COOK FAMILY WRITING PROGRAM

The Great American Graphic Novel explores the representation of the multiple perspectives of the American experience and US history through popular graphic novels. The central question of this seminar is: How do graphic novels and comics illustrate American identity? Through a robust reading schedule (comics read fast, so we can read many of them!), we will encounter unique and varied views on the themes of religion, (dis)ability, immigration, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, and citizenship, and how those ideas have changed conceptions of Americanness over time. Students will enhance their reading of examples of multiple subgenres of the form–superhero comics, graphic nonfiction, web comics, and all ages comics–with scholarly, journalistic, and popular culture criticism.
This seminar transitions students into college-level inquiry and into being conscientious and ethical members of a learning community composed of diverse perspectives. Students will demonstrate their new knowledge about graphic novels and comics and American identity through drafting and revising journal entries, analytical papers, and creative assignments.

This seminar explores language as part of our everyday social experience. We’ll 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? 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?

Welcome to Northwestern! Over the next ten weeks, first-year students all over campus will experience a flood of transitions as they adjust to college life. You'll experience exciting (and scary!) social transitions. Many of you might experience some degree of spatial transition, too, arriving to live on campus away, however far, from where you graduated high school. There are financial transitions, family transitions, and cultural transitions to contend with. In your courses this fall, many of you will experience academic transitions from high-school to college-level expectations of critical thinking, reading, and writing. As a student enrolled in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, you'll begin experiencing the interdisciplinarity of a liberal arts education right away, juggling multiple courses across varied disciplines starting in Week 1!

This course aims to ease some of the transitions that you will experience at Northwestern as college students and as humans by defining, exploring, discussing, and reflecting on your own experiences, academic and otherwise, this quarter. To ground these conversations, we will spend the quarter reading and discussing Barbara Kingsolver's coming-of-age novel, Demon Copperhead, a work that embodies the exciting interdisciplinary overlaps of a liberal arts education. Through our exploration of Demon Copperhead, we will work together to cultivate productive study habits and to hone your critical thinking, reading, writing, and research skills for Northwestern classes. Our class will also serve as a social support system, as we work generously with one another through seminar discussion and a routine exchange of writing.

Content Warning: Demon Copperhead is a beautiful coming-of-age novel told from the perspective of a narrator who is a survivor of nearly inconceivable loss. Although the story is oftentimes playful, funny, and romantic, it also touches on many sensitive and painful topics including: scenes of graphic drug use, addiction, and overdose; the U.S. foster care system; the opioid epidemic; homelessness; economic precarity; parental death; and grief.

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.

Welcome to “Race and Technology: Being Human in the Post-Racial United States”. This course is designed to introduce and prepare you for college life at Northwestern University. The primary goal is to equip you with the academic skills necessary for success, including identifying and utilizing essential university resources. This course will focus on three interconnected themes: race, college writing, and the impact of technological advances such as generative AI and social media on each. We will explore how power, class, and technology influence the performance of race, ethnicity, and culture. Racial ideology, a complex and integral part of the American experience, will be examined through storytelling, academic articles, news items, personal experiences, and research data. We will also explore how modern technological advances shape our collective thinking and relationships. We will address critical questions such as: How do social media, search engines, and generative AI alter our perceptions of the world? Can technological developments in late capitalism help level the social playing field and end segregation? Should technology serve the best interests of all citizens in society? Reading, writing, and research are the pillars of this course, with a special focus on the role of technology, particularly generative AI, in these practices. While we will cover the fundamentals of crafting a strong research paper or project, we will also critically reflect on the ethical and efficient use of AI tools like ChatGPT. An essential component of the class will be to discuss, assess, and evaluate what generative AI can and cannot support, and how to determine fair and ethical use of such technologies. Join us as we navigate these complex and nuanced issues, developing the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in your undergraduate journey and beyond.

In this course students will read and discuss poems while also developing their ability to write about poetry. We will study selected poems by five poets. Last time around the five were Robert Frost, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Samuel Johnson, and Sir Phillip Sidney. One or more of those names may change in the next iteration of the course. The poets will be tackled in reverse chronological order, so the level of linguistic difficulty and “otherness” will be low initially but will increase as the quarter goes on. The poems will be sonnets and short lyric poems, mostly 40 lines or shorter. Students will learn how to look things up in the online Oxford English Dictionary. They will learn about poetic genres, forms, and terms by reading an introductory book, The Poetry Toolkit. They will learn about the metrical (i.e., rhythmic) aspects of poetry by completing “scansion” exercises on the For Better for Verse website. Early in the quarter, each student will select a short poem to memorize and discuss with the instructor during office hours. That discussion will then serve as a launching pad for writing papers on other short poems. Students will write two essays on poems we have read, and each of these essays will be drafted, workshopped, and rewritten.

Practical Rhetoric is a discussion-based course that explores the practical skills and pedagogical theories behind effective peer-to-peer tutoring in writing centers. The course is practical in that it is designed to prepare incoming tutors for their work at the Writing Place. This course also focuses heavily on both classic and current theories of the teaching of writing and of writing center-specific pedagogies. We will introduce you to classic works of writing center theory while also asking you to engage in more contemporary debates and studies in the field. Through a combination of reading about writing center pedagogies and practicing engaging with those methods in your work at the Writing Place, Practical Rhetoric seeks to prepare you to effectively coach writers at all stages of the writing process. In the spirit of the collaborative writing process that is at the heart of the Writing Place's mission, as writers this quarter, this course will ask you to regularly bring your own writing to class to workshop in a series of mock consultations and writing exercises with your classmates. You will reflect on your own positionality as a writer-- and consider what that positionality brings to your work at the Writing Place-- in a short writing assignment the first week of the quarter. You will continue to reflect on your learning in Practical Rhetoric and on your experiences working at the Writing Place in a series of weekly tutor journals. We will ask you to contribute to the work of writing center studies through your own research proposal, ideally on a topic or initiative that you can continue developing and perhaps even put into action in later quarters to improve and grow our services at the Writing Place. And at the end of the quarter, you'll bring everything you've learned together to articulate your personal tutoring philosophy.