An on-campus course offered during the Winter or May term. May be offered for .5 course credits or as a co-curricular (0 credit). Counts toward satisfying the Extended Studies requirement.
| Distribution Area | Prerequisites | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Variable |
Winter Term information
Timothy Barr184A: One Beautiful Sentence, or The Aphorism
Course Time: TBD
Fees: None
Prerequisites: None
We usually approach writing as a medium for another purpose. We write to inform, to argue, to ask or answer, to give or take. When we learn to write, we first learn the letterforms or the characters of a language before then only spoken or read. From there, we move to writing in paragraphs. Passed over, for most, is the sentence--we are always writing sentences, but incidentally. We sit down to write an email or a text, not to compose sentences. This class is about the art of the sentence. We study this both by reading a form of literature called aphorisms as well as writing our own through a series of exercises that make us attend to formal, thematic, and rhetorical features. Students will practice sentence revision and variation on both the aphorisms of published authors as well as their classmates' and their own. The class will culminate in a presentation of your best aphorism, explaining why you made all of the choices you did at every level of this sentence.