21W.730 Writing on Contemporary Issues: Social and Ethical Issues, Spring 2010
Name
21w-730-spring-2010/contents/index.htm
Size
35.71 KB
Format
HTML
Checksum (MD5)
ed3bc4e6d67246ef35d9286ed6ca8860
Author(s)
Walsh, Andrea
Alternative Title
Writing on Contemporary Issues: Social and Ethical Issues
Date Issued
June 2010
Abstract
This course provides the opportunity for students-as readers, viewers, writers and speakers-to engage with social and ethical issues they care deeply about. Over the course of the semester, through discussing the writing of classic and contemporary authors, we will explore different perspectives on a range of social issues such as free speech, poverty and homelessness, mental illness, capital punishment and racial and gender inequality. In addition, we will analyze selected documentary and feature films and photographs that represent or dramatize social problems or issues. In assigned essays, students will have the opportunity to write about social and ethical issues of their own choice. This course aims to help students to grow significantly in their ability to understand and grapple with arguments, to integrate secondary print and visual sources and to craft well-reasoned and elegant essays. Students will also keep a reading journal and give oral presentations. In class we will discuss assigned texts, explore strategies for successful academic writing, freewrite and respond to one another's essays.
Subjects
Writing on contemporary issues
social issues
ethical issues
contemporary
culture
culture shock
urban and environmental crises
issues of race and gender
media saturation
language and representation
writing
workshop
uncertainty
confusion
assimilating
assimilation
current
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
Terms of Use
Persistent DSpace Link