Courses » » English 101. Writing

Required of all first-year students except those who have passed the Advanced Placement examination with a 4 or 5 or have passed the Wheaton exemption examination, which is given by invitation. The focus for the writing and reading varies from section to section, permitting students to follow special interests and explore new material. All sections introduce students to some college-level literacy practices. The topic for each of the sections will be announced before the date of course selections and sent to all entering students during the summer. Recent topics have included popular culture, London, multicultural lives, the environment and rebellion and authority.

At least one short paper each week or a longer paper biweekly is required. Focus is on understanding invention, composing, revising and editing processes and using them. Students are encouraged to engage in conferences outside of class with their professors and to seek the help of Wheaton’s student writing tutors, who have completed a one-semester peer tutoring course that is jointly offered by the English and education departments.

You will be asked to do a lot of writing at Wheaton, and this course will help you to do it well. You will work with the instructor and your classmates on different kinds of writing assignments, and you’ll become more comfortable with writing while you improve your skills. Most sections include both formal and informal writing, and you will confer with the instructor about individual drafts and, at times, read and respond to other students’ writing in a workshop setting.

(see also Spring 2012 Semester sections)

Fall Semester 2011

Section A01 Writing about the Journalistic Tradition

Powerful imagery, moving stories and unforgettable quotes all make for great journalism. But the craft of writing news and criticism grows as much from a “readerly” approach to writing as it does from the other stand-bys of the craft: skilled observation, rigorous reporting and critical thinking. We will revisit Civil War hospitals and battlefields with Walt Whitman; follow the muckraking paths of Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair; go to war with Edward Murrow, John Hersey and Neil Sheehan; and immerse ourselves in the counterculture with Hunter S. Thompson. With these pieces of writing as our companions and guides, we will learn to analyze texts and experiment with storytelling techniques that have allowed great reporters to confront their objects of analysis. Through in class reading and writing workshops, this course will teach you to read like a writer and write like a critic.

Section A02 Writing about Los Angeles

Los Angeles: the City of Angels. How has a city burdened with such divine hope come to symbolize all that is most sinfully and hopelessly human about American culture? Why does it continue to attract those whose sense of the American dream is tinged with golden hues; those who read in the tale of Icarus not a cautionary narrative but rather an achievable desire? Is it the possible commodification of Los Angeles as the utopian realization of the American dream? In Los Angeles, Morrow Mayo has said: “Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash.” This course will examine how writing about the city has both contributed to and critiqued the commodification of Los Angeles and the glorification of the Californian dream. How does writing continue to construct the metaphorical cityscape, while effectively arguing for a reconsideration of the LA story? We will attempt to uncover and map the reality of life in Los Angeles, from alienation to segregation, through a number of different discourses: detective fiction, essays, films, sociopolitical history, and anthropology. We will be reading work from writers such as Mike Davis, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, John Dunne, and others.

Section A03 Writing as Discovery

This section of English 101 will explore some of the many ways writing functions as a means of discovery—of who we are, what we think and know, and what we have to say to others. Within a workshop format, the challenges of writing effectively in college will be addressed through frequent one-to-one consultation with the instructor regarding individual students’ work in progress. Assignments are designed to provide ample opportunity for independent and creative exploration while enabling students to gain confidence in a variety of writing modes, both formal and informal, by means of a process involving idea generation, drafting, revision, and editing.

Section A04 Writing about Injustice

The rhetoric of the “rant” has become a dominant discourse in American culture. Our focus in “Writing about Injustice” is to study argument in order to make the case for a new way of viewing an issue and perhaps changing a current cultural practice. We will both write arguments ourselves and become practiced readers of it, using The Elements of Argument by Annette Rottenberg (9th edition) as a primary text. Our focus in our reading will be to uncover assumptions that underlie various texts and essays and practice creating argument and presenting evidence–textual evidence–that demonstrates complexity but doesn’t confuse our audience. We will examine texts that are rooted in “fact” along with works of “pure” fiction to understand cultural conventions, thought conventions, and writing conventions. We will also focus research around acts of social crimes or continued cultural practices that bring harm to others, yet seem to continue unchallenged. Besides Elements of Argument we will read Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley and Power by Linda Hogan, to see how various narrative voices deal with injustice in their works.

Section A05 Writing about Chocolate, Dragons and Other Problems

The course will be conducted as a workshop, with students completing assignments tailored to their individual writing needs and conferring frequently with the instructor. Most assignments will be analytic essays of the sort expected in other college courses (e.g., comparison and contrast, deductive essay, book review, and literary or quantitative analysis), yet some of the topics will allow for creativity (e.g., dragon fighting, eating chocolates and personal experiences).

