ENGL 150
Expository Writing Spring 2017
Division I Writing Skills
This is not the current course catalog

Writing clearly is the most important skill you can learn in college. Do you suffer from writer’s block? Do you receive consistent criticism of your writing without also learning strategies for how to improve? This course is for students who want to learn how to write a well-argued, intelligible essay based on close, critical analysis of texts. We will derive our method for mastering the complex art of writing from Atul Gawande’s bestselling book, The Checklist Manifesto. In addition to sharpening your skills in reading, note-taking and literary analysis, this class will give you tools for generating drafts, peer editing, revising, and polishing your writing. The majority of the readings for this course will be literary essays, mostly contemporary, mostly American. (This course and English 152 focus more directly on basic expository writing skills than the other 100-level classes in the English department.)