Offers an overview of the social, cultural, political, and economic impact of mediated communication on modern culture. Combines critical discussions with experiments working with different media. Media covered include radio, television, film, the printed word, and digital technologies. Topics include the nature and function of media, core media institutions, and media in transition. Enrollment limited.
Offers an overview of the social, cultural, political, and economic impact of mediated communication on modern culture. Combines critical discussions with experiments working with different media. Media covered include radio, television, film, the printed word, and digital technologies. Topics include the nature and function of media, core media institutions, and media in transition. Enrollment limited.
Introduction to the interdisciplinary study of videogames as texts through an examination of their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings. Students play and analyze videogames while reading current research and theory from a variety of sources in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and industry. Assignments focus on game analysis in the context of the theories discussed in class. Includes regular reading, writing, and presentation exercises. No prior programming experience required. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 20.
Students explore a chosen contemporary or historical dance scene from around the world. Lectures examine the evolution of the craft and technologies of the DJ. Presents foundational practices of live DJ mixing; practice equipment is accessible to teams of students. Assignments include writing a report analyzing a book on DJ history or technique, producing a complete mix, and participation in an end-of-term performance. No prior experience is necessary, but students must sustain interest in some form of popular dance music, broadly defined. Graduate students complete additional assignments. Limited to 24.
Studies the design and analysis of invented (or constructed) worlds for narrative media, such as television, films, comics, and literary texts. Provides the practical, historical and critical tools with which to understand the function and structure of imagined worlds. Examines world-building strategies in the various media and genres in order to develop a critical and creative repertoire. Participants create their own invented worlds. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 13.
Focuses on critical media sociology of immersive social worlds, from digital environments and avatar-based worlds to live action role-play (LARP) and theme parks. Draws on both historical and contemporary cases. Investigates key issues including communication and community; authorship and co-creativity; embodiment and identity; and ownership, governance, and management. Attention given to cultural and socio-technical nature of these environments and their ongoing construction within a broader media system. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Enrollment limited to 15.
Three primary areas of focus are: creating new Virtual Reality experiences; mapping the state of emerging tools; and hosting guests – leaders in the VR/XR community, who serve as coaches for projects. Students have significant leeway to customize their own learning environment. As the field is rapidly evolving, each semester focuses on a new aspect of virtual worlds, based on the current state of innovations. Students work in teams of interdisciplinary peers from Berklee College of Music and Harvard University. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Explores time travel and other physical paradoxes—black holes, wormholes, and the multiverse—in the contexts of human narrative and contemporary scientific understanding. Instruction provided in the fundamental science of time travel in relativity and quantum mechanics. Students read and view classic time travel narratives in visual art and in film, and construct their own original time travel narratives. Limited to 20.
Maps the development of moving image media in Japan while providing a thorough introduction to film analysis. Each week examines a different component of cinematic form through the close analysis of specific works in their cultural and historical context. Explores the video essay as a tool of critical analysis. Taught in English.
Analyzing core chapters of the great Chinese epic novel, Three Kingdoms, and its adaptations across diverse media, considers what underlies the appeal of this classic narrative over the centuries. Through focus on historical events in the period 206 BC to AD 280, examines the representation of power, diplomacy, war, and strategy, and explores the tension among competing models of political authority and legitimacy. Covers basic elements of classical Chinese political and philosophical thought, and literary and cultural history. Final group project involves digital humanities tools. Readings in translation. Films and video in Chinese with English subtitles.
Surveys the interrelated histories of communications media and technological development, from the emergence of 19th-century forms of mass print media and telegraphy, to sound capture and image-based forms (e.g., film, radio, and television), to the shift from analog to digital cultures. Examines how new forms of communication exert social, political, and cultural influences in the global context. Explores how technological innovation and accelerating media affect social values and behaviors in the popular and global adoption of a media device. Includes two papers and a research project on aspects of media history. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Enrollment limited.
Examines the process of making and sharing visual artifacts using a trans-cultural, trans-historical, constructionist approach. Explores the relationship between perceived reality and the narrative imagination, how an author’s choice of medium and method constrains the work, how desire is integrated into the structure of a work, and how the cultural/economic opportunity for exhibition/distribution affects the realization of a work. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided. Limited to 20.
