COOK FAMILY WRITING PROGRAM

We will investigate how media, academics, policy, and popular culture in US society have defined and codified race. Examples of materials include newspaper articles, podcasts, song lyrics, maps, personal essays, TV, and film. In studying how we define race, we will also consider the intersections of citizenship and immigration, gender and sexuality, and more. This seminar helps students transition into college-level inquiry and into being conscientious and ethical members of a diverse learning community. Students will demonstrate their new knowledge about racial formation in the United States through drafting and revising journal entries, analytical papers, and creative assignments.

This seminar will explore language as part of our social experience. We will examine the spoken and written language we use and observe in a variety of everyday situations, considering such questions as: Why do we call some language varieties "dialects" and others "languages?" Why do some people think you have an accent while others think you don\'t? Has your own language changed since you came to Northwestern? What patterns govern the conversations we have, and how do we create social relationships, communities, and identities in those conversations? Why do some people mix multiple languages when they speak and write? Is it, like, ok for me to, like, use like so much? What about um or ain\'t or ya know? Students will formulate and consider their own questions about language and social life in papers and presentations.

Ever since Pentheus' fatal decision to spy on the revels of Dionysus, audiences have had a guilty fascination with the spectacle of addiction—a fascination which crosses not only centuries but disciplines, captivating scientists, policymakers, philosophers, artists, and laypeople alike. This class will trace the evolution of literary representations of addiction across several centuries, from classical depictions of god-induced madness, through the Gothic narratives such as Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, temperance classics such as Ten Nights in a Barroom (whose impact has often been compared to that of Uncle Tom's Cabin), to the twentieth- and twenty-first century comedies and confessionals that make the bestseller lists today. Through these readings and related critical texts, we will examine the ways that such literature provides a staging ground for public controversy and emerging theories about the artistic, cultural, ethical, and scientific significance and ramifications of addiction. Course readings/viewing will include works of fiction, journalism, and writings from the natural and social sciences as well as popular films. We will also consider practical topics such as how University library resources and experts can help students locate and evaluate key sources and develop authoritative arguments.

We live in a time when hostility toward immigrants has made many Americans forget that, as Barack Obama said, "We are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too." This hostility has obscured the complex reality of the lives of immigrants. In this course, we will study fiction and poetry by immigrants and their children in order to understand that complex reality. We will explore such questions as: How do social attitudes and institutions impact the lives of immigrants as they seek to pursue the "American Dream"? What happens to the relationships between parents and children through the process of acculturation into American society? How do differences in national origin connect with other differences, particularly gender, race, ethnicity, and class?

As you are well aware, being young has many benefits and many drawbacks. For instance, the optimism and creativity that often characterize youth can lead to positive social and societal change. At the same time, though, young people often struggle to be taken seriously, even when their actions and ideas are good ones. Through examining several historic and contemporary case studies, this course will explore both the triumphs and terrors of youth (i.e., teens-twenties). What risks are uniquely available to young people? Which ones are rewarded and which end in regret? How might these outcomes be mediated by other factors (e.g., race, gender, sexuality)? Most importantly, what can we learn from the triumphant and terrible behaviors of others? As we explore answers to these questions through discussion, reading, and writing assignments, we\'ll also take advantage of your own uniquely youthful status as first-quarter, first-year students. Specifically, we\'ll think and learn about how both your transition to college and the years ahead present you with opportunities to both capitalize on your youth and cultivate for you and others (especially those who might disparage Gen Z) a more realistic idea of what it really means to be young these days.

Embark on a captivating exploration of heroic journeys, including your own journey into Northwestern University. In this course, we'll examine timeless tales, classic to contemporary. From ancient legends like the epic of Gilgamesh to modern bestselling novels, our journey will traverse cultures and millennia. We'll analyze cinematic masterpieces from studios like Marvel, Disney and Universal, watching as heroes embark on epic quests that inspire and captivate. Through immersive discussions, written analyses, and interactive activities, we'll unravel the archetypal stages of the hero's journey - from the call to adventure to the ultimate showdown with destiny.

More than an academic pursuit, this seminar is a call to adventure, an invitation to embark on your own heroic odyssey. In this course, you'll craft your own hero's journey narrative, exploring themes of courage, resilience, and personal growth as they apply to your journey into college. The hero's journey you create will become a time capsule - your professor will email it back to you in four years so you can relive the heroic journey you took during your first quarter at Northwestern.

This class seeks to unpack the ways in which ordinary Americans experience race in various facets of American Life. This serves the purpose of unpacking the distinctions between race, culture, and ethnicity so that we can critique the role race plays in spaces such as the workplace, schools, military, and even our personal relationships. It also serves the purpose of assisting us in being able to discern the meaning of actions between groups along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

This class takes a backwards glance at understanding racial perceptions and policy through a rather unlikely but well-documented event in recent US history, a hurricane. Though, not just any hurricane. The social impact of Hurricane Katrina, which occurred nearly 20 years ago, in New Orleans also had implications for the US nationwide. We will look at the impact that the media coverage of Katrina had on popular culture, education, sports, and social policy. The legacy of Katrina is inextricably bound with that of race. The class will use Katrina as a case study to understand the real consequences of one of our nation's most divisive and destructive social ideas, some might even say an illusion…race.

Imagining worlds gone wrong, dystopian stories plunge us into places that may seem not only unthinkable but also troublingly familiar. We'll explore a number of questions about these worlds: how do the people in them understand why things are the way they are? What stories about the past do these worlds rely on? What exactly is dystopian about these worlds, as imagined? How do the people in these worlds envision the future? What about their ways of thinking or about their practices challenges the dystopian? How do these dystopian worlds compare with worlds we already know, or with the way things were when these stories were written?

Short stories, novels and films may include (among others) some of the following: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, "Friday Black" or "The Era"; Heather Lindsley, "Just Do It"; Emily St. John Mandel, "Station Eleven"; Ted Chiang, "What's Expected of Us" or "Understand"; Kazuo Ishiguro, "Never Let Me Go"; Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"; Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"; Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, "The Matrix."

From the crafty protagonist of the medieval Romance of Reynard to Sonic the Hedgehog's bestie Tails, pop cultural foxes have delighted us for centuries. In this course, we'll zero in on this particular species to think about bigger questions: what makes an animal an animal and a human a human? Why do people like to read and write stories starring nonhuman characters? And what can we learn about real foxes from imaginary ones? During the quarter, we'll encounter a variety of fictional foxes in books and movies, including George Saunders's novella Fox 8, Wes Anderson's adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood. And we'll think about animals more broadly (what it's like to be one, and how humans interact with and think about other species) through science writing, philosophy, and creative nonfiction, material that will help us analyze our primary sources. Using this array of texts, we'll think about why and how we use writing and imagination to understand experiences and perspectives radically different from our own. Through peer review and group discussions, we'll practice reading critically to identify a writer's objectives and to assess how well they're achieving them (this includes you!). Most of all, this class is intended to help you develop a personal writing process that's useful, practical, and even fun, with the hope that doing so will serve you not just in your other classes but in the rest of your life, too.