Faculty Course Description
ENG303W: Advanced Expository Writing
Dr. M. E. Cooley
Professor
Office: Evans 233A
Office phone: 233-4078
e-mail: mcooley@berry.edu
I. Course Description:
The course is organized on the basic principles that any activity, like writing essays or playing a game of tennis, requires concepts that create images and define models of the task at hand and then requires those models to be utilized. Therefore, concepts and images of and about writing will be presented in lecture, in our texts, and through class discussions. We will then undertake the practice of those concepts as they apply to various aspects of the composing process. In particular, we will examine models of prewriting, drafting, and revision. We will then use those models to draft essays.
Another facet of this course will be a systematic examination of various “stylistic” or “craft” elements in essay writing. Using classical, contemporary, and rhetorical perspectives, we will attempt to incorporate into our writing more varied and more sophisticated “stylistic” and “craft” elements. Finally, we will analyze and critique our own writing as well as professional essays in our anthology.
II. Required Texts: In Depth Essays for Our Time, H.B.J., 1993..
The Inventive Writer by M. E. Cooley, D.C. Heath, 1993.
III. Purpose
An advanced course in expository writing attempts to provide students with conceptual knowledge behind the writing process as well as technical knowledge of stylistic and rhetorical elements and strategies. A synthesis of these should result in greater writing competence, sophistication, and, indeed, pleasure.
IV. Goals: for this Course
• To practice and gain grater competence in prewriting, drafting, revision, and editing skills and techniques.
• To understand the relationship between analytical thinking and writing-- a thought-to-content continuum in any writing.
• To create a useful sense of the ways in which audiences can and should affect one’s writing and to develop logical, stylistic, and rhetorical strategies specifically aimed toward a variety of audiences.
• To understand and use with competence basic rhetorical elements in essay writing.
• To gain an appreciation of stylistic elements in professional essays and to be able to manipulate stylistic elements within one’s own writing.
• To gain more competence and confidence in one’s own writing.
• To become a reasonably sophisticated critic of professional writing in its content and form