Examines the ways humans experience sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. Consider how the sound/noise/music boundaries have been imagined, created, and modeled across sociocultural and historical contexts. Learn how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally as well as the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, sound recording, multi-channel and spatial mix performance, and the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of sound ownership, property, authorship, remix, and copyright in the digital age are also addressed.
Invites students to analyze cultural artifacts that represent girlhood from various eras and genres, including novels, children’s literature, poetry, film, television, and popular music. Conceives girlhood in a broadly inclusive way, putting a range of materials — e.g., cultural artifacts that center Black, Jewish, Asian, and queer girls — in conversation with one another, by artists like Toni Morrison, Judy Blume, Andrea Wang, and Chappell Roan. Helps students build their oral presentation skills. Includes field trips to local museums or cultural events.
Addresses the trajectory of advances in K-12 computer science (CS) education and prepares students to design CS educational experiences and tools. Considers influential programming languages used in schools from the 1960s to the present day. Explores the original programming languages in simulated environments to understand the context, constraints, and impact on learning and practice. Examines how design of these tools has informed the curricula and pedagogies of the past and present. Considers the challenges, opportunities, and forces influencing the design of learning experiences for K-12 students. Discusses the purpose of CS education, the audience it serves, its relationship to industry and social mobility, and its constant evolution. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 22.
One of two introductory subjects on teaching and learning science and mathematics in a variety of K-12 settings. Topics include education and media, education reform, the history of education, simulations, games, and the digital divide. Students gain practical experience through weekly visits to schools, classroom discussions, selected readings, and activities to develop a critical and broad understanding of past and current forces that shape the goals and processes of education, and explores the challenges and opportunities of teaching. Students work collaboratively and individually on papers, projects, and in-class presentations. Limited to 25.
Concentrates on core set of skills and knowledge necessary for teaching in secondary schools. Topics include classroom management, student behavior and motivation, curriculum design, educational reform, and the teaching profession. Classroom observation is a key component. Assignments include readings from educational literature, written reflections on classroom observations, practice teaching and constructing curriculum. The first of the three-course sequence necessary to complete the Teacher Education Program. Limited to 15; preference to juniors and seniors.
Addresses new digital technologies that are transforming learning across the lifespan – from reading apps for toddlers, intelligent tutors for school children, and blended learning for college students, to MOOCs for adults and interest-based learning communities for hobbyists. Focuses on how these technologies shape people’s lives and learning. Students explore how education technologies operate in complex social-technical systems, and acquire analytic tools and strategies that can be applied to other complex systems. They also refine their thinking about the opportunities, limits, and tradeoffs of educational technology. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Introduces students to the complexities of working in small, multidisciplinary teams to develop video games. Covers creative design and production methods, stressing design iteration and regular testing across all aspects of game development (design, visual arts, music, fiction, and programming). Assumes a familiarity with current video games, and the ability to discuss games critically. Previous experience in audio design, visual arts, or project management recommended. Limited to 36.
Focuses on the power dynamics in internet-related technologies (including social networking platforms, surveillance technology, entertainment technologies, and emerging media forms). Theories and readings focus on the cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of internet use and design, with a special attention to gender and race. Topics include: online communication and communities, algorithms and search engines, activism and online resistance, surveillance and privacy, content moderation and platform governance, and the spread of dis- and misinformation. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided. Students taking the graduate version complete additional readings and assignments.
Provides a workshop environment for understanding interactive narrative (print and digital) through critical writing, narrative theory, and creative practice. Covers important multisequential books, hypertexts, and interactive fictions. Students write critically, and give presentations, about specific works; write a short multisequential fiction; and develop a digital narrative system, which involves significant writing and either programming or the structuring of text. Programming ability helpful.
