Overview of the course:

Keeping a diary is a personal activity that has a public appeal. In this course, which will be a four-credit writing intensive course, students will study various kinds of diaries and will keep diaries themselves. Novels such as Graham Greene's The End of the Affair and Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones' Diary, each of which features the diary format, will be analyzed in conjunction with viewing and analyzing their film adaptations. The Holocaust will be explored in the context of the definitive edition of The Diary of a Young Girl, supplemented by the documentary film, "Anne Frank Remembered" and other Holocaust testimonies. Course participants will study excerpts from "All Will Yet Be Well, the diary kept by an Iowa farm woman and teacher, Sarah Gillespie Huftalen, for more than 75 years, as well as excerpts from other diaries by "ordinary" people.

Everyone will have an opportunity to explore the burgeoning world of the online diary, first by exploring "The Emily Project" and then by studying specific diaries kept by individuals on such online clearinghouse web sites as the following: "The Diary Registry," "The Diary Project," "The Online Diary History Project." Students will have the option of keeping an online diary during the semester.  Tristine Rainer's The New Diary, The Freedom Writers’ Diary, and Educating Esme will round out the course readings and provide contextual background for the intensive writing to be done.

The instructors will guide each student as he or she keeps his or her own diary throughout the semester. Based on diary entries made in and out of class, each student will create a Professional Diary, which will be an integral part of each student's writing portfolio for the course.  To learn more about specific diary assignments for the Professional Diary, click on this URL:  http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~susanna/syllabus9.htm   

Each student will also complete a longer project by the end of the semester. To learn more about this project, click on this URL:  http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~susanna/course_project.htm    

INFORMATION ABOUT THE DIARY'S APPEAL:

The diary’s appeal can be traced to its expansiveness and flexibility. The diary can incorporate a variety of writing styles; it can range from being formal and stylized to conversational and idiomatic. The diary can envelop a variety of themes; for example, the need for self-affirmation, the conflict between duty and desire, the quest for knowledge, the wish to make one’s mark on the world, the coming to terms with change and loss. Because it is expansive and flexible, the diary can be studied simultaneously as a historical document, a therapeutic tool, and a form of literature. The diary can provide valuable insights into individuals’ self-images, the dynamics of families and communities, and the kinds of contributions that individuals have made, past and present. The form and content of a diary are inevitably shaped not only by its writer’s personality but also by her or his experience of race, ethnicity, class, age, sexual orientation, and geographical setting. In this course, we will examine not only what the diaries say but also what they do not say, focusing on their context in society and history, their format, and their intent.

Questions to be explored:

Why are we drawn to read of another person’s daily experiences?

Why do diaries have such staying power?

What makes them appealing to writers, young and old?

What can diaries help us appreciate about the lives and experiences of those individuals who kept them?

What can diaries tell us, not only about the reasons why individuals write in diaries but also about the reasons why they (and others) preserve those diaries and make them available for others to read and appreciate?

What is the author's relationship to her/his diary once it is edited and published?

How is the design and form of different kinds of diaries related to their contents?

How can the diary function as not only an individual but also a community text?