Third Year Writing Course Descriptions
Spring 2013
ENG 3010 Interdisciplinary Look at Ireland - Balding, K.
In English 3010 we will read and write on an advanced level with the following unifying theme: An Interdisciplinary Look at Ireland. We will read stories and factual accounts related to Ireland. We will also read what many of Ireland’s writers have to say about Ireland. Other mediums of discussion will revolve around film, art, and music. Readings, topics, and discussion will include the Celtic people, the myth and legend of Ireland and her people, An Gorta Mor/The Great Famine, The Easter Rebellion of 1916, The Troubles, and the Irish Diaspora. That said we will spend a great deal of time writing about such both reflectively and purposely. Assignments will be varied but will include a look at Ireland through your particular discipline and/or interest.
ENG 3010.02 and .05 - Burgess, W.
“Heroes, Hellions and Hags” is the theme for readings and observations about the cult of celebrity. Cultural commentators, historians, photographers and filmmakers help us discover the roots of this cultural phenomenon as we reflect on what it expresses about ourselves. The varieties of celebrity emerge across the decades in business, politics, mass media, the arts, science, sports, and entertainment; thus every field and major has its own tradition surrounding the celebrated. We explore the use, rise, meaning and abuse of celebrity in varied fields as we read, observe, think, and write with engagement
ENG 3010.08S Third Year Writing - Lovvorn, J.
How do people read and write differently across distinctive cultures? Pushing further, what does it mean to be "literate" in any given culture? This course will push against traditional definitions of literacy, and students will be encouraged to think about their own identities, academic or otherwise, as literate discourses. The larger project for the class will involve an extended investigation into a specific literacy/culture. Course readings will address both literacy and writing style, and students will work on strategies for developing greater clarity in their prose. This class involves service learning, and connected to the class theme, students will devote 8-10 hours to the Easley Community Center Homework Club, where they will tutor students in a variety of literacy skills.
ENG 3010.09S Third Year Writing - Lovvorn, J.
How do people read and write differently across distinctive cultures? Pushing further, what does it mean to be "literate" in any given culture? This course will push against traditional definitions of literacy, and students will be encouraged to think about their own identities, academic or otherwise, as literate discourses. The larger project for the class will involve an extended investigation into a specific literacy/culture. Course readings will address both literacy and writing style, and students will work on strategies for developing greater clarity in their prose. This class involves service learning, and connected to the class theme, students will devote 10 hours to Nashville Adult Literacy Council, where they will tutor students who are becoming more functionally literate.
ENG 3010 Third Year Writing: Sections:16, 26, 27 - Hittel, K.
As the great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw observed, “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.” For this course we will explore the theme of creativity and what it means to be creative. To do so, we will consult a number of sources including: creative nonfiction, fiction, film, art, and music. We will survey issues from the science of creativity to its role in education and its importance in nonfiction writing. As such, we will turn to creative nonfiction for much of our inspiration. Our reading will center on In Fact and Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative. The writing in this course will adopt the techniques of creative nonfiction, and we will use the personal essay to combine research and expression. The subjects chosen for exploration will be based on your discipline.
ENW 3010 Voices of the Harlem Renaissance - Gustke, C.
This course focuses on the emergence, growth and institutionalization of the Harlem Renaissance. Exploring the art, culture and politics of Harlem in the 1920's, this course seeks to understand the immense impact of artists such as Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Zora Neal Hurston on the socioeconomic conditions of race over time and from the top downward. Students will read novels, biographies, poetry and social commentary as the means through which to develop a writing style that is ordered, creative, analytical and purposeful, with detailed attention to argument and rhetoric.
ENG 3010.3 and ENG 3010.12 - Murray, D.
In commemoration of the bicentennial of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, these two sections will focus on Austen’s comic masterpiece—its themes, techniques, and the sociological questions which it raises. We will compare P&P with other courtship narratives (The Tale of Gengji, Eliza Heywood’s Fantomina, etc.). Students will interview parents and grandparents about courtship in recent decades and will examine courtship today through the examination of dating websites. Students will also, on the evening of February 8, 2013, participate in a recreation of the Netherfield Ball in the Belmont Mansion
ENG 3010 - Doner, V.
Theme: Finding Your Place in the World
Through the fun and magic of words we will have daring and exhilarating adventures—wing walking with Ormer Locklear, traveling across the country in the “Green Caboose,” growing up during revolution and war in Iran, jumping, jiving, an’ wailing under the stars at Gatsby’s parties, living on the streets of Nairobi, and enjoying the sweet friendship between a spider and a pig. We will meet people—Shel Silverstein, Ella Fitzgerald, Arnold Spirit and his wonderful grandmother, Jeannette Walls, Jay Gatsby, Marjane Satrapi, Wilbur and Charlotte—who will help us discover how we want to live our lives. They will challenge us to see ourselves and our world in new and different ways. We will learn how to make our writing come alive—alive with ideas and alive with our own voices
ENG 3010 - Sisson, A.
Theme: ‘Let Your Life Speak’: The Journey to the Self and the Examined Life
This section of ENG 3010 takes its title from Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak and from Socrates, who said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We will read and write about journeys toward greater self-knowledge and understanding; in doing so, we will consider our past experiences, our values, our vocations and career paths, and our most cherished desires. My hope is that you will journey toward a better understanding of yourself and your life and, thus, will be able to visualize more clearly what a true and authentic life—a life designed just for who you actually are and want to become—might look like. We will spend our Thursday classes focusing on writing, and on Tuesdays we will discuss the course readings, which will include Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (play), Margaret Edson’s Wit (play), M. T. Anderson’s Feed (young adult fiction), Chaim Potok’s My Name Is Asher Lev (novel), Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild (creative non-fiction), Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (memoir/reflection), and Marc Gunther’s Faith and Fortune: How Compassionate Capitalism Is Transforming American Business (non-fiction prose).
ENG 3010 Course Topic: Writing that Matters - McDonough, C.
What makes writing matter? What pieces of writing matter to you? How can/does writing make a difference? How can you use writing to accomplish specific ends? To inform? Persuade? Make changes? How do you know if something you read is true or if its supporting evidence is real? What difference does it make if an argument is based on faulty logic or questionable data? And how can a reader tell? First from a personal and then from a professional perspective, we will be investigating these questions in order to arrive at an understanding of how to identify and create writing that matters in your personal and, most importantly, your professional life.
Textbooks:
Required: Recommended:
On Writing Well by William Zinsser Easy Writer, with 2009 MLA Update
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell by Andrea Lunsford
The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman