pass for reasons of race, religion, gender, or sexuality. It also provides the syllabus and schedule, which includes assigned readings on the topic of passing and identity. Students are instructed to establish a class website profile and purchase required books and materials. The first homework assignment asks students to write about a time they were judged or passed as someone different.

1. EWRT 1B
Passing by Nella Larsen

2. Adding the Class
• I can only take 32 students
• If you are on the waiting list, you can stay. I will
hand out add codes via email as space becomes
available in the class.
• As we go over the syllabus, consider whether you
will stay in the class. If you want out, please let
me know, so I can offer your seat to another
student.
• If you are not on the waiting list, make sure to
give me your name and email address.

3. Agenda
• Presentation: Green Sheet;
Syllabus; Website; Google Drive;
Kaizena
• Discussion: What is Identity? When
do we "pass" as someone different
from ourselves?
• In-class writing: How do we express
our own identities? How much do
we reveal about ourselves? How do
we decide?
• Author Lecture: Maya Angelou

4. The Green Sheet
• What you will find here
– Course Requirements
• Assignments and values
• Participation
– Required Materials
– Class Policies
• Plagiarism
• Conduct and Courtesy
– The Class Website
• How to sign up for an
account
• How to post your
homework.
– How to use Kaizena to
submit your Paper

5. Texts and Required Materials:
PRIMARY TEXTS
Available on the Website
• Chesnutt, Charles “The Passing of Grandison”
• Far, Sui Sin, “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of
an Eurasian”
• Hughes, Langston, “Passing,” (the poem),
“Passing,” (short story), and “Who’s Passing for
Who.”
• Morrison, Toni, “Recitatif”
• Feinberg, Leslie, Stone Butch Blues
Available through Amazon and other book sellers
• Larsen, Nella, Passing
• Hwang, David Henry, Chinglish
SECONDARY TEXTS
Available on the Website
• Assorted Journal Articles
Required Materials
 One large Blue Book for essay
four.
 A Gmail account that you will be
willing to share via Wordpress,
Kaizena, and Google Drive

6. Requirements:
• Active participation in class discussions and
regular attendance. You will earn real points for
your participation in activities.
• Keeping up-to-date on the assignments and
reading.
• Formal writing: Three out of class essays and one
in-class essay.
• A series of writing posts to the class website:
responses and QHQs.
• Terms tests, reading quizzes, and in-class
assignments.

7. Grading

8. Class Policies

9. Writing Submissions
• Essay Submission:
• All out of class essays are to be submitted to me
electronically before the class period in which they are due.
1. Before you submit your essay, please save your file as your last
name and the assignment: Smith 1.
2. Submit your essay through Kaizena at
https://kaizena.com/palmoreessaysubmissiongmail. Or simply
use the link on our class website home page.
3. Sign in to your Google Account and allow Kaizena access to
your Google Drive. You may want a dedicated Gmail account
for this class.
4. You can follow the directions from this point to join a group or
submit your essay. If you have trouble, please see the
appropriate presentation on our website under “Create
Accounts.”
All out of class essays are to be submitted to me electronically
before the due date.

10. Attendance:
Success in this course depends on regular
attendance and active participation. Participation
points will be part of our daily activities. If you are
not in class, you cannot earn these points. You
should save absences for emergencies, work
conflicts, weddings, jury duty, or any other issues
that might arise in your life.
It is your responsibility to talk to me your absences
or other conflicts. Work done in class cannot be
made up. Also, please arrive on time, as you will
not be able to make up work completed before
you arrive, including quizzes.

11. • Tests:
– We will have several terms tests during the quarter. I
will offer one opportunity late in the quarter to retake
(or make-up) one of the first three terms tests.
• Late Work
– I do not accept late work. I do, however, extend an
opportunity to revise either essay #2 or #3 for a better
grade. If you miss an essay due date, you may submit
that essay when the revisions are due. This does
disqualify you from revising another essay.

