Undergraduate Subjects
Introductory
21W.730 Writing on Contemporary Issues
This subject focuses on forms of exposition, including narration, critique, argument, and persuasion, to develop students' ability to write clear and effective prose. Students write frequently, give and receive feedback on work in progress, improve their work by revising, read the work of accomplished writers, and participate actively in class discussions and workshops. Short oral presentations are also required. All sections emphasize writing with an awareness of audience and purpose. Readings and assignments vary by section and focus on themes such as contemporary social problems, the culture of food, forms of popular culture, and others. The subject is open to students at all class levels. Enrollment limited to 18.
Social and Ethical Issues - Andrea Walsh
This course provides the opportunity for students-- as readers, viewers, writers and speakers ---to engage with social and ethical issues that they care deeply about. Over the course of the semester, through discussing the writing of authors such as Marian Wright Edelman, Charles Dickens, Alan Dershowitz, Susan Faludi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan Kozol and Susanna Kaysen, we will explore different perspectives on a range of social issues such as the responsibilities of citizens, freedom of expression, poverty, homelessness, hunger, mental illness, capital punishment and racial and gender inequality. In addition, we will analyze selected photographs, as well as documentary and feature films (Girl, Interrupted and Dead Man Walking) that represent or dramatize social problems or issues. In assigned essays, students will have the opportunity to write about social and ethical issues of their own choice. This course aims to help students to grow significantly in their ability to understand and compare arguments, to integrate secondary print and visual sources and to craft vibrant, well-reasoned and elegant essays and grant proposals. Students will also keep a reading journal and give oral presentations. In class we will discuss assigned texts, explore strategies for successful academic writing, freewrite and respond to one another's essays.
Introduction to Rhetoric - Suzanne Lane
We’ve all heard pundits or politicians say that we need to “cut through the rhetoric,” as if rhetoric were a kind of smokescreen hiding the truth. From the time Plato, in fact, both citizens and philosophers have worried about the power of skilled rhetoricians to shape public opinion through a misuse of “rhetoric,” in a way that obscures the truth. But scholars have also argued for rhetoric as a method of discovering truth, and for a more nuanced and complex relationship among rhetoric, inquiry, and knowledge. This section of 21W.730 takes rhetoric, in all its complexity, as the subject of study. Through reading analysts and practitioners of rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama, we’ll study rhetoric as a body of knowledge that offers us a means of developing persuasive arguments, a method of analyzing written, oral, and visual texts, and a mode of human inquiry. Along the way we’ll read political speeches, academic arguments, newspapers, television, and online news reports, and even photographs. We’ll write analyses that consider how other writers use rhetoric, and we’ll apply rhetorical principles as we construct our own persuasive arguments, both written and oral and visual. Throughout the semester, we’ll investigate what these writers can teach us about our own writing: how to understand our audience and the situations we address, invent ideas and develop persuasive appeals, organize our claims and evidence, and develop an eloquent style.
Food for Thought: Writing and Reading about the Cultures of Food - Karen Boiko
If you are what you eat, what are you? Food is at once the stuff of life and a potent symbol; it binds us to the earth, to our families, and to our cultures. The aroma of turkey roasting or the taste of green tea can be a portal to memories, while too many Big Macs can clog our arteries. The chef is an artist, yet those who pick oranges or process meat may be little more than slaves. In this class, we will explore many of the fascinating issues that surround food as both material fact and as personal and cultural symbol. We will read essays by Michael Pollan, Ruth Reichl, Wendell Berry, and others on such topics as family meals, the art and science of cooking, sustainable agriculture, and food's ability to awaken us to "our own powers of enjoyment" (M.F.K. Fisher). We will also read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and view at least one video as a class. Assigned essays will grow out of memories and the texts we read, and will include personal narratives and essays that depend on research. Workshop review of writing in progress and revision of essays will be an integral part of the course.
Culture Shock! Writing, Editing, and Publishing in Cyberspace - Rebecca Faery
In this course we will read and write essays, at once critical and experiential, based in contemporary popular culture and in personal experience, observation, inclination, and conviction. The focus of our collaborative work will be to create an online magazine of writing on popular culture that we will post on the web for the worldwide reading public to enjoy. Students in the class will write four essays and offer them in class workshops for response and suggestions and then revise and edit their own and each other's work for publication in our magazine. Members of the class will serve on editorial boards to decide what gets published, on design teams to create and format the magazine, and on marketing teams to publicize it. Frequent writing and revision, class workshops, discussion of assigned reading, and production work on the group's magazine will constitute our work together throughout the semester. The fruit of our labors? An online magazine, and publication for everyone in the class.
21W.731 Writing and Experience
This subject focuses on the ways writers transform experience into finished and polished writing in the forms of essay, memoir, and autobiography. Students write frequently, give and receive response to work in progress, improve their writing by revising, read the work of accomplished writers, and participate actively in class discussions and workshops. Short oral presentations are also required. All sections emphasize writing with an awareness of audience and purpose. Readings and specific writing assignments vary by section. The subject is open to students at all class levels. Enrollment limited to 18.