Section A06 Writing about Travel

In this class we will read writing by and about different kinds of travelers, ranging from explorers, tourists, and refugees to the 28,800 tub toys that spilled from a container ship in 1992; scientists are still using the little yellow ducks to map ocean currents. Travel writing takes many different forms writers seek ways to communicate experience and ideas to their audiences. Leisure travelers represent new experiences that allow them to escape their everyday home environment; tourists use guidebooks to negotiate the differences of another culture or to understand the past; anthropologists live in and write about other cultures as professional ethnographers; slaves, indentured workers, and refugees characteristically write about the loss of home and struggle to overcome their physical, psychological, and cultural displacement. Studying the choices writers make about tone, diction, and genre as they seek to communicate their subject will build your capacity to meet the demands of college level writing. In this class we will write a lot, read each other’s work as well as published writing, and learn to understand and meet the demands of different types of assignments. By the time you leave the class, you will have built a profile of yourself as a writer, reflected on what strategies work best for you, and determined the next steps in your writing life.

Section A07 Writing about Chocolates, Dragons and Other Problems

The course will be conducted as a workshop, with students completing assignments tailored to their individual writing needs and conferring frequently with the instructor. Most assignments will be analytic essays of the sort expected in other college courses (e.g., comparison and contrast, deductive essay, book review, and literary or quantitative analysis), yet some of the topics will allow for creativity (e.g., dragon fighting, eating chocolates and personal experiences).

Section A08 Writing about Los Angeles

Los Angeles: the City of Angels. How has a city burdened with such divine hope come to symbolize all that is most sinfully and hopelessly human about American culture? Why does it continue to attract those whose sense of the American dream is tinged with golden hues; those who read in the tale of Icarus not a cautionary narrative but rather an achievable desire? Is it the possible commodification of Los Angeles as the utopian realization of the American dream? In Los Angeles, Morrow Mayo has said: “Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash.” This course will examine how writing about the city has both contributed to and critiqued the commodification of Los Angeles and the glorification of the Californian dream. How does writing continue to construct the metaphorical cityscape, while effectively arguing for a reconsideration of the LA story? We will attempt to uncover and map the reality of life in Los Angeles, from alienation to segregation, through a number of different discourses: detective fiction, essays, films, sociopolitical history, and anthropology. We will be reading work from writers such as Mike Davis, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, John Dunne, and others.

Section A09 Writing about Multicultural Lives

What do you think of when you hear the word “culture”? Race? Religion? Traditions? Language? Gender? What does it mean to be living among people who embody different aspects of culture? What does it mean to identify with more than one culture simultaneously? We’ll look at some possible answers, along with the work of Louise Erdrich, Martin Espada, Barbara Kingsolver, Nelson Mandela, and others. If you’re really good, we’ll spend a class or two with Will Smith. This course will have elements of traditional lecture and discussion along with workshop and small group work. We’ll use the different aspects of culture as a framework to discuss the larger issues of writing in both formal and informal assignments. Each student will have frequent one-on-one consultations with the instructor. There will be an emphasis on process and revision while we develop the skills needed for college-level writing.

Section A10 Writing about (and with) Power

Through authors as diverse as Thoreau, Machiavelli and Arendt we will consider many aspects and structures of power, both political and rhetorical. We’ll explore different ways to write with authority–authority of rhetorical stance, authority of experience, authority of morality as well as the authority of assumed intellectual superiority. Assignments are designed to stretch students as writers and thinkers and include short responses and in class assignments as well as longer multi-drafted pieces.

Along with vibrant lecture and discussion classes, students can expect small group tutorials consisting of peer review and individual workshops. Individual conferences with the professor are also a required component of the class. Through the process of drafting, revision and editing students can expect to grow as writers and as thinkers. The class culminates in a submission of a portfolio ending with a reflective essay that considers his or her own journey over the course of the semester.

Section A11 Writing Inside and Outside of the Classroom

Who are we, as writers, when we move in and out of classrooms? How does writing change in various spaces and places? What do we need to know in order to write in these different contexts? How can we build on what we already know about writing to create a richer understanding of composing and texts? In this course, we will explore and complicate what it means to be a writer, what writing is, and how it functions in various communities. You will develop the tools you need to be a responsible, ethical writer; to understand writing as a means of invention and communication; and to write effectively in particular genres in various situations. This writing class functions as a “studio.” A writing studio is similar to an art studio, in that it serves as a workspace of creation. We will work individually and collaboratively in an effort to create a tight-knit community and a conducive space for critical thinking and critical inquiry.

