Writing and Culture - PJI

3-4 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

An intensive seminar, enrolling no more than 15 students, focused on developing students’ ability to use writing as a tool for inquiry, to develop their writing through an iterative process, and to practice writing in different rhetorical situations. Students should take this course as early as possible and no later than the end of the sophomore year. The Writing and Culture Seminar helps students develop their ability to: • read critically in ways that are attentive to language, context, and form • write in ways that are appropriate for different rhetorical situations, with awareness of genre, context, and technology • deploy language’s many resources, including its figurative power as well as conventions of grammar, punctuation, syntax, and semantics, to shape and communicate meaning with clarity and fluency. On the surface, social media promises connection: a tool that lets us communicate across physical, cultural, and generational divides. In practice, however, it's much more complicated. This semester, you’ll hone your critical reading and writing skills by diving into those complications. We’ll unpack what happens when a new form of communication springs up within the space of a single generation - with a specific focus on the challenges and problems social media has brought. We’ll think about how we navigate these social spaces, and how our behavior and identity differs across different digital spaces, as well as how it compares to how we present ourselves in the physical world. Just as importantly, I'll be challenging us to think about why those differences matter, and what they mean for us as citizens (and, for some of us) future designers and gatekeepers of the ever-expanding digital world.