Reading and Writing Autobiography - Bill Corbett
This course draws on a wide range of autobiographical writing and on my own memoir, Furthering My Education. The essays you write will focus on your own experience, exploring such topics as your intellectual growth and development, your childhood and high school years, life at MIT, the influence of place upon your personality and character, the role politics and religion play in your life, and topics of your own choice. The emphasis will be on clarity, specificity and structure. We will investigate several modes of writing--narrative, analytical, expository--suitable to the task at hand.
The Politics And Poetics of Food: Self, Community, Memory Food - Kym Ragusa
Food is both material and symbolic, sustenance for the body and nourishment for the spirit. Its preparation and consumption is both an everyday practice and a doorway to memory, something that connects us to something larger than ourselves: to our families, our histories, our cultures, our immediate communities, and to the larger world around us. In this course we will combine personal experience and readings to explore the many different meanings of the things we eat. Our texts will include essays and excerpts of books by MFK Fisher, Michael Pollan, Jose Bove, Caroline Knapp, Bich Minh Nguyen, Louise DeSalvo, Elizabeth Erlich, Diana Abu-Jaber, and Ntozake Shange, among others. Writing assignments will include a series of short descriptive pieces, two personal essays, and a personal essay that incorporates research. Peer-centered workshops and revision will be essential elements of our work throughout the course.
Writing in an Age of Spin - Lucy Marx
In 1946, George Orwell wrote that English was in a bad way, and implored those who use the language to use it "as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought"; His plea seems remarkably relevant today. In an age increasingly dominated by marketing, packaging, and spin, how can we discern clear and transparent communication, and how can we practice it ourselves? These are the essential questions we'll use to guide us as you try your hand at writing grounded in your own experience. We'll read Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt's 2005 essay "On Bullshit" to orient ourselves to the essential traits of spin, or, as he puts it more bluntly, "bullshit"; We'll study writing that conveys experience and expresses ideas lucidly and with an eye for the truth from such writers as George Orwell, Junot Diaz, Annie Dillard, Nadine Gordimer, Michael Pollan, Marjane Satrapi, Amy Tan, and David Foster Wallace. We'll consider the observations and advice of those who attempt to analyze the elements of authentic and transparent writing. But most of all we'll practice spin-free communication ourselves. In addition to writing, we'll work on developing oral communication skills in workshops, class conversations, and presentations. We'll make time for "studio" writing sessions aimed at focusing our attention on the specific and real. And we will practice revision, based on workshop responses, as you try to convey your experiences, tap your imaginations, and develop your ideas beyond the confines of cliche; or spin.
Exploring Self in Society - Andrea Walsh
Our reading and writing for this section will focus on what it means to construct a sense of self and a life narrative in relation to the larger social world of family and friends, education, media, work, and community. What does it mean to see ourselves as embodying particular ethical values or belonging to a certain ethnic, racial, national, or religious group? How do we imagine ourselves within a larger family narrative? In what ways do we view our identities as connected to and expressed by our educational and work experiences? How do we see ourselves as shaping and shaped by the popular media culture of our society? What does it mean to think about our social responsibility to our smaller and larger human communities? Readings will include nonfiction and fiction works by authors such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Andre Dubus, Anne Frank, Jhumpa Lahiri, Tim O'Brien, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff and Alice Walker. Throughout the semester we will explore the craft of storytelling; our central focus will be on the different ways in which we can employ the tools of fiction (e.g., character, setting, dialogue) in creative nonfiction. We will also examine the multiple ways in which students can write effective essays and craft persuasive arguments drawing on both experiential data and secondary sources. Course requirements include submitting four major writing assignments as well as regular short writing exercises, giving oral presentations and responding in writing, and orally in workshop, to one another's writing.
21W.732 Science Writing and New Media
This subject focuses on writing about science and new media and emphasizes developing students' ability to write clear and effective prose for a range of media. Individual sections focus on technical and scientific writing, writing about science for a public audience, the environment, digital media, and others. Students in all sections write frequently, give and receive feedback on work in progress, improve their writing by revising, read the work of accomplished writers, and participate actively in class discussions and workshops. Short oral presentations are also required. Readings and specific assignments vary by section. The subject is open to students at all class levels. Enrollment limited to 18.
Explorations in Scientific and Technical Writing - Andrea Walsh
This course is designed to help students to improve their skills in scientific and technical communication. Over the course of the term, through a variety of reading and writing assignments, we will examine the general principles of good writing, as well as principles that are associated with specific types of scientific and technical documents. We will also address strategies for conveying scientific and technical information to both specialist and non-specialist audiences. Written assignments will include a literature review essay, a report suitable for a general readership, and a resume and job letter. Students also will have the opportunity to write a grant proposal for a nonprofit organization or community service project. In their writing, students are encouraged to choose topics that reflect their own interests. Students are asked to revise each major assignment, responding to feedback from the instructor and their peers. In addition, students will give at least one oral presentation. Throughout the semester, students will have many opportunities to improve their writing skills, not only by crafting their own essays, proposals and reports, but also by responding critically and constructively to the written work of their peers.