Section A12 Writing about Writing

Writers have lots to say about their craft. Professor Toby Fulwiler reveals that the “real secret to good writing…is rewriting.” Others confess to struggle. “Sometimes,” author Anne Lamott laments, “the amount of material may be so overwhelming it makes your brain freeze.” Undergraduate Nathan Timm offers a pragmatic observation: “Writing has become just as much a part of college as late-night pizza delivery.” If you’re reading this description, you probably know quite a bit about writing. What you don’t yet know about is college writing, which differs from the writing you did in high school. Our work in this class, then, will address some of the issues that impact college writers inside and beyond the classroom. We’ll use and learn to use writing for self reflection, self-expression, and, most importantly, communication with specific audiences for particular purposes. Peer reviews, in-class workshops, and conferences with the professor will help us to form a writing community as you learn to hone and understand your literacy processes. Our course examines and practices literacy narratives, rhetorical analyses, researched arguments and the possibilities of new media.

Section A13 Writing about Multicultural Lives

What do you think of when you hear the word “culture”? Race? Religion? Traditions? Language? Gender? What does it mean to be living among people who embody different aspects of culture? What does it mean to identify with more than one culture simultaneously? We’ll look at some possible answers, along with the work of Louise Erdrich, Martin Espada, Barbara Kingsolver, Nelson Mandela, and others. If you’re really good, we’ll spend a class or two with Will Smith. This course will have elements of traditional lecture and discussion along with workshop and small group work. We’ll use the different aspects of culture as a framework to discuss the larger issues of writing in both formal and informal assignments. Each student will have frequent one-on-one consultations with the instructor. There will be an emphasis on process and revision while we develop the skills needed for college-level writing.

Section A14 Writing about Injustice

The rhetoric of the “rant” has become a dominant discourse in American culture. Our focus in “Writing about Injustice” is to study argument in order to make the case for a new way of viewing an issue and perhaps changing a current cultural practice. We will both write arguments ourselves and become practiced readers of it, using The Elements of Argument by Annette Rottenberg (9th edition) as a primary text. Our focus in our reading will be to uncover assumptions that underlie various texts and essays and practice creating argument and presenting evidence–textual evidence–that demonstrates complexity but doesn’t confuse our audience. We will examine texts that are rooted in “fact” along with works of “pure” fiction to understand cultural conventions, thought conventions, and writing conventions. We will also focus research around acts of social crimes or continued cultural practices that bring harm to others, yet seem to continue unchallenged. Besides Elements of Argument we will read Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley and Power by Linda Hogan, to see how various narrative voices deal with injustice in their works.

Section A15 Writing about Reality and Risk

Writing about Reality and Risk will focus on the ease with which we use the term “reality” and will seek to discover the many levels of its meaning by examining what is “real” in the essays, fiction, poetry, and occasional play that will comprise our weekly reading. These works will cover such authors as Emma Goldman, Joan Didion, Arthur Miller, Sophocles, Virginia Woolf, Auden, Blake, Flannery O’Connor, James Joyce and many others. The level of attention we apply to each reading will uncover the risk each author has taken to say something real; we, in turn, will come as close as we can to engaging in the reality each author presents, taking something of a risk ourselves by doing so. This course is writing and reading intensive and includes the keeping of an academic journal, active participation in class discussions, and engagement with each other’s written work through the on-going process of peer review and workshops.

Section A16 Writing about London

From Big Ben to the Tower of London and a quick pint at the pub: is this your idea of London? In this class we will explore the history of modern London. We will read and write about a variety of literary and historical writings, as well as visual texts such as maps, paintings, television shows and films, in order to look behind the tourist’s London. From the eighteenth century onward the city was the metropolitan center of the British Empire, as reflected in the buildings, the layout of the city, and its inhabitants. You will study topics such as the use of architecture to reflect England’s idea of itself as an imperial nation, the impact of the 2012 Olympics, and the ways in which different neighborhoods, and even particular streets, come to symbolize the class and racial relations of the city. We will look at the diverse peoples who have lived in and left their mark on London: the ruling elites who governed England and designed the city; the working class poor of the nineteenth century slums including Irish and Jewish immigrants; and the South Asian and Caribbean immigrants of the later twentieth century. In this class we will write a lot, read each other’s work as well as published writing, and learn to understand and meet the demands of different types of assignments. By the time you leave the class, you will have built a profile of yourself as a writer, reflected on what strategies work best for you, and determined the next steps in your writing life.

