Writing English Essays
Times
Lecture Monday 1 pm - 3 pm
Tutorials Wednesday 1 pm - 2 pm; 2 pm - 3 pm; 3 pm - 4 pm
Instructor Information
C. Messenger
E-mail: cynthia.messenger@utoronto.ca
Course Description
Students will learn to write a research-informed undergraduate humanities essay, in part by reading and analyzing other forms of the essay, including the personal essay, literary criticism, the scholarly article, and the literary review. The rhetorical differences among the various essay forms will provide opportunities to study tone, audience, voice, purpose, and rhetorical strategies, such as tropes and schemes. Analyzing persuasive strategy and genre will help students learn about the use of evidence and the cultural assumptions at play in a text.
Each student in the course will be encouraged to meet with the course instructor at least once in a one-on-one meeting. In addition, Innis College Writing Centre instructors are available to provide one-on-one assessments of each student’s strengths and weaknesses
Required Readings
- The required course text is available at the U of T Bookstore. Katherine O. Acheson’s Writing Essays About Literature, 2nd edition. Readings will also appear on the Library Reading List and in the course modules on the course Quercus site.
First Three Authors/Texts
- Virginia Woolf’s essay “Death of the Moth,”
- Margaret Atwood’s essay “Haunted by The Handmaid’s Tale” (The Guardian)
- Chapters 1 and 2 in Acheson’s Writing Essays About Literature
Methods of Evaluation
- Analysis of paragraphs: 15%, due on Friday, January 27, 2023. Submit online.
- Rhetorical analysis of an essay: 25%, due on Friday, February 17, 2023. Submit online.
- Research-informed academic essay: 30%, due on Monday, March 13, 2023. Submit online.
- Term test in the form of an in-class essay (close analysis of a personal essay), last day of class, Monday, April 3, 2023: 20%.
- Attendance and participation: 10%. Attendance is essential. Attendance will be taken during each lecture and tutorial.