Course Description
Summary
The Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” is 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 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. We will read and do close readings in the literary genre of the short story. We will also study critical essays and theory to provide a framework for our discussions. This is not a Creative Writing course. Our readings may include the following short story writers: Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Honoré de Balzac, Lucia Berlin, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavia Butler, Italo Calvino, Angela Carter, Ted Chiang, Danielle Evans, Manuel Gonzales, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Zora Neale Hurston, Shirley Jackson, Franz Kafka, Paul La Farge, Ursula K. Le Guin, Clarice Lispector, Nina MacLaughlin, Guy de Maupassant, Herman Melville, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Alissa Nutting, Dorothy Parker, Helen Phillips, Deesha Philyaw, Genevieve Plunkett, and Edgar Allen Poe. And, we will read from the following authors for their relevant critical or personal essays, philosophy, and theory: Judith Butler, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, Laura Mulvey, and Riki Anne Wilchins.
