Welcome to your second college-level writing course offered by the English Department. This course, Writing Through Literature, extends and intensifies the skills that you have learned in Composition I (ENA/C/G101), including process-based writing and research methods. The theme of this class is Nothing About Us Without Us! Read on to find out what that means.
Nothing About Us Without Us is the motto of the Disability Rights Movement, yet disabled people have historically been one of the most overlooked and discriminated against groups in America. Excessively high rates of school dropout, unemployment, and incarceration tell us that disabled people continue to be excluded from society. To make matters worse, they are also often left out of the conversations about the policies and practices that affect their lives.
But times ARE changing and disabled activists, students, artists, actors, writers, etc. have fought for the right to claim their differences proudly and demand full representation and participation. The works we will look at in class will raise those voices, and ask important questions about identity and difference, representation and freedom. We will explore literary and nonfiction texts that chronicle the history of disability in the U.S., and discuss how the disability rights movement overlaps with other struggles for social justice. We will examine an array of primary source documents that provide socio-historical context for the literature.
The readings in this course are not for the faint of heart…revolutionary writing can be vulgar and violent, beautiful and bombastic. Together we will sift through the complexity to find meaning. Are you up for the task?