FWIS 100 introduces students to academic writing through topic-based courses designed to develop skills in reading, writing and composition. Unlike general FWIS courses, all FWIS 100 courses carry the same “100” number. However, each FWIS 100 section is a different class, taught by a variety of instructors with distinct areas of scholarly expertise. To choose your preferred section, review the descriptions below, then find the appropriate section in the Course Scheduler.

• FWIS 100 The Medium and the Message
• FWIS 100 Learning to View and Interpret Art
• FWIS 100 What is College For?
• FWIS 100 Ordinarily Extraordinary: Modern Children’s Literature
• FWIS 100 Medicine and Society
• FWIS 100 How to Write Essays About Love
• FWIS 100 "Wanna go for a ride?": The Automobile in American Film
• FWIS 100 Post-Apocalyptic Literature and Film
• FWIS 100 Sounding the City
• FWIS 100 Ecopoetics

The Medium and the Message FWIS 100, Steph D.C. Parker, Section 009: TR 9:25-10:40 Writing Coach: Pauline Goodson This course invites students to focus not only on what is being communicated, but on how we understand content through our embodied experience with a text. Sixty years ago, Marshall McLuhan’s influential work, Understanding Media, changed the way we think about new media’s effect on our social and cultural values. In an increasingly multimodal world (and in the midst of discussions about A.I.), this course encourages students to re-examine what is meant by McLuhan’s claim that “the medium is the message.” How have technologies altered aspects of human society? How do our communication choices dictate the meaning that we make through written, aural, and visual communication? Students will analyze written and spoken language, review the effect of sound on a text, and develop a keen eye for visual communication from artwork to data visualization. Students can expect to join a supportive writing community and work one-on-one with peers and their professor. For the final project, students will choose the medium best suited for their own message.

Learning to View and Interpret Art: Re-Evaluating Classical Art for a Modern Era FWIS 100, Allison Springer, Section 015: TR 2:30-3:45 Writing Coach: Corey Stout Revivals of classical art and architecture inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity have often accompanied cultural transformations prompted by intellectual or political movements such as the European Renaissance during the 15th and 16th centuries, or the Neoclassical movement associated with the American and French Revolutions in the late 18thcentury. Neoclassicism was used also as a visual form of propaganda for many political regimes such as the German Nazis, Italian Fascists, and Soviet Union Communists in the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout the centuries, classical art and architecture have been used to represent both radical or progressive movements as well as conservative movements returning to traditional ideals. Therefore, it can be difficult to understand the meaning behind such imagery when it is used in today’s modern era. In this course, students will learn not only different ways to view and interpret neoclassical art and architecture but also how to critically read and analyze primary and secondary academic sources across many disciplines to determine the context and purpose for using classical imagery. By examining modern uses of classical imagery such as current Neo-Nazi posters or Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 2018 music video, students will learn how traditional meanings associated with such images can be distorted or subverted while also developing the skills to write academic essays and cultivate and present persuasive arguments.

What is College For? FWIS 100, Burke Nixon, Section 006: MWF 3:00-3:50 Writing Coach: Christopher Nicholson The time and effort required to get into college—and the many demands on our time once we get there—can distract us from a very important question: What is college for, exactly? In other words, what is the real purpose of a college education? This course will allow you to consider this question and the many competing (and sometimes contradictory) answers that others have offered about the purpose of higher education. Along the way, we’ll reflect on larger questions about ambition, professional achievement, and the pursuit of wisdom, happiness, and meaning. To help us formulate our own understanding of the purpose of higher education, we’ll also look to literary and philosophical texts from Plato and Paulo Freire to J.D. Salinger and Zena Hitz. By writing and reading in a variety of genres, we’ll develop the academic skills and scholarly habits of mind that will help you thrive in college, while reflecting on how to make the most of your college years.

Ordinarily Extraordinary: Modern Children’s Literature FWIS 100, Heather Neill, Section 004: MWF 9:00-9:50, Section 001: MWF 10:00-10:50, Section 11: MWF 11:00-11:50 Writing Coaches: Isaac Salazar, Logan Buffa, and Pauline Goodson Children’s literature is often characterized as simplistic and unsophisticated, lacking true literary depth. Appearances, however, can be deceptive. In this class, we will examine several samples from modern (1865-present) British and American children’s literature as we investigate questions such as: How does children’s literature appeal to dual audiences of children and adults? How do these texts define children (yet simultaneously encourage children to break free from those definitions)? How does children’s literature balance its simultaneous goals to educate and entertain? Over the course of the semester, we will talk, write, and present extensively about these questions, as we learn to read children’s literature both for pleasure and for a new understanding of our own assumptions about children and their books.

