ENG 181-003: Writing About Literature (Spring 2010)

Content: English 181 will encompass a wide range of issues related to the diversity of our country.  The course readings will ask you to consider and evaluate numerous ideas as you gain the tools of argumentation that will help to enhance your writing.  In English 181 students are expected to achieve the following goals: extend the skills of expository writing and critical thinking established in high school English courses; read, appreciate, and interpret literature, media, and images, and write analytically about them; understand literary principles and use basic terms important to critical writing and reading; and document essays using textual evidence. 

Texts: Authors may include Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sandra Cisneros, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Toni Morrison, Barbara Smith, Trey Ellis, and Barak Obama among others.

Particulars: Students will write four essays.  Three essays (approximately 1000-1,500 words in length) will be written out of class and one essay (approximately 500 to 1,000 words in length) will be written in class.   In addition to writing papers and doing other work, all students will create a Final Writing Portfolio that counts approximately as one-third of their final grade.