This course is
designed for students who have expressed an interest in the Honors Program and
are prepared to demonstrate above average writing skills. Our focus will be on burnishing your
existing knowledge of and expertise in academic writing, with particular
emphasis on the argumentative essay, and with an excursion into some literary
analysis toward the end of the semester.
We will begin
with a textbook whose subtitle (“Moves that Matter in Academic Writing”)
signals the practical nature of the assistance it will offer to writers who
have mastered the basic skills of college-level writing. This text—THEY SAY/I SAY—offers advice
on how to use sources (how to summarize, how to quote) and how to find and
express your own voice and opinions about what you’ve read. We will also read
several essays on issues of contemporary interest and disagreement, such as the
reality/unreality of economic mobility in America, and America’s future as the
leading (and sole?) superpower in a globalized world.
We will end the
course by reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY, a short novel that
offers many avenues for appreciation and interpretation and will prepare you
for the kinds of literary analysis you will be doing in upper division courses.
Students will
turn in four polished essays (3-6 pages in length), after undergoing the
process of drafting and revising, and will write one research paper (8-10
pages).
The required
texts:
(Available for purchase at the UHM Bookstore):
- Graff,
Birkenstein, Durst: THEY SAY/I SAY WITH READINGS (Norton) - Fitzgerald, F.
Scott: THE GREAT GATSBY (Scribners) - MLA HANDBOOK FOR
WRITERS OF RESEARCH PAPERS, 7th edition