The goals of this course are twofold: to strengthen your writing and critical thinking skills and to provide you with the techniques necessary to compose arguments and texts within and for an academic environment. Therefore, most of the writing you will do in this course will be argumentative and analytical. We will study the conventions, rhetorical elements, and styles that writers and scholars use to write persuasively. In so doing, you will learn how to construct concise, organized, and convincing arguments and texts.
Writing is a process that entails revision. You will submit drafts before each major writing assignment is due, and you will have time to revise your papers after their initial due date. Peer editing and group work will play prominent roles in this course. Finally, because surface-level competency is important to conveying one’s ethos, we will review grammar, usage, mechanics, and punctuation in order to add clarity and authority to your writing and improve your proofreading skills.
Required Texts:
- Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. “They Say, I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing : With Readings. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2012. Print.
- Hacker, Diana, and Nancy I. Sommers. A Pocket Style Manual. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.