12. Conduct, Courtesy, and Electronic Devices:
• In this class, we will regularly engage in the discussion of
topics that may stir passionate debates. Please speak freely
and candidly; however, while your thoughts and ideas are
important to me and to the dynamics of the class, you must
also respect others and their opinions. Courtesy will allow
each person to have the opportunity to express his or her
ideas in a comfortable environment.
• Courtesy includes but is not limited to politely listening to
others when they contribute to class discussions, not
slamming the classroom door if you do arrive late, and
maintaining a positive learning environment for your fellow
classmates. To help maintain a positive learning environment,
please focus on the work assigned, put away your cell phones
and iPods before class, and do not text-message in class. If
your behavior becomes disruptive to the learning
environment of the class, you may be asked to leave and/or be
marked absent.

13. Academic Dishonesty:
Plagiarism includes quoting or
paraphrasing material without
documentation and copying from
other students or professionals.
Intentional plagiarism is a grave
offense; the resulting response will be
distasteful. Depending upon the
severity, instances of plagiarism may
result in a failing grade for the paper
or the course and possible
administrative action. All assignments
will be scanned and scrutinized for
academic dishonesty. Please refer to
your handbook for more information
regarding plagiarism.

14. The
Syllabus

15. • The syllabus is a tentative schedule.
• It may be revised during the quarter.
• Use it to determine how to prepare for class.
What we
will do in
class 
Homework due
before the next
class  Project title
Week and
Days 

16. Our class website is http://palmoreenglish.wordpress.com. In order to do the
homework, you must establish an account. To make your own FREE Word Press
account, go to wordpress.com. The system will walk you through the steps to
signup for a username or to set up your own user-friendly Word Press blog.
Alternatively, you can sign into our website through Facebook. There are also
detailed directions available on the website under “Create Account.”
If you prefer not to use your own name, you may use a pseudonym. Just make
sure you sign in with YOUR Word Press username before you post on our class
page so you get credit for your work. Please email me your username once
you have established which account you shall use for the quarter.
If you cannot establish your website and username, please come to my office
hours as soon as possible, and I will help you with the process. Much of our
work will take place online, so establishing this connection is mandatory.
http://palmoreenglish.wordpress.com

17.  Some Reading Assignments
 Essay Assignments
 The Green Sheet
 The Syllabus (The Daily Plan)
 Writing Tips
 Helpful Links
 Your Daily Homework Assignment
(which is where you post your
homework.)

18. Homework
There is writing homework due the
evening before each meeting. This is both
to help you think about your reading and
to help you produce ideas for your essays.
In order to earn an A on your homework,
you must do the following:
 Complete all of the posts.
 Post them on time.
 Be thoughtful in your
responses.

19. Posting Homework
• On the front page of the website, you will find the homework
post after each class. (text me if you don’t see it)
• Below that post on the right, are the words “Leave a
comment.”
• Click there and a comment box will open. Copy and paste your
homework into the comment box
• Click “Post Comment.”
• Suggestion: Create a Google Document for your homework.
Do all of it in that document so that you have a record of what
you have (and have not) done. This will help you keep track of
your work and your grade.

20. Is this class too
hard? How
many essays?
Is this class
History 10?
What are we
going to read?

21. What is Identity??

22. IDENTITY: A person’s mental representation of who
he or she is.
Components of identity include a sense of
personal continuity and of uniqueness from
other people. In addition to carving out a
personal identity based on the need for
uniqueness, people also acquire a social
identity based on their membership in various
groups—familial, ethnic, occupational, and
others. These group identities, in addition to
satisfying the need for affiliation, help people
define themselves in the eyes of both others
and themselves.

23. Identity
• What is it?
– Write a dictionary definition
– Write what identity means to you personally.
• Next, reflect on your culture and the dimensions of that
culture that contribute to your identity. Take two minutes and
jot down some notes to yourself.
– Where in your life does your culture emerge?
– How do you see yourself within your culture?
– How does your family manifest culture?
– What would you tell others about your
culture?

