Writing About Architecture and the American City
Informal Assignment 1 - September 16
In Piecework Pete Hamill describes personal experiences of life in New York City. His nostalgic tone displays his preference for the New York of his youth and distaste for the state of the city today. Using Hamill's essay as a model, write about one specific experience you have had in a city to make a larger point about cities in general.
Link to related reading assignment
Length: 600-850 words
Informal Assignment 2 - September 21
To prepare you (and the class as a whole) for a discussion of the origins of the skyscraper, please develop and type-up three discussion questions, one in each of the following styles, based on the two readings assigned for Tuesday.
Print two copies of your questions. Hand the first copy in at the start of Tuesday's class. You'll need your second copy for reference when we begin our discussion.
Length: 100-140 words
Informal Assignment 3 - September 23
For your first formal assignment, you will be asked to argue one side of an issue related to the questions you posed last week about the evolution of the American skyscraper. Writing is a process and pre-writing and preparation are as important to your success as editing and re-writing. This assignment is designed to help you choose a topic that is both stimulating and fruitful.
First, write down a list of the five most interesting, compelling, confusing or thought-provoking questions raised by the texts. Draw these from your list of questions for last week or from subjects brought up during class discussion. Second, reread the two chapters, looking for at least ten passages that relate to your list of five questions. Type the passages and organize them according to topic. Remember to cite text and page numbers. You may use the same passage for multiple questions. Is there one topic that has more passages than the others? Do you have a favorite passage? Does one argument seem more compelling after you found evidence to support a conclusion? These questions should help you decide which topic to write about. Bring your list of questions and related quotes to class.
Length: n/a
Informal Assignment 4 - October 5
This activity is designed to allow you to engage your creativity while at the same time letting you distance yourself from "bad writing" by parodying it. Hopefully this assignment will be an "exorcism" of sorts! You may either chose to parody any of the assignments we've had so far for class, or you may pick an entirely new topic. I want you to parody the kind of writing I expect from you as architectural critics and academic writers. This assignment is meant to be fun, but not fluffy: you need to determine what you think bad writing is (and why) before you can imitate it. Once you've done it as parody, you should easily be able to keep it out of your formal essays (right??!).
Activity: Before you begin, spend at least 15 minutes thinking about what bad writing is, and what strategy you'd like to use in imitating it. Once you've determined this and settled on a topic, spend 30-45 minutes free writing your parody. Don't go back to edit or rethink, but do re-read your piece and think about how successful or unsuccessful it was. Was it over-top-enough? Did it differ from your other writings? Did it teach you anything about what not to do? Keep these questions in mind, for we will respond to them in an in-class writing exercise once we've shared some of our parodic essays outloud.
Length: 800-1200 words
Informal Assignment 5 - October 14
By now, I hope that our discussions about architecture and excursions around Philadelphia have caused you to bump into a few fellow-pedestrians as you look up at buildings while you walk to class (of course, I don't want you to stop people watching - this is also a great way to learn about cities). For this assignment, I would like you to pause and think about what you've learned so far, in class and on your own. To this end, your assignment is to spend twenty minutes writing down your thoughts about what constitutes and defines architecture. Some of the factors you might consider are ornament, materials, culture, nationalism, climate, structure and technology. There's no need to strive for a complete response: just note whatever comes to mind and try not to lift your pen from the paper or your fingers from the keyboard. It's always worth trying to maintain good English sentences but don't worry about being penalized for grammar or spelling. The name of the game is spontaneity.
Length: 20 minutes of non-stop writing
Informal Assignment 6 - November 2
Scavenger hunt - in-class hand out.
Informal assignment 7 - November 9
So, two weeks have passed since you turned in your last formal assignments and you've been working diligently in the library collecting research materials and sources, right? I know you're wondering, "What should I do with this extensive bibliography I've compiled and all the detailed notes I've taken?" Here's your answer!
Annotate a bibliography of the sources you intend to use for your research paper. The bibliography should conform to the guidelines given in the Chicago Manual of Style. After each bibliographic title, write a short paragraph describing the basic content and arguments of the source. Include two sentences explaining how the text is relevant to your research and how you intend to use it. I do not want a summary of the text; instead I want you to point out the central argument and discuss provocative, revealing and problematic style, evidence or content-related issues. The bibliography should include at least one primary source and a minimum of four secondary sources. The secondary sources should include at least one scholarly journal article (acceptable journals are: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, American Institute of Architects Journal, Architectural History, Architectura. If you are unsure whether a journal is "scholarly enough," please contact me via email or ask me in class). For a good example of an annotated bibliography, visit this web site.
Length: Each entry should be 250 - 400 words.
Informal Assignment 8 - November 11
The next two informal assignments (8 & 9) are designed to prepare you for one of the most common college writing assignments: critical response to a text. On Thursday, we will discuss Robert Butler and Christine Stansell's contributions to an ongoing debate about the city as a liberating space. To prepare for Thursday's discussion, write a one-page summary of one of the article's main points, including details of all major scholarly references, and including any salient discussions of other social-historical or theoretical writing. Your summary should include one or two carefully selected quotes that convey the thesis or the author's theoretical approach. A summary should not necessarily follow the same organization of the article, book or chapter; instead, group the material you want to include and present it according to related themes.
Length: 400-450 words
Informal Assignment 9 - December 2
The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to apply and extend the critical insights and observations that we began to develop in class. It is also an opportunity for you to continue to develop your pre-writing skills, to try out ideas, to articulate your critical responses on paper, and to keep your interpretive juices flowing for the research paper. Reread the summary you brought to class. Write a one-page response to one of the issues we discussed in class. In this brief argument, use evidence from the article (perhaps the quotes you included in your summary) to support a conclusion you have made in response to the text and the comments of your classmates. Your own interpretation should be articulated as the thesis of the paper which should flow from more general to more specific observations. To accomplish this, you will need to jot down your evidence and think about how to organize and present it.
Length: 1200-1600 words
Presentation - December 7 & 9
Present the main points and arguments of your research paper to the class. You should present your most powerful evidence and discuss at least one building, pointing out formal characteristics that support your conclusions. There will be a ten minute question and answer session following your presentation. To insure that we will have images to discuss in class, please send me an email that lists the building(s) you will discuss in class by December 1.
Length: 15 minutes (~2.5 minutes per double-spaced, type-written page)
1. Develop one question that relates to the styles of The Rise of the New York Skyscraper and The Chicago School of Architecture. This question should address the methods the authors use to present information. For example, Sarah Landau's text uses cultural and historical data as evidence while The Chicago School focuses on the structural analysis. Does this represent a shift in art historical methods?
2. Develop one query about a particular building used in one or both of the readings. For example, are there any buildings that both texts discuss? Does one text focus on structure while the other discusses ornament? Construct a question about the different use of buildings as evidence in the two texts.
3. Ask a question about anything that surprised, confused, or in any way challenged you about the texts. Don't just ask about concepts you don't understand. Try and develop a question which addresses your most immediate and pervasive reaction to the texts. For example, does Carl Condit's co-authorship of The Rise of the New York Skyscraper represent a fundamental shift in his thoughts about the evolution of the American skyscraper from those he presented in The Chicago School? Or, how would these authors define the terms "architect" and "engineer?" What does this tell us about their analysis, and how does it effect their analysis of American architecture?