Explorations in Scientific and Technical Writing - Janis Melvold
Skill in communicating about science and technology comes from both knowledge and practice, and this course emphasizes both. Through a variety of reading and writing assignments, we will examine general principles of good writing, as well as principles associated specifically with scientific and technical writing. To help you become more proficient in assessing, revising, and editing your writing, the course emphasizes the importance of the writing process. Class time will involve discussions of scientific articles and essays, as well as small group workshops in which students offer feedback on each other's writing. Assignments will include, for example, a critical review, technical essays for general and specialized audiences, and a design proposal. The topics you write on will be of your own choosing, reflecting your background and interests. While the primary emphasis will be on writing, oral communication will also be important. You will have the opportunity to practice oral communication skills in class discussions, as well as through formal and informal presentations.
Perspectives on Medicine and Public Health - Cynthia Taft
Like other scientists, medical researchers and clinicians must be capable of presenting their work to an audience of professional peers. Unlike many scientists, however, physicians must routinely translate their sophisticated knowledge into lay terms for their own patients and for the education of the public at large. A surprising number of physicians write for less utilitarian reasons as well, choosing the narrative essay as a means of exploring the non-technical issues that emerge in their clinical practice. Over the course of the semester we will explore the full range of writings by physicians and other health practitioners. Some of the writer/physicians that we encounter will be Oliver Sacks, Atul Gawande, Danielle Ofri, Richard Selzer, and William Carlos Williams. Students need have no special training, only a general interest in medicine or in public health issues such as AIDS, asthma, malaria control, and obesity. The writing assignments, like the readings, will invite students to consider the distinctive needs of different audiences. Assignments will include a critical review of two articles from the New England Journal of Medicine or another similar journal, a literature review geared toward an audience of health professionals, a report suitable for general publication, two oral presentations, an autobiographical narrative, a resume, and a job application letter. Students will learn to respond constructively to the work of others and to revise their own work in the light of comments from the instructor and from their peers.
Exploring Rhetoric, Technology, and Literacy - Neal Lerner
Communication technologies - including the World Wide Web, email, PowerPoint, and instant messaging - have infiltrated our day-to-day lives. While these mediums of disseminating information seem commonplace, less understood is how we might manipulate (or be manipulated by) their rhetorical functions or the components of audience, purpose, content, and design. In this section of 21W.732, we will study the rhetoric of technology and the relationship between technology and literacy. We will also likely be studying these topics and creating written work in the service of an outside client through MIT's Public Service Center. Written and oral assignments (including a group presentation) will be required and include analysis and creation of websites, studies of electronic communication in a variety of contexts - particularly the workplace - and problem solving of issues in e-communication. Both individual and collaborative writing will be stressed, as will the process be of drafting, revision, and editing.
Writing and the Environment - Cynthia Taft
Environmentalists have traditionally relied upon the power of their prose to transform the thoughts and behavior of their contemporaries. In 1948, an early environmentalist, Aldo Leopold, summoned up a world made barren by the loss of predators in the hope that he could stop the slaughter of wolves. More recently, Rachel Carson, a marine biologist with a penchant for writing, described a world without wildlife in Silent Spring and altered the way Americans understood their impact on the landscape. Leopold and Carson were professional scientists, and like the other writers we will encounter this semester, they realized that they could alter the perceptions of their contemporaries only if they were able to transmit their knowledge in engaging and accessible language. We will do our best to follow in their footsteps. We will consider the strategies of popular science writers like Lewis Thomas, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Stephen Jay Gould. We will also sample works by less well known geologists, hydrologists, and biologists. The writing assignments, like the readings, will invite students to consider the distinctive needs of different audiences. Assignments will include a critical review of two articles from a recent science journal, a literature review geared toward an audience of environmental scientists, a report suitable for general publication, two oral presentations, an autobiographical narrative, a resume and a job application letter. Students will learn to respond constructively to the work of others and to revise their own work in the light of comments from the instructor and from their peers.
Explorations in Scientific and Technical Communication - Janis Melvold
Skill in communicating about science and technology comes from both knowledge and practice, and this course emphasizes both. Through a variety of reading and writing assignments, we will examine general principles of good writing as well as principles associated specifically with scientific and technical writing. To help you become more proficient in assessing, revising, and editing your writing, the course emphasizes the importance of the writing process. Class time will involve discussions of scientific articles and essays, as well as small group workshops in which students offer feedback on each other's writing. Assignments will include, for example, a critical review, technical essays for general and specialized audiences, and a design proposal. The topics you write on will be of your own choosing, reflecting your background and interests. While the primary emphasis will be on writing, oral communication will also be important. You will have the opportunity to practice oral communication skills in class discussions, as well as through formal and informal presentations.
