Course Description

University Writing is designed to help undergraduates read and write essays in order to participate in the academic conversations that form our intellectual community. We will give special attention to the practices of close reading, rhetorical analysis, research, collaboration, and substantive revision. Students will learn that writing is a process of continual refinement of ideas and their expression. Rather than approaching writing as an innate talent, this course will teach writing as a unique, learned skill that can be practiced and developed. Over the course of the semester, you will read and discuss texts from a number of fields, complete regular informal reading and writing exercises, write several longer essays, and prepare an op-ed for a public audience.

This section of University Writing will focus on readings that engage with issues of law and justice. Students will read about various aspects of law and justice, and they will also practice the kinds of close textual analysis that interpreters of the law regularly use. In this class, we will not attempt to discover a singular interpretation of law or a stable definition of justice; rather, we will wrestle with core questions of law and justice and that have important implications for our lives. Sections numbered in the .700s.