Course Design

Aside from meeting the departmental guidelines, my first priority when designing this course has been to think about what I would want to get out of a “Reading and Writing Advanced Essays” course” if I were taking it. First of all, I would want to come out of the class feeling that I had read the world’s most influential essayists. For that reason, I have made Philip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present the assigned text for the class and expect that we will discuss one or more of the world’s most influential essays in almost every class period (that's Michel de Montaigne in the image at right).

Secondly, I would want ample opportunity to explore my creative talents as a writer and I would want to be challenged to produce the best writing I am capable of. For that reason, I expect to give short writing assignments in almost every class as homework. These assignments will be due a week from the date that they are assigned and they will be posted on blogs designated for course use. Everyone in the class will be able to read and to comment what you post on your blog, but students will choose which of these shorter writing assignments they want to develop into essays that everyone in the class will read. Students will also choose the two essays they submit to me for editing suggestions and letter grade analysis.

Finally, if I were a student, I would want such a course to prepare me for higher level course work. For that reason, part of this course will be committed to critical analysis and debate about our subject. More specifically, we will read personal essays and academic critical essays in a way that invites discussion of the relative merits of each genre (the image at left is from the 1937 film, The Prince and the Pauper; presumably, the academic critical essay would be cast in the role of the prince here). The academic critical essay you write for this class should in some way respond to the following question: should schools require students to write personal essays, academic critical essays, both or neither? I also hope to invite some of my colleagues into our class to discuss this question and to talk to us about essays (of either genre) that they have written and essays they admire.