In this course, we will be looking at various media - print, the Internet, documentary film - to analyze, discuss, and write about how these sources reflect (and influence) the diversity and complexity of U.S. culture.

A major purpose of our inquiry will be to explore the concepts of space and place. To do this, we will use readings in our text, and we will also use the city of Mansfield as a text to "read," document, and analyze. A second purpose, then, is to determine just what it means to "document" a claim, an analysis, a report, an event. How do we choose sources? What constitutes a "valid" source in science, in business, in documentary film, in casual conversation?

This course fulfills the GEC 1B, Writing and Related Skills requirement. The purpose of courses in this category is to develop your skills in writing, reading, critical thinking, and oral expression. By the end of the course, you will have learned to apply basic skills in expository writing, demonstrate critical thinking through written and oral expression, and retrieve and use written information analytically and effectively.

This is the second-year writing course, so of course we will write. We will also learn to compose texts using pictures and sounds. We will complete two shorter projects that will become part of a longer multimedia documentary piece that you will present to the class. There will also be shorter informal writing and exercises. We will be composing some of our work using digital media like Graphic Converter, Audacity and iMovie, but you don't need any prior experience with computers and other digital equipment.

We will be looking at and talking about many texts in this class, and we will interpret "text" in the broadest terms, as anything - words, sounds, images - that communicates, that has meaning. Certainly many of these texts are made up of words, but we will also consider other texts, explore how they make meaning, and ask thoughtful questions about their purpose and audience.

I will provide some of these texts, but what will make this course exciting is what you bring to it. Often I will ask you to bring texts to class, and the more varied and interesting these texts are, the more varied and interesting the class will be.