My University Writing course is divided into four essays, each accompanied by a different theme around composition, Film, and Performing Arts.
- Essay 1: The Single-Text Analysis
- Key Objectives:
- Present an interesting scholarly problem located within a film that motivates an essay and carries stakes
- Practice close reading that reveals the relationship between how a film says something and what it conveys
- Show the reader a fresh way to understand a film and also articulate why this fresh understanding is important
- Thematic Focus: Film & film techniques
- Key Objectives:
- Essay 2: The Conversation Esay
- Key Objectives:
- Make a claim about a theatrical event using a series of provided theory texts
- Use a theory texts to orchestrate a conversation that lets you illuminate and investigate a problem
- Formulate a claim resolving the tension of the problem
- Thematic Focus: Theatre, performance, and ritual
- Key Objectives:
- Essay 3: The Research Essay
- Key Objectives:
- Use evidence from eight to ten sources and show familiarity with the work of experts
- Compare those experts’ thoughts on your chosen subject with your own thoughts based on insights you have gained from your research
- Present an interesting scholarly problem using functional sources: object, context, critical, and theory
- Take a stance on your object of analysis that demonstrates your essay’s position in the current scholarly conversation
- Offer an analysis of sources, interpreting their central claims, evaluating their arguments, and explaining their significance in terms of your own claim
- Consider the complications and implications of your argument
- Thematic Focus: Creating your own project, seminar skills
- Key Objectives:
- Essay 4: The Op Ed
- Key Objectives:
- Seek out and participate in an ongoing conversation by developing a clear stance that advances the existing discussion
- Explore ways that writing fosters civic responsibility and community
- Thematic Focus: The power of your creative voice
- Key Objectives: