In this class, students explore the history of American intellectual life through literary movements over the course of two trimesters. Students cultivate close reading skills, and learn to analyze the aesthetic and rhetorical choices American authors have made over time. In doing so, they develop their own questions and interpretations of texts we read. The essays students craft are scaffolded and emphasize writing as a process. In addition, students learn to apply this recursive compositional process to other modalities, including culminating seminars and a podcast.
Winter Trimester Movements Explored: Harlem Renaissance, American Modernism
In this course, students will grapple with increasingly complex literature, reading the work of Toni Morrison and Shakespeare. Thematically, the course will explore how these texts complicate questions of right and wrong, and good and evil, while also considering how they reinforce and challenge traditional gender roles. In connection with reading Sula, students will think about what makes a community a community, and research the ways communities establish norms and influence their members. As a culminating project, students will write autoethnographies, a genre that combines research and narrative writing, to explore a community to which they belong and its influence on their lives.
In this course, students will explore what it means to come of age. Using literature as our guide, students will think reflectively, creatively, and analytically about the tensions and complexities of growing up and consider what literature can reveal about that process. To this end, students will build their skills as readers and writers. As readers, they will learn to analyze how an author develops a theme and builds a character, as well as how these elements work within the greater context of a novel. Through both critical and creative writing assignments, students will explore writing as a tool for thinking, a vehicle for self-understanding, and as a medium to articulate and substantiate a claim.
Writing 121 is designed to engage students in the kind of writing they will be expected to do in college and beyond. Students will explore writing as both a tool of communication and an instrument of exploration and knowledge creation. Writing 121 is a process-oriented course, one more invested in the recursive cycle of drafting, reflecting, and revising than with a pristine final product. In engaging in an array of diverse writing assignments, students will learn to analyze a given rhetorical situation and adapt and adapt accordingly. Since writing and reading are deeply interconnected, we will also study a variety of texts with “writer’s eye,” examining both the what and the how of the piece. This course is offered in conjunction with Portland State University—dual enrollment for college credit is encouraged, but not required.
Books and tea is a course specifically designed to rekindle or nourish a love of reading. As other responsibilities make increasing demands on their time, books and tea gives students the dedicated time and space to read for pleasure. Over the course of the term, students will read at least five books, both independently and in small book groups. Decisions about what we read will come solely from students. A large portion of the class will be given to students to read and sip on a warm cup of tea. Students will engage in structured book talks and complete a series of creative, non-traditional projects. As a class we will also explore a variety of questions related to books, including, what does it mean to be a reader? What are books “for”? And what role can books play in an increasingly fast-paced, screen-oriented society?
In this class, students will experiment with various forms of creative writing--including poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. We'll examine diverse texts and learn to talk about craft. We'll spend time doing fun writing exercises, prompts, and games to get the creative juices flowing. In this class, we’ll also focus on recuperating the creative self and developing a consistent creative practice. By the end of the term, students will produce a portfolio of work.