This is a fine arts GE course that doesn't cover the GE requirement of either ENGL 1010 or ENGL 2020. Also, it's important to mention that this course is not a literature course, which makes it kind of a unique class: an English course that is more like an art course.
This course is also unique in that I give feedback without grades in a traditional sense. As I state in the syllabus. I give credit in the class but not grades, at least not until the end. Because the university requires a grade, I will provide them with one, but it'll be a grade based on the credit I give for various assignment coupled with a consensus between you and I about your performance for the semester.
This can be disconcerting to some students. They say they don't know where they stand without grades. You can always find out where you stand by coming to see me during my office hours. I can give you a detailed account of what you've been up to and how I feel about it. What I won't do is reduce that complex assessment to a number or a letter grade. Even though I really enjoy talking to students about their progress, I'm not going to give you an assessment on the phone or over e-mail. This is something we should do face-to-face.
This isn't a class whose purpose is to turn you in to a professional writer. I don't think any class can do that. I don't think this is just true of an art class. We probably can't look to any single P.E. class for turning Michael Phelps into a record breaker. What I can do in a class like this is have you engage the creative side of your brains for a few weeks. Working creatively will make you good at just about anything else, even if you never write a bestseller.
I'm going to teach you a little bit about the tradition and the forms, about storytelling and figurative language. I'm going to teach you how writers read (which is really different than any other kind of reading), and I'm going to teach you how to critique other people's writing. You will be doing a lot of writing in this class, and a lot of reading, but I think it should be pretty fun.
I like to say that in ENGL 2020, "A spoonful sugar helps the corn syrup go down."
I'm also going to introduce you to a lot of technological innovations. We'll be using Google Documents and Calendars pretty extensively, and you'll be writing in blogs almost every day. Some times this can be a little frustrating to students, but we are almost a decade into the 21st century and we all need to understand how to use technology in our professional endeavors.