About this course
Course Philosophy: We will explore the conventions and techniques of traditional academic research by conducting a long-term, large scale research project over the course of the semester. This sustained project prepares students for advanced work in future Columbia courses and gives them time to contemplate, examine, analyze, and extrapolate from the data they collect. At the same time, the course will also "consider the visual." Students will explore the techniques used in visual argument and the alternate logics image introduces to critical work. The projects students produce will employ these new logics in concert with more traditional analytical work.
The readings in this course will play on the tension between traditional research and the new logic encouraged by the emergence of the digital world. We will explore many of the "standard" skills of academic research within the context of the digital realm, producing projects that write in new ways, using the methods (rhetorics) the web inspires.
Catalog Description: The second required course in a two-semester sequence, Composition II reviews the writing process and moves from study and practice of persuasive discourse to informative discourse. Students learn to research topics and write for larger, more impersonal audiences. Instruction introduces students to textual analysis; discourse styles across the curriculum; and critical strategies for academic writing, relating especially to fields of study at Columbia.
In addition, we will pilot the new "Considering the Visual" focus. Students in this focus should achieve the core goals of Composition II; learn to read and think images as well as text; examine how visual arguments are made; create visual arguments that integrate image and design as well as text; and consider alternative forms of logic that accompany visual rhetoric.
Prerequisite: English Composition 1
