Spring 2024 Class Schedule
Spring 2024 class Schedule
Spring 2024 course descriptions
ENGLISH 105-0-20: Expository Writing: Y2K Chronicles: Turn-of-the-Century Writing, The ins and aughts of narratives of progress
IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD! Just kidding, it’s fine! On the eve of Jan 1st, 2000, some theorized that in all our busy progress, we hadn’t accounted for an inevitable technological apocalypse that would occur when the clock struck midnight. But it never happened. This phenomenon reflected the anxieties that some felt as they entered what they considered to be a new era of humankind. In this course, we’ll think about how these kinds of anxieties plague a culture as its members reflect on the century passed and look forward to another. We’ll think about how literature reflects a kind of mixed bag of emotions at those times society decides that we are ready to enter a new era: anxiety, dread, trepidation, but also nostalgia. We will encounter texts published in the late 1800s and early 1900s, such as the stories of Edith Wharton and James Joyce, alongside films produced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as Moulin Rouge! and Girl, Interrupted. How does forward-looking progress affect the way individuals see themselves and their places in the world? How can we productively reflect on the past and the future?
As we consider these narratives about ‘progress,’ we might think about our own identities as students, writers, and subjects in our contemporary world. Because this is a writing-focused course, we will work through these questions through reflective written assignments that analyze why authors choose to write in particular ways, reviews of films and books, argumentative papers, and a longer research paper. Writing isn’t linear. Throughout the quarter we will think about how our different writing skills can and will develop or change at varied rates and in surprising directions.
ENGLISH 105-0-21: Expository Writing: Writing from the Ground up: Place-Based Research Methods in Black and Indigenous Studies
Both Black and Indigenous studies are continually thinking through what it means to base research off of space, place, and local knowledges. Indigenous studies scholars such as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Joanne Barker write about the need to base knowledge in the very land itself, learning what is appropriate and relevant while prioritizing Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. Black studies scholars like Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Dionne Brand write about water, land, and animals as metaphors for understanding displacement, anti-Blackness, and possibilities beyond racial capitalism. Using introductory and abridged materials from these two fields, this course will consider how research, writing, and argumentation can be grounded in local relationships to land, community, and nonhuman relatives. While reading these works, we will interrogate the standard research methods often taught in university writing classrooms. This might include asking questions such as: what assumptions underline the way the academy performs research?; what modes of knowledge production are prioritized?; and how do we come to understand sources as “true,” “credible,” or “good?” Storytelling will be one of our primary modes of thinking, and we will consider a range of creative methods such as: performance art, beading, games, film, poetry, weaving, and fiction.
ENGLISH 105-8-20: First-Year Writing Seminar: True Fictions
Recent controversies about "fake news" and disinformation would appear to suggest that contemporary mass media is newly unreliable. This course will explore how the distinction between truth and fiction in all media technologies has always been muddy. To do so, we will examine fiction that pretends to be true from 17th-19th century literature and philosophy to documentary-styled novels, films, and radio programs that span the 20th century. We will study the predominance of "found footage" films and digital media in the current millennium that parallel the rise of reality television, YouTube, and the smart phone. We will begin and end the quarter with considerations of "fake news," from founding father Benjamin Franklin's fabricated newspaper propaganda to contemporary digital media. We will also read selections from philosophy and critical theory that question the concept of truth and the construction of reality through media technologies.
ENGLISH 205-0: Intermediate Composition
The goal of this course is to develop your ability to write clearly, persuasively, and interestingly for a variety of audiences. Students will learn techniques for writing effective informative, reflective, persuasive, and research essays. These techniques include the effective use of specific details; methods of organizing ideas clearly; strategies for editing sentences for clarity and conciseness; and ways to give your writing a distinctive voice. Students will submit drafts and revisions of essays.
ENGLISH 282-0: Writing and Speaking in Business
Across all industries, employers consistently rank written and oral communication in the top five skills that a new employee needs. However, employers also say that students overestimate their ability to communicate effectively in a workplace context. English 282 is designed to address that gap. The course is designed to help you think strategically about communication, make effective communication decisions, and produce writing and presentations that are well-organized, clear, and compelling. In addition, course assignments provide an opportunity to enhance your critical reading and thinking; your ability to communicate effectively about data; your understanding of visual communication; and your understanding of interpersonal communication. There will be no final exam. However, students must be present on the final day of class for team-based presentations.
ENGLISH 305-0: Advanced Composition: Science, Medical, and Health Writing
This writing course will explore various genres used in the health professions and examine these genres with a rhetorical lens; rhetorical study—essentially, the study of persuasion—is a good means of illuminating and recasting problems in health and medicine (Segal, 2005). The course is organized in 4 modules: 1)Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, 2) Science Writing, 3) Medical Writing 4) Health Humanities