Goals of Writing 101
First year students enter Davidson with plenty of reading and writing experience. In Writing 101 you have the opportunity to take these skills to a new level, developing the analytical and argumentative practices you need on your intellectual journey through Davidson’s curriculum. Every section of Writing 101 embraces four goals:
- Reading texts closely and critically for analytical and rhetorical purposes.
- Making fair and effective use of the works of others
- Drafting and revising arguments.
- Drawing upon multimodal and archival resources to serve specific rhetorical goals.
The way we attain these goals include the following practices:
- Drafting and revising texts—approximately 40 pages of prose throughout the semester, including informal writing, drafts, and revisions.
- Giving and receiving generous feedback on your writing from both your peers and me.
- Experimenting with various techniques for reading and writing critically.
- Encountering texts that can be approached from multiple perspectives with varying intellectual stakes.
- Working with librarians to find materials—online and off—that can deepen your engagement and understanding of comics and graphic novels.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the semester you will be able to:
- Read graphic narratives critically, which means asking questions, identifying patterns, and recognizing narrative and visual strategies in these narratives.
- Identify a critical question raised by a graphic narrative with significant intellectual, social, political, historical, scientific, or aesthetic interest.
- Locate authoritative resources that can help you answer or respond to a critical question.
- Compose an argument that articulates a core idea or question, situates it in a larger conversation, and asserts a clear, focused answer or hypothesis.
- Select, explain, and represent fairly and accurately relevant supporting and contradictory evidence.
- Adapt your writing style to various audiences and platforms.