Department of English

Reading and writing assignments on the following topics: popular culture--advertising, television, music, movies; the print media--newspaper and magazine journalism; childhood and adolescent autobiography; family history; travel; war; crime; politics; work; play; college education and your Penn experience; satire and parody. Essays and non-fiction by such writers as Orwell, Hemingway, Didion, Woolf, Mailer, McPhee, Ephron, Baldwin, McCarthy, Mitford, Fussell, Capote, Dillard, Safire, Tan, Kingston, Roth, Updike. First or second drafts of creative non-fiction (4-5 pp.) will be due every other week. In between, short analytical papers and e-mail postings on the readings. Frequent workshops to critique student writing. Emphasis on revision, editing, and the plain style-- concise, clear, interesting, accurate, and correct.