WELINA MAI
Welcome to English 100. This is a place-based composition course that will prepare you for the demands of university-level writing. As your instructor, I argue that place is foundational to identity, knowledge, and creativity, and will emphasize the role of place in our work. ‘Āina is that which feeds. As we cultivate writing habits, research techniques, and critical thinking skills, we will reflect on how place has fed us, physically, intellectually, and culturally.
We will begin the semester with a brief but valuable narrative of your different relationships to place. Indeed, the knowledge each of us brings to the classroom has been shaped in many ways by the places where we have lived, worked, created, suffered loss, changed our minds, took risks, and evolved. Our first assignment asks you to explore these connections in critical and creative ways. Subsequently, an interview project will open your story to incorporate another layer of experience and knowledge.
You will also produce image analyses of tourist brochures, which will be the basis of a larger class letter-writing project to the Hawai‘i Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB) and Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA). We will actively participate in conversations beyond UHM campus.
Lastly, the Deconstructing Waikīkī project will build on your narrative and analytical skills while introducing you to the demands of research, collaborative work, and an oral presentation. Throughout the semester, we will identity and refine our literary practices as well as challenge our assumptions about place and knowledge. As this will be an active learning environment, passionate discussions will occur. Our classroom is a safe and supportive space, and we must all be respectful of each other. Remember, in this course, we are not only developing as writers but also as critical thinkers. So although we may disagree, it is important that we listen to each other and exchange ideas in considerate ways.