WRIT 100 - Writing Seminar for First-Years Credits: 3 No credit for students who have completed FW through exemption. Prerequisite: First-year class standing only. Concentrated work in composition with readings ranging across modes, forms, and genres in the humanities, social sciences, or sciences. The sections vary in thematic focus across disciplines, but all students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, reflection, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-01: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Do Great Artists Steal? The Legalities of Copyright and the Ethics of Attribution (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. Often attributed to Pablo Picasso, the phrase “great artists steal” highlights artists, authors, and creators’ propensity to build upon the work of their peers and predecessors–frequently without acknowledgement. In this course, students will explore intersecting ethical and legal issues concerning the reuse of intellectual property. Specifically, discussions cover the roots of US copyright law, what constitutes plagiarism, W&L’s Honor System, remix-culture, and historic acts of creative theft. Join us as we examine rap sampling, literary mashups, memes, alleged plagiarism by canonized authors like William Shakespeare, and contemporary copyright infringement cases like Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin. While the topic of the course is the ethical reuse of creative content, the main focus is writing. All readings, assignments, and activities help students augment and refine their writing skills. (FW) Cook & Teaff.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-02: Writing Seminar for First-Years: The Tragedy of War (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. This course will examine how authors both ancient and modern have used the Trojan War and the literature written about it to explore the tragedy of war. Among other things, we will study how Homer’s Iliad has helped Vietnam War veterans process PTSD; how staging Greek plays on military bases has facilitated difficult conversations about the struggles of war; and how performing adaptations of Greek tragedies has enabled playwrights from Ireland to Nigeria to communicate universal truths about the traumas inflicted by war. (FW) Loar.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-03: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Adaptation X2 (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. Adaptation X2 focuses upon developing students’ skills in analytical writing by exploring case studies of the always fascinating and debate-producing question of adapting novels into films. In addition, each case explores at least two instances of adaptations of one original. These scenarios provide rich and complex material for class discussion that will be focused upon facilitating individual students’ essays. Possible texts and authors include crime fictions and films beginning with Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Raymond Chandler; science fiction from Forbidden Planet to Black Mirror and Dune (a major new film version is forthcoming!), and classics from William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. (FW) Adams.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-04: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Old Time True Crime (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. True crime and crime reporting fascinate us - popular culture bears witness to our collective preoccupation with unsolved crime. This seminar focuses on a selection of primary source digital archives, exploring the advent of newspaper reporting on crime and criminals in the U.S., England, and Australia in the long nineteenth century. We’ll examine questions of audience, language, and perspective, and focus on crime, criminals, and victims as sensational entertainment. We will compare and contrast with models of contemporary crime and true crime reporting and discuss the history of policing as well as the concept of the EU’s “Right to be forgotten” data privacy law and its potential impact on primary sources. Students should be prepared to encounter unpleasant or disconcerting material. (FW) Kane.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-05: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Animal Intimacies (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. Non-human animals occupy a central force in our lives. We love them, wear them, eat them, study them, experiment on them, honor them in our art, poetry, and film, and establish therapeutic relationships with them. Animals have long served as a reflection of our own (in)humanity, and this class will offer a close look at the human-animal bond through different genres of writing, including but not limited to poetry, personal essays, food writing, animal rights and environmental activist writing, and comics. (FW) Kharputly.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-06: Writing Seminar for First-Years: The Healing Power of Nature (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. In this section students will read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, an account of vital factors that helped concentration camp inmates survive, then study three key works that deal with major personal struggles healed through outdoor activities and adventures. The works are Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, and Fred Chappell’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are. We will connect these works to extreme sports, the outdoor recreation industry, environmental issues, mindfulness, and scientific studies of healing. Our goal is to study and discuss hope and healing in this and other troubled times. (FW) Smout.