Examines representations of race, gender, and sexual identity in the media. Considers issues of authorship, spectatorship, and the ways in which various media (film, television, print journalism, advertising) enable, facilitate, and challenge these social constructions in society. Studies the impact of new media and digital media through analysis of gendered and racialized language and embodiment online in blogs and vlogs, avatars, and in the construction of cyberidentities. Provides introduction to feminist approaches to media studies by drawing from work in feminist film theory, cultural studies, gender and politics, and cyberfeminism.
Aims to help students invent and analyze new forms of computer-based art, gaming, social media, interactive narrative, and related technologies. Students participate in a range of new and ongoing projects that are designed to hone skills in research, development, design, and evaluation. Topics vary from year to year; examples include cognitive science and artificial intelligence-based approaches to the arts; social aspects of game design; computing for social empowerment; and game character, avatar, and online profile design. May be repeated for credit with permission of instructor. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Addresses important, current debates in media with in-depth discussion of popular perceptions and policy implications. Students use multiple perspectives to analyze texts emanating from these debates, and present their findings through discussions and reports. Explores emerging topics (e.g., piracy and IP regimes, net neutrality, media effects, social media and social change, and changing literacies) across media forms and from various historical, transcultural, and methodological perspectives. Examines the framing of these issues, their ethical and policy implications, and strategies for repositioning the debate. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Intensive study of films from particular periods, genres, or directors, or films focusing on specific formal or theoretical problems. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication provided. Previous topics include The Contemporary Horror Film, Film Remixes, Film Narrative, Heroic Cinema, Color in Film and Hitchcock. Students taking graduate version complete different assignments. May be repeated for credit with permission of instructor if content differs. Limited to 12.
This course explores the creation of new learning environments and experiences through the lens of the STEAM Learning Architecture, a framework developed by pk-12 @ Open Learning to guide approaches to teaching and learning for educational innovation. The framework prioritizes student-centered, hands-on learning, rooted in the Constructionist theory that the most powerful learning occurs through discovery, exploration, and creation. Guest speakers and site visits will provide context for final projects that produce innovative learning experiences for k-12 audiences. Class meets Tuesdays 10-12, Recitation is Thursdays 10-11.
Writing module for high-intermediate ELS students who wish to review and practice accurate grammar, effective sentence and paragraph structure, punctuation, and word choice. Short weekly writing assignments with extensive editing required. Meets with 21W.220 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18.
Writing module for high-intermediate ELS students who wish to review and practice accurate grammar, effective sentence and paragraph structure, punctuation, and word choice. Short weekly writing assignments with extensive editing required. Meets with 21W.220 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18.
Writing module for high intermediate ELS students who wish to review and practice accurate grammar, effective sentence and paragraph structure, punctuation, and word choice. Short weekly writing assignments with extensive editing required. Meets with 21W.219 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18.
Formulating, organizing, and presenting ideas clearly in writing. Reviews basic principles of rhetoric. Focuses on development of a topic, thesis, choice of appropriate vocabulary, and sentence structure to achieve purpose. Develops idiomatic prose style. Gives attention to grammar and vocabulary usage. Special focus on strengthening skills of bilingual students. Intended to be taken during the student’s first year at MIT. Priority given to students recommended for 21W.222 based on summer FEE results. Limited to 15; undergraduates only.
Formulating, organizing, and presenting ideas clearly in writing. Reviews basic principles of rhetoric. Focuses on development of a topic, thesis, choice of appropriate vocabulary, and sentence structure to achieve purpose. Develops idiomatic prose style. Gives attention to grammar and vocabulary usage. Special focus on strengthening skills of bilingual students. Intended to be taken during the student’s first year at MIT. Priority given to students recommended for 21W.222 based on summer FEE results. Limited to 15; undergraduates only.
Formulating, organizing, and presenting ideas clearly in writing. Reviews basic principles of rhetoric. Focuses on development of a topic, thesis, choice of appropriate vocabulary, and sentence structure to achieve purpose. Develops idiomatic prose style. Gives attention to grammar and vocabulary usage. Special focus on strengthening skills of bilingual students. Intended to be taken during the student’s first year at MIT. Priority given to students recommended for 21W.222 based on summer FEE results. Limited to 15; undergraduates only.
