English R1B

Book List

Hardy, Thomas: Jude the Obscure; Woolf, Virginia: Three Guineas

Description

This seems like a good a time to try to figure out, maybe even articulate, what we are all doing here. We will read and write around the themes of education, work and leisure, trying to come to some understanding of what they mean and how they function and interact in our culture, in our own lives, and at our own University. We will engage a few novels, some poetry, essays, films, and other documents, using our readings as an impetus to thinking, discussion, and lots of writing.

At the same time we will work hard on our own writing, on how we construct sentences and paragraphs and develop arguments, with our assignments leading to increasingly complex applications of these skills in the academic environment. We’ll write a short diagnostic essay at the beginning of the semester, followed by three papers of increasing length. We will make use of an extensive peer-review process for our longer papers, which will orient you to your audience, sharpen your critical skills, and improve your writing in the way only heavy revision can. Your final paper will be a research-based project of around 8 pages on an education-related topic of your own devising.