Section A18 Writing about Our World

What is the role of reading and writing in a world that has film and television, iPods and YouTube? We will use this question to guide us through this intensive introduction to the reading and writing skills necessary for critical argumentation at the college level. We will read a series of contemporary essays that explore and debate many of the most pressing cultural and political topics of our modern world. The readings will ask us to consider a wide range of issues, including the influence of environment on our personal choices, the politics of being a “global citizen,” the role of diversity in higher education, and the meaning of tradition and community for establishing how we define ourselves. Each of these investigations will be linked by our attention to the ways that critical thinking allows us to understand and respond to such issues in writing. The course will end by examining Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild as a reflection on how reading, writing, and education might succeed, or go awry.

Spring Semester, 2012

Section B19 Writing about Multicultural Lives

What do you think of when you hear the word “culture”? Race? Religion? Traditions? Language? Gender? What does it mean to be living among people who embody different aspects of culture? What does it mean to identify with more than one culture simultaneously? We’ll look at some possible answers, along with the work of Louise Erdrich, Martin Espada, Barbara Kingsolver, Nelson Mandela, and others. If you’re really good, we’ll spend a class or two with Will Smith. This course will have elements of traditional lecture and discussion along with workshop and small group work. We’ll use the different aspects of culture as a framework to discuss the larger issues of writing in both formal and informal assignments. Each student will have frequent one-on-one consultations with the instructor. There will be an emphasis on process and revision while we develop the skills needed for college-level writing.

Section B20 Writing about Los Angeles

Los Angeles: the City of Angels. How has a city burdened with such divine hope come to symbolize all that is most sinfully and hopelessly human about American culture? Why does it continue to attract those whose sense of the American dream is tinged with golden hues; those who read in the tale of Icarus not a cautionary narrative but rather an achievable desire? Is it the possible commodification of Los Angeles as the utopian realization of the American dream? In Los Angeles, Morrow Mayo has said: “Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash.” This course will examine how writing about the city has both contributed to and critiqued the commodification of Los Angeles and the glorification of the Californian dream. How does writing continue to construct the metaphorical cityscape, while effectively arguing for a reconsideration of the LA story? We will attempt to uncover and map the reality of life in Los Angeles, from alienation to segregation, through a number of different discourses: detective fiction, essays, films, sociopolitical history, and anthropology. We will be reading work from writers such as Mike Davis, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, John Dunne and others.

Section B21 Writing about Writing

Writers have lots to say about their craft. Professor Toby Fulwiler reveals that the “real secret to good writing…is rewriting.” Others confess to struggle. “Sometimes,” author Anne Lamott laments, “the amount of material may be so overwhelming it makes your brain freeze.” Undergraduate Nathan Timm offers a pragmatic observation: “Writing has become just as much a part of college as late-night pizza delivery.” If you’re reading this description, you probably know quite a bit about writing. What you don’t yet know about is college writing, which differs from the writing you did in high school. Our work in this class, then, will address some of the issues that impact college writers inside and beyond the classroom. We’ll use and learn to use writing for self reflection, self-expression, and, most importantly, communication with specific audiences for particular purposes. Peer reviews, in-class workshops, and conferences with the professor will help us to form a writing community as you learn to hone and understand your literacy processes. Our course examines and practices literacy narratives, rhetorical analyses, researched arguments and the possibilities of new media.

Section B22 Writing as Discovery

This section of English 101 will explore some of the many ways writing functions as a means of discovery—of who we are, what we think and know, and what we have to say to others. Within a workshop format, the challenges of writing effectively in college will be addressed through frequent one-to-one consultation with the instructor regarding individual students’ work in progress. Assignments are designed to provide ample opportunity for independent and creative exploration while enabling students to gain confidence in a variety of writing modes, both formal and informal, by means of a process involving idea generation, drafting, revision, and editing.

Section B23 Writing about the Internet

Like many new mediums, the Internet has had a profound impact on how, what, when, where and with whom we communicate. Ironically, despite its high-tech reputation, the Internet remains powered by two comparatively ‘low-tech’ but revolutionary forms of communication — reading and writing.
In this section of English 101, we will read widely, write frequently and think critically about questions such as:

• How is the Internet reshaping language, social relations and identity?
• What is the relationship between information, knowledge and understanding?
• What is the relationship between information, content and intellectual property?
• Is the Internet a democratizing force that will foster global equality, or will new ‘digital divides’ perpetuate old hierarchies?

