An introductory course in which students will learn strategies for writing college level prose and read published examples from several fields. The course will have an emphasis on steady production and revision of texts.
Through exercises and/or open and directed writing assignments, students will produce two finished short essays. By the end of this course, students will have developed an understanding of the demands of college level writing, including idea generation, research tools, and the formal expectations of diction, syntax and style; improved their close reading of texts via assigned readings; become more comfortable with writing for college; and produced two short, completed essays. Revisions are the most significant part of the process, and we will spend ample class time thinking about revision and how to make each student’s voice distinctive, so they stand out from the hordes of other student writers.