ENGL 151-01, Composing Reality: Writing, Texts, and Life

Abstract

In this section of English 151, we will study how our lives intersect with texts and will work to better understand how we gauge what is “crafted” and what is “real” in our world(s). By critically reflecting on our own choices as writers, we will consider how we differentiate between acts of composition and other events, experiences, and artifacts that we value and use every day. Not only will we ask, “How do we make meaning out of the texts we encounter?” but also, “How do we recognize those texts and distinguish them from other endeavors in our lives?” As a writing community, we will examine our own experiences with literacy, explore how social and cultural events can be read as living texts, and investigate how the broad array of media and genres we interact with daily complicate our understanding of composition, life, and the relationship between them. Throughout this semester, you will be asked to consider and reconsider how you compose reality based on your unique integration of writing, texts, and life.