Designed for high intermediate ELS students who need to develop better listening comprehension and oral skills. Involves short speaking and listening assignments with extensive exercises in accurate comprehension, pronunciation, stress and intonation, and expression of ideas. Includes frequent video- and audio-recording for analysis and feedback. Meets with 21W.224 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18 per section.
Designed for high intermediate ELS students who need to develop better listening comprehension and oral skills. Involves short speaking and listening assignments with extensive exercises in accurate comprehension, pronunciation, stress and intonation, and expression of ideas. Includes frequent video- and audio-recording for analysis and feedback. Meets with 21W.224 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18 per section.
Designed for high-intermediate ELS students who need to develop better listening comprehension and oral skills. Involves short speaking and listening assignments with extensive exercises in accurate comprehension, pronunciation, stress and intonation, and expression of ideas. Includes frequent video- and audio-recording for analysis and feedback. Meets with 21W.223 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18 per section.
Designed for high-intermediate ELS students who need to develop better listening comprehension and oral skills. Involves short speaking and listening assignments with extensive exercises in accurate comprehension, pronunciation, stress and intonation, and expression of ideas. Includes frequent video- and audio-recording for analysis and feedback. Meets with 21W.223 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18 per section.
Analysis and practice of various forms of scientific and technical writing, from memos to journal articles. Strategies for conveying technical information to specialist and non-specialist audiences. The goal of the workshop is to develop effective writing skills for academic and professional contexts. Models, materials, topics, and assignments vary from term to term. Meets with 21W.226 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18 per section.
Analysis and practice of various forms of scientific and technical writing, from memos to journal articles. Strategies for conveying technical information to specialist and non-specialist audiences. The goal of the workshop is to develop effective writing skills for academic and professional contexts. Models, materials, topics, and assignments vary from term to term. Meets with 21W.225 when offered concurrently. Limited to 18 per section.
For advanced students who wish to build confidence and skills in spoken English. Focuses on the appropriate oral presentation of material in a variety of professional contexts: group discussions, classroom explanations and interactions, and theses/research proposals. Valuable for those who intend to teach or lecture in English. Includes frequent video- and audio-recording for analysis and feedback. Develops effective speaking and listening skills for academic and professional contexts. Models, materials, topics and assignments vary from term to term. May be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. Meets with 21W.233 when offered concurrently. Limited to 15 per section.
For advanced students who wish to build confidence and skills in spoken English. Focuses on the appropriate oral presentation of material in a variety of professional contexts: group discussions, classroom explanations and interactions, and theses/research proposals. Valuable for those who intend to teach or lecture in English. Includes frequent video- and audio-recording for analysis and feedback. Develops effective speaking and listening skills for academic and professional contexts. Models, materials, topics and assignments vary from term to term. May be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. Meets with 21W.232 when offered concurrently. Limited to 15 per section.
Provides the opportunity for students – as readers, viewers, writers, and speakers – to engage with social and ethical issues they care deeply about. Explores perspectives on a range of social issues, such as the responsibilities of citizens, freedom of expression, poverty and homelessness, mental illness, the challenges of an aging society, the politics of food, and racial and gender inequality. Discusses rhetorical strategies that aim to increase awareness of social problems; to educate the public about different perspectives on contemporary issues; and to persuade readers of the value of particular positions on, or solutions to, social problems. Students analyze selected texts and photographs, as well as documentary and feature films, that represent or dramatize social problems or issues. Students also write essays about social and ethical issues of their own choice. Limited to 15.
Provides the opportunity for students – as readers, viewers, writers, and speakers – to engage with social and ethical issues they care deeply about. Explores perspectives on a range of social issues, such as the responsibilities of citizens, freedom of expression, poverty and homelessness, mental illness, the challenges of an aging society, the politics of food, and racial and gender inequality. Discusses rhetorical strategies that aim to increase awareness of social problems; to educate the public about different perspectives on contemporary issues; and to persuade readers of the value of particular positions on, or solutions to, social problems. Students analyze selected texts and photographs, as well as documentary and feature films, that represent or dramatize social problems or issues. Students also write essays about social and ethical issues of their own choice. Limited to 15.
