COURSE DESCRIPTION:
In the Western tradition, rhetoric is said to have begun in the 5th century B.C.E. in Greece. Some of you may have heard of Plato and Aristotle. The latter wrote a book on the art of rhetoric, and is in many ways the basis for how writing gets taught in academia today. Further, the writing course as we know it was developed at Harvard in the late nineteenth century. One reason for developing such a course still holds forth today: students coming into the university cannot write—or so many (including teachers) will claim. Those coming to college in the 1900s were no longer just the elite few, but rather a boom in enrollments brought in students with different literacy skills. Thus, a placement exam was initiated and writing was linked to a canon of literature. As English A and B courses became filled with students, teachers were overwhelmed with three hundred themes a week to grade. During this time a few graduate programs developed that focused on writing and rhetoric.
To say that history repeats itself is an understatement. In the 1970s, the colleges in New York began open admissions, meaning that anyone—returning veterans, immigrants, non-native English speakers, adults-- who wanted to enroll in college could. Once again, colleges found themselves trying to deal with the writing issues they saw in papers done by these “non-traditional” students. Composition studies became part of many more graduate programs.
Today we look at writing and a variety of rhetorics coming from many different spaces. Racial and ethnic groups claim and perform their own rhetorics, and “big Daddy A” (as my colleague has renamed Aristotle) no long holds the only key. Feminist Rhetorics, Queer Studies, and Disability Studies scholars are all contributing to the discussions of whose writing counts. There are embodied rhetorics, visual rhetorics, performance rhetorics and creative writing, business writing, professional writing, museum rhetorics, technical writing, digital rhetorics, cultural rhetorics—and more. Certainly, today’s technology has brought changes to the writing classroom that fascinates and frustrates teachers. Because of social media, some claim that students are writing much more than they did in the past, and others lament the effects texting is having on a student’s ability to write a paper in standard written English (SWE). To me, it is intellectually stimulating to engage in these theories and discussions.
This course serves as an introduction to the Writing and Writing Studies Concentration in the English major. During the course you will not only be learning about the histories and theories, but you will also spend some time paying attention to your own writing practices—how you develop ideas, compose, draft, revise, challenge, edit and so on. You will also get a chance to explore different aspects of writing and what can potentially be a career in writing. While it will be impossible to cover everything in this one course, I hope to at least help you experience the vibrant field of writing and writing studies as well as provide you with an avenue to pursue through English Studies.
In the Western tradition, rhetoric is said to have begun in the 5th century B.C.E. in Greece. Some of you may have heard of Plato and Aristotle. The latter wrote a book on the art of rhetoric, and is in many ways the basis for how writing gets taught in academia today. Further, the writing course as we know it was developed at Harvard in the late nineteenth century. One reason for developing such a course still holds forth today: students coming into the university cannot write—or so many (including teachers) will claim. Those coming to college in the 1900s were no longer just the elite few, but rather a boom in enrollments brought in students with different literacy skills. Thus, a placement exam was initiated and writing was linked to a canon of literature. As English A and B courses became filled with students, teachers were overwhelmed with three hundred themes a week to grade. During this time a few graduate programs developed that focused on writing and rhetoric.
To say that history repeats itself is an understatement. In the 1970s, the colleges in New York began open admissions, meaning that anyone—returning veterans, immigrants, non-native English speakers, adults-- who wanted to enroll in college could. Once again, colleges found themselves trying to deal with the writing issues they saw in papers done by these “non-traditional” students. Composition studies became part of many more graduate programs.
Today we look at writing and a variety of rhetorics coming from many different spaces. Racial and ethnic groups claim and perform their own rhetorics, and “big Daddy A” (as my colleague has renamed Aristotle) no long holds the only key. Feminist Rhetorics, Queer Studies, and Disability Studies scholars are all contributing to the discussions of whose writing counts. There are embodied rhetorics, visual rhetorics, performance rhetorics and creative writing, business writing, professional writing, museum rhetorics, technical writing, digital rhetorics, cultural rhetorics—and more. Certainly, today’s technology has brought changes to the writing classroom that fascinates and frustrates teachers. Because of social media, some claim that students are writing much more than they did in the past, and others lament the effects texting is having on a student’s ability to write a paper in standard written English (SWE). To me, it is intellectually stimulating to engage in these theories and discussions.
This course serves as an introduction to the Writing and Writing Studies Concentration in the English major. During the course you will not only be learning about the histories and theories, but you will also spend some time paying attention to your own writing practices—how you develop ideas, compose, draft, revise, challenge, edit and so on. You will also get a chance to explore different aspects of writing and what can potentially be a career in writing. While it will be impossible to cover everything in this one course, I hope to at least help you experience the vibrant field of writing and writing studies as well as provide you with an avenue to pursue through English Studies.