21W.745 / SP.576J / WGS.576J Advanced Essay Workshop, Spring 2005

Abstract

For students with experience in writing nonfictional prose. Advanced study of rhetorical strategies and techniques of prose style. Considerable writing and revision required. In addition to analyzing the work of class members, students read and discuss the work of distinguished essayists chosen to represent a range of prose styles, subjects, and biographical patterns. From the course home page: Course Description This course is a workshop for advanced students with some experience in writing essays, nonfiction prose. Our focus will be negotiating and representing identities grounded in gender, race, class, nationality, sexuality, and other categories of identity, either our own or other's, in prose that is expository, exploratory, investigative, persuasive, lyrical, or incantatory. We will read nonfiction prose works by a wide array of writers who have used language to negotiate and represent aspects of identity and the ways the different determinants of identity intersect, compete, and cooperate.