Week 2, 9/07–11, Overview

We are now in the full swing of the semester! You need to post a response to the Intro and Chapter 1 of Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing by this Tuesday, 9/08 (see Writing 2). Please make sure that you’ve set up your WordPress account and accepted my invitation to contribute to this site (see Writing 1), so you can do so.

I will be on Zoom this coming Monday from 2:30–3:00 to talk about how you might try to get started writing about Odell. Please check in if you can. You can also ask me questions about Odell or the assignment on our Canvas Discussion Board, on our class Twitter feed (#e110fall2020), by messaging me on Twitter (@josephdharris), or during my Zoom Student Hours on Monday from 3:00–4:00.

I will also begin holding my first series of one-on-one conferences this week. If you haven’t scheduled a conference yet, please email me pronto to suggest some open time slots that you can make.

As a reminder, my Zoom address is https://udel.zoom.us/my/joeharris.

To Do Next Week

1. Read the course materials I’ve posted to this site. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that this is exactly what I wrote last week. But I have to say I’m not convinced that some of you have done this reading yet. And, well, you just have to. I don’t know any other way to put it. You need to read through the pages posted on the menu bar at the top of this screen. They are the course. I’ll be posting updates like this one each week, but you need to read through the course materials first in order to get a good sense of what this course is about and the work you will need to do in it.
2. Keep reading How to Do Nothing (Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 30–126) and Rewriting (Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 35–73). This reading will be the basis of Writing 4, due on Tuesday, 9/15
3. Tues, 9/08, 4:00 pm: Post Writing 2 (Defining Odell’s Project) to this site.
4. Tues, 9/08, Wed, 9/09, Thurs, 9/10: Come talk with me on Zoom, if you’re scheduled for a conference this week! (See Conferences for some thoughts on what we might talk about.)
5. Thurs, 9/10, 4:00 pm: Post Writing 3 (Comments) to this site.
6. Tues, 9/15, 4:00 pm: Post Writing 4 (Forwarding or Countering Odell) to this site.

Writing 2: Defining Odell’s Project

Photo: The Old Survivor Tree, https://localwiki.org/oakland/Old_Survivor_Redwood_Tree

By this point, you should have read the Intro and Chapter 1 of Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing (pp. ix–29), and the Intro and Chapter 1 of Rewriting (pp. 1–34).

I argue in Rewriting that, rather than talking about a writer’s “main idea” or “thesis”, it’s often more useful to think about their project—what they’re trying to do or accomplish in their writing. How to Do Nothing actually strikes me as a good example of why it can be useful to think in such terms, since Odell’s book overflows with ideas, questions, and insights. To reduce this torrent of words and ideas to a single “thesis statement” would seem to miss the point, to slight the interest and complexity of her writing. For Odell is not trying to make a linear argument so much as to draw on her experiences as a resident of the city of Oakland, as a reader of literature and philosophy, as a user of social media, as a visual artist, as a bird watcher, all in order to . . .

Well, to do what, exactly? That’s the question. What is Odell’s project in this book? Obviously, it has something to do with “question[ing] what we currently perceive as productive” (xii). But Odell seems an unusually productive person herself, so it’s hard to imagine that she’s encouraging us to just idly laze our days away. And then there’s that interesting moment at the end of the Introduction when she writes, “At some point, I began to think of this as an activist book disguised as a self-help book” (xxii). What might that possibly mean? How can doing nothing be a form of activism?

I’d like you to write a short piece in which, based on your reading of her book so far, you try to define Odell’s project as a writer. In Rewriting I suggest that you can think of a writer’s project as involving their aims, methods, and materials (20). So in thinking about Odell’s project in How to Do Nothing, you might want to ask:

• What is Odell trying to accomplish in this book? How does she want to change how her readers might think or see or feel about things? (Aim)
• What sorts of texts and experiences does she use as examples? What kinds of books, places, and ideas does she seem drawn to? (Materials)
• How does she connect those examples, form them into some sort of line of thought (even if it may not be a conventional thesis-driven argument)? (Methods)

Note that all of these questions ask you to pay careful attention to what Odell is doing as a writer. I’ll thus expect you to quote often from How to Do Nothing as you try to define her project.

But don’t worry about getting the “right answer”. I’m not hoping to read 44 versions of the same piece. I think there are many different ways of imagining what Odell is trying to do in this book, and I am eager to find out what catches your attention.

Aim for a piece of about 750 words. (That is, a piece about the same length as the one you’re now reading.) Write in a voice that feels your own. If your style tends to be more conversational or informal, that’s fine. But be professional. Proofread your work carefully.

I want you to post the final version of your piece to this website. (See Posting to WordPress under Writings for details about how to do so.) But I advise you strongly not to draft your writing in WordPress. It’s a hard program to “think in”. It’s meant more to publish work you’ve already though through. So formulate your words and ideas first in Word, or whatever other program you like to use—or even on paper. Then copy and paste your work into WordPress.

Use Responses as your category, and come up with at least two or three good Tags for your work. Begin your post with an interesting and relevant Featured Image.

Deadline

Tues, 9/08, 4:00 pm, posted to this site

Note: WordPress may require me to approve your first post. Don’t panic if you don’t see it appear immediately.