WHAT IS ACADEMIC WRITING?
In this class, you will always be expected to connect outside sources to the topics of your writing (these sources could be books, articles, videos, film, music, archives, surveys, lectures, interviews, websites, etc). Writing critically with and from multiple, informed sources is perhaps the single, most common trademark for the kind of writing and thinking that is expected of you in the academy. However, this does NOT mean: that you write about things you don’t care about, that you write as if you sound like an encyclopedia/wikipedia, that you omit your own voice and perspective, that you cannot be creative and energetic, that you must sound like the type of person who might wear wool/plaid jackets with suede patches on the elbows in order to be taken seriously, that you cannot be everything that makes up your multiple selves, that you cannot be Hip Hop/ Soul/ Bomba y Plena/ Soca/ Bachata/ Metal/ Reggae/ EDM/ or Rock-N-Roll, that you cannot have some FUN with it. As Hip Hop teaches us, when in doubt, always stay flyyyy! You do not give up who you are to be an academic writer; on the contrary, you take who you are even MORE seriously.
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Borrowed from Carmen Kynard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAQthpsPh18&t=17s). With gratitude and mad respect!
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ON READING
Times are hard and textbooks are expensive! The good news is, I have uploaded most of your reading materials and handouts to our course Moodle site. This means YOU WILL NOT NEED TO PURCHASE A TEXTBOOK for this course. (Can I get an applause?!?) Still, this is a reading-centric course which will require you to spend a significant amount of time engaging with a variety of texts (written, oral, visual, multi-modal, etc.) It is only through reading that we can become better writers. You will be asked to read widely and thoughtfully, engage with texts personally and rhetorically, take notes, compose regular reading responses and reflections, discuss our course texts in class, and make connections: text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world. Below is a sampling of some of the artists we will be engaging with this semester. I always welcome recommendations from my students!