College Writing

I’ve taught theme-based classes before, and I think they have a lot of advantages. They help students find subjects to write about and give them a depth of knowledge to write from; many of my students in those classes  have done some great writing about food and education and technology. However, other students have resented getting stuck with a theme they have no (or little) interest in. So this time–as one of several experiments for the semester– I’m going to let each of you pick your own theme…within limits.

This will be an important choice, so try to pick a topic that connects to you personally, that you have some experience with or, maybe more important,  curiosity about. Much of the reading you do for the semester will be about this general topic, articles and essays you’ll approach both as reader and writer (see the next two links along the main menu bar of this blog). Your main writing assignments for the course will also connect to this topic:

• a memoir drawn from your personal experience
• an ethnography in which you either observe a group of people connected to the topic or interview and profile a representative individual
• an argument that takes a position on a related controversial issue
• and a photo essay or brochure that uses a combination of images and words to explain or analyze something about this issue

Here are your choices for theme:

the arts                                                     the environment and nature

food                                                          crime and justice

education                                                  the family/relationships

business and economics                           technology

health and medicine                                 sports

Be sure to thoroughly consider your options. You will need to be able not only to write from your personal connection but also to have some possibilities for a subculture to observe and a controversial issue to explore. (Remember, though, that you will be doing reading on this topic, so new ideas are sure to surface.) We will be spending some time brainstorming in f2f classes, and I’ll post the results early next week.

In the meantime, here’s my example. Business would not likely be my first choice of a theme, but I spent some time considering how I might approach it from personal POV. In my business memoir, I could write about any one of several jobs I’ve held: working in the dish room in college and what it taught me about the satisfactions of manual labor, or the challenges of strategy in what may seem like mindless work; working at the salad factory one summer, when I sometimes spent eight hours boiling and peeling eggs and learning the social conventions of the break room; later in my adulthood working as an at-home freelance editor and the difficulties of balancing work and motherhood. Or I could write about family finances, contrasting my mother’s penciled monthly budgets with my own more “amorphous” accounting methods, or how the allowance question was handled when I was a child vs. now that I’m a parent. Or, as a third alternative, I could write about myself as a shopper; since books are my most important purchase, I could explore how my book-buying experience has changed through the decades.

Ethnography possibilities might include an interesting store with a well-defined subculture of shoppers (Hot Topic, the Apple store, a natural foods store); a bank or credit union; any other suggestions?

Argument topics might include the distribution of wealth (1% vs. 99%, Occupy movement, etc.); ATM fees; aggressive credit card marketing to teens; the impact of a “cashless” society on spending behavior and consumer debt; the desirability of including financial decision-making as part of high school curriculum; online buying trends and marketing strategies; the rise of sites like Etsy where artists can sell their own work.

Next week (second week of classes) I will be asking you to submit a proposal for the theme you’d like to tackle for the semester, along with some ideas about what you’re interested in reading and writing about; in addition, you must submit two alternate choices. More info to come on this…