Jonathan Colson, English 106.004 and 106.005, Spring 2010

        Rereading America: This course provides an introduction to the rhetorical and mechanical skills necessary to develop confident, informed academic voices. The course emphasizes the study and practice of writing processes, including critical reading, collaboration, revision, and editing. We will focus on the aims, strategies, and conventions of academic prose, especially analysis and argumentation. The course will teach independent research writing, the use of scholarly sources, consistency with standard grammar, diction, and MLA style.

The main text for this course, Rereading America, will provide a platform to examine and to write about American culture today. The reading and the writing assignments will focus on myths and assumptions that occupy the everyday. We will question ideas of education, family, success, consumerism, and gender roles as seen from within and from outside American culture.