Course Description
Summary
This Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” functions as a class for writers interested in improving their critical essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with writing and revising—essai means “trial” or “attempt”—as we work to create new habits and productive strategies for our analytical writing. As we write in various essay structures with the aim of developing a persuasive, well-supported thesis statement, we will also revise collaboratively, improve our research and citation skills, and study grammar and style. Our learning goals include practicing to write with complexity, imagination, and clarity, as we read and look at model examples of form and content on the theme of Monsters. We will study short stories, tales, poems, plays, films, as well as some history and theory on monsters. Our readings may include the following authors: Margaret Atwood, Eula Biss, Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, Donna Haraway, bell hooks, Cathy Park Hong, Franz Kafka, Clarice Lispector, Nina MacLaughlin, Kobena Mercer, Alice Munro, Ovid, Patricia Pinho, Elaine Scarry, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Riki Anne Wilchins.
