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 | Dr. Cleo Hanaway-Oakley |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Arts Faculty Office |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit aims to teach the skills needed to write well, to help students evaluate others’ writing and their own, and to understand the links between writing and the social context of communication. The principles and practice of critical writing will be explored through a theme (or set of interrelated themes), engaging a variety of genres (e.g. academic journals, newspapers, reviews, student essays, the internet) and relating to issues they are studying in other units. Examples of themes are atheism, nationalism, gender, beauty, corruption, education, the media, terrorism, human rights and so on. Lectures will provide the material that will then discussed and interrogated in the seminars and assessments. Over the course of the teaching block, students will be given the tools to develop critical thinking, researching, and writing skills, with particular emphasis on motivating a claim, structuring an argument, and analysing evidence. Assignments will be peer reviewed or workshopped.
The unit aims:
By the end of the unit, successful students will be able to:
1 x one-hour lectures per week
1 x two-hour seminar per week
1. Peer-review exercise (50%). At the beginning of the unit, 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 unit director. This essay will be due early in the teaching block to allow students to incorporate the feedback given here in their final essay.
2. Summative essay (50%). An essay (2,000 words) on a topic related to the unit, from a designated list. These will be workshopped in seminar.
[Both assessments will assess ILOs 1-4.]
Eric-Udorie, June (ed.), Can We All Be Feminists? New Writing from Brit Bennett, Nicole Dennis-Benn, and 15 Others on Intersectionality, Identity, and the Way Forward for Feminism (London: Penguin, 2018).
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Fourth Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018).
Hayot, Eric, The Elements of Academic Style: Writing for the Humanities (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).
Goatly, Andrew, and Preet Hiradhar, Critical Reading and Writing in the Digital Age: An Introductory Coursebook, Second Edition (London: Routledge, 2016).