"ENG 197H FYS: Art of Obsession: An Introduction to Poetry Gloria Fall " by Eugene Gloria
 

Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Fall 9-1-2024

Course Description

What are subjects that constantly occupy your attention? This could be mild infatuations to full blown obsessions. Many great literary works were inspired by writers’ obsessions. In discussing her process of writing, Susan Sontag said: “You have to be obsessed. It’s not something you’d want to be—it’s rather something you couldn’t help but be.” In our First-Year Seminar (FYS), we will harness our obsessions as one of the catalysts to read and write poems. In order to lend depth and structure for our poems for this course, we will read closely the works of contemporary poets, and from our readings, examine their subjects, writing styles, and how they carefully select their words to express complicated emotions. As a final caveat in further describing our First-Year Seminar, here’s the poet Dean Young: “People use language for two reasons: to be understood and not be understood. Poetry operates within this tension. To be understood yearns for community and adheres to conventions and repeated decorum. That may seem important, but it can also encourage us to push away strangeness and beguilement that often leads to surprising turns and interesting discoveries.” Consider this FYS as a college-level introduction to “creative thinking” because our course’s allegiance is to the imagination and how to harness that as a necessary component in our college career. Passion/obsession is something we can develop through our reading and writing. An important part of our learning goals at DePauw is “to be passionate about writing as a means for thinking, communication, expression, and action.”

Student Outcomes

By the end of the first-year seminar, students will be able to: understand writing projects as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing sources. understand that writing is social and collaborative. appreciate how readers perceive and respond to different forms of writing. possess flexible strategies for generating ideas, proof-reading, editing, and revising. understand how to document both primary and secondary sources and why that is important. understand that the skills and habits learned in the first-year seminar can and should be transferred to other courses and writing contexts. be passionate about writing as a means for thinking, communication, expression, and action.

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