Explores many of the issues that surround food as both material fact and personal and cultural symbol. Includes non-fiction works on topics such as family meals, food’s ability to awaken us to “our own powers of enjoyment” (M.F.K. Fisher), and eating as an “agricultural act” (W. Berry). Students read Michael Pollan’s best-selling book In Defense of Food and discuss the issues it raises about America’s food supply and eating habits, as well as the rhetorical strategies it employs. Assignments include narratives, analytical essays, and research-based essays. Limited to 15.
Considers how rhetoric shapes current events in politics, science, and society. Students study rhetoric as a theoretical framework for developing persuasive arguments, as a method of analyzing written, oral, and visual texts, and as a mode of human inquiry. Assignments include analytical, persuasive, and research-based essays, as well as oral presentations, group discussions, and debates. Readings drawn from political speeches, scientific arguments, and popular media. Limited to 15.
Examines the role of sports in our individual lives and American culture at large. Considers a broad range of issues, such as heroism and ethical conundrums, gender equality, steroids, and the proper role of sports in college life. Examples of high-quality, descriptive and analytic sports writing serve as the focus for class discussion and as models for student essays. Limited to 15.
Acting as participant-observers, students investigate MIT’s history and culture through visits to the Institute’s archives and museums, relevant readings, and depictions of MIT in popular culture. Students chronicle their experiences and insights through a variety of writing projects, culminating in the completion of a portfolio. Limited to 15.
Draws on a range of autobiographical writing as examples for students to analyze. Students write essays that focus on their own experience, exploring topics such as intellectual growth and development, the childhood and high school years, life at MIT, the influence of place upon one’s personality and character, and the role politics and religion play in one’s life. Emphasizes clarity, specificity, and structure; investigates various modes of writing (narrative, analytical, expository) and their suitability for different purposes. Limited to 15.
Draws on a range of autobiographical writing as examples for students to analyze. Students write essays that focus on their own experience, exploring topics such as intellectual growth and development, the childhood and high school years, life at MIT, the influence of place upon one’s personality and character, and the role politics and religion play in one’s life. Emphasizes clarity, specificity, and structure; investigates various modes of writing (narrative, analytical, expository) and their suitability for different purposes. Limited to 15.
Draws on a range of autobiographical writing as examples for students to analyze. Students write essays that focus on their own experience, exploring topics such as intellectual growth and development, the childhood and high school years, life at MIT, the influence of place upon one’s personality and character, and the role politics and religion play in one’s life. Emphasizes clarity, specificity, and structure; investigates various modes of writing (narrative, analytical, expository) and their suitability for different purposes. Limited to 15.
Examines principles of good writing, focusing on those associated with scientific and technical writing. Considers the effects of new media as an avenue for communicating about science. Students discuss scientific articles and essays and work in small groups to critique each other’s writing. Assignments include a critical review, a science essay for the general public, and a research or service project proposal. Students choose topics that reflect their background and interests. Formal and informal presentations and group discussions develop oral communication skills. Limited to 15.
Examines principles of good writing, focusing on those associated with scientific and technical writing. Considers the effects of new media as an avenue for communicating about science. Students discuss scientific articles and essays and work in small groups to critique each other’s writing. Assignments include a critical review, a science essay for the general public, and a research or service project proposal. Students choose topics that reflect their background and interests. Formal and informal presentations and group discussions develop oral communication skills. Limited to 15.
Introduces ways of communicating scientific information meaningfully to public audiences, and teaches features that distinguish science writing for the public from scientific writing aimed at experts. Discussions analyze various forms of popular science communication to identify rhetorical strategies that engage and educate readers of varying backgrounds and identities. Students write about topics they are genuinely interested in related to science, medicine, technology, and/or engineering. Assignments incorporate primary and secondary background research, drafting, presentations, peer review, and revision. Limited to 15.
