Composition I

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (Ludwig Wittgenstein).

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way […] To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one” (John Ruskin).

The ability to inscribe thought into word and sentence remains one of humanity’s greatest achievements. No matter the field of study or type of work, the ability to condense our ideas onto a page that may be understood by someone else rests at the heart of all we do. The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the power of the written word in a variety of forms, and how different types of writing function in distinct ways. We will explore the writing process itself to help refine our own ability to write, learning about various rhetorical strategies and generic conventions, research methods and typed of discourse, and about the demands of genre and how we might employ all of these in our own writing. Above all else this course will focus on the process of writing, how every piece of good writing is developmental, and that revision is a writer’s main occupation. It will help you discover your own writing process, and aid you in refining it. At the end of this course you will have gained the tools needed to write clear and concise academic prose that will help you not only in your time at University, but in whatever career you choose afterwards.

Requirements:
Weekly writing assignments with peer revision.
Group-projects and presentations.
3 short essays:
Autobiographical/Narrative.
Observational/Descriptive.
Analytic/Argumentative.

1 longer research essay