Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces students to the relationships between writing and purpose, between the features of texts and their meaning and effects. May focus on one or more literary or non-literary genres, including (but not limited to) essays, oratory, autobiography, poetry, and journalism. Includes attention to writing skills. Students with credit for ENGL 104W may not take this course for further credit. Writing/Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

The readings in this class explore issues of love, loss, and conflict in the context of familial and intimate relationships. Our attention to language and purpose will involve discussions of prose techniques and strategies, historical contexts, and the interconnection of purpose and audience. With Franz Kafka, students will examine how a writer interrogates his contentious relationship with his father in the form of a “letter” which broaches the boundaries of memoir and essay. With Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Katherine Anne Porter, students will consider how writers imaginatively reconstruct challenging experiences in their lives in the form of “stories” which blur the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. And with Viktor Frankl, Theodore Fontaine, and Frederick Douglass, students will consider some of the different ways in which writers, in the form of memoir, reflect on personal traumatic experiences for specific political and cultural purposes. As ENGL 114 is a writing intensive class, students will be engaging these readings through various forms of writing throughout the semester. Activities will include regular weekly posts in on-line discussion forums (on Canvas), in-class written reflections, personal narratives, and essays. Revision will be woven into the longer written assignments (which include narrative writing and essay writing.)

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: