January 15, 2024: Spring Semester Previews: First-Year Writing II

[As thisnew semester gets underway, it does so amidst a particularly fraught moment forteaching & learning the Humanities. So for this week’s Semester Previewsseries I’ll highlight one thing from each of my courses that embodies the valueof the Humanities for us all—leading up to a special weekend post on MLK Dayand the Humanities!]

First-YearWriting II, of which I’ll teach two sections this Spring as I do in most Springsemesters, is not quite part of “the Humanities” in the way that the otherEnglish Studies courses I’ll highlight in this week’s series are. This is arequired course for all first-year students, part of their gateway into collegein whatever their major/department might be, and as a result I (like all mycolleagues) teach in it a variety of skills, including multiple writing genresbut also reading, research and information literacy, critical thinking, andmore. But there’s a reason why FYW is so consistently part of, or at the veryleast attached to and allied with, English Studies and related departments:because writing and those writing-adjacent skills I mentioned are at the coreof English and the Humanities, of the ways those disciplines and all those whoare part of them think and talk and engage with our world. My FYW II syllabusfocuses quite overtly on “our world,” through aseries of Units and Papers that connect to different layers to our 21stcentury society, fromads to multimediatexts to digital/online identities and communities. But it does so, likeevery section of this course and every one within all Humanities departments,through reading and writing. Not sure I need to convince anyone here of theessential value of those things, but I’ll gladly go to the mat for them if needbe!

Nextpreview tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?