Unit name | Critical Writing in the Humanities |
---|---|
Unit code | AFAC10001 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | C/4 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Professor. Fowler |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Arts Faculty Office |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This module aims to teach the skills needed to write well, to help students evaluate others’ writing, and to understand the links between writing, thinking and the social context of communication. The principles and practice of critical writing will be explored through excerpts dealing with approximately half a dozen themes selected in consultation with the students at the outset of the semester and relating to material they are studying in other units. Examples of themes are atheism, beauty, corruption, education, the media, terrorism, human rights and so on. Each lecture will be devoted partly to instruction in one of the basic principles of critical writing (the three Cs: clarity, correctness and cogency, as instanced in matters like grammar, vocabulary, evidence and argument) partly to an analysis of the principles in a variety of genres (e.g. academic journals, newspapers, reviews, student essays, the internet) as well evaluation of argument and conventions in the samples. That analysis will be continued in the seminar groups, supplemented by the contribution of the electronic discussion board. The unit aims:
By the end of the course students should have acquired the following:
Weekly lecture (for C/4 and I/5 together); weekly seminar (years separately; capped at 15); e-discussion board preparatory to each week’s seminar (comments on selected piece of writing)
1. Peer-review exercise 50% At the beginning of the module, each student would be required to submit a piece of critical writing (1000 words) on a topic chosen from a designated list. They would be given one week in which to complete this task. They would be required:
Each student would review and be reviewed. Pairings would be allocated randomly by the module director.
2. Summative essay 50% An essay (2,000 words) on a topic related to the module, from a designated list.
Diané Collinson et al, eds, Plain English, 2nd edn (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2001)
Department of English, University of Bristol, Reading English and Writing Essays: A Student’s Guide (Rev. edn, 2012) (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/english/current-undergraduates/further-resources/readingenglish2012.pdf)
A. Goatly, Critical Reading and Writing: An Introductory Coursebook (London: Routledge, 2000)