More than being able to decipher a string
of letters, “literacy” has come to encompass the ability to understand and
produce multiple kinds of texts in different locations, various mediums, and
specific genres. Though this class will ask students to compose some
traditional “academic” texts, students will also question and explore what a
text can be on the global and local levels, and how it reflects their visual,
digital, academic, civic, and personal interactions. In response essays and
four major writing projects, students will learn to
- Cultivate
close reading skills that assist them in understanding content and recognizing
the rhetorical demands of a given text’s genre and audience; - Refine and
further develop their writing and rhetorical skills by composing and revising a
variety of genres that will assist them in and out of the classroom, including
personal writing, academic analysis and research, visual/digital composition,
and public writing; and - Expand and
hone their research skills by learning to find, evaluate, incorporate, and
document appropriate sources.
Class participation is a must, and
students should expect to work both as individuals and as members of a
group. Texts for the class will
include the following, and are available at the University of Hawaii bookstore
and online: Melzer, Dan, and
Deborah Coxwell-Teague. Everything’s a Text: Readings for Composition. USA:
Longman Publishers, 2011. ISBN-10: 0-205-63954-2. Lunsford, Andrea A. The Everyday Writer with 2009 MLA and
2010 APA Updates. 4th edition. USA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. ISBN-10:
0-312-66486-9.