Students should expect to be engaged participants in the learning community of the class, to read and write with passion, and to cultivate intellectual curiosity and rigor. In addition to writing about the Internet in a variety of academic essay assignments, students will also write on the Internet by creating and maintaining a blog on a subject of personal and intellectual significance.

Section B24 Writing about (and with) Power

Through authors as diverse as Thoreau, Machiavelli and Arendt we will consider many aspects and structures of power, both political and rhetorical. We’ll explore different ways to write with authority–authority of rhetorical stance, authority of experience, authority of morality as well as the authority of assumed intellectual superiority. Assignments are designed to stretch students as writers and thinkers and include short responses and in class assignments as well as longer multi-drafted pieces.

Along with vibrant lecture and discussion classes, students can expect small group tutorials consisting of peer review and individual workshops. Individual conferences with the professor are also a required component of the class. Through the process of drafting, revision and editing students can expect to grow as writers and as thinkers. The class culminates in a submission of a portfolio ending with a reflective essay that considers his or her own journey over the course of the semester.
(Mary-Elizabeth Lough)

Section B25 Writing about Our World

What is the role of reading and writing in a world that has film and television, iPods and YouTube? We will use this question to guide us through this intensive introduction to the reading and writing skills necessary for critical argumentation at the college level. We will read a series of contemporary essays that explore and debate many of the most pressing cultural and political topics of our modern world. The readings will ask us to consider a wide range of issues, including the influence of environment on our personal choices, the politics of being a “global citizen,” the role of diversity in higher education, and the meaning of tradition and community for establishing how we define ourselves. Each of these investigations will be linked by our attention to the ways that critical thinking allows us to understand and respond to such issues in writing. The course will end by examining Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild as a reflection on how reading, writing, and education might succeed, or go awry.

Section B27 Writing about (and with) Power

Through authors as diverse as Thoreau, Machiavelli and Arendt we will consider many aspects and structures of power, both political and rhetorical. We’ll explore different ways to write with authority–authority of rhetorical stance, authority of experience, authority of morality as well as the authority of assumed intellectual superiority. Assignments are designed to stretch students as writers and thinkers and include short responses and in class assignments as well as longer multi-drafted pieces.

Along with vibrant lecture and discussion classes, students can expect small group tutorials consisting of peer review and individual workshops. Individual conferences with the professor are also a required component of the class. Through the process of drafting, revision and editing students can expect to grow as writers and as thinkers. The class culminates in a submission of a portfolio ending with a reflective essay that considers his or her own journey over the course of the semester.
(Mary-Elizabeth Lough)

Section B28 Writing about Los Angeles

Los Angeles: the City of Angels. How has a city burdened with such divine hope come to symbolize all that is most sinfully and hopelessly human about American culture? Why does it continue to attract those whose sense of the American dream is tinged with golden hues; those who read in the tale of Icarus not a cautionary narrative but rather an achievable desire? Is it the possible commodification of Los Angeles as the utopian realization of the American dream? In Los Angeles, Morrow Mayo has said: “Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash.” This course will examine how writing about the city has both contributed to and critiqued the commodification of Los Angeles and the glorification of the Californian dream. How does writing continue to construct the metaphorical cityscape, while effectively arguing for a reconsideration of the LA story? We will attempt to uncover and map the reality of life in Los Angeles, from alienation to segregation, through a number of different discourses: detective fiction, essays, films, sociopolitical history, and anthropology. We will be reading work from writers such as Mike Davis, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, John Dunne, and others.

Section B29 Writing about Reality and Risk

Writing about Reality and Risk will focus on the ease with which we use the term “reality” and will seek to discover the many levels of its meaning by examining what is “real” in the essays, fiction, poetry, and occasional play that will comprise our weekly reading. These works will cover such authors as Emma Goldman, Joan Didion, Arthur Miller, Sophocles, Virginia Woolf, Auden, Blake, Flannery O’Connor, James Joyce and many others. The level of attention we apply to each reading will uncover the risk each author has taken to say something real; we, in turn, will come as close as we can to engaging in the reality each author presents, taking something of a risk ourselves by doing so. This course is writing and reading intensive and includes the keeping of an academic journal, active participation in class discussions, and engagement with each other’s written work through the on-going process of peer review and workshops.