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-07: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Don’t “I” Me: Privilege, Otherness and Writing Good (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. In this course we examine “One of these things is not like the others” (aka impostor) syndrome and its effect on the human quest to feel good enough. Our reading and writing explores the complexities of and correspondence between (suggested) inferiority and otherness based on factors such as color, gender, education, sexual orientation, privilege and language. We will dig into works from, among others: Kendrick Lamar, Peggy McIntosh, Claudia Rankine, Tucker Carlson and Wes Anderson. (FW) Fuentes.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-08: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Superheroes (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. Students will analyze the evolution of the character type from Superman’s first appearance in 1938 Action Comics to contemporary superheroes in 21st century media, with an emphasis of additional works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by new comics authors. (FW) Gavaler.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-09: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Wicked Women (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. This section begins with Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and ends with recent essays on Hillary Clinton. In between, we examine witches, femme fatales and fallen women, using representations of difficult women in literature, journalism, and film, as essay prompts. The course is not for women only—for instance, our discussion of witchcraft runs from Conde’s I, Tituba through excerpts from Harry Potter. (FW) Brodie.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-10: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Nonconformity and Community (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. What’s the proper role of nonconformity in a healthy community? How much conformity is needed to sustain a culture? Are complete nonconformity and strict conformity even possible? Through readings by classic and contemporary writers, we will explore the importance of sameness and difference within the various communities to which we belong. In the process, the course will include an examination of some of Washington and Lee’s core values. How do these questions apply to W&L? (FW) Pickett.
Winter 2021, WRIT 100-12: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Mysteries, Puzzles, & Conundrums (3). Prerequisite: First-year standing. Melville wrote that “significance lurks in all things.” In other words, meaning exists everywhere but is hidden and sometimes difficult, even impossible to discover. Upon this belief, rests the possibility of mystery. And it is with mysteries that we will concern ourselves this semester—”mysteries” not in the generic sense of stories about crime and detection but mysteries of character, morality, race, religion, and art. Central to each of the works we will read is some puzzle, secret, riddle, enigma, ambiguity, or complexity. Sometimes the work itself is the mystery, a kind of hieroglyph. Each work, in its own way, raises questions about the methods and the limitations of human discovery. We will approach your own writing as a means of investigation and discovery as well, with an emphasis on developing the skills necessary to build convincing “cases” (i.e., arguments) when evidence is incomplete, ambiguous, or contradictory. (FW) W. Oliver.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-01: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Memoir and Identity in Literature (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. While novels written from a marginalized point of view are often called “literature of resistance,” or literature that resists common misconceptions about a particular group, what would we call a memoir that does similar work from a first-person point of view? Does memoir also challenge and educate us about the identities of marginalized or silenced voices? Does such memoir also challenge history, cultural assumptions, media representations? How do memoirists write an identity at odds with mainstream perceptions and still connect with their mostly mainstream audience? We explore how to read and then write about such life narratives as a form of resistance literature, stressing critical analysis, active reading, argumentation, presentation of evidence, and revision. (FW) Miranda.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-02: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Shut Up and Play: Black Athletes and Activism (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. Colin Kaepernick’s national-anthem protest revealed the complicated relationship between black athletes and American democracy. Raising questions linked to patriotism, free speech, and labor relations, this situation shows—among other things—why the interdisciplinary analysis advocated by Africana Studies provides a full understanding of contemporary social realities. We pursue three goals tied to such enhanced comprehension. First, we learn to write clear, organized, and well-supported prose through assignments demanding skill in different types of verbal expression. Second, we strive to read multimedia materials and to use these sources in public discussions about citizenship. Finally, we try to place current debates about black athletic activism within the broader context of civil disobedience and post-Brown vs. Board pursuits of racial equality. Our class is anchored by the exploration of four case studies: Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be inducted into the army; John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics; Serena Williams’s boycott of Indian Wells; and Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem. (FW) M. Hill.