Elements of Science Writing for the Public - Marcia Bartusiak
An introduction to writing about science for a general audience. Students gain experience in interviewing, researching a story idea, and translating scientific and technical concepts into lay language. Each writing assignment focuses on a different form news, interview, explanatory, feature, book review which are workshopped in class and revised. Readings of accomplished science writers are analyzed and discussed in conjunction with each writing assignment. Topics will cover a range of scientific fields. Open to all students; required for majors in science writing.
Introduction to Digital Media - Ed Barrett
Focuses on digital media production and associated written and oral reports. Students, singly and in small collaborative teams, create a variety of digital media projects throughout the term, culminating in a larger final project of their choosing. Assignments focus on web site design, digital audio and video production, digital literary systems, mobile technology, and class readings. Writing assignments include weekly blog postings on readings, a proposal, a progress report and a completion report for the final project. Open to all students; normally required for writing majors in digital media.
21W.734J (21l.000J) Writing about Literature
Intensive focus on the reading and writing skills used to analyze literary texts such as poems by Emily Dickson, Shakespeare or Langston Hughes; short stories by Chekov, Joyce, or Alice Walker; and a short novel by Melville or Toni Morrison. Designed not only to prepare students for further work in writing and literary and media study, but also to provide increased confidence and pleasure in their reading, writing and analytical skills. Students write or revise essays weekly. See below for sections. Enrollment limited.
Writing about Literature - Wyn Kelley
Students, scholars, bloggers, reviewers, and book-group members write about literature, but so do authors themselves. Through the ways they engage with their own texts and those of other artists, remixing and reinventing as they go, writers reflect on and inspire questions about the creative process. This course will allow students to observe their own habits as readers and writers; study the ways authors manipulate their materials to create new works; and develop tools for evaluating their own literary interpretations and arguments. In workshops that involve journal-writing, wikis, team presentations, group discussion, and peer review, students will examine, among others, Shakespeare’s adaptation of his Italian sources in Romeo and Juliet; Mary Shelley’s reshaping of Milton, German fairy tales, galvanism, and her own husband’s poems to make Frankenstein; Melville’s redesign of a travel narrative into a Gothic novella in Benito Cereno; and Alison Bechdel’s rewriting of the western comic canon in her graphic novel Fun Home. Film versions of some of these works will allow us to project forward in the remixing process as well.
Crossing Borders - Kate Delaney
This class offers limited enrollment with a strong emphasis on class discussion, frequent writing and revision, in-class student reports, and writing workshops. Readings will be drawn from a variety of literary forms and will focus on the theme of crossing borders: travel writing as well as literature of exile, expatriation, and immigration. We will study short and long fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, and the graphic novel. We will also consider film treatments of some of these works to investigate the effects of performance of the narrative in another medium. Works by Bruce Chatwin, Susan Orlean, Marjane Satrapi, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ernest Hemingway, Milcha Sanchez-Scott, Redmond O'Hanlon, and David Bezmozgis will be the focus of our study. Students will learn to discuss and write about literary techniques as well as the works' cultural and historical context. In exploring the treatment of similar themes by different authors and in different genres, we will investigate questions of voice and form. Students are required to prepare oral as well as written responses to the works.
Writing about Literature - Ina Lipkowitz
Why do we write about literature? To help us clarify our own understanding of the story or poem or play, as well as to communicate that understanding to another person who might see the work very differently. Because literary works invite such different interpretations, writing about them is less a matter of proving a universal truth than of suggesting a well-informed and meaningful possibility. In this class, we'll read and talk about a variety of stories, poems, short novels, and/or plays, all of which can be understood in many ways. We'll also read and talk about students' essays in order to see how other people express and develop their ideas. The goal is to learn to not only put up with, but to actually enjoy the many possible meanings of literary works and to experiment with types of essays that reflect rather than limit the work's richness. Readings vary, but may include stories by William Faulkner, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, Anzia Yezierska, James Joyce, Penelope Fitzgerald, Jhumpa Lahiri; plays by Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, or Samuel Becket; and poems by John Donne, John Keats, and Emily Dickinson.
21W.754J (21M.604J) Playwriting I - Laura Harrington
Introduces the craft of writing for the theater. Through weekly assignments, in class writing exercises, and work on a sustained piece, students explore scene structure, action, events, voice, and dialogue. Examine produced play-scripts and discuss student work. Emphasis on process, risk-taking, and finding one's own voice and vision.
21W.755 Writing and Reading Short Stories - Helen Elaine Lee, Shariann Lewitt
Introduction to the short story. Students write stories and short descriptive sketches. Readings from European and American stories from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Class discussion of students' writing and of the assigned stories in their historical and social contexts.
21W.756 Writing and Reading Poems - Bill Corbett
Examination of the formal structure and textual variety in poetry. Extensive practice in the making of poems and the analysis of both students' manuscripts and texts from 16th-through 20th- century literature. Attempts to make relevant the traditional elements of poetry and their contemporary alternatives. Weekly writing assignments, including some exercises in prosody.
Advanced
21W.735 Writing and Reading the Essay - Rebecca Faery
Prereq: 21W.730, or excellent writing sample and permission of instructor
Exploration of formal and informal modes of writing nonfiction prose. Extensive practice in composition, revision, and editing. Reading in the literature of the essay from the Renaissance to the present, with an emphasis on modern writers. Classes alternate between discussion of published readings and workshops on student work. Individual conferences.
