Approaches to Reading and Writing
Level: Open to students entering grade 9 or 10 in fall 2010.
Session: I, June 28-July 16, 2010; II, July 20-August 6, 2010
Days & Time: Monday-Friday, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM and 2:30-4:30 PM
Instructor(s): Nicholas Boggs, Peter Conolly-Smith, Descha Daemgen, Rose-Ellen Lessy, Karen Vrotsos, and Andrew Porwancher
"I will truly miss being in this program. These weeks have helped me improve my writing and critical reading far beyond my expectations."
- Mary Winn Granum, 2009
Course Description
A two-course curricular option for students interested in developing their ability to write an argumentative essay and sharpening their academic and critical reading skills in order to meet the demands of advanced study in high school and college. Each course meets daily, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon.
Writing Expository Prose
Nicholas Boggs, Descha Daemgen, and Karen Vrotsos
The process of writing is emphasized as students learn to write through a "building block approach" which concentrates on how relatively simple meaning relationships and rhetorical strategies within an essay combine to yield intricate and sophisticated results. Attention is paid to developing skills in grammar, diction, usage, syntax, and punctuation.
Critical Reading and Study Skills
Peter Conolly-Smith, Descha Daemgen, Rose Ellen Lessy and Andrew Porwancher
Analyzing fiction and nonfiction trains students to identify and critically respond to the messages conveyed by different kinds of writing. Emphasis is placed on understanding how formal characteristics such as rhetorical strategy, point of view, and diction condition the reader's perception of content. As students learn to read critically, they also acquire techniques for effective study and research. Study-skill sessions and tutorials teach practical skills in note-taking, outlining, summarizing, preparing for examinations, managing time, and using research tools.
Instructor(s)
Faculty
Nicholas Boggs
Nicholas Boggs received his B.A. in English from Yale, his Ph.D. in English from Columbia, and most recently, his M.F.A. in creative writing from American University. A former Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Humanities at Wesleyan University, he has also taught courses in literature and writing at The New School for Social Research and George Washington University. The recipient of fellowships and artist’s residencies from the Millay Colony for the Arts, the DC Commission on the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts (as a Cafritz Foundation Fellow), his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in James Baldwin Now (NYU Press), Callaloo, and African American Review. He is currently writing a novel and a book about James Baldwin.
Faculty
Peter Conolly-Smith
Peter Conolly-Smith received his Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University. He has worked extensively in fiction and documentary film and teaches history, culture, and film at CUNY-Queens College, where he received the 2009 President's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He is the author of Translating America (Smithsonian Press, 2004), as well as numerous academic articles on ethnicity, culture, film and history.
Faculty
Descha Daemgen
Descha Daemgen holds a B.A. in English from Cornell University and an M.A. from New York University, where he is currently a doctoral candidate in the American Studies Program. His dissertation, "Speculative Fictions and the Logic of the Futures Market (1880-1914)," is an historical account of the relationship between literary production and financial practices in the United States during the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.
Faculty
Rose-Ellen Lessy
Rose Ellen Lessy holds an A.B. from Brown University in comparative literature and an M.A. from Cornell University, where she is currently completing her Ph.D. in English and American literature. She has served as an instructor for several years in the John S. Knight writing program at Cornell. Her dissertation focuses on the relationship between American literary realism and medical science in the early twentieth century.
Faculty
Andrew Porwancher
Andrew Porwancher is currently earning a Ph.D. in history at the University of Cambridge. He previously earned his M.A. from Brown University and B.A. from Northwestern University. His research focuses on the relationships between ideas and institutions in American society.
Faculty
Karen Vrotsos
Karen Vrotsos holds a B.A. in English and political science from Wellesley College and an M.A. and M.Phil. in English from Columbia University, where she is working on a dissertation to complete her Ph.D. She has taught Reinventing Literary History at Barnard College, literature and writing courses at Columbia College, and professional writing and public speaking to international students at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. Her interests include classical literary theory, renaissance literature, and modernism. She has also developed interests in urban affairs, cultural criticism, and marketing. She directed a fellowship program for urban leaders at Columbia for several years and co-authored a book on marketing and culture with Professor Bernd Schmitt of Columbia Business School.
Specific course information, such as hours and instructors, are subject to change at the discretion of the University.
