Composition I for Transfers: Writing Self, Writing Community
“Raat thodi ne vesh jaya, the proverb I grew up on. The night is short and our garments change.
Meaning: Don’t put down roots. Don’t get too comfortable. By dawn, we may be on the move, forced to reinvent ourselves in order to survive. Invest only in what we can carry. Passports. Education. Jewellery.”
– Shailja Patel, Migritude
The theme of this class is the writing of identity in all its forms, including individual identity, collective memory, and the body and the senses.
What does it mean to interact with the world through the body and through the senses – taste, touch, smell, sound, sight? How do the senses inform the history of our communities, including food culture, decorative arts, and other community traditions?
How do we write as individuals who live in bodies marked for race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and socioeconomic class? What does it mean to write when we have been marked as “other” in terms of one or more of these categories? How do we understand and construct our own identities within the framework of multiple categories of belonging and non-belonging?
We will examine readings and workshop submissions for words and phrases that jump out at us, for techniques we can borrow, imitate, or steal, and we will use them as entry points into the conversation, practice, and discourse of college essay writing.
Readings will include work by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Shailja Patel, Gloria Anzaldua, and others.
Major Assignments:
In this course, we will work on four essay projects, including stages of drafting, revision, and peer review.
- Family Recipes, Family Traditions
- My Identity, Family, Community – Comparative Essay
- Writing Self, Writing Community – Text Analysis
- Family, Collective Memory, Oral History – Research Essay