ENGL 257: Asian American Literature
Satisfies the following GE Requirements:
Instructor: Shawn Wong
Professor, Department of English, Byron and Alice Lockwood Professor in the Humanities
Email: homebase@uw.edu
Office Hours: TuTh 11-12 and by appt. on Zoom, M-F. Appointments required for both in-person and Zoom office hours.
Office: B423 Padelford Hall (4th floor), 206.616.0941
“The UW building in which we are learning about literature and social difference stands on the lands of the Coast Salish peoples, where generations of their ancestors told stories. I encourage you to read the stories of the Coast Salish people about the land we share." Recommended reading: Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders (University of Washington Press, 2022).
Course Description:
An Introduction to Asian American Literature
Required Reading:
(books will be read in the following order)
Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers, edited by Frank Chin, Jeffery Chan, Lawson Inada, and Shawn Wong (University of Washington Press 3rd edition)
Interior Chinatown, a novel by Charles Yu
A Man of Two Faces, a memoir by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Liberators, a novel by E.J. Koh
Classroom Policies and Structure:
First, I have designed this class to ensure your success. If you complete all individual and small group assignments, you will succeed. See grading policy below.
Second, I have divided the class randomly into small discussion groups and I ask that you try and sit with each other in every class session. This serves several purposes: (1) if you miss a class, you can contact your group members for notes, (2) your group can develop their own strategy for completing group Canvas assignments and, (3) if one of your group members becomes ill, it is easier to do contact tracing because you will always know who you were seated next to in class.
Discussion Groups & Group Assignments:
There will be 10 small discussion groups (they will be listed in Canvas under People). Please exchange contact information and get to know each other since you will be working together for the entire quarter, which will hopefully make our class a little more personal.
Each group will develop and write six discussion questions for the readings assigned to your group, take notes of the class discussion, and email them to me and I will upload them to Canvas Files. The assigned readings for your group will be listed in the course schedule.
Essay Assignment:
There are five essay topics in Canvas Assignments to choose from for your final essay. You are required to write an short one paragraph abstract of your essay topic, a first draft and a final draft of your essay (5-7 double spaced pages or 1,750 to 2,450 words).
Grading Policy:
Grading policy in this class is simple. All assignments are either marked "complete" or "incomplete" with no overall points or scores or other grades.
The grade breakdown is as follows:
- Final essay is worth 40%
- First draft of your final essay is worth 10%
- Mandatory peer reviews (3) is worth 10%
- Group discussion questions of the reading (6 discussion questions) is worth 10%
- Discussion notes taken by your group and participation in group discussion of all the readings is worth 10%
- Three exams is worth 20%
There is no make up opportunity for a missed assignment. That said, there will be opportunities for an occasional extra credit (see below) option in case you miss an assignment other than the final essay.
Also, please remember this is an English class, so spelling, punctuation, and grammar counts. For example, Asian requires an uppercase A and Asian American should not be hyphenated (more about that in class). A good source for usage and grammar is the Purdue Owl website (https://owl.purdue.edu/Links to an external site.). If there are too many typos or other grammatical errors, your assignment will be marked "incomplete."
For the first draft and final draft of your essay, you must use MLA style when submitting your essay.
You are allowed to rewrite any "incomplete" assignment for a "complete" grade provided you turned in the original version of the assignment on or before the due date.
Do not plagiarize your essay or use AI generated essays. If you do, you will receive a zero for the assignment or, in other words, loss of 40% of your final grade and no opportunity to make up an incomplete grade.
I have plugged in all five essay topics into Chat GPT and here's what I found out: (1) it can't distinguish between the anthology we're using and other Asian American literature anthologies so it sometimes quotes from other books randomly, (2) it assigns the wrong author to a story (for example, it credited me with something that writer Chang-Rae Lee wrote--you would not know that if you were not familiar with the writing of both authors), and (3) it generally writes at the high school level, using common linguistic patterns typical of the kind of essays you would find in the essay portion of the SAT exam.
Characteristics of plagiarized essays or AI generated essays:
- No relationship between in-class writing and essay writing.
- Errors tend to be typing mistakes rather than errors of sentence construction.
- Inconsistent diction from using more than one source.
- Quoting a source that isn't in our reading material.
- Similar sentences from two of more students using the same undocumented source.
- One student crediting a source and another not crediting the same source.
- Narrative in the essay makes no reference to any discussion in class.
- Use of jargon associated with a particular literary scholar.
- Knowledge of dated literary criticism.
- Use of passages from the reading that aren't in the assigned reading.
- Source is available on-line.
Extra Credit:
You can receive extra credit by uploading a question for discussion in Canvas Discussions. The questions should be in the form of asking for an interpretation or critical analysis of the reading material rather than asking what happened in a particular chapter or section of the reading. In other words, ask a question where you really want an answer about something that confuses you about the reading or you want feedback on your own interpretation of a passage in one of the books. Posting five discussion questions from any of the readings during the quarter will take the place of one missed Canvas Assignment or 10% of your grade and, in order to receive extra credit, you must post your discussion questions prior to when the readings are discussed in lecture.
Statement on Non-verbalization of Racist Slurs in the Classroom
This course is committed to establishing and providing a safe classroom environment for all students. To that end, we acknowledge that there are complex pedagogical challenges in presenting course materials that may contain racial slurs in texts and/or in various forms of media that may offend students, particularly BIPOC students. Our course affirms a policy of the non-verbalization of racial slurs by faculty and students, recognizing that the verbalization of racial slurs may have a triggering effect on students when not heard in their own voice or read silently to themselves from their course materials.
