Course Description:
Centering and building on the significance of place(s) in learning, this course aims to improve your writing skills through a series of informal and formal assignments that will challenge you examine notions of place(s) as you write nuanced and engaging sentences; build effective paragraphs; construct arguments; engage various audiences; and integrate other people’s thoughts into your own. In the end, these activities and assignments will encourage you to be more reflective, critical, and careful writers.
Course Requirements:
Major Paper Assignments: There are four major paper assignments required for this course: geobiography essay (3-4 pages), mapping reports (4-5 pages total), rhetorical analysis essay (4-5 pages), and a researched argumentative essay (5-6 pages).
Each paper will be accompanied by a short meta-commentary (1-2 pages).
Informal Writing Assignments: Periodically, students will write short responses to exploratory prompts, course readings, or class discussions. These exercises are intended to help you explore, summarize, analyze, and synthesize course material so that these ideas may be incorporated into larger paper assignments.
Presentation/Activity: Students will research and present on an English-related topic such as the correct use of semi-colons or the differences amongst a hyphen, en-dash, and em-dash. The presentation will be accompanied by a short activity which will reinforce the presented material in a practical way (i.e., a short quiz, identification activity, editing activity, etc.) This “low stakes” presentation activity should last around 10-15 minutes.
Attendance: Regular attendance is expected.
Course Readings:
Selected essays from The Value of Hawai‘i 1 and 2 (Students may access online versions of these texts through the UHM Library system).
Any additional readings will be provided by the instructor via Laulima.
NOTE: Course description is subject to change.
For more information on this course, contact the instructor at laurenk9@hawaii.edu.