Introduces ways of communicating scientific information meaningfully to public audiences, and teaches features that distinguish science writing for the public from scientific writing aimed at experts. Discussions analyze various forms of popular science communication to identify rhetorical strategies that engage and educate readers of varying backgrounds and identities. Students write about topics they are genuinely interested in related to science, medicine, technology, and/or engineering. Assignments incorporate primary and secondary background research, drafting, presentations, peer review, and revision. Limited to 15.
Introduces ways of communicating scientific information meaningfully to public audiences, and teaches features that distinguish science writing for the public from scientific writing aimed at experts. Discussions analyze various forms of popular science communication to identify rhetorical strategies that engage and educate readers of varying backgrounds and identities. Students write about topics they are genuinely interested in related to science, medicine, technology, and/or engineering. Assignments incorporate primary and secondary background research, drafting, presentations, peer review, and revision. Limited to 15.
Focuses on writing and speaking using Shakespeare as a model and means for mastery of English language skills. Emphasizes the development of students’ ability to write clearly and effectively in a range of genres with an awareness of audience. Designed to increase students’ confidence and pleasure in verbal communication and analysis of language. Students write frequently, give and receive feedback, improve their work through revision, and participate actively in class discussions and presentations. Enrollment limited.
Examines the role of emotional intelligence in both our individual lives and our collaborations. Considers a broad range of topics and communication strategies, including self-awareness, listening, trust, habit formation, conflict, negotiation, and constructive dialogue. High-quality writing and video presentations serve as the focus for the class discussion and as models for student essays and presentations. Students produce both individual and collaborative work. Limited to 15.
Explores ways contemporary writers re-imagine myth and fairy tales through lens of gender and sexuality. Examines how old stories can be retold to resonate with issues of power, violence, courage, resistance, identity, community, silence, and voice. Students complete writing project where they re-imagine a myth or fairy tale.
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. Limited to 18.
Explores the memoir genre through a feminist intersectional lens, looking at the ways in which feminist writers ground personal experience within a complex understanding of race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, immigration status/nationality, and dis/ablity. Gives particular attention to the relationships between the personal and the political; form and content; fact, truth, and imagination; self and community; trauma and healing; coming to voice and breaking silence. Readings include books by Audre Lorde, Janet Mock, Daisy Hernandez, Jessica Valenti, and Ariel Gore, and shorter pieces by Meena Alexander and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Drawing on lessons taken from these works, students write a short memoir of their own.
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.
The issue of race and racial identity have preoccupied many writers throughout the history of the US. Students read Jessica Abel, Diana Abu-Jaber, Lynda Barry, Felicia Luna Lemus, James McBride, Sigrid Nunez, Ruth Ozeki, Danzy Senna, Gloria Anzaldua, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Carmit Delman, Stefanie Dunning, Cherrie Moraga, Hiram Perez and others, 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 permission of instructor) fiction. All written work is read and responded to in class workshops and subsequently revised. Enrollment limited.
Explores the memoir genre with particular attention to the relationships between form and content, fact and truth, self and community, art and “healing,” coming to voice and breaking silence. Readings include works by Nick Flynn, Meena Alexander, Art Spigelman, James McBride, Ruth Ozeki, and Cheryl Strayed, with a focus on the ways in which these writers make meaning out of specific events or moments in their own lives as a way of engaging with larger questions of family, race, history, loss, and survivorship. Drawing on lessons taken from these works, students write a short memoir of their own. Limited to 18.
Students create short scripts and full-length comic book narratives across a variety of genres, while analyzing a wide range of comics (corporate and independent, print and web). Focuses on scripts; drawing skills not required, but illustrations or storyboards are welcome. Special attention to questions of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality in both critical and creative work. Limited to 13.
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, Minnie 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. Approved for credit in Women’s and Gender Studies when content meets the requirements for subjects in that program. Limited to 18.
For students with a special interest in learning how to make forceful arguments in oral and 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. Limited to 18 per section.
Focuses on the critical making of apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and dystopian stories across various narrative media. Considers the long history of Western apocalypticism as well as the uses and abuses of apocalypticism across time. Examines a wide variety of influential texts in order to enhance students’ creative and theoretical repertoires. Students create their own apocalyptic stories and present on selected texts. Investigates conventions such as plague, zombies, nuclear destruction, robot uprising, alien invasion, environmental collapse, and supernatural calamities. Considers questions of race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, trauma, memory, witness, and genocide. Intended for students with prior creative writing experience. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 15.