Medicine and Society FWIS 100, Lindsay Graham, Section 002: MWF 10:00-10:50, Section 003: MWF 11:00-11:50, Section 005: MWF 1:00-1:50 Writing Coaches: Tabitha Koch, Brenda Tan, and Stacie Cruz How is language integral to medicine? To healing? How are words and images used to construct notions of care? Our class will read texts by artists, patients, and health practitioners from around the globe and will explore how these texts shape and even challenge our understanding of healthcare in society. Working with a variety of material, we will grapple with the concept of the illness narrative and how this may shape the patient’s experience and expectation of care. Throughout the semester, you will develop the skill of close reading and will strengthen your writing and editing across academic genres. In so doing, you will learn the vocabulary of academic discussion, will practice the skills and strategies to become a critical reader and writer at the collegiate level, and will be able to convert a personal response to any text — article, novel, film, etc. — into a well-articulated essay.

How to Write Essays About Love FWIS 100, Meredith McCullough, Section 008 TR 10:50-12:05 Writing Coach: Agnibha Banerjee Love is an ancient philosophical problem. It is just as much a topic for chemical biology as for poets and musicians. Since the rise of Affect Theory in the 1990s, scholarly writing about affect and emotion has flourished. Writing about love in academia now means discussing politics, race, and sexuality, alongside psychology and biology. In “How to Write Essays About Love” students will learn how to investigate and participate in such conversations. This course invites students into multidisciplinary critique to discuss how love has been represented. Ancient poetry and contemporary pop songs are the objects of study for many scholarly essays about love. Learning how to critically examine diverse cultural objects forms a major component of this course. Students will learn how scholars compose arguments through examining, for example, a nineteenth-century love poem. Becoming familiar with close, critical reading means students will become equipped to craft their own essays about love.

"Wanna go for a ride?": The Automobile in American Film FWIS 100, Paul Burch, Section 014: TR 10:50-12:05 Writing Coach: Kishan Bhakta Some of the most iconic moments of Hollywood cinema have taken place in the shadow of the motorcar. This class asks students to think critically about what it means to depict the automobile through film and to consider how these depictions, and their meanings, might change with different historical, artistic, and political contexts. Class discussions and writing tasks are based around the viewing of several carefully curated movies, including John Lasseter’s Cars (2006), Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993), and Denise Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017). With the aid of these films, we will consider a range of critical topics, thinking through questions of risk, belonging, fugitivity, and dwelling. As a field with a rich cultural and critical history, studying the automobile in American Cinema provides the ideal opportunity to think broadly about a wide variety of academic questions while gaining a depth of writing and communication experience.

Post-Apocalyptic Literature and Film FWIS 100, Laura Richardson, Section 012: TTh 2:30-3:45, Section 013: TTh 4:00-5:15 Writing Coaches: Samhita Das and Meredith McCullough Our culture is fascinated with its own destruction. From zombies to nuclear war, ecological disasters, aliens, disease, and killer machines, Armageddon takes many forms. Structured around ways in which we have imagined the world ending, this course charts the cultural consciousness of apocalypse. What’s at stake in envisioning our annihilation? The reading selection changes each year, but in the past we have considered novels and films such as Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, the Wachowski sisters’ The Matrix, and Yeon Sang-Ho’s Train to Busan. As a writing intensive course, Post-Apocalyptic Literature and Film will teach you college-level critical writing and reading skills along with a healthy dose of doomsday phobia.

Sounding the City FWIS 100, Andrew Klein, Section 016: MW 8-9:15 Writing Coach: Quinn Georgic Sound surrounds us. And yet, in our visually-oriented society, we pay little attention to the significant role it plays in our lives and the lives of our public spaces. This course aims to correct that oversight by offering an introduction to the field of sound studies focused on Houston’s audio environment, past and present. We will approach this topic in three ways. First, through careful attention to the sounds in our own lives and consideration for the ways in which they carry meaning. Second, through an exploration of some of the key texts, questions, and methodologies within the fields of sound and urban studies. And third, through a historical investigation of the sonic color line and the ways in which race and sound have intersected to produce Houston’s musical geographies. Students will leave the course with knowledge of Houston’s neighborhoods and musical history as well with a newfound appreciation for the significance of our sonic world.

Ecopoetics FWIS 100, Mathew Weitman, Section 007: TTh 9:25-10:40 Writing Coach: Tabitha Koch While the poet W.H. Auden famously wrote “Poetry makes nothing happen” it seems as though now more than ever audiences demand art to take political action. Though ecology—or (note the scare quotes) “Nature”—continues to endure as a source of poetic inspiration, we cannot ignore the imminent existential threats posed to our environment. This class is thus guided by a few essential questions: How can poetics—as an inclusive creative framework—address the urgency of a changing climate while retaining lyrical grace? How can art, more largely, responsibly engage with ecological concerns? Are poems worth the paper? Is W.H. Auden right? As we read and discuss contemporary ecopoetry alongside foundational critical texts, essays, and films, we will refine our understanding of both “ecology” and “poetics.” Students will develop their analytical reading skills and learn to write compelling papers for a rapidly changing world.