WRIT 205 - Writers and Readers

Focuses on one of the most important characteristics of a successful writer: the ability to, first, imagine a reader’s point of view, and second, to establish an imaginary dialogue with that reader. The more the imagined reader anticipates the response of a real reader, the more power the writer can command. Students consider the following topics in depth: the split in the writer’s self - creator and editor; automatic language - the clichéd medium of conscious life; the practice of self-paraphrase to get beyond the automatic; the development of the writer’s potential voices; control over real readers; the imagined reader in the writer’s head; and alienation and authority in college-level writing. To accomplish the goal of developing awareness and control of the relationship between writer and reader, students establish a writing community that works primarily with rough drafts in a workshop format. Principles of helpful feedback/response are taught explicitly, and learning to be a supportive but critical reader improves the students’ editing skills at the same time that it models the realities of a reader’s difficulties in the hands of an unskilled but developing writer.

Credits: 1.00
Corequisite: None
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: None
Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts CORE: None

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