Composition I

This course is designed to help attune students to writing processes and to develop strategies for more successful writing inside and outside the university. It is my belief
that writing is a skill that is never perfected.  Regardless of experience and professional goals, all of us can improve our writing. Our tasks will include drafting, revising, editing, and responding to papers in a variety of different genres we encounter at UHM: these genres include reflective, narrative, critical, and interpretive writing,
as well as a collaborative research project. Major coursework will include
three writing projects, each corresponding a unit in the course, several
shorter essays, weekly postings, and a short presentation. We will also have a
modest reading schedule designed to illustrate different rhetorical strategies.

The course will focus on sustainability as a conceptual point of departure that will lead us through a variety of topics and discourses, including but not limited to discussions of health, environmentalism, animal rights, poverty, disasters, gender, space, place, economics, science, modernity, postmodernism, utopias, tourism, technology, and futurity. Through our course readings and discussions, we will think and write about the implications of sustainability on ourselves, on environments (particularly those we encounter on these islands), and the ways conceptions of nature develop over time.