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.

For most writing you have done for classes, you have provided sources to support the thesis you are advancing. These sources are the evidence that documents your claims. In this class, you will be studying the city of Mansfield, and the sources you use will include not only print, but also images, maps, interviews, video, and other forms of evidence. You will be "documenting" Mansfield - literally - creating rich, multmodal snapshots of its past, its present, and (your proposals for) its future.

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 you will write. You will also learn to compose texts using images and sounds. You 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. You will be composing some of your 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 texts made of sounds, images, and video; 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 (words, images, sounds, video) to class, and the more varied and interesting these texts are, the more varied and interesting the class will be.