ENGL 1131 FWS: Mastering College Reading and Writing

Pedagogy refers to practices and methods of teaching and learning. In this class, we will study writers like Paulo Freire and June Jordan to consider their proposals for radical pedagogies that position education as a practice of liberation. What does meaningful learning look and feel like? Where does it happen? How can it be achieved? What are the societal, political, and economic conditions that prevent such learning experiences from taking place? Through short stories, poems, and essays, the class will address these questions and uplift non-institutional educational settings and the communal practices that give meaning and direction to our lives.

What does it mean to be healthy? How do we describe our pain? Who becomes a physician? The practice of medicine isn?t confined to scientific knowledge: it raises difficult questions about culture, identity, and bodies, and the stories we tell about all of these. This course will focus on works of literature to think about how medical care changes across time and place, and to explore images and narratives that shape our expectations about illness and health. Short writing assignments and longer essays will develop your critical thinking, strengthen your writing skills, and build your awareness of the complex cultural landscape of medical care.

Many individuals feel they are living at the margins of society, despite the ?melting pot? rhetoric of inclusivity and acceptance that dominates narratives of personal identity. While we commonly consider purposeful exclusion an act of injustice on the part of the powerful, we are often unaware of the way that subtle, hidden forms of power render particular groups and individuals powerless. Literature is one of the most widely utilized platforms for articulating the specific issues that arise in response to these forms of power. This course will use American and British literary texts (Assembly; Angry Black, White Boy; New People; and assorted essays and poetry) to explore the complexities of the life experiences of those who are forced by the powerful to live at the margins. Our discussions will consider how it feels to be victimized, harassed, publicly scorned, enslaved, and disenfranchised. We will examine a wide array of texts from both white and black, and male and female authors that deal with traditionally marginalized groups. At the same time, we will consider the possible powerlessness of individual members of traditionally privileged groups. Aside from maintaining a daily journal, there will be a series of short writing activities to cultivate your skill articulating strongly argumentative claims, and one textual analysis essay (1200-1500 words) focused on your unique interpretation of one of the texts we read.

"Apocalypse" is the end of the world--or ourselves--but it also introduces new forms of being, desire and knowledge. In this course we'll analyze apocalyptic fantasies by writing critical essays: a skill (and art) that crosses disciplines. Course material includes the cult novel that inspired zombie apocalypse movies (I am Legend, by Richard Matheson), mind-blowing short stories from the Golden Era of Science fiction, cult films, jazz and 60's rock, and works staging the collapse of mundane reality (excerpts from The Autobiography of Malcom X, Allen Ginsberg's Howl, and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House).