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-04: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Monsters Among Us (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. Beginning with the first gothic novel in 1764, the gothic has thrilled readers for centuries. Featuring a variety of foes, the gothic offers readers a way to explore their deepest fears, especially the fear that monsters (real and imaginary) lurk among us. We read a wide range of texts—from Mary Shelley’s classic gothic novel Frankenstein to Emil Ferris’s recently-published graphic novel My Favorite Thing is Monsters—in order to explore the notion of monstrosity and the persistence of monsters in our cultural imagination. While the topic of the course is monsters, the main focus is writing: our readings, class discussions, and assignments are all designed specifically to help you cultivate and refine your skills as a writer. (FW) Walle.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-05: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Animal Intimacies (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. Non-human animals occupy a central force in our lives. We love them, wear them, eat them, study them, experiment on them, honor them in our art, and establish therapeutic relationships with them. Animals have long served as a reflection of our own (in)humanity, and this seminar offers a close look at the human-animal bond through different genres of writing, including but not limited to poetry, personal essays, food writing, animal rights and environmental activist writing, and comics. (FW) Kharputly.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-06: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Homeward Bound (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. “Home” is an enduring topic in literature, in part, because of its broad appeal and applicability. It can refer to a literal structure, to the emotional bonds that hold us together, and to the practices that generate and safeguard both. Building on these meanings, homes become symbols for broader social configurations—the unit whose protection represents the security of the nation, for instance. Moreover, imaginings of home, literary or otherwise, offer us a window through which to consider how normative and so-called “non-normative” families form. We explore varying, often contradicting, expressions of the domestic. We explore how “home” intersects with markers of identity, such as race, class, and gender. Possible topics include kinship, sexuality, alienation, homelessness, and memory/nostalgia. (FW) Millan.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-07: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Don’t “I” Me: Privilege, Otherness and Writing (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. We examine “One of these things is not like the others” (a.k.a., impostor) syndrome and its effect on the human quest to feel good enough. Our reading and writing explores the complexities of and correspondence between (suggested) inferiority and otherness based on factors such as color, gender, education, sexual orientation, privilege, and language. We dig into works from, among others, James Baldwin, Peggy McIntosh, Claudia Rankine, Tucker Carlson, Audre Lorde, and Isabel Allende. (FW) Fuentes.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-08: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Mysteries, Puzzles, & Conundrums (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. Melville wrote that “significance lurks in all things.” In other words, meaning exists everywhere but is hidden and sometimes difficult, even impossible to discover. Upon this belief rests the possibility of mystery. And it is with mysteries that we concern ourselves—”mysteries” not in the generic sense of stories about crime and detection but mysteries of character, morality, religion, and art. Central to each of the works we read is some puzzle, secret, riddle, enigma, ambiguity, or complexity. Sometimes the work itself is the mystery, a kind of hieroglyph. Each work, in its own way, raises questions about the methods and the limitations of human discovery. We approach your own writing as a means of investigation and discovery as well, with an emphasis on developing the skills necessary to build convincing “cases” (i.e., arguments) when evidence is incomplete, ambiguous, or contradictory. (FW) Oliver.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-10: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Aspects of Elizabeth (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) is among history’s most fascinating figures. She ruled a small island, beset by threats both external and internal, during a period of tremendous political, religious and cultural change. Her 45-year reign saw the conspiracies and eventual execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, the consolidation of the Church of England, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the flowering of English culture in such figures as Shakespeare, Donne, and Marlowe. We learn about both the public and private Elizabeth by focusing on four distinct topics: her own poetry, letters and speeches; the portraits of her as princess and queen; her controversial personal and political relationship with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex; and films about Elizabeth. The primary texts of the course are each other’s essays; we learn about our topic by reading what other students have written, while focusing most of our class time on improving our writing skills. (FW) Dobin.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-11: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Fables, Animal Tales, and Tricksters (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. Different cultures have used animals as allegorical elements in instructional stories and as symbols to foster particular ideologies. From Aesop’s fables to Native American folk tales, across the globe we can discover connections between animal spirits, tricksters, and people illustrating different cultural, political, and social norms. In western popular culture, animal tales are still used as allegories for political satire or social criticism. We read key animal fables, investigate themes and story patterns, and trace different versions of animal tales right up to the 21st century. How and why do cultural representations of particular animal tales change? Students learn to compose clear, organized, and well-supported articulations of their understanding of the texts and issues at hand. (FW) Ruiz.