With respect to reading material and other media presented in class, the instructors will review and consider screening content with racial slurs based on four requirements: (1) articulating the specific relevance to the course topic/module, (2) providing a warning about content, (3) stating that students may opt out of being physically in attendance if course content might cause pain, harm, or alienation, and (4) including a broad warning in the syllabus about course content and materials.
University-Wide Policies
- Religious Accommodations: for the University of Washington’s policies on appropriate religious accommodation, please see: https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/ (Links to an external site.)
- For Disability Resources for Students (DRS; if you believe you may need academic accommodations), please see: https://www.washington.edu/studentconduct/
- For UW Standards of Student Conduct, please see: https://www.washington.edu/studentconduct/ (Links to an external site.)
- For the UW’s policy on Academic Misconduct, please see: https://www.washington.edu/cssc/facultystaff/academic-misconduct/ (Links to an external site.)
- For the UW's policy on Preferred Pronouns, please see: https://registrar.washington.edu/students/pronouns/ (Links to an external site.)
ENGL 257 Code of Conduct and Mutual Respect
This course aims to create an ethical, caring, reciprocal environment for safe learning about our roles as writers and students who record and observe the world at large.
To that end: recognizing and valuing diversity is essential to the learning goals of this course and the critical thinking endeavor at the heart of university education.
Respect for difference includes and is not limited to age, cultural background, ability, ethnicity, family status, gender presentation, immigration status, national origin, race, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, preferred names and pronouns, socioeconomic status, and veteran status.
Your participation will require careful and ethical engagement with people and ideas reflective of diversity, including those not in alignment with your personal beliefs and values.
To that end, you are asked to be mindful and respectful to others (and yourself) in all course interactions. Act with best attentions, assume best intentions from your colleagues, and give each other the benefit of the doubt.
Failure to comply with the code of conduct will result in meetings to further discuss pronoun use, respecting diversity, and other learning opportunities. We all make mistakes, and it is from these that we often learn the most.
Further Resources
- Husky Coronavirus Testing: https://www.washington.edu/coronavirus/testing/ (Links to an external site.)
- The UW Humanities Librarian: https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/burns
- Odegaard Writing and Research Center: https://www.lib.washington.edu/ougl/owrc (Links to an external site.)
- Safe Campus: https://www.washington.edu/safecampus/ (Links to an external site.)
- Night Ride and Night Walk: https://www.washington.edu/ima/uw-recreation/safety/ (Links to an external site.)
- UW Police: http://police.uw.edu
- Hall Health Center, General: https://wellbeing.uw.edu/unit/hall-health/
- Hall Health Center, Mental Health: https://wellbeing.uw.edu/topic/mental-health/
- Resources for food and emergency aid: https://www.washington.edu/anyhungryhusky/get-food/(Links to an external site.)
Course Schedule:
3/26: Introductions, syllabus review, & discussion of reading material
Part 1: Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers
3/28: Formation of small discussion groups, definition of terms, history of Chinese immigration, American Chinatowns
Read:
Foreward by Tara Fickle
Preface to the First Edition
Aiiieeeee! Revisited: Preface to the 1991 Edition
4/2:
Read:
An Introduction of Chinese and Japanese American Literature
An Introduction to Filipino American Literature
Carlos Bulosan, From America is in the Heart
Diana Chang, From The Frontiers of Love
4/4:
Read:
Toshio Mori, The Woman Who Makes Swell Doughnuts
John Okada, No-No Boy
Hisaye Yamamoto, Yoneko's Earthquake
Wakako Yamauchi, And the Soul Shall Dance
Part 2: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
4/9:
An introduction to the novel, Interior Chinatown and Chinese American social history.
4/11:
Read: Interior Chinatown, pages 1-76, Act 1 & 2
4/16: Exam #1. This is a group exam, which means it will be taken in class and each group will submit one exam. Open book and open notes.
Read: Interior Chinatown, pages 81-181, Act 3 & 4
4/18:
Read: Interior Chinatown, pages 187 to end
Group 10 Chinatown Discussion Questions
Part 3: A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen
4/23:
Read: pages 3-72
Group 9 Panda Express Discussion Questions
4/25: No class today. Abstract of essay topic due (you can change your mind later). Pick one of the available topics or revise one of the topics.
4/30:
Read: pages 73-140
Group 8 Snoopy Discussion Questions
5/2:
Read: pages 141 to 224
Group 7 Accessible Mail Discussion Questions
5/7:
First draft of your essay due today. It's only a draft so there's no length requirement. It can be a complete draft or partial draft and outline or notes. The first draft must be peer reviewed by the other students in your group before I submit comments for revision.
Read: pages 225 to 280
Group 6 Ranchu Goldfish Discussion Questions
5/9: Exam #2 on Canvas. No need to come to class; you can take the exam on your own. It will go live at 12:30 and end at 2:20.
5/14:
Read: pages 281 to end
Group 5 The Zomadotes Discussion Questions
Part 4: The Liberators by E.J. Koh
5/16:
Read: part 1, "Invisible Lines"
Group 4 Banana Bar Discussion Questions
5/21:
Read: part 2, "Animal Kingdom"
Group 3 What the Pho Discussion Questions
5/23:
Read: part 3, "Colony of Light"
Group 2 The Dry Dragons Discussion Questions
5/28:
Read: part 4, "The Ending"
Group 1 Uno Discussion Questions
5/30: Exam #3: Exam will be live on Canvas from from 12:30-2:20. You do not need to be in class to take the exam. Open book and open notes.
6/4: All final versions of essay due by 11:59 p.m.