College Writing: Technology & Selfhood

3 units

Writing is a technology that allows one to read the thoughts of others across space and time. Our course's theme -- technology -- is the subject matter that we will be reading to hone skills such as analysis, argumentation, and critical thinking. This does not mean that a student must be a budding technologist to succeed in this course, nor will this course seek to transform a student into one. Rather, this course treats technology in its broadest sense, from its root in the Greek techne (which means craftsmanship, craft, art, or rhetoric) to its contemporary definition as the realm of knowledge that deals with the mechanical arts and applied sciences. In writing about technology, we will consider perspectives across the university curriculum in order to better comprehend our relationship with our tools and to scrutinize the dynamic interaction, communication, and interdependence of different kinds of tools for various means of communication and representation. We will strive to think critically about ourselves as part of larger communities and systems by attending closely to the ways we communicate with and about others through technologies such as writing, film, and social media. In writing creative, analytical, argumentative, and researched essays, we will address responsible uses of technology and the effects that technologies have on different communities and individuals, and we will try to answer questions like the following: How does technology affect us when we use it? How do technologies intersect and affect one another? What roles does technology play in our everyday lives? What roles do we want it to play in our future? THIS COURSE SATISFIES THE FIRST-YEAR WRITING REQUIREMENT FOR ALL DIVISIONS.