21W.736 News Writing - B.D. Colen
An introduction to the basics of print journalism, including an overview of journalistic ethics and life in the newsroom. Students learn basis reporting techniques, interviewing, and news writing, with an emphasis on accuracy, clarity, and brevity. Most writing done in class whereby students learn to write under time pressure, as well as in a distracting environment. Techniques of investigative reporting including interviewing and research into public and private sources are assigned on a weekly basis for outside classroom work.
21W.739J (21L.448J) Darwin and Design - Jim Paradis, Alvin Kibel
In The Origin of Species, Darwin provided a model for understanding the existence of objects and systems manifesting evidence of design without posting a designer, and of purpose and mechanism without intelligent agency. Texts deal with pre-Darwinian and later treatment of this topic within literature and speculative thought since the 18th century, with some attention to the modern study of feedback mechanism in artificial intelligence. Readings in Hume, Voltaire, Malthus, Darwin, Butler, Hardy, H.G. Wells, and Freud.
21W.740 Writing Autobiography and Biography - Ken Manning
Writing an autobiography is a vehicle for improving one's style while studying the nuances of the language. Literary works are read with an emphasis on different forms of autobiography. Students examine various stages of life, significant transitions, personal struggles, and memories translated into narrative prose, and discuss: what it means for autobiographer and biographer to develop a personal voice; and the problems of reality and fiction in autobiography and biography.
21W.741J Black Matters: Intro to Black Studies - T. DeFrantz, C. Capozzola
Interdisciplinary survey that explores the experiences of people of African descent through the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. Connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns. Includes lectures, discussions, workshops, and required field trips that involve minimal cost to students.
21W.742J Writing about Race - Kym Ragusa
The issue of race and racial identity have preoccupied many writers throughout the history of the US. Students read Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Louise Erdrich, William Faulkner, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sandra Cisneros, and Judson Mitcham, and consider the story of race in its peculiarly American dimensions. The reading, along with the writing of members of the class, is the focus of class discussions. Oral presentations on subjects of individual interest are also part of the class activities. Students explore race and ethnicity in personal essays, pieces of cultural criticism or analysis, or (with persmission of instructor) fiction. All written work is read and responded to in class workshops and subsequently revised. Enrollment limited.
21W.745 Advanced Essay Workshop - Rebecca Faery
Prereq: Permission of instructor
For students with experience in writing essays and nonfiction prose. Focuses on negotiating and representing identities grounded in gender, race, class, nationality, and sexuality in prose that is expository, exploratory, investigative, persuasive, lyrical, or incantatory. Authors include James Baldwin, Minne Bruce Pratt, Audre Lorde, Richard Rodriguez, Alice Walker, John Edgar Wideman, Diana Hume George, bell hooks, Margaret Atwood, Patricia J. Williams, and others. Designed to help students build upon their strengths as writers and to expand their repertoire of styles and approaches in essay writing.
21W.746 Humanistic Perspectives on Medicine:
From Ancient Greece to Modern America - Ken Manning
For students with experience in nonfiction prose and interest in the non-science side of medicine. Advanced study of the art of essay (form, style, techniques of persuasion) and practice of that form. Students required to write substantial essays and revise their work. Students read and discuss the writings of distinguished physicians from antiquity to the late 20th century.
21W.747 Rhetoric - Les Perelman, Steve Strang, Mya Poe
For students with a special interest in learning how to make forceful arguments in written form. Studies the forms and structures of argumentation, including organization of ideas, awareness of audience, methods of persuasion, evidence, factual vs. emotional argument, figures of speech, and historical forms and uses of arguments.
21W.749 Documentary Photography and Photojournalism: Still Images of a World in Motion - B. D. Colen
Prereq: Permission of instructor
Designed to increase students' understanding of, appreciation for, and ability to do documentary photography and photojournalism. Each three-hour class is divided between a discussion of issues and readings, and a group critique of students' projects. Students must have their own photographic equipment and be responsible for processing and printing: either by student or commercial lab. Students must show basic proficiency with their equipment. Readings include Susan Sontag, Robert Coles, Ken Light, Eugene Richards, and others. Previous photographic experience required. Enrollment limited to 15.
21W.750 Experimental Writing - Nick Montfort
Students use innovative compositional techniques to write extraordinary texts, focusing on new writing methods rather than on traditional lyrical or narrative concerns. Writing experiments, conducted individually, collaboratively and during class meetings, culminate in chapbook-sized projects. Students read, listen to, and create different types of work, including sound poetry, cut-ups, constrained and Oulipian writing, uncreative writing, sticker literature, false translations, artists' books, and digital projects.
