Assignments

Critical Question Presentation and Roundtable (20%) -- You will be a required to sign up in small groups for an oral presentation and roundtable during the course of the semester. For your presentation, you will read the texts assigned for a particular week, summarize and articulate two or three main points from the week’s scholarly or critical text (as assigned), generate a critical question connecting the theory to the text, and contribute to in-class and online discussion for the week.

In-Class Quizzes (10%) -- There will be seven or more in-class five-minute quizzes at various times during the semester. These quizzes serve as a review of the week's main ideas, terms, texts, and readings. These quizzes might include identifications, fill-in-the-blanks, definitions, and short answers.

Creative Responses (10%) -- Over the course of the semester, you will write a short-short story, create a drawing, and generate a critical review as an alternative way to explore and demonstrate the ideas and goals of the course. These creative responses will be evaluated on completion and your critical, thoughtful engagement with the prompts.

Critical Response Papers (20%) -- You will complete a number short, critical, analytical response papers. These single-spaced, one-page writings serve as close readings of, analyses of, and articulations of the texts and connections you see, read, and talk about in the tutorial. You will be required to generate a response paper approximately every other week for a total of 5.

Mixed-Paper/Mash-Up Final Project (20%) -- Your final paper project will be a "mixed-paper," a multimodal mash-up that collects together three of your short response papers, which you'll revise, your creative responses, and incorporates the addition of images, verse, and other kinds of evidence, all of which is framed by an introduction and conclusion page. The "mixed-paper" asks you to think critically about the course questions and texts, to make connections, and to create an argument across texts and different kinds of evidence.

Information Sheets

The following are handouts, informational sheets, and readings that will be assigned or used over the course of the quarter. Each student will recieve a copy of each as a handout in class during the appropriate week. If you miss a sheet, feel free to print out a new copy.

Dr. Chang's Top Ten List of "Ways to Survive University"

Dr. Chang's Top Ten Rules of Writing

What is Close Reading?

How to Write a Summary

Claims, Claims, Claims

Introductions & Conclusions

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

MLA Citation and Bibliographic Format

Revision Check-List

Readings

The course texts are available via a reputable bookseller; the Little Professor Book Center (65 S. Court) can order books for you given enough time. Shorter readings are available via the course Canvas. The required texts for this class are (in order of use):

Elizabeth Catte, What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. Qui Nguyen, She Kills Monsters. Joshua Young, Appalachian Pachinko!. Frank X. Walker, Affrilachia. bell hooks, Appalachian Elegy. Crystal Wilkinson, The Birds of Opulence. Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, Even as We Breath. Alison Stine, Trashlands. Christopher Rowe, These Prisoning Hills. Don Martin, Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire. Denali Sai Nalamalapu, Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance.

Consult the course syllabus for the week's required reading. The following is a full bibliographical list of the class readings:

Adams, Rachel, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin. "Disability." Keywords for Disability Studies. NYU Press. 29 May 2018. https://keywords.nyupress.org/disability-studies/essay/disability/. Alston, Vermonja R. "Environment." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 104-106. Berlant, Lauren. "Citizenship." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 37-42. Berry, Chad. "Appalachia: Who Cares, and So What?" Berea College Hutchins Library, 7 Jan. 2026, https://libraryguides.berea.edu/essayappalachia Bray, John Patrick. "'There's Too Many of Them!': Off-Off-Broadway's Performance of Geek Culture." Theatre Symposium 22 (2014), pp. 121-133. Britton, Richard Miles. "Appalachia in Science Fiction," Appalachian Journal 45, No. 3/4 (Spring/Summer 2018), pp. 702-730. Burgett, Bruce. "Sex." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 217-221. Cherniavsky, Eva. "Body." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 26-29. Cochran, Marie T. "I Pledge Allegiance to Affrilachia," Callaloo 42, No. 1 (Winter 2024), pp. 2-4. Deininger, Michelle. "Young Adult Fiction and Ecofeminism," in The Routledge Handbook of Ecofeminism and Literature, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch (Routledge, 2025), pp. 448-457. Ferguson, Robert A. "Race." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 191-196. Georgiou, Myria. "Identity." Keywords for Media Studies. Eds. Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray. NYU Press, 2017. 94-98. Gray, Herman. "Race." Keywords for Media Studies. Eds. Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray. NYU Press, 2017. 61-164. Green, Chris and Erica Abrams Locklear. "Writing Appalachia: Intersections, Missed Connections, and Future Work," in Studying Appalachian Studies: Making the Path by Walking, edited by Chad Berry, Phillip J. Obermiller, and Shaunna L. Scott, University of Illinois Press, 2015, pp. 62-87. Gruesz, Kirsten Silva. "America." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 16-22. Halberstam, Judith. "Gender." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 116-120. Harrison, Anthony Kwame. "Writing Black Life in Mountains: Race and Representation in an Emerging American Literary Field," Journal of Alpine Research 112-3 (2024), https://journals.openedition.org/rga/13508. Henderson, Lisa. "Representation." Keywords for Media Studies. Eds. Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray. NYU Press, 2017. 172-176. Justice, Daniel Heath. "Introduction: Stories That Wound, Stories That Heal." Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018, pp. 1-32. Justice, Daniel Heath. "Preface: Notes for the Long Rebellion," Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018, pp. xvii-xxii. Luu, Chi. "The Legendary Language of the Appalachian ‘Holler,’" JSTOR Daily, 8 Aug. 2018, https://daily.jstor.org/the-legendary-language-of-the-appalachian-holler/. McCloud, Christopher Ryan. "Virtual Appalachia: Video Game Representations of the Region," Appalachian Journal 47, No. 1/2 (Fall 2019/Winter 2020), pp. 110-125. Morris, Ronald V. and Denise Shockley. "Theater in an Arts Desert: Partnerships for Enrichment," Childhood Education 100, no. 2 (2024), pp. 54-59. Oksman, Tahneer. "Graphic Novel," Keywords for Comic Studies, edited by Ramzi Fawaz, Shelley Streeby, and Deborah Elizabeth Whaley, New York University Press, 2021, pp. 118-122. Prashad, Vijay. "Orientalism." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 174-177. Robertson, Sarah. "Gothic Appalachia," in The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic, edited by S.C. Street and C.L. Crow (Palgrave, 2016), pp. 109-120. Somerville, Siobhan B. "Queer." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 187-191. Tchen, John Kuo Wei. "Asian." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2014. 18-21. Teets, Terra. "The Ethics of a Dystopian Appalachia in the Hunger Games Books," Medium, 8 Sep. 2020, https://terrabteets.medium.com/the-ethics-of-a-dystopian-appalachia-in-the-hunger-games-books-4a2597c852ba Waitt, Alden. "'Good Story Takes Awhile': Appalachian Literature in the High School Classroom," Journal of Appalachian Studies 12, no. 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 79-101. Walker, Frank X., Theresa Burriss, Jean Donohue, Fred Johnson, and Crystal Wilkinson. "Coal Black Voices: A Discussion," Appalachian Journal 51, no. 3-4 (Spring/Summer 2024), pp. 232-244.

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