ARTH 4310 - Methods in Medieval

(crosslisted) JWST 4310, MEDVL 4310, NES 4700, RELST 4310, SPAN 4570
(HB) (ALC-AS, CA-AS, HST-AS)

Fall. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ARTH 6310/JWST 6310/MEDVL 6310/NES 6700/RELST 6310/SPAN 6590.

C. Robinson.

Topic: Writing Through the Forest in Search of Trees. Hello, Humanities Student! Are you a plotter or a pantser? Not sure? Come and join us to find out, and to gain valuable insight into what kind of a writer you are, and how to manage that writer most effectively and productively. This theme-centered methods seminar, through a communal focus on trees, woods, glens, and copses in the pre-modern world, will hone in on the most indispensable tool in the humanist’s belt: writing. From the generation of ideas, to their organization into an outline (or a blueprint, or whatever euphemism we, as a group or as individuals, decide to apply to the initial, tangled pile of yarn) to the first draft. Followed by frank and constructive criticism of the initial draft as a group and in pairs, and then on to the part that all students—really, all humanists…okay, all writers—find to be the greatest struggle: “Your paper has some good ideas, but it really needs a rewrite.” Now what do you do? As we write, and rewrite, we will also read widely. In addition to primary sources, scholarly articles and essays, we will include criticism, personal essay, theory, excerpts from fiction, and more, in an effort to open students’ writing up to a myriad of possibilities for persuasive and compelling written communication.