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, short video projects (4-6 minutes), and a semester-long, team-produced video science 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 center their work on topics in science, technology, engineering, and/or medicine.
Introduces the craft of writing for the theater, with special attention to the basics of dramatic structure. Through weekly assignments and in-class exercises, students explore character, conflict, language and plasticity in scenes and short plays. In workshop format, students present individual work for feedback and heavily revise their work based on that response. Readings include a variety of plays.
An introduction to writing fiction. Students write their own stories and study essays and short stories by contemporary authors from around the world. Discussion focuses on students’ writing and on assigned works in their historical and social contexts. Limited to 15 per section.
An introduction to writing fiction. Students write their own stories and study essays and short stories by contemporary authors from around the world. Discussion focuses on students’ writing and on assigned works in their historical and social contexts. Limited to 15 per section.
An introduction to writing fiction. Students write their own stories and study essays and short stories by contemporary authors from around the world. Discussion focuses on students’ writing and on assigned works in their historical and social contexts. Limited to 15 per section.
Intermediate class for students with some experience in writing fiction. Students write short stories and complete other writing exercises. Readings include short story collections by contemporary writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Benjamin Percy, Leila Lalami, Laura Pritchett, Bret Anthony Johnston, and Edward P. Jones. Discussions focus on sources of story material, characterization, setting, architecture, point of view, narrative voice, and concrete detail.
Students read texts in genres such as fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, noir, and horror, typically focusing on one genre exclusively in a given semester. Formats may include short stories, novels, films, TV shows and other narrative media. Considers genre protocols and how to write within the restrictions and freedoms associated with each genre. Students write fiction within a genre (or “between” genres) for roundtable workshopping. Intended for students with prior creative writing experience. Limited to 15.
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.
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.
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.
Provides a workshop environment for understanding interactive narrative (print and digital) through critical writing, narrative theory, and creative practice. Covers important multisequential books, hypertexts, and interactive fictions. Students write critically, and give presentations, about specific works; write a short multisequential fiction; and develop a digital narrative system, which involves significant writing and either programming or the structuring of text. Programming ability helpful.
For students experienced 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.
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 <em>The Overcoat</em> to current examples. Students discuss one another’s writing in a roundtable workshop, with a strong emphasis on revision. Limited to 15.
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.
Students write and extensively revise a full-length play, from an initial idea to a revised draft. For our purposes, any script longer than thirty minutes and under a hundred minutes is considered a full-length play. Students respond to each other’s work using a method inspired by dancer Liz Lerman, giving non-prescriptive advice and feedback to their fellow writers. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 10.
Focuses on the power dynamics in internet-related technologies (including social networking platforms, surveillance technology, entertainment technologies, and emerging media forms). Theories and readings focus on the cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of internet use and design, with a special attention to gender and race. Topics include: online communication and communities, algorithms and search engines, activism and online resistance, surveillance and privacy, content moderation and platform governance, and the spread of dis- and misinformation. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided. Students taking the graduate version complete additional readings and assignments.
First term of year-long graduate sequence in science writing offers students intensive workshops and critiques of their own writing, and that of published books, articles, and essays; discussions of ethical and professional issues; study of science and scientists in historical and social context; analysis of recent events in science and technology. Emphasis throughout on developing skills and habits of mind that enable the science writer to tackle scientifically formidable material and write about it for ordinary readers. Topics include the tools of research, conceived in its broadest sense- including interviewing, websites, archives, scientific journal articles; science journalism, including culture of the newsroom and magazine-style journalism; science essays. Considerable attention to science writing’s audiences, markets, and publics and the special requirements of each. Only open to students in the Graduate Program in Science Writing; Listeners are not allowed.
Research and writing of thesis in consultation with faculty, including individual meetings and group seminars, undertaken over the course of one year. Only open to students in the Graduate Program in Science Writing; Listeners are not allowed.