21W.752(U)/824(G) Making Documentary: Video, Audio and More - Vivek Bald, Tom Levenson
Prereq: 21W.786, 21A.339, or permission of instructor
This course focuses on the technical demands of long-form storytelling in sound and picture. Students build practical writing and production skills through a series of assignments: still photo-text works, audio-only documentaries (radio/podcast), short video projects (>4 minutes), and a semester-long team produced video documentary (12-15 minutes). Readings, screenings and written work hone students’ analytical capacity. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments. Students from the Graduate Program in Science Writing will center their work on topics in science, technology, engineering and/or medicine.
21W.757 Fiction Workshop - Helen Elaine Lee
Prereq: 21W.755
For students interested in developing their understanding of the craft of fiction. Weekly workshop discussions of students' work focus on analysis of structure, style, and characterization. Emphasis on editing and revision. Reading and discussion of 19th- and 20th- century authors, such as Babel, Carver, Chekhov, Faulkner, Kafka, Orwell, Marquez, and Woolf.
21W.758 Genre Fiction Workshop - Junot Díaz
Prereq: A subject in writing short fiction or comparable writing experience
Students read stories from various genres about catastrophes, natural and human-made, and write stories in specific genres, although not necessarily about the reading topic. Readings include The Last Days of Pompeii (historical fiction), The Tin Roof Blowdown (suspense), Road (fantasy), and the science fiction novels No Blade of Grass and A Canticle for Leibowitz. Students consider genre protocols and how to write within the restrictions and freedoms associated with each genre. Students write a short reaction to each novel, and one short story within a genre or between genres for round-table workshopping. Enrollment limited to 15 students.
21W.759 Writing Science Fiction - Joe Haldeman
Students write and read science fiction and analyze and discuss stories written for the class. For the first eight weeks, readings in contemporary science fiction accompany lectures and formal writing assignments intended to illuminate various aspects of writing craft as well as the particular problems of writing science fiction. The rest of the term is given to roundtable workshops on students' stories.
21W.762 Poetry Workshop - Erica Funkhouser
For students with some previous experience in poetry writing. Frequent assignments stress use of language, diction, word choice, line breaks, imagery, mood, and tone. Considers the functions of memory, imagination, dreams, poetic impulses. Throughout the term, students examine the work of published poets. Revision stressed.
21W.763J (CMS.309J) Transmedia Storytelling: Modern Science Fiction - Beth Coleman
Students investigate the genre of science fiction across the different media that include the short story, the screenplay, moving image, and games. Students write critical essays and their own works of science fiction, and submit critical analyses of each other's efforts in a roundtable workshop environment.
21W.764J(CMS.609J) The Word Made Digital - Nick Montfort
Video games, digital art and literature, online texts, and source code are analyzed in the contexts of history, culture, and computing platforms. Approaches from poetics and computer science are used to understand the non-narrative digital uses of text. Students undertake critical writing and creative computer projects to encounter digital writing through practice. This involves reading and modifying computer programs; therefore previous programming experience, although not required, will be helpful. The graduate section includes additional assignments. Maximum of 18 students.
21W.765J(21L.489J) Interactive and Non-Linear Narrative: Theory and Practice - Nick Montfort
Techniques of creating narratives that take advantage of the flexibility of form offered by the computer. Study of the structural properties of book-based narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time and of storyline. Analysis of the structure and evaluation of the literary qualities of computer-based narratives including hypertexts, adventure games, and classic artificial intelligence programs like Eliza. With this base, students use authoring systems to model a variety of narrative techniques and to create their own fictions. Knowledge of programming helpful but not necessary.
21W.766J(SP.574J) Contemporary US Women of Color: Writing and Reading Short Stories - Helen Elaine Lee
Students read short stories by Native American, Latina, African-American, and Asian-American women writers and write their own stories and descriptive sketches. Writing assignments and discussions focus on these themes: reclaiming, reconstructing, and preserving culture; cultural heritage as a source of power and resistance; storytelling as a means of celebration and survival; shifting, contending, and multiple identities; the costs and advantages of breaking silence; and tensions between assimilation and maintaining cultural practices.
21W.767J(CMS.612) Writing for Videogames - Clara Fernandez Vara
Explores the convergence of fiction, dramatic writing and game design in writing for videogames. Addresses the problematic relationship between storytelling and games, from both an analytical and practical standpoint. Discusses theory and analysis of pre-existing games. Assignments provide students the opportunity to tackle specific writing problems in a creative way. Basic programming knowledge and previous coursework in game design, videogame theory, interactive narrative or play writing is useful but not required. Graduate students complete additional assignments.
Limited to 15.
21W.768J(CMS.616) Social and Cultural Facets of Digital Games - Mia Consalvo
Examines social, cultural, economic and political aspects of digital games across all platforms. Topics reflect a particular social or cultural theme and include the culture of gameplay, gaming communities, the politics and economics of production processes, persistence in virtual worlds, the ethics of games, and identity as it relates to gameplay. Discussions cover classic gameplay theories as well as more contemporary readings. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
21W.769J(21M.785J) Playwrights' Workshop - Alan Brody
Prereq: 21M.604, 21W.754 or permission of the instructor
Continues work in the development of play scripts for the theater. Writers work on sustained pieces in weekly workshop meetings, individual consultation with the instructor, and in collaboration with student actors, directors, and designers. Fully developed scripts eligible for inclusion in the Playwrights' Workshop production.
