W350 2545 ADVANCED EXPOSITORY WRITING
Kevin Marzahl

10:30a-11:20a D (25 students) 3 cr., IW.

PREREQUISITE: COMPLETION OF THE ENGLISH COMPOSITION REQUIREMENT

TOPIC: "Frames & Focus"

This course offers advanced instruction and workshops in reading and writing complex esays at the busy intersection of language and images. Seminal photographic essays by James Agee and Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor, Edward Said and Jean Mohr, Roland Barthes, and others will provide models and occasions for our own writing--with and against the grain--on photography in analytical, argumentative, and autobiographical modes. Bartholomae and Petrosky use the metaphor of cutting with and against the grain to describe the dynamic of "pushing and shoving" texts," as well as the "difficult mix of authority and humility" that arises for strong readers from both "work[ing] inside someone else's system" and "ask [ing] questions they believe might come as a surprise." Students will compile a portfolio of writing on photography that frames ideas in terms of others' texts and brings their own voices into focus.

Texts:
Empire of Signs, Roland Barthes
Ways of Reading: Words and Images, eds. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky