Mainframe for Gap Class

I have designed the order of assignments with specific skill building in mind. The initial assignment will require students to be attentive to the manner in which meanings are formed in the assigned readings, as well as focus on a number of basic issues in writing. Then, after a number traditional academic essays, the assignments shift to less conventional forms. One project, for instance, will ask students to photograph a particular use of material objects in the real world and then weave those photographs together with text to form an interactive presentation for the class web site that links their field research with the issues of the course. Such an assignment encourages students to view themselves as experts participating in the creation of academic knowledge while visibly connecting the teaching of writing to the world outside the classroom. The course schedule will devote sufficient time to revising these essays to encourage students to view writing more as a process than a product and revision itself more as a reworking than an exercise in error correction. Embracing the assumption that students learn more from writing most like their own, sections of students' essays which lend themselves easily to instruction will be posted anonymously on the class web site, along with commentary. The web site itself will serve as a continuously updated living course packet, responding to students' needs, questions, and interests as they emerge from the course.

	Course Description How We Got the Gap Tu., Thurs., 9:00 - 10:40 Lab 2 at the ACC GF Rm 203 Professor Fritz Umbach It would be only a slight exaggeration to describe consumer culture as the very air most students breathe. From the clothing catalogs which greet students at their dorms to credit card promotions advertised in the campus store, images of the good life in which happiness depends on consumption surround students. The pervasiveness of such imagery allows little space for competing notions of the good life, or even for critical reflection upon the culture of consumption. The aim of this course is to encourage students to de-naturalize this culture they know so well by directing their attention through writing upon the artifacts of consumerism -- both the material objects themselves and the language of advertising which helps give those goods meaning.
	By focusing on consumerism, the intent of the course is neither to enhance an already present fetishism of the consumer object, nor to repeat a tired jeremiad against materialism, but to achieve instead a sympathetic comprehension of the role of consumerism in American culture. The course will require students to draw creatively upon their own diverse experiences of consumerism, and translate those experiences, within the context of key theories, into thoughtful writing.The course will focus on tracing both the development of consumer culture and the history of the critical interpretation of that culture. Through the analytic lenses of theorists from both the political left and right, the class will investigate the social origins of such notions as taste and style while exploring the relationships between consumerism and other aspects of culture including gender and class.
	The readings reflect conflicting viewpoints precisely to show students the extent to which there is disagreement among "experts." Differing perspectives invite students to view knowledge not so much as passive reception but as an active process of self-fashioning. The course will strive for a balance between primary sources (nineteenth century magazine ads, contemporary catalogs) and secondary sources (critical essays, historical analysis) in order to engage the students with a variety of linguistic conventions and strategies. In general, the length of the reading assignments will be modest in order to allow time for writing instruction. It is hoped that shorter selections and a number of focused assignments together will encourage reading practices on the part of the students that are intensive, and not merely extensive. Participants, for example, will be expected to submit their notes on the readings during the first half the semester -- notes which will also assist them in later essays.
	I have designed the order of assignments with specific skill building in mind. The initial assignment will require students to be attentive to the manner in which meanings are formed in the assigned readings, as well as focus on a number of basic issues in writing. Then, after a number traditional academic essays, the assignments shift to less conventional forms. One project, for instance, will ask students to photograph a particular use of material objects in the real world and then weave those photographs together with text to form an interactive presentation for the class web site that links their field research with the issues of the course. Such an assignment encourages students to view themselves as experts participating in the creation of academic knowledge while visibly connecting the teaching of writing to the world outside the classroom. The course schedule will devote sufficient time to revising these essays to encourage students to view writing more as a process than a product and revision itself more as a reworking than an exercise in error correction. Embracing the assumption that students learn more from writing most like their own, sections of students' essays which lend themselves easily to instruction will be posted anonymously on the class web site, along with commentary. The web site itself will serve as a continuously updated living course packet, responding to students' needs, questions, and interests as they emerge from the course.