Time Schedule:
Jennifer Mc Collum
ENGL 131
Seattle Campus
Study and practice of good writing: topics derived from a variety of personal, academic, and public subjects.
Class description
In a culture revolving around pop art, accessible reproduction, political propaganda, and empty language, the ways in which we see and understand the external (and internal) landscape is constantly thrown into a state of flux, or chaos. What do we do with this chaos? Once we establish ourselves in a comfortable context, what happens to our understanding of self, culture, and country when the surroundings (language, image, and philosophy) shift? When we step beyond the parameters of propaganda, we may question, and perhaps disrupt, the platform upon which seemingly problematic institutions, such as the educational system, are based.
Student learning goals
Borne from philosophical and poetic inquiry, your “expository writing” will emerge as a natural response to class discussion and independent exploration. The advanced mechanics of writing and rhetoric will be presented in various forms as we learn to write for the public, for academia, for ourselves. Expository Writing aims to refine descriptive and narrative modes of discourse through writing, speaking, and thinking.
The assigned readings exemplify a new paradigm in composition that stresses invention as pre-writing by utilizing personal experience, the senses, and debates to gain various perspectives for creative, complex, and analytical prose. Through hermeneutics students are encouraged to interpret and evaluate their own works as well as the works of other writers, critics, and classmates. Expository Writing doesn’t emphasize “getting” the readings or material as much as the importance of grappling with difficult concepts, and interpretation.
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
