Exercises (300 points)

Short essays, more formal than an in-class response paper, but not as formal as a research paper.

You are welcome to use "I" and refer informally to things we have discussed in class, but I will typically also ask you to stay on topic and quote directly from assigned readings.

Assigned about every other week. 3-4 pages long, sometimes broken up into several shorter parts).

Upload these to Turnitin.com.

1. Books and Me (a personal essay)
2. In Defense of Oral Culture
3. Literature Before the Novel or News Before the Newspaper
   
4. In Defense of Manuscripts
5. Books in Culture (a social essay)
   
6. In Defense of the Letter/Magazine/Essay/Newspaper (or some other valuable artifact of print culture that was threatened during the 20th century by some artifact of electromechanical culture)
   
7. In Defense of X (choose something of value that is threatened by Facebook, text-messaging, videogames, Wikipedia, or some other artifact of digital culture)
   
8. Books as Books (an analytical essay)