Hashimoto's English 210--Expository Writing

Of the writing courses at Whitman, the students are probably the most diverse in English 210. This diversity is sometimes messy and often challenging--making English 210 probably the toughest course for me to teach. Because the course fits distribution credits, juniors and seniors sometimes take the course because they need credits in "Language and Linguistics." Others take the course because they want to have proof (maybe for Admissions applications to medical school) that they can write. Still others take English 210 because they had good experiences in English 110 and want to keep writing. Still others take the course because they could never get into English 110 and want to get A's in their academic subjects.

English 210 is more advanced than English 110--though because many people who take English 210 have not taken 110 (or took it from someone else), we always do some review. After that, we explore ways to make academic writing more interesting, more forceful, more elegant. We'll also try out other types of "expository" writing, including persuasion and types of persuasion--proposals, editorials, and critiques. We'll also do some exploratory work in non-academic formats--those based in chronology, for instance, and those that begin to look a little associational. (Some of this depends on the people who sign up for this course; we'll do a lot more with associational writing in English 310.) Assignments in English 210 are a little bit more complex than in English 110 (These students have had more experience with academic writing than freshmen and have certainly read more and thought about bigger, more essential academic issues; many also have declared their majors and have done some work with theory and research.)