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-12: Writing Seminar for First-Years: The Nature of Nature: Environmental Thought and Literature (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. This seminar is an exploration of the human relationship to nature. How do writers and environmental thinkers understand their relationships to “the natural world”? How can we understand our own? We read widely within environmental literature. Walt Whitman, Annie Dillard, and Wendell Berry, among others, provide scaffolding for our discussion of “nature”, “truth”, “individuality”, “community”, “life”, “death”, “knowledge”, and “mystery”. We explore the implications of these ideas for an individual life as well as for a globalized world in which ecological concern is a matter of daily news and attention. (FW) Green.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-14: Writing Seminar for First-Years: The Healing Power of Nature (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. In this course, students will read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, an account of vital factors that helped concentration camp inmates survive, then study three key works that deal with major personal struggles healed through outdoor activities and adventures. The works are Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, and Fred Chappell’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are. e’ll connect these works to extreme sports, the outdoor recreation industry, environmental issues, mindfulness, and scientific studies of healing. Our goal is to study and discuss hope and healing in this and other troubled times. (FW) Smout.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-15: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Asking the Big Questions (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. This is a seminar discussion of a range of traditional philosophical questions about the nature of reality and our place within it. Can we prove beyond a doubt using reason alone that God exists? Should we always adjust our beliefs to the evidence, or is it sometimes reasonable to believe something that we have no evidence for? What is the nature of the mind? What is free will, and how does it fit into a scientific picture of the universe? Are there objective moral truths? Students cultivate skills as a writer, learning to write clearly, critically, accurately, expressively, and imaginatively about complex and important issues. (FW) McGonigal.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-16: Writing Seminar for First-Years: The Middle East and North Africa in Films (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. Students in this section examine the Middle East and North Africa through films and academic texts drawn from history, comparative politics, film studies, and sociology – an interdisciplinary approach to developing a critical approach to understanding the social movements, cultures, and life of ordinary people of the region. Within the discourse of colonialism and post-colonialism debates, students gain insights into topics such as nation-building, women’s leadership through popular music, poverty, uprisings, and the humanitarian crisis of refugees, and explore how the use of cinema has served to address, define, restore, or retell the transformative stories of a truly complex and heterogeneous region. (FW) Al-Ahmad.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-17: Writing Seminar for First-Years: Acting & Identity (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. While most of us have watched actors performing our whole lives, very few of us have a sense of how professional actors’ identities affect and are affected by the roles they play. This course will focus on how we perceive actors, how actors perceive themselves, and how our own assumptions about actors’ identities inform the way we react to their artistic work. Using both fiction and non-fiction accounts, with an emphasis on plays, we will explore race, gender, and sexual identity in the on- and offstage lives of actors, and we will attempt to draw some conclusions about the art of acting and the ways we perform our identities in our daily lives. (FW) J.Levy.
Fall 2020, WRIT 100-18: Writing Seminar for First-Years: How to Overthrow the State (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing. Concentrated work in composition. All students write at least three revised essays in addition to completing several exercises emphasizing writing as a process. All sections stress active reading, argumentation, the appropriate presentation of evidence, various methods of critical analysis, and clarity of style. This course places each student at the head of a popular revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow a sitting government and forge a better society. How will you attain power? How will you communicate with the masses? How do you plan on improving the lives of the people? How will you deal with the past? From Frantz Fanon to Che Guevara to Mohandas Gandhi and others, we explore examples of revolutionary thought and action from across the Global South. Students engage these texts by participating in a variety of writing exercises, such as producing a Manifesto, drafting a white paper that critically analyzes a particular issue, and writing a persuasive essay on rewriting history and confronting memory. (FW) Gildner.
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