[As this new semester gets underway, it does so amidst a particularly fraught moment for teaching & learning the Humanities. So for this week’s Semester Previews series I’ll highlight one thing from each of my courses that embodies the value of the Humanities for us all—leading up to a special weekend post on MLK Day and the Humanities!]
First-Year
Writing II, of which I’ll teach two sections this Spring as I do in most Spring
semesters, is not quite part of “the Humanities” in the way that the other
English Studies courses I’ll highlight in this week’s series are. This is a
required course for all first-year students, part of their gateway into college
in whatever their major/department might be, and as a result I (like all my
colleagues) teach in it a variety of skills, including multiple writing genres
but also reading, research and information literacy, critical thinking, and
more. But there’s a reason why FYW is so consistently part of, or at the very
least attached to and allied with, English Studies and related departments:
because writing and those writing-adjacent skills I mentioned are at the core
of English and the Humanities, of the ways those disciplines and all those who
are part of them think and talk and engage with our world. My FYW II syllabus
focuses quite overtly on “our world,” through a
series of Units and Papers that connect to different layers to our 21st
century society, from
ads to multimedia
texts to digital/online identities and communities. But it does so, like
every section of this course and every one within all Humanities departments,
through reading and writing. Not sure I need to convince anyone here of the
essential value of those things, but I’ll gladly go to the mat for them if need
be!
Next
preview tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
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