21W.770 Advanced Fiction Workshop - Helen Elaine Lee
Prereq: Permission of the instructor
For students with some experience in writing fiction. Write longer works of fiction and short stories which are related or interconnected. Read short story collections by individual writers, such as Sandra Cisneros, Raymond Carver, Edward P. Jones, and Tillie Olsen, and discuss them critically and analytically, with attention to the ways in which the writers' choices about component parts contribute to meaning. In-class exercises and weekly workshops of student work focus on sources of story material, characterization, structure, narrative voice, point of view and concrete detail. Concentration on revision.
21W.771 Advanced Poetry Workshop - Erica Funkhouser
Prereq: Prior manuscript submission required
For students experiences in writing poems. Regular reading of published contemporary poets and weekly submission of manuscripts for class review and criticism. Students expected to do a substantial amount of rewriting and revision. Classwork supplemented with individual conferences.
21W.772 Digital Poetry - Ed Barrett
Digital forms of poetry, including hypertext poems, Flash-animated poems, poems within short digital videos and interactive forms of poetry and games. Readings in early hypertext theory and creative writing. Experiment with creating poetry for wireless access on hand held devices. Test the assumptions of these early theorists through practice of creating digital poetry. Students discuss online examples of each of these kinds of digital poetry and then compose their own work, to present in class for critique and revision. The final project allows students to build upon their experience throughout the term with these forms.
21W.773 Writing Longer Fiction - Joe Haldeman
Prereq: A fiction workshop or permission of instructor
Designed for students who have some experience in writing fiction and want to try longer forms like the novella and novel. Students interested in writing a novel are expected to produce at least two chapters and an outline of the complete work. Readings include several novels from Fitzgerald to the present, and novellas from Gogol's The Overcoat to current examples. Students discuss one another's writing in a roundtable workshop, with a strong emphasis on revision.
21W.774 Invention and Ingenuity: Writing about Engineers and the Worlds They Make - Rob Kanigel
Introduction to science writing for general audiences, with a particular emphasis on engineers and their work. Through structured writing assignments devoted to engineering as practiced today or in the past, students learn to tell nonfiction stories, explore the intellectual and creative puzzles engineers face, comment on engineering's social and cultural impact, and illuminate the human drama in engineering work. Students also read and critically discuss compelling examples of such writing in newspapers, magazines, and popular books. Maximum of 16 students.
21W.775 Writing about Nature and Environmental Issues - Karen Boiko
Focuses on traditional nature writing and the environmentalist essay. Students keep a web log as a journal. Writings are drawn from the tradition of nature writing and from contemporary forms of the environmentalist essay. Authors include Henry Thoreau, Loren Eiseley, Annie Dillard, Chet Raymo, Sue Hubbel, Rachel Carson, Bill McKibben, and Terry Tempest Williams.
21W.777 The Science Essay - Karen Boiko
Drawing in part from their own interests and ideas, students write about science within various cultural contexts. Students employ a broad repertoire of literary tools, such as narrative, scene-setting, and attention to larger issues of structure. Students study the work of science writers such as Alan Lightman, Oliver Sacks and Malcolm Gladwell to help them create essays of substance and grace that have science and technology as their subjects. Not a technical writing class.
21W.778 Science Journalism - Tom Levenson
An introduction to print daily journalism and news writing, focusing on science news writing in general, and medical writing in particular. Emphasis is on writing clearly and accurately under deadline pressure. Class discussions involve the realities of modern journalism, how newsrooms function, and the science news coverage in daily publications. Discussions of, and practice in, interviewing and various modes of reporting. In class, students write numerous science news stories on deadline. There are additional longer writing assignments outside of class. Enrollment limited.
21W.781J Communicating About Technology: Colossal Failures in Engineering - William Haas
Explores communication about technological subjects in the context of colossal engineering failures including Three Mile Island, Bhopal, the Columbia Shuttle, 9/11, and Katrina. Examines the basic engineering principles and the social context of several such failures in case studies from various engineering disciplines. Students see how problematic communications, sometimes subtly unrecognizable at the time, significantly contributed to the final failures. Students collaborate to produce a final written and oral research report that anticipates a potential failure and makes recommendations for avoiding it. Multiple sections, each limited to 18 students.
21W.782J(STS.014J) Principles and Practice of Science Communication - John Durant
Develop skills as science communicators through projects and analysis of theoretical principles. Case studies explore the emergence of popular science communication over the past two centuries and the changing relationships among authors, audiences and media. Project topics are identified early in the term, and feature opportunities to work with the MIT Museum staff or participate in a city wide Cambridge Science Festival. Projects may involve physical exhibits, practical demonstrations, or scripts for public programs.
