Summer 2024
ENG 111: English Composition I: Writing and Rhetoric
“Life, Language and Everything”
Instructor: Marc Barnhill Section: 301 (6025)
June 3 - August 1
Modality: Online Asynchronous (via Brightspace)
- Fully in-person (no online sessions)
- Frequent reflective writing
- Several formal essays and one culminating (research-based) project
- Emphasis on discussion and on critical reading and writing activities
- No books to purchase (all texts provided electronically)
- No midterm or final exam
DESCRIPTION
Why is language so complicated? How do writers themselves describe and discuss the writing process? Why don’t five-paragraph essays work in most college writing contexts? How does language shape our realities both in and out of the classroom? In this class, we’ll answer these questions and learn about concepts and strategies that are useful in reading and writing critically, brainstorming ideas, organizing and developing arguments, drafting and revising essays, and proofreading and editing the finished product. We’ll be looking at texts by influential writers including Malcolm X, Richard Rodriguez, Anne Lamott, Walter Mosley, and Annie Proulx, and we’ll be discussing and writing about complex and important issues directly related to language—personal and cultural identity, technology and screen literacy, racism and racial politics, and dialect and linguistic gatekeeping. This asynchronous course is intended to provide a fun yet rigorous space to apply fundamental academic writing principles in a variety of text-based contexts.
Our discussion-driven class gives you the opportunity to “unpack” complex texts in a supportive setting, to make surprising connections among seemingly disparate ideas and arguments, and to identify and address your own areas for improvement as you create analytic essays that synthesize different sources while generating original interpretations or models for understanding. Throughout our 8-week semester, we will use reflective writing and discussion forums to think through the ideas that will find expression in your course essays. Along the way, we will make explicit connections between these topics and issues specific to critical reading and critical writing, including textual interpretation, argumentation and persuasion, the use of evidence and reason, use and citation of source material, and the effective communication of ideas.