24. More ideas about defining cultural
identity?
• Music
• Food
• Faith, religion
• Values
• Language
• Family structure

25. How do these qualifiers figure
into identity?
• Education
• Race
• Gender
• Sexual Orientation
• Social Class

26. Nitza Hidalgo’s “three levels of
culture”
– The Concrete: This is the most visible and tangible
level of culture. These aspects of culture are often
those that provide the focus for multicultural
"festivals" or "celebrations.”
– The Behavioral: This level of culture clarifies how we
define our social roles, the language(s) we speak, and
our approaches to nonverbal communication.
– The Symbolic: This level of culture includes our values
and beliefs.

27. Let’s consider how we define ourselves within Hidalgo’s “levels.”
Which aspects of identity go into which category?
– the Concrete: This is the most
visible and tangible level of
culture. These aspects of culture
are often those that provide the
focus for multicultural "festivals"
or "celebrations."
– the Behavioral: This level of
culture clarifies how we define our
social roles, the language(s) we
speak, and our approaches to
nonverbal communication.
– the Symbolic: This level of culture
includes our values and beliefs.
Music
Food
Faith, religion
Values
Language
Family structure
Education
Race
Gender
Sexual Orientation
Social Class
????

28. How Do We Want to be Seen?
–Are we the concrete?
–The behavioral?
–Or the Symbolic?

29. How do we see others?
– When you meet somebody,
which qualities (under any of the
categories) do you use to
understand them culturally?
– Is your attempt to understand
others culturally consistent with
how you want to be viewed and
understood?
– What forces in our society might
contribute to our simplification
of the culture of others, even
though we don't want to be
defined simplistically ourselves?

30. Course Theme: Passing
 Historically, passing has been defined in terms of racial passing. It refers to a
deception that allows a person to take advantage of certain roles or opportunities
from which he or she might be barred in the absence of this posed identity. The
most common racial passer, of course, was the African American who lacked those
characteristics typical of his race. These mixed race people had physical
appearances that allowed them to be perceived and treated as if they where white.
But passing is not limited to African Americans assuming white roles in society; it is
not even limited to a racial basis. People pass in a variety of ways and for a variety
of reasons—from African Americans who pass for white, to Jews who pass as
Gentiles, to gays who pass for straight, for women who pass for men—and the
opposite of all of these. Reverse passing, though less prevalent, also exists in
multiple forms.
 How does our judgment of people lead to the desire or need to “pass”?

31. In-Class Writing
• How do we express our own
identities?
• How much do we reveal about
ourselves and when do we do so?
• How do we decide?
• What does society expect from us in
terms of revealing who we are?

32. Maya Angelou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyHqafC740Q
 Though heralded for her writing, Angelou is no stranger to acting. She
received a Tony nomination for her role in Look Away and an Emmy
nomination for her performance in the landmark miniseries Roots.
 Following sexual abuse and murder in her family, Angelou was electively
mute for several years of her childhood. She began speaking again at the age
of 13.
 Maya Angelou read her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” at President Bill
Clinton’s inauguration. The only other poet to have performed at a
presidential inauguration was Robert Frost, who read at Kennedy’s.
 Although Maya Angelou did not have a college education, she received over
fifty honorary degrees and countless academic engagements. Her lack of a
doctorate does not stop people from referring to the accomplished scholar as
"Dr. Maya Angelou."
 In August 2006, Angelou received the Mother Teresa Award “for her untiring
devotion and service to humanity.”

33. Establish: Your Webpage
or Username and Gmail
account
Explore: The class
webpage
Buy or Order: Your books
Read: “Uncle Willie” by Maya Angelou (under “reading selections”
on the website.
Post #1: Write a paragraph or two describing a time when you were
unfairly judged on concrete identity characteristics, OR write a
paragraph or two describing a time when you passed as someone or
something you were not. The passing can be either purposeful or
inadvertent.