instructor Jan Cooper
office King 139D
phone 440/775-8613
email Jan.Cooper@oberlin.edu
I'm happy to receive messages anytime--I check my email frequently every week day and often during the weekends.
webpage for this course http://www.oberlin.edu/~jcooper/lgbthome.htm--this is a crucial source for class updates, readings, Internet links to relevant on-line material, assignments, etc.
texts readings available via Electronic Reserve in the library, videos shown at 7:30-9:30 pm Wednesday (unless cancelled for a particular week), and your own and your classmates' drafts of the written assignments.
other materials needed a folder to store all materials collected for the course, access to a computer with Internet and Oberlin College email service and printing Microsoft Word 6 (or later) word-processing software
note: all of the required computing is available at the OC public computing areas
class time & place Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30-2:50 King 327
What is this course about?
This is a course about writing--how to generate it without tearing out your hair, how to revise it without developing ulcers, how to find the guts to give it to a reader. Like any writing course, it's a class about language and learning to be more conscious of how you use it. In order to fulfill both those purposes, we will focus on a particular subject--sexuality and how it manifests itself in language acts, the "codes, " broadly defined, that are used to communicate sexual orientations and the cultural systems that have arisen around them. I hope this course will give students the opportunity to expand their writing skills by writing about those codes and other LGBT topics--primarily to discover how writing can be a way of thinking through something and actively communicating it to others (not just reporting a process already finished).
To examine these issues, you will write several papers over the semester, and you will have the opportunity to develop each paper through a series of drafts that your classmates and I will respond to in workshopping sessions. At least one draft of a paper will be due every week.
A familiarity with newer technologies of writing is also essential to being an educated writer today, therefore we will be using the Internet extensively and I will encourage you to develop computer word processing skills.
course requirements
grading All writing courses in the Expository Writing Program are graded Credit/No Entry. Because this course emphasizes revision, I also do not letter grade single pieces of writing. Instead I will give you written or oral responses to specific pieces of your writing to help you determine how best to improve them. At midterm, however, I will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the writing in your folder with you in individual appointments. If at any time you have questions concerning the progress you're making, please make an appointment to discuss your work with me.
A Cautionary Word about the Writing Requirement
The Expository Writing Program intends for this course to give students the writing instruction that will enable them to achieve certification in other Writing Intensive or Writing Certification courses. It is possible that you might demonstrate sufficient skill in academic writing to earn certification in this course, but passing 100 does not automatically entitle you to it. Unless you are taking Basic Writing in sequence with Expository Writing 101 (English Composition), or 103 (English Composition: Special Topics), you should not assume that this course will fulfill one of your two Writing Certification requirements.
If you have any questions about this or any particularly strong reasons for wanting to earn certification through this course, please talk to me about them as soon as possible.