21W.784 Becoming Digital: Writing about Media Change - Ben Miller
Compares pre-digital to digital media to explore the unique problems that arise in this transition, including the manipulability of digital images, the ethics of anonymity on the Internet, the social repercussions of the computer, and the allure of computer gaming. Readings include subject-specific texts, augmented by philosophical articles relevant to the course themes, and some film. Frequent writing and revision, an oral presentation, and intensive class participation are required. Enrollment limited to 18.
21W.785 Communicating with Web-Based Media - Vivek Bald
Analysis, design, implementation, and testing of various forms of digital communication through group collaboration. Students are encouraged to think about the Web and other new digital interactive media not just in terms of technology but also broader issues such as language (verbal and visual), design, information architecture, communication and community. Students work as small groups on a term-long project of their choice. Various written and oral presentations document project development.
21W.786J(CMS.336J) The Social Documentary: Analysis and Production - Vivek Bald
An introduction to the history of the social documentary from the 1960s through the 1980s. Explores how social upheaval and the shift to smaller, more portable film cameras, and ultimately hand-held video, converged to bring about an upsurge of socially engaged documentary film production. Students screen and analyze a series of key films from the period and work in groups to produce their own short documentary using digital video and computer-based editing. Enrollment limited to 18.
21W.787 Film, Music and Social Change - Vivek Bald
Examines films from the 1950s onward that document music subcultures and moments of social upheaval. Combines screening films about free jazz, glam rock, punk, reggae, hip-hop, and other genres with an examination of critical/scholarly writings to illuminate the connections between film, popular music, and processes of social change. Students critique each film in terms of the social, political, and cultural world it documents, and the historical context and effects of the film's reception. Students taking the graduate version of this subject (CMS.837) complete additional assignments. Enrollment limited to 18 students.
21W.788J South Asian America: Transnational Media, Culture, and History - Vivek Bald
Examines the history of South Asian immigration, sojourning, and settlement from the 1880s to the present. Focuses on the US as one node in the global circulation, not only of people, but of media, culture and ideas, through a broader South Asian diaspora. Considers the concept of “global media” historically; emphasis on how ideas about, and self-representations of, South Asians have circulated via books, political pamphlets, performance, film, video/cassette tapes, and the internet. Students analyze and discuss scholarly writings, archival documents, memoirs, fiction, blogs and films, and write papers drawing on course materials, lectures, and discussions.
Limited to 18.
21W.789 Communicating with Mobile Technology - Ed Barrett
Students work in small collaborative design teams to propose, build, and document a semester-long project focused on mobile applications for cell phones. Additional assignments include creating several small mobile applications such as context-aware mobile media capture and games. Students document their work through a series of written and oral proposals, progress reports, and final reports. Covers the basic of J2ME and explores mobile imaging and media creation. GPS location, user-centered design, usability testing, and prototyping. Java experience recommended.
21W.791J(CMS.614) Identity and the Internet - Mia Consalvo
Focuses on various aspects of identity, including gender, race, class, sexuality, ability and age, as they are expressed in and through internet-related technologies. Theories and readings focus on the cultural, social, economic and political aspects of Internet use and design. The Internet is defined broadly to include networked capability in computers, mobile devices, entertainment technologies, and emerging media forms. Covers foundational as well as more recent readings. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.
21W.792 Science Writing Internship
Part-time internships in Boston-area media and industries are arranged for students wishing to develop professional writing and publishing skills. Students planning to take this subject must contact the instructor by November of the previous term.
21W.797 Communication Workshop for CME - Mya Poe
Prereq: Acceptance in the CME program
Communication intensive subject for MIT undergraduates participating in the Cambridge-MIT Exchange program. Intensive week-long workshop focuses on written communication, including discipline-specific material and library research, and emphasizes argumentation skills.
21W.798, 21W.799 Special Topics in Writing - Jim Paradis
Primarily for students pursuing advanced writing projects with the assistance of a member of the Writing Program. Students electing this subject must secure the approval of the director of the Writing Program and its Committee on Curriculum. HASS credit for Special Topics subjects awarded only by individual petitions to the Committee on Curricula. Normal maximum is 6 units; to count toward HASS Requirements, 9 units are required. Exceptional 9-unit projects occasionally approved. 21W.789 is P/D/F.
21W.ThT Writing and Humanistic Studies Pre-Thesis Tutorial
Definition of and early stage work on a thesis project leading to 21W.ThU. Taken during the first term of a student's two-term commitment to the thesis project. Student works closely with an individual faculty tutor. Required of all students pursuing a full major in Course 21W. Joint majors register for 21.ThT.
21W.ThU Writing and Humanistic Studies Thesis
Prereq: 21W.ThT
Completion of work on the senior major thesis under the supervision of a faculty tutor. Includes oral presentation of the thesis progress early in the term, assembling and revising the final text, and a final meeting with a committee of faculty evaluators to discuss the successes and limitations of the project. Required of students pursuing a full major in Course 21W. Joint majors register for 21.ThU.
21W.UR Research in Writing and Humanistic Studies - Jim Paradis
Individual participation in an ongoing research project. For students in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.
21W.URG Research in Writing and Humanistic Studies - Jim Paradis
Individual participation in an ongoing research project. For students in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.