ENC4311 – Spring 2027 – Howard

In this course, I will encourage you to follow your interests and ideas to write essays with insight, clarity, and narrative style. Once we create a vantage point and narrative stance, we can identify the form and structure that best support your writing and your writing-related aspirations. As we continue to develop your narrative nonfiction, we can think about an image-based craft approach as one of our filters. You all will submit and study photographs, either from the public archive or your personal collections, and we will consider the story, structure, and implied details within the image. Susan Sontag describes photography as a grammar of seeing. Toni Morrison describes a process of picture to meaning to text. We will use their framing to consider what essays can show and tell the reader and the writer. Through writing portfolio assignments and readings, we will write toward a better understanding of the personal essay form. We will read the essays of journalists, scholars, poets, fiction writers, and editors. After we read these selections, we will discuss craft, content, and style elements. We will consider how the personal essay supports journalism, scholarly writing, and creative forms. During our workshop sessions, we will ask one another questions about the work presented. You will also ask questions in your written responses.
This course fulfills the Scholarship in Practice requirement.