2017 Fall EH Courses
Writing Course Descriptions
EH 102: Seminar in Critical Thinking and Writing
Various professors and times.
A seminar on college-level writing and critical inquiry. The course emphasizes clear and
engaging prose, persuasive reasoning, various rhetorical strategies, research documentation, and
standard English grammar and mechanics.
EH 204: Writing for the Media
Brock, TTH 9:30-10:50
“Writing for the Media” (EH 204), originally titled “Writing for the Print Media,” is designed to
familiarize students with myriad aspects of journalism and to provide them opportunities to
practice professional, non-academic writing in a variety of formats. During the fall semester of
2015, blogging will become an integral part of the course for the first time.
You’re going to read a lot. We will focus on active, critical reading of stories published in
newspapers and magazines and on blogs, and in-depth exploration of how ideas and information
are presented in those stories. Deep engagement with model texts will help you prepare for your
own assignments, and you’re going to write almost as much as you read. After learning interview
techniques and methods of observational research, you will write at least one story in each of the
following categories: feature, profile, criticism, news, obituary, Q&A, narrative nonfiction,
multimedia reporting and oddities. (Oddities? What does she mean? Just you wait, kiddos. You’ll
know soon enough.) You will create and maintain your own blog and (possibly? probably? most
likely?) contribute to a blog that the class creates together.
Critical thinking and good writing are the essential ingredients of all journalism, but these are no
longer sufficient to get you a job. You must also have some social-media savvy. Because the first
word of the course title is “Writing,” that subject will be our focus, but I’d be derelict in my
duties to you if I failed to include at least a brief survey of the technological tools that are used
by professionals and citizen-journalists worldwide. That’s why each one of you will complete
at
least two multimedia reporting assignments
before the end of the semester. We will emphasize
the analog as well as the digital, occasionally using pencils, sketch pads, construction paper,
scissors and glue.
In summary, we’re going to have a bang-up good time learning how to write stories that are
accurate, informative and interesting.