Whether or not you consider yourself “a reader,” you cannot deny that you read all the time, every day, in order to make sense of the world around you. In fact, we read so much from so many sources that for many of us, reading has become automatic, a reflex we perform without reflection. The purpose of this class is to make the act of reading new again so that we may ask: how and when do we become “readers”?

The texts for this course will be manifold: “good reads,” “difficult reads,” readings about reading; text you read every day and text you never read; your own and others’ “readings” of literary works; the marks left by readers past and present. Our collective work to define the act of reading will in turn help us to refine the act of writing. Not only will we focus on the mechanics of argumentation—developing a strong thesis, supporting your claims with evidence, evaluating and incorporating outside sources, identifying your audience (all with an eye toward issues of style, voice, clarity, and concision)—but we will also consider the mechanics of the writing process itself, from the initial organization of thoughts and ideas, to drafting and revising, to responding to and offering critiques. By the end of the semester, we will have become each other’s readers, collectively responding to each other’s ways of thinking, reading, and writing in order to reflect on our own critical engagement with ideas and arguments.