Composition I

This class will use a variety of texts from popular-culture to learn to think critically, come to our own conclusions, and express our ideas in a clear and concise manner. Since we all “know” pop-culture, we will use what we already enjoy and “know” to engage critically with our everyday world. We will use movies, facebook, blogs, and television as texts for our analysis.

This class is an active writing workshop. In order to improve your writing, you must write. During the semester you will be asked to do both formal and informal writing. The informal writing is crucial as it will help us develop your ideas and skills for a clearer and more convincing formal writing style. We will also be peer reviewing/editing.

Over the course of the semester, we will work together to develop our skills to compose a text that achieves a specific purpose and responds adeptly to an identifiable audience; we will learn effective strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proofreading our text in order to produce a finished prose; we will use source material that is relevant and reliable, and that is integrated into our writing in accordance with the MLA style guide; and, we will compose writing that expresses your viewpoint supplemented by outside sources. The skills that you develop in this class will prepare you for the types of writing you will be required to complete throughout your college experience.

Required Texts:

Most of the readings for the course will be available online through Laulima. Rather than purchasing books and/or a course packet, you will be required to print out the readings from Laulima and bring them to class.